HUFFINGTON
09.15.13
COURTESY OF TOM KAPLAN
THE BIG QUESTIONS
Recognizing a yearning for “intellectual community,” the National Endowment for the Humanities has given $2.2 million in
grants since 2009 to fund college
and university courses that tackle
the “enduring questions.” Cherkasova will teach one next year
at Suffolk University in Boston
called, “What is the Meaning of
Life” (its syllabus includes Ecclesiastes and Siddhartha, Hermann
Hesse’s philosophical novel about
a young Brahmin’s journey of selfdiscovery during the age of Gautama Buddha). Among dozens of
courses that the NEH has funded
are, “What Is The Meaning of
Happiness,” taught at New Mexico
State University, Las Cruces; an
upper-level class at the College of
St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn.,
titled, “What am I?,” and at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Penn.,
“What is Love?”
To advocates, these courses are
more than mere intellectual exercises [