By Caleb Taylor
Are you a UCA student interested in history, new friends, thoughtful discussions, a free weekly meal, and a $500 scholarship? Then apply now for ACRE’s history reading group, “Enlightenment and Revolution.” The deadline to apply is Monday, September 2nd.
Students in this reading group will spend eight weeks exploring the intellectual, political, and ideological currents that surged through revolutionary Paris in the summer of 1791. While participating in a Reacting to the Past game on the French Revolution, students take the roles of leaders of major factions within the National Assembly and in the streets outside as they struggle to create a constitution amidst internal chaos and threats of foreign invasion. Will the king retain power? Do traditional institutions and values constitute restraints on freedom and individual dignity or are they its essential bulwarks? Is violence a legitimate means of changing society or of purging it of dangerous enemies? In wrestling with these issues, students will read and discuss a variety of primary texts, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract, Edmund Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” and others.
The reading group will take place on Tuesday nights during the fall semester from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The first session will begin on September 10. The Reacting to the Past game weekend will be November 1-3.
To learn more or apply, go here.