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website & blog of Tuan Hoang, Pepperdine University

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Who are Ben Carson and Bernie Sanders?

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Source: ivn.us

There are fifteen weeks of classes at Pepperdine this semester, and today is the exact mid-point.  There have been some lovely moments and experiences in my Great Books and American history classes. The following was the loveliest of all.

My history survey course includes weekly quizzes, and two weeks ago the quiz was about nineteenth-century immigration.  There were questions about German and Irish immigrants, and I also threw in the following extra-credit bit about Scandinavians.

Imagine that Ben Carson and Bernie Sanders were running for the White House in the 19th century. Which one would most Norwegian immigrants have voted for? Why?

Upon reaching the EC, one of the students looked up and asked aloud in complete innocence, “Who are Ben Carson and Bernie Sanders?”

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Cradle Catholic – ridiculous phrase; who invented it?

Along with three Pepperdine colleagues, I participated in a faculty panel at a gathering of a Lilly Graduate Fellows cohort in Malibu on August 3 of this year.  Academic in setting, the atmosphere nonetheless leaned towards the personal.  So were the reflections from the panel, mine included. My appreciation goes to my Great Books colleague Jane Rodeheffer for the invitation, and to Michael Ditmore for comments on an earlier draft of this still half-baked reflection.

Continue reading “Cradle Catholic – ridiculous phrase; who invented it?” →

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Video: Great Books in Fall 2014

It’s New Student Orientation, and earlier today I had the pleasure of meeting students assigned to my Great Book I sections, plus their parents in a separate meeting. I showed both groups the following video about the same class a year ago.

I hope you’ll get a kick watching even though (or because) it highlights activities other than discussion, which constituted the bulk of class time. “I love the discussion that occurs in this class,” wrote a student in the course evaluation, “This class is essentially many intelligent people gathering to discuss ideas and perspectives.”

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Please, more Romeo and Juliet in college!

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Spring 2015, finals week ~ My class read Twelfth Night, not Romeo and Juliet, but it didn’t keep two students from returning to eighth grade to recreate the balcony scene.

Continue reading “Please, more Romeo and Juliet in college!” →

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Great Books reading list, 2015-2017

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Fall 2014 – A small group in Great Books I planning for a scene from Aeschylus’ Persians

Great Books instructors at Pepperdine typically teach the courses in sequence from I to IV.  There is also an optional course on Asian Great Books alternately taught by three other faculty, and students are most encouraged to take them.  But out of needs and schedule, my first couple of years began with III and IV.  For 2015-2017, I will teach the four-semester cycle as originally intended.

This reading list reflects my design for the sequence while adhering to criteria and practice in the Great Books program at Pepperdine. KEEP READING!

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