2023-2024 Undergraduate General Catalog


200

CIVT 200 The Literary Experience (W) (LT)

These Civitas sections of the required First-Year religion course and the core English literature course use as their common and core text Dietrich Bonhoeffer's essay "Structure of a Responsible Life." Each course, then, uses the Bonhoeffer essay to explore ideas and texts specific to its discipline. Though these courses are not formally linked or team-taught, they are closely related. Civitas students are advised to take these courses in the first year.

Credits

3

Prerequisites

Admitted to the Civitas Honors Program

CIVT 201 Reading Augustana

Addressing Bonhoffer's primary notion that responsible individuals are obliged to act on behalf of others, this course offers a semester-long study of the University as text. The course will examine the culture and environment of Augustana, with particular attention paid to how the expressed values of the institution come to be embodied in a physical, intellectual, and spiritual community. Readings and instructors for the course address those values from a number of disciplinary perspectives.

Credits

3

Prerequisites

Admitted to the Civitas Honors Program

CIVT 202 Pertinence

Consistent with Bonhoeffer's admonition that action be "in accordance with reality," courses under this heading emphasize the empirical and theoretical knowledge about the natural world necessary for living a responsible life in the twenty-first century.

Credits

3

Prerequisites

Admitted to the Civitas Honors Program

CIVT 203 Justice

Courses under this heading consider the ways in which personal responsibility as understood by conscience, and social responsibility as understood by laws, both correspond with and challenge each other.

Credits

3

Prerequisites

Admitted to the Civitas Honors Program

CIVT 204 Freedom

Courses under this heading address Bonhoeffer's belief that "responsibility presupposes freedom and freedom can consist only in responsibility." Courses will also address the tension Bonhoeffer identifies between freedom and obedience, and real situations in which that tension may have a difficult resolution.

Credits

3-4

Prerequisites

Admitted to the Civitas Honors Program