Intellectual Heritage

Prerequisite: College Composition (English C050, C051, R050, or H090) or its equivalent.

Requirement: Intellectual Heritage X051 or X091 (3 credits) and Intellectual Heritage X052 or X092 (3 credits). Students normally should take Intellectual Heritage X051 or X091 in the semester immediately following the completion of College Composition, and Intellectual Heritage X052 or X092 immediately after completing X051 or X091.

Intellectual Heritage, the most distinctive feature of Temple's Core Curriculum, is a required writing-intensive, two-semester course sequence introducing students to "seedbed texts" in the western intellectual tradition, from ancient Greece to the Bible through the twentieth century.

These are case study courses, not surveys. Students read primary texts in depth, building reading and interpretative skills. Lectures and class discussions provide historical and cultural background, but the emphasis is on analysis. The interdisciplinary structure of the courses -- with readings drawn from diverse cultures and time periods and reflecting different methodologies -- encourages students to seek out common elements and to discern the ways in which cultures and texts remain unique and irreconcilable.

Intellectual Heritage constitutes two of the five Writing-Intensive courses required in the Core Curriculum. In addition to essay examinations, students complete several papers or other written assignments.