Course description
This class, an introductory honors seminar on some of the most influential and most debated texts in Western culture, is based on the sense that it is still urgent for us to reflect together on forms of human expression that have shaped culture for centuries, whether drawn from the canons of philosophy, tragedy, religion, political theory, or political debate.
From the wars of ancient Greece to ongoing conflicts shaping activism and electoral politics on the streets of our nation, society has been shaped by the difficult challenge of reconciling contending values. Is civilization likely to make us happy or unhappy? What do members of a community owe each other? How should we determine the best ways to act as a society, as individuals? What does a society include or exclude? How does it deal with moments of resistance or contradiction? While culture has given us many texts dealing with these issues, none provides easy solutions to any of them. The traditions we are interested in exploring is not unidirectional and simple; it is one of discussion, debate, and the clashing of principles and interests
The course will be especially concerned with the forms through which a culture understands itself. What is the effect of expressing ideas in dialogue form, as a tragedy, as a narrative, as a parable, as a letter or public address? How do the formal characteristics of texts participate in the way those texts produce meaning?
Learning goals
Communicate effectively in modes appropriate to a discipline or area of inquiry; evaluate and critically assess sources and use the conventions of attribution and
citation correctly; and analyze and synthesize information and ideas from multiple sources to generate new insights (Core Goal WCD).
Requirements
Class participation (including weekly quizzes and brief presentations), three 1-2 page papers, one 2-4 page paper, one final project (either an essay or a presentation).
Books to purchase: Aristophanes, The Clouds, Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto Sophocles, Antigone, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own.
All other readings will be available on our Sakai course site.