Citizens Thinkers Writers offers rising juniors and seniors from New Haven public schools a tuition-free opportunity to explore fundamental moral and political questions in a college setting.

Non-credit

Residential

Financial Aid

In small discussion seminars led by professors, they gain experience in close reading, analytic writing, and college-level discussion, along with support as they apply to college. They are encouraged to see themselves as active participants in the long-running philosophical conversation that dates back to ancient Greece and Rome, and to link this conversation to issues of justice that arise for them today as citizens of New Haven. Students bring a wide variety of political perspectives into the program and learn to turn their disagreements into civil and productive conversations.

The residential program aims to foster a small community of intellectually ambitious students that will outlast the two weeks of the seminar. After completing the summer program, students become CTW Fellows and continue to meet with the faculty, residential teaching assistants, and coordinator throughout the academic year. Students also receive support in the process of applying to college.

Citizens Thinkers Writers is offered by Yale’s Humanities Program as part of Yale’s Pathways to the Arts & Humanities initiative.

Reflecting on Civic Life
In this course we read reflections on civic life by philosophers, historians, poets and social theorists writing at different times and in different social circumstances. We read ethical advice from aristocrats and from formerly enslaved persons, from the wealthy and from authors born into poverty, from individuals holding power and from individuals suffering persecution. We will read different genres of writing, from philosophical dialogues and tragic plays to social theory and poetry, with a good dose of public oratory too.

Our theme is “citizenship and the city”: What important questions arise when human beings live together in cities? How have thinkers asked and answered these questions in different times and places? What can we find in these works that might help us understand our own roles and responsibilities today? How could we change our city for the better?

Yale University: Citizens Thinkers Writers

Jul 09 - Jul 21

2 weeks

Residential

0 USD

The program is tuition-free.