Patrick Kupper

On Power: Neue Literatur zur Energiegeschichte

At Dominican University of California, where we have instated Big History as the core of our General Education program, we faculty engage in a Summer Institute, a weeklong, intensive faculty development seminar in which we work collectively to hone our program and our abilities to teach this challenging multidisciplinary curriculum. Imagine thirty PhDs (and the occasional MFA) seated in the round in a wood-paneled room in the basement of a Victorian-era mansion on campus, not only discussing how Big History works in our curriculum and how best to teach it, but arguing—amicably—over what Big History means—intellectually, ethically, morally, and even spiritually. For a week. It is an intense and profound experience. It is heavy intellectual lifting.