Daniel Epstein

To know where to go, one needs to know where one has been. Join us on our intellectual odyssey as we trace the history of ideas, political revolutions and technological changes that have shaped our shared human culture. We begin with the earliest efforts to understand ourselves and the world around us.\n\nThrough a highly diverse and inclusive conversation among philosophers and poets, historians and artists, scientists and humanists, we explore the vast system of interconnected ideas that makes us who we are.\n\nFocusing on texts, political movements, cultural changes, religious beliefs and scientific discoveries that have transformed the world, this course challenges students to ask some of life’s most fundamental questions: What is a truly happy life? Is there an ideal human community? Why do we tell stories? When confronted with other ways of living, how do we evaluate our own life? We also consider the relative value of human reason and emotion: Which should guide our lives and the organization of our political communities? In a secular world, does art replace religion as a way to make sense of and give value to life? And does the radical violence of revolutions and world wars challenge our very premise of human excellence and exceptionalism? Near the end of our odyssey, we trace the development of computing from ideas in mathematics, philosophy and linguistics through the rise of digital technology and contemporary artificial intelligence, asking how these technologies reshape enduring questions about knowledge, creativity and what it means to be human.\n\nDo the sometimes centuries-old answers to life's fundamental questions still hold? With guest lectures by professors from a wide range of Kenyon departments and weekly seminars during which smaller groups of students debate the material with one another and their seminar leader, our unique course provides one of the best introductions to liberal education. Each semester, students also complete two substantial analytical tutorial papers. In small tutorials with their seminar leader and one or two classmates, students discuss and defend their arguments and receive individualized attention to their writing and reasoning. Through this process, students develop skills in close reading, evidence-based argumentation, analytical and expository writing, and oral communication.\n

To know where to go, one needs to know where one has been. Join us on our intellectual odyssey as we trace the history of ideas, political revolutions and technological changes that have shaped our shared human culture. We begin with the earliest efforts to understand ourselves and the world around us.\n\nThrough a highly diverse and inclusive conversation among philosophers and poets, historians and artists, scientists and humanists, we explore the vast system of interconnected ideas that makes us who we are.\n\nFocusing on texts, political movements, cultural changes, religious beliefs and scientific discoveries that have transformed the world, this course challenges students to ask some of life’s most fundamental questions: What is a truly happy life? Is there an ideal human community? Why do we tell stories? When confronted with other ways of living, how do we evaluate our own life? We also consider the relative value of human reason and emotion: Which should guide our lives and the organization of our political communities? In a secular world, does art replace religion as a way to make sense of and give value to life? And does the radical violence of revolutions and world wars challenge our very premise of human excellence and exceptionalism? Near the end of our odyssey, we trace the development of computing from ideas in mathematics, philosophy and linguistics through the rise of digital technology and contemporary artificial intelligence, asking how these technologies reshape enduring questions about knowledge, creativity and what it means to be human.\n\nDo the sometimes centuries-old answers to life's fundamental questions still hold? With guest lectures by professors from a wide range of Kenyon departments and weekly seminars during which smaller groups of students debate the material with one another and their seminar leader, our unique course provides one of the best introductions to liberal education. Each semester, students also complete two substantial analytical tutorial papers. In small tutorials with their seminar leader and one or two classmates, students discuss and defend their arguments and receive individualized attention to their writing and reasoning. Through this process, students develop skills in close reading, evidence-based argumentation, analytical and expository writing, and oral communication.