What is a Neighbor? Looking beyond the Campus

In an increasing virtually connected world, is someone suffering in Darfur a neighbor to someone in the USA?  What, if any, are the moral ramifications of defining someone as “a neighbor”?  How have various traditions and other societies answered these questions?  

The speaker will share lessons learned from developing a course, thanks to the NEH Enduring Questions grant, that links his students in the USA with students in a classroom in Egypt.  The course, entitled “Who is a neighbor?” has students read formative primary texts from the Western, Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions that explore moral responsibility toward others.  Students (both in Egypt and the USA) read portions of Aristotle, the Bible, the Qur’an, St. Augustine, Al-Ghazali, Maimonides, Ibn Khaldun, Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, Freud and others.  They discuss these reading together via live videoconferences and/or on-line chat. They are asked to think about their perceptions of the “other” and reflect on cultural notions of moral responsibility toward those in need. 

The course is divided into four sections, each with a different mode of inquiry and different method of assessment.  The first section is a comparative study of primary texts on civic and political duties spanning over two thousand years and yet focused similarly on the subject of the neighbor. The second section engages with contemporary ethics, as well as adding a concern for modern realpolitik and pragmatism. Black-Jewish relations in America over the course of the last century are the focus. The third section examines neighbors in proximity through a pair of case studies of contemporary global politics: Israel-Palestine and the Sudanese refugee crisis. The fourth and final section stresses student engagement by directing ongoing research, culminating in formal presentations that reflect analytical treatments of their findings.