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OSCAR MAHONEY: I think the first time
I heard about the Humanities Sequence was
when I got the literature in the mail advertising this program,
talking about it as this intensive course.
DANIEL GRANBERG: When I got accepted to Princeton
and got my package with all the stuff,
I remembered the pamphlet, the HUM pamphlet, in particular.
And I think it said something along the lines of hungry
for knowledge.
And immediately I was drawn toward that.
DENIS FEENEY: The Humanities Sequence
is a yearlong introduction to the toolkit
that you need to understand the building blocks
of Western European tradition.
We begin with Homer in the first semester,
and we end with Dante at the end of the first semester.
And then we pick up the beginning
of the second semester with Petrarch
and carry through to Virginia Woolf.
YELENA BARAZ: I gave the opening lecture on Homer,
and I introduced the students to Homer.
In very general terms, I talked about oral tradition
and the origins of the text.
It really is a team effort.
So for instance, this semester our group
includes an ancient philosopher, a classicist,
a medieval historian, a Dante scholar,
someone who works in late antiquity,
and a comparative literature professor.
All of us have specialties but we are also
learning from each other.
And going to each other's lectures
really creates a kind of flow where people will pick up
on each other's lectures and each other's texts in ways
that they might not otherwise think of.
And it goes along very well with the student experience
because we're experiencing the course alongside the students.
And we are remembering things from lecture
that they are also remembering, so it
creates a kind of trajectory that
really is the distinctive feature of the course.
CRYSTAL LIU: I remember at the very beginning,
I was kind of apprehensive because I
felt like I didn't really have any background
in ancient texts.
And I went to Professor Baraz and asked her,
am I expected to know some Latin, some Greek?
Do you think that not having those skills would hinder me?
And she said absolutely not.
We don't want you to feel like that's the case.
We want you to learn.
That's exactly why this course is here.
ESTHER SCHOR: When I saw the syllabus
for the first time four years ago, I was intimidated.
And I realized that you're not going
to address every page of these books in detail.
The point is to have a sense for what
strikes you, what's important.
JAMAL JOHNSON: I think really being
able to sort of historicize some of the ideas that
are prevalent in the thinking, not just of white males,
but of people from a diverse range of backgrounds
is something that was really valuable for me.
CLAIRE ASHMEAD: All the thinkers we look at,
again because they're asking questions
that are so central, end up being
very useful tools for thought and for change and for argument
for people everywhere.
ESTHER SCHOR: Well, we hear a lot about difference
these days.
We hear about what makes people different.
Ethnicity can make people different.
Social class can make people different.
Whether your parents went to college or not
can make you different.
And we have a lot of testimony about the difference
that difference makes.
And the question that arises in this course
is what is this talking back to?
I mean, what is this idea of the human that
is being questioned here?
What we're finding is that we're listening to human beings
across time and we're hearing difference
across the centuries.
DANIEL GRANBERG: After reading "Antigone"
we went and saw "Antigone" performed.
And that was definitely an experience
because it wasn't expected, I would say.
It was performed in a very different way
than one might see it being performed
when reading the book.
And there were things that really
made that an experience that was able to help me, at least,
connect "Antigone," the play, to our modern-day life
and how this is related to me today.
CASSIE RODRIGUEZ: One thing that I really
enjoyed was going to the Met.
We went on a Greek and Roman tour.
And as you walk through the Met and you look at different art,
and being able to use textual support for your analysis
and stuff like that, and facilitate a connection, I think,
is the best part.
BENJAMIN MORISON: Going to the museum you can actually
be in touch with the object.
You're looking at the objects that the ancient Greeks were
also looking at or that the Romans were also looking at.
And the skills that we've given the students
at reading text and deciphering details
and putting things into context —
And I think it really gave the students a chance
to see that this isn't just a dead culture that's
on the page.
This was a living culture where the texts were performed,
but the texts also made an impression
on the decorative arts that would
have been surrounding the people that lived in those days.
OSCAR MAHONEY: So we had a small event
and we invited all of the first-semester
students in the HUM Sequence at the moment, the freshmen.
And they brought in some alumni from the program,
people that had taken it that were currently sophomores,
juniors, seniors, to talk a little bit about what they
thought about the program and why they thought
it would be a good idea to continue
taking into second semester.
To have a foundation to be able to walk into a seminar
and read a text, whether it's something
that I've ever been exposed to or not,
and kind of get those nuances from other texts in the past,
start to see the threads running through the Western tradition
history and be able to talk about them
and add something new to discussion
that I would have otherwise been completely blind on.
Most of the things are a reflection
on what you guys have already read and experienced
in the first semester.
So this is why I really wish that I had taken the first.
But if anybody, I think there are one or two of you,
haven't taken the first, I absolutely
recommend that you take the second
because you're going to find yourself thanking yourself.
Graduates of the HUM program have the opportunity
to go to either Greece or Rome on a fall trip.
The great thing about it is that it's completely
paid for by the HUM department.
CLAIRE ASHMEAD: I had the opportunity
to go to Greece, which was amazing.
So that was the fall break of my sophomore year
after I'd completed the HUM Sequence.
And going to the origin of Western culture,
because the HUM Sequence starts with Homer and "The Iliad,"
that was really wonderful.
I think, not just because it's a little bit of a pilgrimage,
because you get to see, this is the place
that inspired these thinkers that are the foundations of why
I think the way I do.
The HUM Sequence and the HUM community
is something that's known on campus.
It's something that other professors respect.
It's something that tells them something
about who you are when you tell them that you've done it.
JAMAL JOHNSON: You sort of, just grow
to be a more questioning thinker.
Someone who's equipped with the tool
set to really to dig deeper and trying to find answers
to some of those questions.
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