Overview
Through encounters with great literary and philosophical works, you will strengthen your capacity for ethical and reflective thought, allowing you to refine your own thinking in light of the record of human intellectual and creative expression. The integrated curriculum of philosophy and literature fosters an appreciation of language and the art of thoughtful questioning. Both are central capacities without which meaning eludes us.
Learning to engage with a literary or philosophical text and apply it to real-world challenges is an essential first step in human self-understanding. The practice of deep reading, as understood and developed in this major, is itself an experiential and engaged activity, often overlooked and undervalued in today’s technology-saturated world.
New England College commits itself to a curriculum that seeks to understand the natural and civic worlds/environments that are the basis for sustaining life and promoting human flourishing. To that end, philosophy and literature provide us with some of the most enduring and vital explorations of our relationship to both. This major complements every other discipline, providing a foundation for every profession, and a commitment to a life of human excellence.
