Tutorials
In the Program of Liberal Studies, we think of our tutorials, three-credit disciplinary courses, as orbiting around the seminars. We have tutorial sequences in philosophy, literature, theology, science, fine arts, and intellectual and cultural history.
The tutorials allow for a more concentrated focus on particular texts and topics than the seminars. These courses build on one another (as do the seminars), so that what one learns in an earlier course will serve as a foundation for later ones.
Fine Arts Tutorial
Fine Arts
PLS 30501
This course serves as an introduction to the arts, aesthetics, critical vocabularies, and ways of seeing and hearing of literate Western culture. Principal emphasis is placed on the major genres of Western art--music from the Middle Ages to the present, including the Mass, oratorio, opera, symphony, and song--but more important developments in the visual arts and relevant literary and intellectual movements may also be considered. Using various live artistic resources of the Michiana and Chicago areas, recordings and reproductions, slides and films, as well as important readings on theory, aesthetics, and criticism, students will develop a conceptual framework through which to evaluate and discuss the arts.
Intellectual History Tutorial
Intellectual and Cultural History
PLS 40601
This tutorial will deal with the issue of history and historical consciousness and its relation to the curriculum. The first portion of the course will examine the issues of historiography and the use of historical analysis in the contextualized reading of texts. From this foundation, the issue of history will be explored with reference to authors such as Augustine, Bossuet, Montesquieu, Kant, Hegel, Ranke, and Eliade.
Literature Tutorials
Literature I: The Lyric Poem
PLS 20201
An introduction to poetry through intensive study of several lyric poets writing in English. Through close reading of selected poems, students will become familiar with central literary devices, including rhythm and meter, image, metaphor, symbol, paradox, and irony. Poems studied will range from the Renaissance to the 20th century, and may include Shakespeare's Sonnets and Keats's Odes, along with the works of other major poets such as Donne, Herbert, Marvell, Gray, Wordsworth, Dickinson, Hopkins, Yeats, Eliot, and Stevens.
Literature II: Shakespeare and Milton
PLS 30202
Building on the techniques of close reading developed in Literature I, this course will focus on the expressive power of literary genres, modes, and conventions and will take up the question of the unity and coherence of long works. The reading list will include several plays by Shakespeare and Milton's Paradise Lost. In some years, another major English narrative poem may be substituted for Paradise Lost (such as Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Spenser's Faerie Queene, or Wordsworth’s Prelude).
Natural Science Tutorials
Fundamental Concepts of Natural Science
PLS 20412
This course raises questions fundamental to our experience of the physical world. Questions such as "What is space?" and "What is time?" and broader issues about the nature of life are initially raised through a close reading of Plato's Timaeus and Aristotle's Physics, along with excerpts from other ancient texts. In attempting to answer these questions over the course of the semester, we will read a wide variety of sources: principally ancient and modern primary texts, with some secondary readings. These readings will include Euclid's Elements, Descartes' Principles of Philosophy, and Einstein's Theories of Relativity.
Scientific Inquiry: Theories and Practices
PLS 30411
Using major historical texts as primary material, students will investigate crucial philosophical and methodological issues that arise in modern scientific inquiry, especially in the physical and life sciences. What can cause scientists to adopt (or resist) new theories? What relationships has science held to other intellectual disciplines, and how have those relationships changed over time? What fundamental assumptions about the natural world are adopted in much of modern science? What methods have scientists advocated for creating reliable knowledge? Students will grapple with these questions as we study and discuss central texts in the development of modern science, including the works of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton.
Science, Society, and the Human Person
PLS 40412
In this course students will explore two interrelated questions: what can science tell us about human nature and what can historical and philosophical reflection tell us about science. By reading and discussing important historical and contemporary texts, students will engage the conundrums, challenges, and insights created through the scientific study of human beings and society. Readings will include works by Charles Darwin, Thomas Kuhn, Thorndike, and Jean Piaget.
Philosophy Tutorials
Philosophical Inquiry
PLS 20301
This course introduces philosophical inquiry, both as distinct from and as it relates to other disciplines, through the exploration of primary texts representative of its different forms and questions, and within the context of an integrated liberal education. It also investigates the formal and informal principles of logical reasoning. Readings include selections from the Pre-Socratics, Plato's Meno, selections from Aristotle, beginning with his Organon and Physics, and such authors as Boethius, Descartes, and Nietzsche.
Ethics
PLS 30301
An examination of modes of moral reasoning and what constitutes the good life, based primarily on the study of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and the moral philosophy of Kant. Readings may also include a selection from the Utilitarian ethical tradition as well as from works in moral development and in moral theology, such as by Augustine, Aquinas, and Newman.
Metaphysics and Epistemology
PLS 40302
An engagement with philosophical conceptions of the nature of knowledge, reality, and the relation between them. Selections from the Platonic tradition, Aristotle's Metaphysics, and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason form the basis of the course. Other readings may include works by such thinkers as Newman, Arendt, and Levinas.
Politics Tutorial
Political and Constitutional Theory: Ancient and Modern
PLS 30302
An approach to understanding the fundamental problems of political community and the nature of various solutions, especially that of democracy. Readings will include, but are not limited to, Aristotle's Politics, Locke's Second Treatise, and selections from The Federalist Papers and American founding documents.
Theology Tutorials
The Bible and Its Interpretations
PLS 20302
A close study of the Bible. Selected passages will be analyzed in detail. The course will consider the role of the Bible in the life of the church, the history of its interpretation and the various approaches of modern scholarship.
Christian Theological Tradition
PLS 40301
A study of the major Christian doctrines in their development, including God, creation and humanity, incarnation and redemption, and the sacraments. The course moves toward a historical and systematic understanding of Christianity, specifically the Roman Catholic tradition. Readings typically include patristic authors, medieval authors such as Aquinas, and the documents of Vatican II.