The Marino Family International Writers' Academic Workshop
A First-Year Student Academic Workshop
Featuring Henning Mankell
Saturday, September 13, 2008
1:00pm - 4:00pm
About the Workshop
More than thirteen years ago, Georgetown University conceived the idea of engaging new students in the thoughtful reading of a text by a major international author. During the summer prior to their matriculation into the academic life of the university, first-year students are asked to read a selected text and write a one-page analysis of a major issue raised by the author. On a Saturday afternoon, at the beginning of the semester, the University invites the author to campus to discuss the text with the first-year students. Immediately following the author's conversation with the students, more than seventy faculty members and deans meet with students in small groups and together embark on a close reading of the text. These small group seminars encourage students to comment on and debate the author's premises, challenge each other's interpretation of the text, and sustain the arguments they presented in the required one-page analysis of the text.
The Workshop, funded by the Frederick Marino (SLL '68) family, serves as an introduction to the challenges and rewards of the university's intellectual life and affirms Georgetown's commitment to the world of the mind and intellectual discourse. By featuring an author representative of a culture other than our own, the Workshop adds a significant cultural dimension to students' academic experience. Students and faculty enter into lively and meaningful dialogue on areas that transcend the particularities of their own culture. They delve into a range of philosophical, historical, cultural, religious, and political issues that encourage respect and understanding of differences, while emphasizing similarities. These exchanges of ideas form the foundation for critical thinking that will be continuously refined during the students' four-year undergraduate academic experience.