The Human Odyssey Course and Curriculum Human Odyssey I and II
contribute 6 hours to the core curriculum. Its team-taught
interdisciplinary curriculum consists of lectures, videos, and
~170 readings (see sample syllabi for Fall and Spring
semesters). (Link to sample syllabi) Organized three decades ago
as an exploration of C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures" (the sciences
and humanities broadly defined), for a decade the course was
taught as "The Ascent of Man." More recently, the Human Odyssey
course explores Jerome Kagan's analysis of "Three Cultures"
(adding the social sciences) and "ways of knowing" as
illustrated by the scientific method and artistic and other
humanistic endeavors. Conceptualizing the Human Odyssey
curriculum for the preceding 33 years has not been an easy task.
In general terms, the Human Odyssey course has attempted to
understand the human condition by studying and integrating
scientific findings with the humanities. These ways of knowing
distinguish humans from each other and from other forms