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Sustainable development has been defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It calls for concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient future for people and planet. For sustainable development to be achieved, it is crucial to harmonize three core elements: economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection. Ending poverty in all forms is vital.

It is 416 BCE. A group of Athenian men are gathered together for a party, a celebration, a symposium. Among the company are the tragic playwright Agathon, Agathon’s lover Pausanias, the beautiful but doomed Phaedrus, the comic playwright Aristophanes, the doctor Eryximachus, and the (also perhaps doomed) philosopher Socrates. Diotima, a priestess from Mantinea, puts in a surprise appearance. Alcibiades, the glamor boy of Athens, makes a late, splashy, gate-crashy arrival. There are the usual snacks and drinks.

How does one’s social positionality affect one’s status as a knower? Who is heard? Who is believed? This seven-week course is focused on questions of justice and power in relation to knowledge. We will engage with recent work in social epistemology—philosophical theories of belief and knowledge—with an emphasis on feminist epistemologies, anti-racist epistemologies, and epistemologies of resistance. These approaches stress that knowers are embodied, situated, embedded in communities, and have multiple, intersecting social identities.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, mathematics underwent a vast expansion, into new, exciting, and increasingly counter-intuitive realms. The subject risked mystification and mutual incomprehensibility between experts in different sub-fields. In the first part of the twentieth century, a group of French mathematicians, under the pseudonym Bourbaki, undertook an ultimately successful program to use the foundation of set theory to put all of mathematics onto a common conceptual and logical foundation.

This class examines a variety of answers to the ancient question: How do I live a good life? We’ll engage with thinkers from diverse traditions across time and space as we clarify our own understanding of what makes life worth living and as we articulate a more developed conception of the good life.

The tragic protagonist is a person pushed to the breaking point- dealing with disaster, fate, suffering, unspeakable loss, and often the consequences of their own bad decisions. Greek tragedy shows human beings struggling in a world that often seems brutal, senseless, and beyond their control, where contingency is a hard fact of life. As such, tragedy raises significant philosophical questions: Does human life have purpose? How should we respond to trauma and suffering? How does one live an ethical life in a deeply flawed world?

I would (and will) argue that Newton's Principia is the most important book yet written. It is certainly the most important book that a vanishingly small number of people have actually read.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) describes his own work in metaphysics by analogy with Copernicus’s revolution in astronomy. He constructs a system of thought that attempts to move beyond the empiricism of Hume and the rationalism of Leibniz and Wolff. His method – critique – and his theory – transcendental idealism – have profoundly influenced all subsequent philosophy.

Mystics––historically portrayed as passionate, dangerous, romantic, heretical, satanic––are a thorn in the side of organized religion. From the very beginnings of recorded human time, the presence and practice of mystics has been controversial. Sufi mystic al-Hallaj’s pronouncement that he was “the Truth” was received as blasphemy by the orthodoxy. His execution followed shortly after. Christian mystics of the 4th and 5th centuries were relegated to practicing outside the peripheries of the Roman Empire, in relative secrecy.

“I, at least, am not a Marxist”&�Բ�����;Karl Marx

This is an introductory course to international public law and its relevance in today’s complex and interconnected world. 

Journalism & Democracy is the result of a grant and partnership with the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont, a national network of student journalism programs around the United States. The course recognizes the essential role that the arts and culture play in a healthy democracy.

This is an advanced improvisation class for students from all disciplines. We will learn the concepts of complexity and advance our skills in pattern recognition, self-organization, emergent structuring, and development of movement, verbal, visual and design vocabularies. Collaborative processes will be explored to further different forms of creative practices, both to address an artistic practice and a dialogic practice.

This class will examine the current diplomacy and process of a new Convention for the United Nations on Conserving the River Deltas. We will hear from some of the lead partners on the project: The Transboundary Water In-Cooperation Network (TWIN), co-founded by CAPA and the Institute for Environmental Diplomacy and Security at the University of Vermont, and the African Centre for Climate Action and Rural Development (ACCARD) directed by Freeman Oluohor.

In this class we will explore the practice of meditation as a physical and mental training exercise. In class meditation and discussion, as well as outside reading and writing assignments, will explore Eastern and Western persepctives on ourselves and the world.

The ash trees on campus are dying from an introduced beetle. Ash trees make up about 8% of Vermont’s forests and their foliage contributes to our iconic fall colors. They are culturally important trees with deep connections to art from Indigenous basket making to Beyonce’s Louisville slugger in Lemonade. The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) beetle arrived in North America in Michigan in 2002; it was first confirmed on the Bennington campus in late 2024. The mortality rate of EAB-infested ash trees is 99.97%.

Formal logic is the study of the structure of reasoning itself—how arguments are built, when they succeed, and why they fail. In an age of information overload, knowing how to dissect an argument, detect reasoning errors, and construct rigorous proofs is a superpower. This course introduces the foundations of formal logic, with an emphasis on precision, clarity, and critical thinking tools. From everyday statements to abstract puzzles, you will learn how to translate ideas into symbolic form and test their validity.

This course is the requirement for all graduate students in the Masters in Public Action program to teach as part of their studies. Students will consult with the Director of the MFA in Public Action to identify the classes, develop the Syllabi, and have ongoing feedback about their teaching and course development. throughout the term. 

This course is required for all graduate students enrolled in the MFA in Public Action program. In-depth research connected to their Plan, their professional work and their teaching is required. This research can take the form of reading, writing, archival work,
interviews and creative practice. A body of research is required at the end of each term related to their studies. 

The Graduate Seminar in Public Action is required of all students in the MFA in Public Action program. This seminar focuses on their current professional work. Each student will identify at the beginning of each term the professional work to be accomplished. This can be located at 51�������� or in another professional venue anywhere in the world. This professional work will be exhibited, shared, published or created over the term. A public sharing of the work is encouraged to a larger audience. 

In 2006, the long-running reality television show Survivor decided to do something novel for its thirteenth season: they split contestants into tribes based on race. Controversy immediately followed. Advertisers pulled out and elected officials lobbied CBS not to air the season. But CBS stuck to their guns and released Survivor: Cook Islands.

This course examines the entangled histories of race, gender, and sexuality within the expansion and maintenance of U.S. Empire. We will explore histories ranging from the selective exclusion of nineteenth century migrants, America’s global war on sex work in the early twentieth century, to the gendered dimensions of twentieth century warmaking.

Plastic pollution has emerged as a significant environmental issue in the past few years, particularly on how plastics affects health, environmental justice, climate change and water quality.  This is an environmental policy class iwth a focus on public action.  This class will explore the dimensions of the production, use and disposal of plastics and the need for innovation.  In the spirit of 51��������'s Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA),much of the assigned homework will include taking public action.

The United States is experiencing unprecedented challenges that are destroying the foundations on which our society was built. Our strongest institutions are faltering under political pressure. The Supreme Court, once an independent arbiter of justice, is rudderless; making decisions based on political ideology rather than the law. The President and Congressional leadership are committed to dismantling social safety nets and slashing scientific investments in education and public health.

In this course, we will explore restorative practices and their origins, principles, strengths and weaknesses, and theories that underlie them.