By Sydney Matthews | Staff Writer
A new Great Texts course called “Great Texts of the Black Intellectual Tradition” was launched this spring, providing students the opportunity to read and reflect on texts solely from Black authors.
Dr. Robert Miner, philosophy professor, said he began creating the syllabus for the course back in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. He said one of his former students, Chris Scott, had said a Black intellectual tradition course was needed on Baylor’s campus.
“The aim of the course is to explore some ways that Black Americans have written about their distinctive experiences resisting oppression, marginalization, inequality, enslavement, poverty and the abuse of authority from the 18th to the 21st centuries, as well as the deep connections between these experiences and the creation of new forms of artistic beauty and literary excellence,” Miner said.
Students taking this course learn about experiences that may be foreign to them, Miner said. They can dive into the texts highlighted in the curriculum and ask questions as they are learning that can become topics of discussion afterward.
“Baylor has never done a Great Texts course like this before where we are diving into Black intellectual tradition and how those voices still apply to our world today,” Hanover, N.H., senior Harper Leigh said.
Leigh also said learning about the authors of the texts and what they discuss about their experience as a Black American has helped her better understand the world today. She said she also learned the importance of conversation and how that can impact Baylor.
“What the Black intellectual tradition has to say about God and what does ‘God’ mean for people who have lived their lives with their backs against the wall and things stacked up against them with racism and discrimination,” Leigh said. “That has been a really formative point of view to the way I think about God, the way I think about my duty to those in need and more than anything I am encouraged to see those conversations happen at Baylor.”
According to its course description, the Great Texts class is a seminar style class featuring American authors such as Sojourner Truth, W.E.B. DuBois, Ralph Waldo Ellison, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, plus non-Americans such as Rinaldo Walcott and Nelson Mandela.
Miner said there are many other authors they could have chosen as well. The aim of the course is not to cover everything, but to spend a significant amount of time on each text.
Leigh said she encourages all students to take this course if it interests them. She also said there are great professors at Baylor who can provide great works from the Black intellectual tradition if students are interested in learning more.
“Where we live today is a product of its history,” Leigh said. “I would really encourage that if people want to experience what a lot of the writers are talking about, they need to compassionately and empathetically walk with those in our own city who are marginalized and oppressed and live with them in their worlds for a while.”
