"Reacting to the Past" consists of elaborate games, set in the past, in which students are assigned roles informed by classic texts in the history of ideas. An alternative approach to undergraduate general education, the pedagogy seeks to draw students into the past, promote engagement with big ideas, and improve intellectual and academic skills.

Conference participants will learn about the pedagogy by engaging in intensive two-day workshops on a particular game, including A) The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C. and B) Defining a Nation: India on the Eve of Independence, 1945. In addition to game sessions, we will have discussions of a more general character on student motivation, teaching, liberal education, and the problems and possibilities of the "Reacting" pedagogy.

Additional details and online registration are available online at http://www.continuinged.ku.edu/programs/reacting/index.php. The priority registration deadline is March 21, 2008.