Welcome to EOF at Stockton -- a definitely great place to be! During the next five weeks, you will work really hard, and you will also learn a lot. You may not like everything that you do, but the good news is, by the end of July, you will be well on your way to your first year at college: you will know other students and professors, know how to get around campus, know what you need to do to succeed in your courses and to have fun. So take a deep breath, the tutors (Tim and Gurinderpal) and I are here with you every step of the way...
About Gen 1100, summer 2008:
This summer, you will begin to think and write about the idea that "knowledge is power." I selected this idea for a few reasons. It connects to the theme for the first year seminars that you will all take in the fall semester. That theme is power. I thought that thinking and writing about the theme before the fall would give you a jump start into your first semester. I also figured that, as entering college students, you might have a stake in the idea's truth. Would you be here if you believed that knowledge was not power? Finally, this idea is a familiar and common one. "Time is money" and "what goes around comes around" are others. Although we all use cliches when we talk and when we write, when we give advice to others, or when we explain something that has happened in our lives, we don't always think too deeply about what the words mean.
Well, for the next few weeks, you will analyze the three words knowledge and is and power in a variety of ways. You might not believe it's possible to study three words for such a long time. But the idea that knowledge is power has been around at least since the 1500s. That's when Francis Bacon, a British philosopher, first wrote about the relationship between knowledge and power. Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American philosopher who lived in the 1800s, also examined this idea. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about it in one of his speeches, and JFK urged Americans to follow it, like it was a commandment. What did these three men mean by knowledge is power? Did they mean the same thing? What did the words mean when you heard heard them or said them yourself? If knowledge isn't power, then what is knowledge; what is power? When Barack Obama argues that all of us Americans give away too much of our power, does he mean that we also give away too much of our knowledge? Does the race, ethnicity, or social class of the speaker/writer and of the audience for the words change their meaning? How does the cliche "money is power" connect to "knowledge is power"? Are money and knowledge synonyms? In the 1950s, a Quaker committee formulated the idea of "speaking truth to power" to indicate its political stance during the Cold War. How is this idea similar to, and different from, "knowledge is power"? And what about women? Do women use these words? Do they have the same concepts of knowledge and power as men? Do women put knowledge and power in the same sentence, or do they tend to use another formulation altogether?
This summer, you will think deeply about these three words as you study the course reading, do independent research, and write up your own ideas. You will also have the opportunity to consider how the relationship between knowledge and power shows up in popular culture: media, films, music, etc. At times, authors, directors, and artists, interpret familiar ideas in new ways, so you will have a chance to find examples of current reinterpretations too.
This course is structured to the extent that we will review writing mechanics, paragraphing, organization and presentation of ideas, research practices, as well as critical and creative thinking. However, this course is primarily about you, so your ideas matter most. What you bring to each class session matters. What you say during discussions matters. How you put words together on the page matters. Don't hesitate to ask questions, speak your mind, and write about what's important to you. That's the best way to learn and to work -- and, of course, to play.
Professor Hood