In summer 1987, Paul Rahe, Patricia Reifsnyder, Patricia Spacks, and Sarah Foelsche participated in two seminars for high school teachers sponsored by and held at the National Humanities Center, “Republics Ancient and Modern” and “Representations of Self in Literature.”
In the first segment, seminar leader Rahe recaps ways in which republicanism was presented in the seminar, from ancient Greece to the medieval and Renaissance republics of Italy to the founding of the United States and up to the mid-1980s. The goal of the seminar was to give teachers a better sense of what underlies liberty and what allows people to govern themselves. Reifsnyder speaks of teaching republicanism in high schools, which involves talking to students about making wise choices, and how this applies to voting-age high school students.
In the second segment [14:58], seminar leader Spacks looks at the importance of teaching about representations of the self in literature, using the examples of Zora Neale Hurston, Charlotte Brontë, and Charles Dickens. Foelsche, a high school teacher, observes that the seminar addressed the complexities of representing oneself and the changeability of our personal stories over time.
At the time of the interview, Rahe, a Fellow at the National Humanities Center (1983-84), was professor of history at the University of Tulsa. Reifsnyder taught history at the Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia.
Foelsche taught English at Deering High School in Portland, ME. Spacks, a Fellow at the Center (1982-83, 1988-89) and a trustee of the Center, was professor of English at Yale University.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond.
