{"id":1352,"date":"2024-02-27T14:12:18","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T22:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/thematic-option\/?page_id=1352"},"modified":"2026-03-06T13:43:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T21:43:53","slug":"core-102","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/thematic-option\/prospective-students\/core-102\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\n CORE 102: Culture and Values\n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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CORE 102: Culture and Values<\/strong> examines issues of identity through the lens of so-called great books, asking such questions as: What is the self? What is society? What do they owe to each other? In this course, students participate in the assessment and reshaping of the western canon through both critical analysis and the development and practice of empathy for voices different from their own. <\/p>\n

All T.O. students start their first semester by taking CORE 102 and CORE 111 concurrently, a shared learning experience that helps establish a T.O. community and serves as a springboard for all future T.O. coursework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Sample Course Descriptions<\/h1>\n

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\"Fear<\/div>\n
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Fear of Diversity\/Fascination with Variety<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Professor Daniel Richter, Department of Classics<\/strong><\/p>\n

This course examines the history of the idea of human difference in terms of race and gender from antiquity to the present. It begins with an attempt to understand a single story: the Greek historian Herodotus tells us that in the early fifth century BCE, an explorer-king named Hanno from Carthage in North Africa sailed through the Pillars of Heracles and proceeded down along the western coast of Africa with the intention of founding trading colonies. Hanno, who inscribed an account of his adventures on a column upon his return to Carthage, wrote that when he and his crew reached the southernmost point of their voyage (modern Sierra Leone), they saw \u201csavage men and tremendously hairy women\u201d on the shore. Their native interpreters called these people \u201cgorillas.\u201d Hanno took three of the \u201cwomen\u201d captive, skinned them, and brought their \u201cpelts\u201d back to Carthage.<\/span><\/p>\n

This story forces us to address a series of very old questions which are as important now as they were two and a half millennia ago: What is a human being? How do human beings differ from animals? Is there such a thing as a human species, or are there various \u201ctypes\u201d of humans? Our answers to these questions have important implications for all sorts of ethical, political, and social behavior. This is a course about a series of moments in the ongoing conversation we humans have with ourselves about the nature of human sameness and human diversity. We are, as the self-described cosmopolitan thinker Kwame Anthony Appiah has recently remarked, \u201ca traveling species;\u201d it is this tendency towards mobility which has, for most of human history, forced us to identify the origins and meanings of human difference\u2014linguistic, cultural, ethnic, religious, etc. Our readings will focus on the modern as well as the ancient world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Texts<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n