The development of a fifteen-week course framed around the question, What is a neighbor?

Co-directors Jason Cohen and Richard Cahill explore the question of "how we live among fellows and strangers in an expanding world" in the context of East-West encounters culminating in present global events represented by the Arab Spring. Cohen, an English professor, teaches comparative courses in Continental and English literatures, and the history of ideas; Hill, a historian, teaches about the Middle East, Islam, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The course examines how concepts like brother, friend, enemy, and duty "inform discussions of neighborly proximity, community formation, and early legal codes." The first unit, "Proximity," begins with a comparative study of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic texts on civic and political duties, specifically Augustine's City of God and Confessions; Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed and "Laws of Kings and their Wars"; Nizam al-Mulk's Siyar al Muluk (Book of Government or Rules for Kings); and Al-Ghazali's On the Duties of Brotherhood. The second unit, "Encounter," focuses on England's literary encounter with the Arab World, as well as the influence of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign on the importation of an Arabian exoticism into French art and culture; participants read The Arabian Nights alongside Edward Said's Orientalism. Unit three, "Obligation," focuses on Ibn Khaldun's systematic treatment of social and natural systems in The Muqaddimah set into dialogue with Thomas Elyot's The Book Named the Governor, an "influential humanist conduct manual." Students also read Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra "to uncover correspondences between Middle Eastern and Western ideas about the ethical obligations owed to a neighbor." Unit four, "Hospitality," contrasts Immanuel Kant's model of "cosmopolitan hospitality" in Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals with Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition, which locates hospitality around the hearth "where we accept strangers without hesitation." In addition to in-class discussions, students participate in an international online student forum with "chat partners" at the American University in Cairo, Egypt (AUC). The general undergraduate course is to be taught a total of four times during the grant period.

Berea College is strengthening its emphasis on writing, critical analysis and related skills in its course "Man and the Arts." The advice of a consultant is being used to work with faculty and student associated to help them focus their talents in the course. The consultant is meeting with subject area groups in art, literature, and music to examine and criticize methods and materials, interview staff, student associates, and students on their responses to the course and bring an objective overview to the course and its place in the interdisciplinary core of the curriculum of the college.

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A study of the 25 plays of Henry Fielding in concert with a study of the literary, social, theatrical, political milieu of London in 1729-1739. A present there exists no annotated complete edition of Fielding's plays for the modern reader.

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Photographs, oral history, process interviews and written information will be gathered and the developed into synchronized slide/tape programs on such subjects as the music, craft processes, and historic development that were a basic and integral part of the lives of the mountain people.

Film on the use of Danish folk school principles in regional development a the John C. Campbell Folk School in the Southern Mountain area of North Carolina. ABSTRACT: Production of a 50-minute, 16mm. color film on the use of Danish folk school principles in regional development at the John C. Campbell Folk School in the Southern Mountain area of North Carolina. Film emphasizes Folk School ideals--integration of cultural, economic and spiritual aspects of life through cooperation, community participation and service--as they have been applied at Campbell. School concentrates on use of local materials and local skills (training students, for example, how to build and furnish their own homes), community recreation through traditional square dancing, group singing, etc. Tries to inculcate sense of living together, cooperation rather than competition with work as an integrated part of community life. Seeks to preserve local culture, traditional community activities. Fund for film, salaries, general costs.

A preservation assessment to develop a long-term plan for preserving collections of books, archival materials, and audio recordings pertaining to the history and culture of Appalachia. (12 months)

To support organization and copying of deterioriating and widely-dispersed records, including 600 linear feet of manuscript material and 40,000 photos, of Appalachian settlement school records.

To support completion of a critical edition of an introduction to "On the MoralEducation of a Prince" by Vincent de Beauvais.