CoursesCivil Dialogue Seminar: Civic Engagement in a Divided Nation
URBS 245/EDUC 244

Civil Dialogue Seminar: Civic Engagement in a Divided Nation

The goal of this course is to help students develop concepts, tools, dispositions and skills that will help them engage productively in the ongoing experiment of American democracy. Civil dialogue is an aspiration, a theory and a practice—and one of the most misunderstood terms in contemporary political life.

Instructor(s)
  • Lia C. Howard
  • Chris Satullo
  • Harris Sokoloff
  • Lia C. Howard
Semester

Spring 2021

Tues., 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM, online synchronous

Our goal is for you to learn concepts, tools, dispositions and skills that will help you engage more effectively in the ongoing experiment of American democracy. These will also equip you to hold more productive conversations with family, on campus, online and at work.

This is an experiential seminar driven by discussions about issues that matter to you and by exercises where you and your classmates will test out the concepts you are learning. The seminar will integrate wellness concepts and exercises.

Your capstone project will allow you to design a civic dialogue around an issue that you care about. If you want to try to carry out your capstone idea in the real world, you can apply for money and help to do that through the Red and Blue Exchange, a Paideia program.

Working Syllabus

Related Content

Other Courses of Interest

COML 0523.301

Life Writing as Dialogue: Autobiography, Memoir, Auto Fiction and the Diary (NEW)

Instructor(s)

  • Batsheva Ben-Amos

Semester

Spring 2027

When we read autobiographies, diaries or memoirs we expect the writing to be all about the individual writer. This Life Writing as a Dialogue course will use several autobiographical genres (autobiography, memoir, diary and auto fiction), to support students’ understanding of how relational dialogic processes are used in such genres to construct self and group identity.

Learn More
LAWM 538

Engineering Law and the State (New)

Instructor(s)

  • Justin (Gus) Hurwitz

Semester

Spring 2026

This course explores the relationship between engineering, law, and the state to develop an understanding, on the one hand, of the mechanisms by which technology affects political processes and, on the other hand, how political processes regulate technological designs. It does so by using engineering principles as a lens to introduce and discuss foundational concepts from political philosophy, jurisprudence (legal theory), positive political theory, and economics. The course has the express goal of bringing engineering fields into dialogue with the humanities and social sciences and facilitating dialogue between those disciplines.

 

Learn More