Course Notes for Monday Sept. 21

I.

Just to remind you where we were last week, here are my notes from that conversation: Post-class notes from Monday Sept. 14.

I'd like to start with writing again, but this time not limiting ourselves to de Tocqueville. So write about where you've been -- both materially as well as emotionally and intellectually -- since the last time we gathered in Dalton together.

And rather than sharing our writing directly, after our ten minutes I'd like to talk about your research projects and the connections you have discovered reading these different proposals. What themes emerged? What collaborative ideas occurred to you? How do you want to continue your research?

After twenty minutes talking about our research proposals, we'll move to the four experimental essays: Meera, Joie, Abby, and Madison.

 

II.

Last week Abby asked about what we're doing with the experimental essays. I said that it depends on what we want. We had three very different approaches last week, each of which worked well in different ways. So I'd encourage non-presenters to continue giving their attention and energy to the presenters while presenters continue to devise novel modes of engagement with the questions of the course, the readings, and, perhaps most importantly, one another, to try out their own ideas: take intellectual risks, play with ideas, and elaborate their own intuitions.

We'll devote thirty minutes to each essay, with two before the break and two after.

 

III.

As we close class, I'd like to return to the questions of the "arts of freedom":

1. What are the arts of freedom that Tocqueville identified and celebrated in the nineteenth century?
2. How were these “arts” political and how did they include areas of life we might not consider political today?
3. Whom did these arts include and exclude?

Time permitting, we can start talking about how these arts of freedom can speak to political life today.