Illinois State Announces Humanities Project

Fall semester at Illinois State University will see some new courses, all uniquely concerned with culture war topics such as faith versus reason, class antagonisms and the relations of East and West, grouped together in the Humanities Project.  The project leaders, Kim Pereira and Curtis White, hope to take the courses outside of the University in the future.

The courses will be offered first to Honors students and then to anyone with a 3.0 grade point average.  Faculty teaching the courses will come from across the University, with the long-range goal of taking the courses outside of Illinois State to places like area labor halls, prisons, high schools and businesses.

"In recent decades the humanities have become increasingly isolated within disciplines and focused narrowly on contemporary political and social issues," said Distinguished Professor Curtis White, director of the project. "These courses will restore some of the historical breadth and interdisciplinary richness of the humanistic tradition."

Professor Kim Pereira, director of the Honors Program, said: "The courses will be unique because they will be interdisciplinary, trans-historical and engaged with primary texts from Eastern and Western history of ideas."