Social Foundations (CCSF-SHU)

In this course, we will explore a set of timeless questions about how society is, or should be, organized, based on close examinations of diverse thinkers and writers from different times and different cultures. The questions raised in this course will engage the moral, social, and political foundations of human relationships, the principles according to which people assemble into societies of different scales, and the bases for interaction among societies in a world of accelerating interdependence. By engaging texts that explore these questions from multiple perspectives, students reflect on several overarching issues, including how different societies have organized their economic and political institutions, how those societies fashion both shared identities and hierarchies of difference, how people experience themselves as “individuals” or as members of a collectivity, how they experience both time and space, and how they engage with others both locally and globally. Over the semester, students develop skills that are central to a liberal arts education, including reading carefully and thoughtfully, considering questions from more than one perspective, participating in respectful and serious intellectual explorations of difficult topics, developing oral presentation skills, and writing essays that make effective and appropriate use of the ideas of others as they present the students’ own ideas to different audiences of readers. Each week, students will meet twice as an entire class for lectures and once in smaller recitation sections led by one of New York University Shanghai’s Global Postdoctoral Fellows. Students receive 4 credits for the lecture and recitation. Prerequisite for CCSF-101: none. Fulfillment: Core Curriculum Global Perspectives on Society.