Syllabus

Border Crossing: Leadership, Value Conflicts and Public Life

PPS 196.30, Spring 2006
Tuesday/Thursday 2:50-4:05
Discussion section: Wednesday 3:05-3:55
03 Sanford Institute Building
Duke University

Instructors: Steve Schewel and Alma Blount
sschewel@aol.com
blt@duke.edu;
Steve Schewel: 286-0111
Alma Blount: 613-7323
Room 104 Sanford Institute

Office hours: by appointment

Blackboard web site:
http://courses.duke.edu

This is the preparation course for students who plan to conduct community-based research projects in the summer through the Service Opportunities in Leadership Program, or another research service learning opportunity. Students will be trained in basic research methods, complete a 20-hour service project for a local community organization, and be introduced to a leadership framework for undertaking complex problem solving work in the public arena. The course is designed to provide students with theoretical knowledge and critical reflection skills for entering other cultures to conduct research with community organizations.

It is inevitable that you will encounter value conflicts when you enter a new culture, and some of the most important work of this course will be our mutual reflection on the meaning, uses and misuses of these conflicts. We will approach this work through our theme this semester: religion and public life. We will explore the history of how religion, politics and public policy issues have become intertwined in the U.S. and abroad and investigate contemporary issues that represent a spectrum of viewpoints on faith and politics in our culture. The heart of the course will be a presentation of case studies that illuminate the complexities of religious values that can become either impediments to public problem solving work, or resources for its successful completion.

We will study and compare several cases studies of religious and political groups--in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East--with conflicting views about the role of religious faith in public life. The case studies will provide an avenue for grappling with the complexities of public problem-solving work. The entire course is an exploration of leadership as the art of working productively with difficult value conflicts in groups, institutions, and social systems. Through the lens of religion and politics, we will address questions of leadership, politics, and policy design.

The course includes a research methods component in the final weeks of the semester. “Border Crossing” is a research service-learning (RSL) Gateway course, which is part of a campus-wide initiative called Scholarship with a Civic Mission. In the final portion of the semester, you will be trained in basic community–based research methods, to help you prepare for summer field work as part of the Service Opportunities in Leadership program, Scholarship with a Civic Mission, or another community-based research opportunity during the summer. You will also receive instruction about the Duke Institutional Review Board protocol application process for human subjects research.

What are the highest goals of this class? Informed by scholarship and the ideas of your classmates, you will arm yourself emotionally and intellectually to enter a new culture prepared to serve and to reflect critically on your experience there. We will ask you to think deeply about how to approach the inevitable value conflicts you will face as you cross the borders of new organizations and cultures. We will ask you to examine your own religious and cultural values and preconceptions. We will challenge you to explore how you can, over time, become a fully engaged citizen of your own society. We look forward to doing this work with you.

We expect this class to stimulate and challenge each of us intellectually, emotionally and morally. We expect our work together to be both rigorous and enjoyable for all of us.

Course Outline

Introduction

Week #1—January 12
(Reading packets will be distributed in class.)

1. Foundations
The context of the faith and politics debate (2 weeks)

Week #2—January 17, 19

• Garry Wills. Under God: Religion and American Politics. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990, Introduction: pp.15-25; Chapters 11-18: pp.125-221; Chapters 30-32 and Conclusion: pp. 341-385.

• Noah Feldman. Divided By God: America’s Church-State Problem—And What We Should Do About It. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005, pp. 150-251.

Week #3—January 24, 26

• Taylor Branch. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988, a portion of Chapter 3: pp. 69-87; Chapters 18-20: pp. 673-802.

• “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” Nobel Prize Internet Archive: http://www.nobelprizes.com/nobel/peace/MLK-jail.html

• Film: Eyes on the Prize, segment 4: “No Easy Walk (1962-66)”

Week #4—January 31, February 2

• Adam Hochschild. Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves. Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

2. Philosophy
Spectrum of viewpoints, with a focus on specific policy issues (3 weeks)

Week #5—February 7, 9

• Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility. New York: Schocken Books, 2005.

