Reinvigorating Humanities Teaching and Learning through a Comparative Approach to World Literature

FAIN: AB-50018-07

Kentucky State University (Frankfort, KY 40601-2334)
George P. Weick (Project Director: July 2006 to November 2008)

A program to enhance the comparative study of classic works of Western civilization along with selected non-Western and African American works for ten faculty members engaged in revising the core curriculum.

The project seeks to reinvigorate humanities teaching and learning at Kentucky State University by engaging a group of humanities faculty in reading and relating "paired texts" from selected "classic" texts in the Western tradition to African and African-American literature under the guidance of Dr. Thee Smith of Emory University who has developed a field-theory approach to comparative study of works from different cultures. Faculty participating in the project are also members of a curriculum review and revision committee for KSU's Integrative Studies Program (IGS), thus the project's outcomes have direct bearing on changes to the IGS curriculum, which consists of a sequence of four three-semester-credit-hour courses required of virtually all baccalaureate-degree seeking students at KSU. The primary project goal is to improve faculty teaching and to enhance student learning. After-project dissemination plans would extend the impact of the project to other insitutions.