NEH Enduring Questions Course on "What is Justice?"

FAIN: AQ-50389-11

Boise State University (Boise, ID 83725-0001)
Jacqueline O'Connor (Project Director: September 2010 to September 2014)

The development of an undergraduate course on the question, What is justice?

To design, teach, and assess a thematically-organized general education humanities course on “What is Justice?” for undergraduate students from any major or program. The course will support Boise State University’s mission of providing students with opportunities to address enduring intellectual questions, to acquire integrated knowledge of diverse cultural perspectives, and to prepare for lives as informed citizens of the world. Because debates about justice are raised as frequently in myth, literature, and film as they are in political theory, texts studied will include philosophy, drama, classic political tracts, fiction, film, music, and visual art. As a literary scholar trained in close reading of imaginative texts and with expertise in recognizing sound arguments that utilize both creative and persuasive reasoning, I will guide students in analyzing a wide variety of multi- and pre-disciplinary texts composed by influential thinkers, writers, and artists across centuries.