Is there such a thing as a truly common good? If there is – or can be – how are we to find common ground in the pursuit of the common good? As we find ourselves in the middle of societal contentiousness, vicious political battles, divisions over race and gender, and even a politicized global health crisis, how can we begin to look beyond our differences to think about how to share life together? Is a collective and collaborative conversation possible in which we can nurture a healthy common good? Wendell Berry offers a voice that can serve as a starting point for conversation to reclaim a vision of the common good. Food systems, ecology, community, race, gender, religion, agriculture, economics, education, citizenship, technology, war and peace. These are a few of the touchpoints in the landscape of the collective human experience. Is there a way to unite our collective activity? How is it that humans are to live in the world that is increasingly putting us at odds with everything non-human – and even worse, at odds with other humans? Furthermore, what, if any, are the connections between human and non-human nature, the land, and other spaces? Living among the tensions of the late-modern world presents us with challenges as well as possibilities. These broad questions and accompanying tensions are taken up by Wendell Berry in The Art of the Commonplace, as he asks readers to think more deeply about human activity in the world. For Berry, an English professor turned farmer/writer/cultural critic, that requires eyes and ears wide open as we seek to understand who we are, where we are, and how we might flourish in the midst of the place we find ourselves. This seminar style course will provide students the opportunity to read Wendell Berry carefully and reflectively. We will consider selected essays in The Art of the Commonplace alongside some of Berry’s short stories and poems, as well as supplemental film, poetry and other art. Our reading will feed what promises to be a rich ongoing classroom discussion. Additionally, students will participate in reflection through short writing assignments as they interact with the book as well as the ideas to which it may point.
