What is the Humanities Core? Why is it foundational to the University’s educational mission? How did it come to be? And how has it changed over time? This hands-on session enables participants to experience just one of the many ways that the Humanities Core Curriculum extends beyond the classroom, to appreciate changing approaches to the Humanities over the past century, and to learn about the depth of undergraduate research engagement with the University’s Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library. We will examine rare books and manuscripts associated with the texts studied in the Humanities Core sequence “Human Being and Citizen,” including a papyrus fragment of The Iliad, a famous edition of Plato from the 1570s purchased by the first president of the University in 1891, a newspaper printing of the Declaration of Independence from 1776, original posters from Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1966 speech on campus, and much more.
Watch a video recording of this presentation on our YouTube channel.