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Inquiry Seminar

 

The Inquiry Seminar, usually taken in the sophomore year, represents the culmination of the Humanities and Arts Requirement.  The Seminar provides an opportunity for students to explore a particular topic or theme in the humanities in greater depth.  The Seminar has two primary goals.  The first is to foster independence of student thought, typically through some form of self-directed activity.  The second is to encourage a cooperative, dialogic approach to inquiry, through open exchanges with peers in a small, intensive classroom setting (12 students or less).  Students learn how to frame questions in the context of a particular discipline or field of study, and to explore or investigate problems using methods appropriate to work in the humanities and arts.

As the student’s capstone experience in the humanities and arts, the Inquiry Seminar is intended to help students take their knowledge of the humanities to a higher level. The purpose of the Inquiry Seminar, therefore, is not to provide a broad survey or general introduction to a given discipline, but to provide a structured forum in which students might approach a specific humanities-related problem or theme at a deeper, more sustained level of intellectual engagement than would normally be possible within a traditional course setting.  The pedagogical idea behind the Inquiry Seminar is that work in the humanities and arts is at once an intensely personal enterprise, in which the individual freely draws on her or his own particular interests, abilities, passions, and commitments, and at the same time a form of ethical community in which the practitioner is always in conversation with and accountable to others. 

While the specific content and requirements of the Inquiry Seminar vary from instructor to instructor, all Inquiry Seminars incorporate self-directed learning as a significant part of the curriculum.  It is the Department’s expectation, therefore, that by the time they enroll in the Seminar, students should have sufficient background in the humanities and arts to be able to work independently and to pose questions of their own.  Students will be asked to research and write a term paper, to assemble a portfolio of writings or exercises, or otherwise to demonstrate their ability to pose a question of relevance to humanities inquiry, and to answer it.  At the same time, the Seminars are designed to foster an atmosphere of intellectual collaboration and discovery. Students are required to participate fully in seminar discussion, to share the results of their own research or activities, and to engage the ideas and interests of their peers in a constructive and collegial way.

For more information about the thematic focus of each Inquiry Seminar, please see

• Description of Inquiry Seminars and Practicums in 2008-09 (PDF)
• List of Inquiry Seminars and Practicums in 2007-08 (PDF) 

 

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Last modified: April 24, 2008 10:39:59