Summer 2020

  • Templeton Honors College at Eastern University (Pennsylvania)

    • Course I – Confronting Dragons:  How Goodness Prevails in The Lord of the Rings

      • J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth is both breathtakingly beautiful and violently marred: beautiful because it was created by a beauty-loving God; scarred because its angelic ranks rebelled against their Creator. This rebellion plays out among the peoples of Middle Earth—elves, dwarves, and men—who languish in a twilight world where they endure, in Tolkien’s words, “a long defeat.” 

      • Though Tolkien’s world is beset by orcs, goblins, and dragons, it is not destined for a tragic end, but rather one of joy-filled restoration. In our own world, people also confront dragons in many forms and at many turns.  What can the elves, dwarves, and men and women of Middle Earth teach us about the life of faith and virtue?  How can Christians profit from reading fantastic and mythic literature? What’s the role of the imagination in the Christian life? These questions and many more will focus our time as we gather around the mythopoeic stories of J. R. R. Tolkien. Hosted in partnership with The St. Basic Center for Orthodox Thought & Culture

      • Dates: July 7-15, 2020 (9 days, 8 nights)

      • Total Credits: 3

    • Course II – Coding with the Ancients:  Technology and the Liberal Arts

      • The “common arts,” also known as the applied arts, have a venerable tradition as old as the liberal arts. This course brings the two arts together through the practice and consideration of modern technology. In it, students will not only learn basic programming and robotics using Python ©, a general purpose programming language, but will also reflect together on the challenging questions that technology raises for Christians about human well-being and ordinary embodied human existence.

      • Professors for this course are drawn from Eastern University’s Data Science and Mathematics departments as well as from Templeton’s Great Books program. The result is a unique course that combines the practice of the common arts with the reflection of the liberal arts in order to help students become skilled practitioners and wise thinkers.  

      • Dates: July 17-24, 2020 (8 days, 7 nights)

      • Total Credits: 2