“People often say a Gaudino class had an air of mystery. But if you look back at the syllabus for most any of his courses you realize there was no great secret. He told you exactly what was going to happen. He’d list “Purposes” of the course and the first two would be brutally substantive: In PoliSci 104 we’re going to explore the transition from traditional to industrial society and we’re going to contrast how this plays out amid different world settings and ideologies. Oh, and please read the first 227 pages of “Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy” by the first class. OK, except for all that reading, simple enough. But then Purpose No. 3: “To encourage the student to begin the difficult task of discovering the premises of his own thought and action.” Go back and look. He always has something like that right there in black-and-white. A Gaudino Syllabus