Age of Enlightenment Students Reflect on Spring Course
This spring, BPATS professor & Enlightenment scholar, Fiore Sireci, and his students hosted a reading and discussion about their learning in the Enlightenment Debates course. The course explores Enlightenment theories about education, the balance between reason and emotion, and the role of the media itself. Students read traditional works of philosophy and politics in their historical context, and examined their relevance in the modern world as well. In discussion, students agreed that the trip to the Morgan Library’s Frankenstein exhibit was a highlight of the semester, and they felt the private tour allowed for them to have a deeper conversation about the work outside of the classroom.
Kiira Korpi, was excited to find that she didn’t need a prior knowledge of philosophy or history to learn a lot from the class. Regardless of your background, the Enlightenment courses “can teach you so much about history, about yourself, and the world today.” Korpi felt that Sireci’s course has given her a standard for her ideal learning situation in a university setting. “I was used to these massive, top-down-based, impersonal and sometimes uninspiring lectures back home in Finland. When I came to The New School and especially to the Age of Enlightenment class, it was wonderful to find out that small, intimate, discussion-based classes could be so inspiring!” she said.
Ryan Baker, another student in the class, also found Sireci’s teaching style an enjoyable experience, stating, ” this seminar style class with intriguing and challenging conversations has helped me identify what style of classroom I enjoy, and now I seek out similar subjects and environments for my other coursework.” Baker went on to say that Sireci doesn’t just teach the course readings, but he also teaches the students how to read the content. He would “pair differing readings with each other [which] really helped put the texts in perspective. [We were] truly analyzing perspectives and challenging them between the great thinkers.” For Baker, he felt the biggest takeaway from the course is learning how to read material through historical lenses as well as contemporary ones. It has helped him to see multiple approaches to analyzing literature.
Overall, the course was a resounding success, and the students found their work very rewarding.