Introduction
Shooting the Core was born as a desire to adapt and reinvent the Core curriculum. It specifically redesigns the teaching and learning experience in the yearlong course Contemporary Civilization. Envisioned as an exploration of the core moral and political issues since Plato to our days, Contemporary Civilization encourages students to become critical thinkers and observers of the political world, at the local and global levels. In Shooting the Core, students not only think and observe, but they also act and incorporate the views and responses of other New Yorkers who are outsiders to the Curriculum.
Revitalizing the core demands a radical restructuring of how the texts are transmitted to the students. In my version of Contemporary Civilization students find personal meaning in the readings, they relate the texts to concerns that are pertinent to their cultural context. As a historian I encourage my students to think and react to the texts contextually. Politics and philosophy need context. Without context theory is meaningless, it becomes obsolete.
Students in my course become active researchers, interviewers and interlocutors in conversations that emphasize the relevance of ancient texts in the world of current affairs. Students are no longer consuming the texts of the curriculum; they are actively creating a new life for the texts that is meaningful to them and to others outside the bubble of academia.
Fall 2015 Productions
In Metals in Manhattan, Adi Milstein and Alexandra Solovyev ask their interviewees to reflect on the question of the American Dream, whether it is a myth or it still exists. Do Americans today have equal rights to an excellent education? Can we transform the circumstances we are born into? To what extent do we participate in debating and critically thinking about the education system, its costs, its forms of empowerment? How are opportunities defined according to age, ethnicity, citizenship, training and gender?
In Educational Disparity, Gabe Cassorla, Aidan Graham, Rebecca Menasche, Iqraz Nanji, Justin Smith and Sasha Abelard question the current state of the education system from childhood to college. How are children conditioned to accept or reject specific political views? How does wealth and internal institutional politics affect students’ educational experience? What are some of the necessary steps to question our education and to be aware of the ideological load in our upbringing? These are some of the questions explored by Educational (Dis)parity.
In Social Justice, William Guo, Gary Chen, Allyson Chavez, and François Yoshida-Are discuss the polemical market of medicines in the United States. Their conversations question the conflicted interests between civilians in need of healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry. Is healthcare a privilege or a right? What are the parameters of affordable healthcare? How can the market adjust to the actual economic reality of mass consumers?
In Descent, Qais Masri, Gelila Yitsege, Jack Donohue and Éva Stanton adapt Epictetus’ Handbook to the modern setting of Columbia University’s undergraduate student life. Their original script connects scenes of anxiety, despair and misunderstandings to the Stoic philosopher’s program for moral and emotional survival. The humans of Descent confront volatile emotional scenarios, finding the final cure in themselves rather than in the outside world.
In Children of the Government, Éva Stanton and Gelila Yitsege react to Leviathan’s reflection on the relationship between the government and its citizenry. Citizens’ privacy and capital is subject to the demands of the state. Obedience and the fulfillment of civilian duties are requirement to be a recognized citizen in a given state. Is obedience accepted as the necessary evil to receive protection and benefits from the state? The students examine these dilemmas through the angle of parent-children relationships. Do children obey their parents because they seek security? Is their a contract between children and parents or is this a relationship of a different nature?
In The Mystical State: Spiritual Experiences in New York City, Qais Masri and Jack Donohue reflect on Al-Ghazali’s essay The Rescuer from Error. Through their visit to the New York Sufi Center, they observe and document methods of devotion as well as some modern views on mysticism at the heart of New York City.
In Pulling the Trigger, William Guo, Gary Chen, Allyson Chavez, Stephanie Kim and François Yoshida-Are respond to central arguments in Hobbes’ Leviathan and Locke’s Second Treatise of Politics. Their narrative connects the problem of social violence to recent shootings in America. Is personal ownership of guns a risk for the collective peace of the community? How do gun rights threaten the practice of democracy in America?
Gabe Cassorla, Aidan Graham, Rebecca Menasche, Iqraz Nanji, Justin Smith and Sasha Abelard’s House of God investigates the value of sacred spaces. Their idea came from reading a myriad of texts, including The Bible, the Quran and The Protestant Reformation. Their visual narrative asks how does religion interacts with architecture? Does the community make a place sacred? Does a sacred space have to exist exclusively as a space of worship, or can it play other roles? Is there such a thing as a secular sacred space?
Living Leviathan explores how the ideas of Hobbes translate into modern life in the context of national and global security policies and public debates. Adi Milstein and Alexandra Solovyev interview educators and up and coming professionals in the fields of political science and philosophy, as well as Columbia undergraduates around the New York City area. Their conversations question Hobbes’ ideas on man’s “state of nature”, as well as the recurrent challenge of fear and the desire for long-term peace and security.
Political Philosophy and the Prison is Maris Bartow Hubbard’s blog on the modern American prison system. Hubbard’s posts reflect on the issue of mass incarceration in the United States. In an effort to make this project accessible beyond academia, her blog posts combine text with videos, photos, podcasts, and links to current news articles. Themes discussed in this online forum include: the school-to-prison pipeline through the lens of Plato’s Republic, a comparison between Bartolomé de Las Casas’s indictment of enslavement and the Columbia Prison Divest movement, and a reflection on inmates’ experiences with religion while in prison.
Upcoming Projects in Spring 2016
Qais Masri and Jack Donohue’s Divided Loyalties: Double Consciousness and Minority Groups
Gabe Cassorla, Aidan Graham, Rebecca Menasche, Iqraz Nanji, Justin Smith and Sasha Abelard’s Modern Double Consciousness
Stefan Djuknic, Paula Piñeros Medina, Xavier Pladevall and Peter Richards’ Beyond the Frame: Museums and Communities
Karen Xia, Gelila Yitsege, and Éva Stanton’s Coexistence, Capitalism, and Cheese: Exploring the “Double Consciousness” of Small Business Owners of the Lower East Side
Victoria Ingram & Christiena Paulette Auguste ’s The Color of Feminism
Stephanie Kim, Gary Chen, Will Guo, Richard Yee, Francois Yoshida-Are’s Ladders in Manhattan: An Examination of Economic Inequality in Harlem