AUGUSTINE AND CULTURE SEMINAR PROGRAM
The Augustine and Culture Seminar (ACS) is a two-semester, first-year seminar course rooted in the Augustinian and Catholic intellectual traditions that prepares all students for success at 棉花糖直播 and beyond.
An integral part of the first-year experience, ACS helps students sharpen the practical and necessary skills of careful reading and clear writing. In ACS we cultivate what Pope Francis calls a 鈥渃ulture of encounter鈥�: an environment in which we are passionate about learning about ourselves and others as we wrestle with thought-provoking works of human culture from ancient to modern times. Our model of inquiry is St. Augustine, the fourth century African bishop. ACS teaches you not only about Augustine but also how to be like him in the life-long pursuit of wisdom.
A signature feature of ACS is the cultural event program. 鈥淎CS Approved鈥� events, including ACSP鈥檚 own Concert Series, encourage student engagement in the intellectual, cultural, and artistic life of the University and the greater Philadelphia area.
WHY ACS?
The Communitas Program entails living together, taking a 1-credit themed workshop, and having the unique opportunity to complete the required ACS 1000 and 1001 Core seminars in a specially-themed section.
You will enjoy community and conversation with classmates by taking both ACS Ancients and ACS Moderns with workshop peers who live in the same residence hall and with the same faculty member for the first year. Texts in the ACS classes, both classic and modern, are chosen to reflect a specific theme and to have current relevance.
In Communitas ACS, you will bridge the gap between the classroom and the campus, as you experience the exciting artistic and intellectual life of the University through activities such as movie and pizza nights, campus cultural events (like plays, concerts, and panel discussions), 鈥淗op on the Bus鈥� field trips to Philadelphia venues and beyond, and a catered welcome dinner.
Many lasting friendships have their foundation in Communitas time spent together. Live, engage, and learn together in Communitas!
Through the small size of the ACS seminar, you will get to know your classmates and instructors well. ACS encourages unitas, growing together in community with one another, through meaningful conversations about the readings.
Those ACS students enrolled in Communitas will live in the same residence hall as their classmates. Learn more about enrolling in themed Communitas learning communities.
In ACS, all students have the opportunity to read Augustine's spiritual autobiography, the Confessions. The book is a total surprise; whereas we might expect from a learned bishop of late antiquity to find wise teachings, instead we find a breathtakingly honest story of confusion, longing, heartbreak, humility, and intimacy.
Augustine reminds us that in all of our study, it is our very selves that are at stake in a personal and decisive way. That is, when we are faced with ultimate questions about human existence and meaning, there is no objective, neutral stance. We are each of us personally involved, because we are each in the process of becoming who we are.
