Spring 2017 New Honors Course Offering: Reacting to the Past

Have you ever restored democracy after a period of tyranny? Have you ever performed a Greek comedy? Or sacrificed a pig? You will.

In “Reacting to the Past” classes, students will participate in a long-form academic role-playing game. Each student gets a character from the time period, along with alliances, enemies, and victory objectives. Over the course, your responsibility is to convince your peers – the other characters – to support your ideas and vote in your favor.

Below is a video from students playing The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C. at Queens College, CUNY in Fall 2012. Support was provided by the Queens College Freshman Year Initiative, the Reacting Consortium, and the Teagle Foundation.

In the Spring, we will be offering three of these 1-credit role-playing courses. You can take all three, or just one or two. But which ever you choose, be prepared to play along! Below are the sections being offered.

Section 1:

HNRS 290 Athens (C) in 403 B.C. TR 4:45pm-5:30pm taught by P. Bradley

Section 2:

HNRS 290 The Trial of Galileo (C) TR 4:45pm-5:30pm taught by V. Piercey

Section 3: 

HNRS 290 Charles Darwin Rise Naturalism (C) TR 4:45pm-5:30pm taught by TBD

For information and pictures from a past ‘reacting to the past’ class held on campus, please see our blog post

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