Welcome to Rice University's Common Reading program for 2011.  

This year’s Common Reading is The Honor Code:  How Moral Revolutions Happen, by Kwame Anthony Appiah.

Now in its sixth year, the Common Reading welcomes new students to the Rice intellectual community, stimulates conversations across the campus on pressing issues of the day, and introduces new students to the critical inquiry, scholarship and civility they will encounter — and learn to practice — at Rice.

We believe The Honor Code will achieve these goals in a unique and illuminating manner.  On one level, The Honor Code can be read as globe-trotting history:  Professor Appiah employs four case studies--dueling in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, foot-binding in China, the movement to outlaw the Atlantic slave trade, and so-called “honor killings” in contemporary Pakistan--to explore how differing interpretations of honor have both sustained and undermined a range of offensive practices over the past two centuries. 

Read as moral philosophy, however, the book traces and posits honor as an agent of significant social change.  Appiah explains:  “Honor, in the form of individual dignity, powers the global movement for human rights. . . .[A]s national honor. . .it can motivate citizens in the unending struggle to discipline the acts of their governments.”  Read in this light and against the backdrop of political turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East, the rapid and unpredictable effects of social media, and an increasingly globalized community, The Honor Code invites conversation about revolutions of all sorts, as well as about contemporary conundrums that appear immune to moral challenge.

Read by Rice University students, for all of whom “honor” should have a distinct and special meaning, The Honor Code also invites conversation about individual and collective expectations and responsibilities, and the aspirations we hold as a community. 

In short, we believe this year’s Common Reading will serve as a starting point for a variety of interesting and valuable conversations that extend long after O-Week and imagine how a culture of honor might affect not only our own community but areas as diverse as health care, education, genomic science, urban planning, politics, engineering, and business practices.  Above all, we believe The Honor Code will resonate with new students as they  begin this new and exciting phase of their lives, join our community of lifelong learners, innovators, and leaders, and begin to think anew about the individuals they  want to be.

The Common Reading program is the foundation of a series of exciting events throughout the fall semester, including faculty-led discussions during O-Week and the chance to meet and hear Professor Appiah speak when he visits campus on August 30.  I am confident that you will enjoy reading The Honor Code and engaging in discussions with faculty and fellow students.

Sincerely,
Matthew Taylor,
Associate Vice Provost Associate Dean of Undergraduates