Week #6—February 14, 16

• Rick Santorum. It Takes a Family: Conservatism and The Common Good. Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2005, Chapters I-XI: pp. 3-109.

• Kenneth J. Heineman. God Is A Conservative: Religion, Politics, and Morality in Contemporary America. New York: New York University Press, 1998, Chapter 4-7: pp. 93-209.

• Film: With God on Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right.

Week #7—February 21, 23

• Jim Wallis. God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. New York: Harper San Francisco, 2005, Chapters 1-11: pp. 3-205.

• Jimmy Carter. Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005, pp. Introduction and Chapters 1-4: pp. 1-46.

3. Border Crossing
Encounters across religion and culture (2 weeks)

Week #8—February 28, March 2

• Barbara Kingsolver. The Poisonwood Bible. New York: HarperTorch, 2003.

Week #9—March 7, 9

• The Poisonwood Bible, continued.

No Class March 13-17—Spring Break
Values-conflict case studies (2 weeks)

Week #10—March 21, 23
The Hijackers:

• Terry McDermott. Perfect Soldiers: The Hijackers—Who They Were, Why They Did It. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

Week #11—March 28, 30
Secularism versus religious expression:

• Jane Kramer. “Taking the Veil: How France’s Public Schools Became The Battleground in a Culture War,” The New Yorker, November 22, 2004.

• Harry Judge. “The Muslim Headscarf and French Schools,” American Journal of Education. The University of Chicago, November 2004.

• “Should France Ban Head Scarves? Two French public school teachers offer differing views on the Hijab controversy,” Time International. February 9, 2004. Volume 163, issue 6, page 37.

• Gilles Kepel. “Fabric of Society: Banning headscarves is right. But it’s only the start in bringing France’s Muslims into the social mainstream,” Newsweek International, February 16, 2004, page 32.

• Maria Margaronis. “Letter from Paris,” The Nation. March 15, 2004, volume 278, issue 10, p. 19.

4. Preparation for summer community-based research projects.
(3 weeks)

• Introduction--Adaptive Leadership framework
• Training in research methods; critical reflection process for summer projects; IRB protocol for human subjects research.
• Reflection on service learning projects in Durham community

Week #12—April 4, 6
Week #13—April 11, 13
Week #14—April 18, 20

5. Conclusion

Week #15—April 25
A Gandhi Reader:

• Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. Freedom at Midnight. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975, Chapters 1-3; portion of 4: pp. 13-83; Chapters 16-20: pp. 415-520.

• Mohandas K. Gandhi. Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. New York: Dover Publications, 1983. Pages: vii-x (Introduction); chapters 7-9, pp. 179-187 (Part III); chapter 5, pp. 232-234, chapters 7-9, pp. 237-242, chapters 26-28, pp. 284-290, chapter 31, pp. 295-297, chapter 36, pp. 306-307 (Part IV); chapters 9-10, pp. 354-358, chapter 12, pp. 363-364, chapters 14-16, pp. 368-376, chapter 18, pp. 380-381, chapter 22, pp. 388-391, chapters 30-34, pp. 413-428, chapters 39-40, pp. 441-445 (Part V).

• Erik Erikson. Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Nonviolence. New York: W.W. Norton, 1969. Pages 190-217; 229-244; 249-254; 443-448.

• Film: Mahatma Gandhi: Twentieth Century Prophet

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Course requirements

• Complete and punctual attendance
• Carefully read the required texts before class each Tuesday
• Come to class ready for full and vigorous discussion
• Weekly essays, occasional quizzes (see below)
• Weekly discussion group meetings (Wednesday, 3:05-3:55)
• Three assigned films
• Service-learning group project; informal reflection paper (see below)
• Research proposal (see below)
• Final paper (see below)

Grading Policy

Weekly essays (and occasional quizzes) 40%
Class Participation 30%
Research Proposal 10%
Final Paper 20%

Evaluation:
You will receive midterm grades for your weekly essays and class participation. Please note that you will not be graded on individual essays, but rather on the overall quality of your inquiry and growth through the semester.

