Last Tuesday at 4 p.m. in Phillips Auditorium, Justin Jackson, associate professor of English, captivated his audience discussing the familial and political significance of the biblical story of David.
“I don’t think there’s a biblical narrative better than the David story,” Jackson said in a later interview. “It is a great piece of literature up there with Shakespeare and Dostoevsky.”
Jackson’s talk was the second in a lecture series that is part of the Graduate School of Statesmanship’s doctoral humanities seminar. The course is one of three, year-long, two-credit seminars that are required of all graduate students.
In this year’s seminar, there are eight lectures that, according to the syllabus, “address the broad themes of the humanities and draw upon the breadth of Western tradition.” A two-hour private session follows each public lecture, allowing the graduate students to bring up any questions that they might have.
In the final session of the seminar, students will be required to present a term paper.
“Most programs treat politics as a social science, where statistics and voting demographics take priority over political philosophy, unlike our program,” said Erika Annis, former assistant to the graduate dean and current graduate student. “This lecture series brings the focus back onto how politics fits in with humanities as a whole.”
This year’s seminar theme is antiquity and includes such topics as “Cicero and Roman Philosophy” and “Classical Historians,” delivered by professors of history, Brad Birzer and Paul Rahe, respectively. The purpose of these lectures is to address important political questions in their broader contexts and come to an understanding of classical theory.
Graduate Dean Ronald Pestritto said one of the problems with modern education is that the study of politics has become overly specialized and has “lost sight of the higher things.”
“We at Hillsdale strive to be part of a liberal arts institution in the true, classical sense of that term,” Pestritto said, “and this means that we see the study of politics as an integral part of studying the liberal arts.”
These lectures are not only important in broadening the academic mindset of the doctoral students but graduate faculty believe they will be beneficial to all Hillsdale faculty as well as undergraduate students.
“The lecture series covers topics that are crucial to liberal arts so it has an appeal to the student body at large,” Jackson said.
The next talk will be from 4 to 5 p.m. on Oct. 16. Associate Professor of Education Jon Fennel will discuss the importance of political education.
