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Course of Study
The courses offered emphasize the importance of a knowledge of American politics and history in a liberal education. Whether in the classroom, around the Center's seminar table, or in conversation with the Center's faculty, Ashbrook Scholars are fed a steady diet of argument and reflection about the meaning and significance of America. For instruction in the moral and theoretical foundations of American politics, Ashbrook Scholars invest a goodly amount of their intellectual energy into studying the political thought of the most insightful American statesmen, such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Abraham Lincoln, to name but a few. They ponder the dizzying, still vibrant description of the soul of American politics by the 19th-century French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville in his masterpiece Democracy in America. They learn to understand the American Constitution and the governmental structure it established in light of the principles of justice and institutional wisdom that animated its founders. They analyze landmark opinions, old and new, of the U.S. Supreme Court, examining the ways in which the Court's interpretation of the Constitution has both preserved and transformed its meaning. They read classic novels by America's greatest writers, awakening to the sense in which great literature can sometimes tell more about American political principles than the best of treatises. And of course, Ashbrook Scholars have ample opportunity to study and discuss today's political landscape and the ideas, policies, and personalities that are moving it. Will such a course of study make a student a better citizen and a better human being? That will depend on the student. We do know that by broadening and deepening their knowledge of what it has meant and what it now means to be an American, Ashbrook Scholars increase their knowledge of themselves. And self-knowledge and knowledge of one's country have forever been found in the characters of those Americans whose public achievements we honor most. The courses offered in the Department of History and Political Science are designed to broaden and deepen one's understanding of political life, and develop the intellectual faculties of inquiry, analysis, and critical judgment through the study of politics and history. Students will take courses and seminars in political theory, American politics, Constitutional law, international relations and foreign policy, as well as history and literature. They may not only expect to become acquainted with the best of the contemporary literature but should know that their studies will center around the study of many of the great works of Western Civilization and America. The reading of original historical texts and documents allows students to engage in conversations across time with the great statesmen and thinkers of American and world history. The following is a sample list of the works studied in the classroom:
The object of the study of public affairs is to develop practical wisdom: the ability and the disposition to choose the right course of action in matters of the greatest importance and in the midst of complex and changing circumstances. Practical wisdom is the distinguishing characteristic of the true statesman. It requires not just keen judgment but the highest and broadest understanding of human nature. Growth in practical wisdom requires experience and the accumulation of years. But experience and age must be supplemented by study, and the best study for these purposes is the study of statesmanship in action—not just in a confined moment, but over a lifetime. For a detailed description of AU courses, visit the Political Science and History websites.
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The entire purpose of the academic program of the Ashbrook Center can be summed up as follows: to assist students in acquiring the intellectual and moral virtues required for thoughtful citizenship and thoughtful lives. We hold that the educated person (an ideal for which many strive but few achieve) is a liberally educated person, which, since the glory days of ancient Greece, has meant a person whose knowledge has made him free of enslavement to the false, the ugly, and the base. Through the programs of the Ashbrook Center, Ashbrook Scholars learn to approach the study of political life as an essential part of becoming a free person. In its essence, it is a liberating activity. And our method is very simple: sustained reflection on (1) the writings of those who have thought most deeply and comprehensively about human nature and political organization, and (2) the opinions, characters, and actions of those who have most remarkably practiced the political art. If students choose their courses wisely, the distance between themselves and the peaks of human excellence will be determined by nothing so much as the quality of their own hearts and minds.
Plato, Republic, Apology of Socrates
