The Aims of the Institute of World Culture
2002
Coordinator: Russ Lewin

Meaning in Movies
2002
Coordinator: Russ Lewin and Robert Moore

Writings of Simon Weil
2002-2003
Coordinator: Christine Nolt

Study Group on Sufism
2002-2003
Coordinator: Carolyn Dorrance

Envisioning Futures

Teaching Stories

Plato Discussion Circle
February 2003 through January 2004
Coordinator: Joseph Miller
Should philosophers be kings? Kings, philosophers? Can wisdom and leadership be united? What is justice or the purpose of education? This discussion circle spent 12 months pondeing these and other fundamental issues in a timely consideration of Plato's great masterpiece, The Republic. Text: The Republic of Plato, translated with introduction and notes by Francis MacDonald Cornford.

The American Promise
March 2004 through February 2005
Coordinator: Carolyn Dorrance
This group took up the following subjects for discussion:
The American Experience as Transformation
Primary Thinker: J. Hector St John de Crevecoeur
Religious Liberty & Primacy of Conscience*
Primary Thinker: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Natural Law and the Oversoul as Teacher and Guide
Primary Thinker: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Natural Rights, Political Liberty & the Right of Revolution
Primary Thinker: Tom Paine
The Social Contract as a Foundation of Civil Society
Primary Thinkers: Thomas Jefferson & James Madison
Volunteer Association: Charities, Cooperatives & Communes
Primary Thinker: Edward Bellamy
Progressive Legislation as a Source of Human Welfare
Primary Thinkers: Jane Addams & Herbert Croly
Patriotism & Non-Violent Civil Disobedience
Primary Thinkers: Walt Whitman & Henry David Thoreau
Leadership: Creative Initiative & Responsibility
Primary Thinker: Abraham Lincoln
Tolerance, Fraternity and Multiculturalism
Primary Thinkers: William E. DuBois & Carey McWilliams
Principles & Aims of a Humanitarian Foreign Policy
Primary Thinkers: To be decided
Assessments: Universal Values in The American Promise
Primary Thinkers: Members of the IWC Study Group, The American Promise*Religious Liberty & Primacy of Conscience
Primary Thinker: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Religious Liberty and Conscience: Expressions of the Human Potential for Moral Thought and Action
Early in the history of the English colonies established in North America during the 17th century, voices of dissent from the authoritarian interpretations of religious puritanism, articulated principles of religious liberty and primacy of conscience. Roger Williams, founder of the colony of Rhode Island, and William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania included religious liberty and freedom of conscience as principles in the founding charters they wrote. Although the affirmation and defense of these moral imperatives was couched in the language and assumptions of Christianity, both men spoke of conscience as an innate potential in all human beings. Also, both men included non-Christians such as Native Americans, Jews even Muslims and Hindus in their vision of a civil society. Spiritual equality and brotherhood or brotherly love would flourish where religious liberty and freedom of conscience were honored. An essential founding brick of a civil society is that government not coerce religious belief or practice. Later, Thomas Jefferson as part of his vision of the new American Republic, insisted on the inclusion of religious liberty in the Bill of Rights (1791) attached to the new Constitution of the United States (1787). It is interesting that a right of conscience was excluded from the proposed Bill of Rights by a congressional committee. Five years earlier, Jefferson had joined with James Madison to secure passage of the Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty (1786) in which the freedom to proclaim one's religious beliefs is defended as a natural right of mankind. Jefferson adopted a concept of "moral sense" as a way of explaining the potential of human being to use their liberty to "do good". Both these ideas of religious liberty and primacy of conscience would show up in Supreme Court reports of the 20th century in response to conflicts spurred in large part by the means and prerogatives the national government used to conduct war and sustain "national unity". More visible and influential claims of conscience were invoked by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during his evolving protest of substantial violations of The American Promise. In tribute to the principles and moral courage of Dr. King, three major expressions of the imperatives of conscience are included in this month's reading. Note that King links his invocation of conscience with a vision of universal brotherhood, social justice and a world wide "true revolution of values".  April 4th marks the 36th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination.  Not included in this set of readings is the provocative essay On Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau.

Gandhi on Truth, Non-Violence and Self-Renewal in Civil Society
April 2004 through July 2005
Coordinator: Robert Moore
This group met to explore the luminous thought and revitalizing practice of Mahatma Gandhi. It examined Gandhi’s penetrating insights into the possibilities as well as the diseases of modern civilization, the compelling need to purify politics and the rediscovery of the true, religious impulse. It considered Gandhi’s foundational principles of truth and non-violence, together with their correlate concepts of human nature, perfectibility, vows, conscience and heroism. It studied the dynamics of Gandhi’s moral and social vision within the alembic of his communal experiments in South Africa and India. Finally, it explored Gandhi’s revolutionary principles of social transformation, ranging from Satyagraha (truth-force) to trusteeship, culminating in his utopian vision of non-violent socialism. The principal text was The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Raghavan Iyer. This brilliant selection of Gandhi’s letters and speeches was our magical touchstone for contemplating the expansive and therapeutic teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. A companion reading was Gandhi’s autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Each week a brief biographical sketch of Gandhi's life was presented. Click here for notes

A Republic of Reason
July through September 2007
Coordinator: Carolyn Dorrance.
This group explored former Vice President Al Gore’s new book, The Assault on Reason, on the importance of a commitment to reason for authentic public dialogue in a democracy.  
Introduction and general aims of the group