In this two-week syllabus morning lectures are often followed by afternoon screenings of related films. The syllabus opens with major questions about human nature, authority, liberty, and democracy in the first week before exploring the American experience for Black Americans, Native Americans, and women. One major question raised in both weeks is how to think critically, both individually and collectively. WEEK ONE

1. The Ancient (and Modern) Concept of Liberty
   • Herodotus
   • Thucydides, “Pericles’ Funeral Oration”
   • Aristotle, The Politics
2. What Authority Do We Obey?: A View from Antiquity
   • Sophocles, The Antigone (c. 441 BC)
   • Antigone in Ferguson (Film)
3. What Is a Human Being?
   • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)
   • Frankenstein (Film)
4. Thinking Critically for Oneself
   • René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)
   • John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
5. American Democratic Values in Theory and Practice
   • James Madison, Federalist Papers: No. 10 (1787)

WEEK TWO

1. Gender and Race in Civic Life
   • Seneca Falls Conference, Resolutions and “Declarations of Sentiments” (1848)
   • Frederick Douglass, “The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro” (1852)
   • Lord of the Flies (Film)
2. Thinking about Native Americans
   • Carlos Montezuma (Yavapai-Apache)
   • Robert Yellowtail (Crow)
   • Mankiller (Film)
3. Utopian Visions of City and Society
   • Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, (1888) excerpts from chapters 6, 7, & 14
4. Civil Rights and the American Promise
   • James Baldwin, “A Letter to my Nephew” (1962)
   • Ta-Nehesi Coates, “Letter to My Son” (2015)
5. Thinking Critically with Others
   • Richard Feldman, “Reasonable Religious Disagreements” (2007)