We will provide written comments on five of the ten essays.

A note about participation
Participate actively in our discussions in class. This doesn’t mean you need to talk more than anyone else. It does mean that every student needs to contribute to deepening our conversations throughout the semester. Expect to say something valuable every class. This is a safe place to express yourself honestly. Push yourself a little. If you are shy about speaking in class, we can help you.

Writing assignments

1. Ten weekly essays and two quizzes. The essays (500 words) are due Mondays by 9:00 p.m. on our course website (blackboard): January 16, 23, 30; February 6, 13, 27; March 6, 20, 27; April 3. Please note: no paper due on Feb. 20. In-class quizzes on Feb. 21 and April 25.

2. Reflective paper about the service-learning experience. Due Monday, April 10. (This is a required but non-graded paper that explores the civic, ethical and intellectual dimensions of the service-learning project that will be conducted in the Durham community during the semester.)

3. Research proposal—5 pages. Due Monday, April 17. (An outline of a research question and proposed methods for researching a community issue identified by the student. This can be a hypothetical project, or a specific community-based research project funded by a SOL grant or another funding source.)

4. Final paper—12-15 pages. Due Monday, May 1. (An in-depth investigation of a current issue of religion and public life, analyzing its ethical and political complexities, exploring options for public deliberation on the topic, and concluding with recommendations about how to proceed in the policy design process.)

Guidance for Weekly Essays

What are your thoughts and ideas about the reading? That’s what we want from the weekly essays, which should be about 500 words in length. (Please do not write longer than 500 words!) As the semester progresses, you’ll be able to relate earlier readings, films and class discussions to the texts for the current week in the papers that you write. We are interested in your reflective response to the various people and issues we study in relation to the themes of religion and public life, values conflict in societies, and border crossing.

We are also interested in your response to the way in which the authors in both works of fiction and non-fiction represent their subjects. What points of view do you detect in their portraits of these subjects, and how does that matter? Do you agree or disagree? What points do you find most compelling, most interesting, most challenging? Don’t feel the need to discuss every aspect of the week’s reading or film; rather, we recommend that you pick one salient aspect of the text and focus exclusively on that.

Some weeks we will be reading several short pieces by different authors, or we might be reading some history, say, and seeing a film the same week. If so, please feel free to compare and contrast them, to write about their interplay and the ideas that interplay sparked in your own mind.

It is important to remember, however, that the reading is your primary focus of analysis. We do want you to use your creativity in these papers, but we also want each of them to be closely related to the text you are discussing, to demonstrate that you are coming to grips with the reading in some important way. We are looking for original, challenging thought and excellent writing on a coherent thesis closely related to the texts and to the themes of the course.

We will, at times, read from your paper in class, and we will also ask you at times to post the paper on-line for reading and response by the entire class.

Required Texts

• Garry Wills. Under God: Religion and American Politics. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.
• Adam Hochschild. Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves. Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
• Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility. New York: Schocken Books, 2005.
• Rick Santorum. It Takes a Family: Conservatism and The Common Good. Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2005.
• Jim Wallis. God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. New York: Harper San Francisco, 2005.
• Barbara Kingsolver. The Poisonwood Bible. New York: HarperTorch, 2003.
• Terry McDermott. Perfect Soldiers: The Hijackers—Who They Were, Why They Did It. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

The required books are available in the textbook department of the Regulator Bookshop on Ninth Street. Additional readings will include articles and book excerpts, which will be distributed in class.

Application for SOL summer grants

The application due date for Service Opportunities in Leadership summer grants (community-based research) is March 1, 2006. Details about this and other funding opportunities for research service learning will be provided during the Wednesday discussion group meetings in late January and early February.

Dinner and informal discussion

In the second half of the semester we will invite you to dinner at Steve Schewel’s house, which is near campus. We will provide the food and drinks.