The Great Conversation: Collegiate Seminar at Saint Mary's

Things Fall Apart is a novel written in 1958 by the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe. The novel tells the stories of people and life in an Igbo village both before and after the arrival in Nigeria of Christian missionaries and administrators from the British colonial empire. Achebe saw his work as countering the dehumanizing misrepresentation of Africa and Africans in colonial literature and criticism. He famously chose to write in English, despite the fact that it was a language that, as he put it, “history has forced down our throats.” In a 1965 essay, “The African Writer and the English Language,” he argued, “‘Let no one be fooled by the fact that we may write in English, for we intend to do unheard of things with it.'” More recently, the Ghanaian philosopher, Kwame Anthony Appiah, has extolled the particular “genius” of Achebe, writing, “A measure of his achievement is that Achebe found an African voice in English that is so natural its artifice eludes us” (The Achievement of Chinua Achebe”). In Collegiate Seminar, students read Things Fall Apart in their senior year. Hosted by David Arndt, Tutor, Integral Liberal Arts. With Ed Biglin, Professor of English; Claude-Rhéal Malary, Professor of Modern Languages; and Joseph Zepeda, Tutor and Director, Integral Liberal Arts.

The first text that students read in Collegiate Seminar is a story written by the philosopher Plato around 380 BC, which is commonly known as the Allegory of the Cave. On a literal level, it's a story about prisoners shackled to the bedrock of an underground cave, and about how some of these prisoners are able to free themselves from their shackles and make their way up out of the cave and into the light of the sun. On an allegorical level, the story is about what it means to be human, and what it means to be educated or uneducated. But what exactly is Plato's understanding of education? How might it illuminate the aims of higher education today? Hosted by Julie Park, Visiting Assistant Professor of Liberal Arts, Collegiate Seminar. With Steve Cortright, Professor of Philosophy and Tutor, Integral Liberal Arts; Patrick Downey, Professor of Philosophy; and David Arndt, Lecturer, Collegiate Seminar and Tutor, Integral Liberal Arts.

In 1603, William Shakespeare wrote a play called Measure for Measure, a dark comedy about law, justice, mercy, and forgiveness. Critical responses to the play have been mixed. The great critic Harold Bloom has said Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare's “most fascinating and enigmatic” plays. On the other hand, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge said it was “the most painful” of Shakespeare's plays. But what's the story about? What does the play dramatize or convey? And how might the play illuminate our own lives and the world in which we live today? Hosted by David Arndt, Lecturer, Collegiate Seminar and Tutor, Integral Liberal Arts With Hilda Ma, Professor of English, Ellen Rigsby, Professor of Communication and Director, Collegiate Seminar, and Eric Ting, Artistic Director, California Shakespeare Theatre