I go to class with a professor. How Socratic is that?
In the Interdisciplinary Faculty-Student Research Seminar, a professor and a student pair up to explore topics around a theme (this past semester, five pairs tackled “Justice”). Once a week, sustained by bagels and juice, the pairs settle in around a conference table as equal partners in freewheeling discussions of their work. We asked collaborators Steven Thompson ’15 and Michael Robertson, professor of English, what the experience is like. ROBERTSON: The seminar has been extraordinary in bringing everybody in contact with people with different perspectives. I, or somebody else, will bring up an issue and Steven will point out, “Well, that’s true from a middle-class perspective. But if you’re poor in this country, your experience is going to be different.” THOMPSON: The thing I love about the seminar is that in terms
of discussion, nothing is off limits. When we start a conversation it can go in any direction and you don’t have to worry about people being uncomfortable or, more importantly, about people being uninformed. Everybody in that room is very intelligent and, above all, eminently curious.
ROBERTSON: What you identified there is that lack of hierarchy where the professor is the authority and everyone else is the learner. In the justice seminar, we’re all learners. THOMPSON: If you have a
ROBERTSON: This seminar is about exposing and illuminating different ideas about justice. It’s not about bringing people toward one, true theory. It’s about a lively, intellectual debate that does not have an easy resolution. It is the most democratic academic space I’ve ever been in. The only comparison I can make: I spent my last sabbatical as a visiting fellow in the Department of Religion at Princeton University, and my only duty was to participate in a weekly seminar of professors and graduate students. This seminar is completely equivalent to the one at Princeton.
—as told to Dustin Racioppi
THIS PAGE: ILLUSTRATION BY JULIE McLAUGHLIN
disagreement with somebody [in the seminar], especially with a professor, you can just
go at it for 20 minutes. And generally the way that breaks down is, nobody emerges a clear winner, but everyone has their understanding of the issue tempered. You are forcibly moderated in the literal meaning of that word. You are left with a more moderate perspective because people force you to look at aspects of an issue that you were not willing to consider before.
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