June 27, 2008

Georgia Turns to the West for Ideas

By ANNA NEMTSOVA

Amid political tensions, the former Soviet state says Russia no longer influences its universities

Charles H. Fairbanks Jr. sits among a tight circle of a dozen students, each bent over a thick volume of Plato's Republic. They are discussing, in English, the concept of the city-state guided by philosophers as part of a "great books" course.

Here at Ilia Chavchavadze State University, where Mr. Fairbanks teaches six months a year, a radical change is taking place. No longer do