Schedule 
Humanities 121 and Philosophy 231
Spring, 2005

Syllabi for both classes listing requirements

“Text” refers to the Western Humanities Vol. II: The Renaissance to the Present 5th Edition.
“Reader” refers to the Readings in Western Humanities Vol. II: The Renaissance to the Present 5th Edition.
MP refers to Modern Philosophy, Philosophical Classics Vol. III
19th refers to Nineteenth Century Philosophy, Philosophical Classics Vol. IV
20th refers to Twentieth Century Philosophy, Philosophical Classics Vol. V 

 

Week One

1/17-1/19

Course Introduction

Wednesday

Introduction to Class. A discussion of the main concepts and themes that we will explore in our examination of the material for this course. There will also be a brief overview of Western history and culture before 1400.

Week Two 1/24-1/26

The Renaissance: 1400-1560

A (new) Vision of Humanity

Monday

      A) The Western European Debt to the Islamic World
     
B) The Rise of the Ottoman Empire
     
C)  The Beginnings of the Italian Renaissance

Viewing: Islam: Empire of Faith, Part 3

Readings: Text, Chapter 11 and Reader C11 (all)

Assignment:  Describe Botticelli's  " The Birth of Venus."  Discuss the ways in which this painting is characteristic of Renaissance painting.  Describe your reaction to this painting. Due on Wednesday

Link to the Uffizi Gallery

Wednesday

A)    The Socio-Political Configuration of Europe in the 15th & 16th Century –Nation States and Discovery

B)     The Intellectual Movements of the Early Renaissance –Humanism, History and the revival of Platonism.

C)    The Art of the Italian Renaissance.

Discussion of art and readings for today

Readings: Text, Chapter 12 and Reader,  C12 (Stampa and Castiglione). Selections from Columbus’ Journals (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.html).

Alberti's Notebooks

Art History Resources on the Web

Week Three 1/31-2/2

The Renaissance: 1500-1600

A (new) Vision of Human Society

Monday

A)    The Socio-Political Configuration of Europe in the 15th Century –Nation States and Discovery.

B)     The Intellectual Movements of the Early Renaissance –Humanism and History

C)    The Art of the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance

Discussion of art and readings for today.

Readings: More, selections from Utopia. Machiavelli, selections from The Prince 

Notes and Reading Questions on Machiavelli (exact assignment included)

Notes and Reading Questions on More (exact assignment included)

 

Wednesday

Continuation of Focus—Discussion of More and Machiavelli.

Text, C13 up to p. 364 and Reader, C13 (Montaigne, Rabelais, Cervantes).

Paper assignment

Week Four 2/7-2/9

The Reformation (100-1700)

A (new) Vision of the Relation to the Divine

Monday

A)    The History of the Reformation –Luther, Calvin, and the Splintering of the Universal Church.

B)     The Counter-Reformation –The Jesuits and the Inquisition.

C)    Late Mannerism

Readings: Text, C13 & C14, Martin Luther, 95 Theses and On Christian Liberty (found at: http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/wittenberg-luther.html) and Calvin, Selections from the Institutes (http://www.ccel.org/c/calvin/) and selections from Milton’s Paradise Lost (found at: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/intro/index.shtml).

Discussion of art and readings for today.

Notes on the Reformation and on Milton

Study Guide for the First Exam distributed

Wednesday

Discussion of Milton, Luther, Calvin, et. al. Primary emphasis on Milton.

Paper assignment due

Extra Credit Opportunity:  Douglas Berger presents on his new book on India and Schopenhauer.....Friday, February 14, 11:00, 1606 DP

   

Week Five 2/14-2/16

The Baroque Era and the Scientific Revolution (1500-1700)

A (new) Conception of Nature

Monday

 

       Exam 1

A) Absolute monarchies
B) Baroque art and architecture
C) Baroque music


Discussion of art and readings for today.
Readings:  Text, Chapter 14 and Reader C14 (Moliere)
Listening: Bach and Vivaldi  

Baroque Art from Art History Resources on the Web

Baroque Art Site of Interest

Link to Andrea Pozzo's Work

Wednesday

A) Western Europe and the World
B) Genocide in the America
C) The Slave Trade

Notes on Slavery and Reading Assignments

Paper Assignment #4 due

Week Six 2/21-2/23

The Baroque Era and the Scientific Revolution Continued (1500-1700)

A (new) Conception of Nature

Monday

NO CLASS

Wednesday

A)    How to organize knowledge: breaking down barriers between disciplines and scholastic authoritarianism.

B)     The Newtonian World –the nature as a machine.

C)    Rationalism and Empiricism: The Search for a Universal (Human) Science.

Discussion of Bacon and Hobbes (primarily).

Notes on Bacon, Hobbes, and Descartes with Reading Assignments

Paper Assignment # 5 due

Week Seven 2/28-3/2

The Baroque Era Continued and the Development of Liberalism

(1600-1760)

Monday

Discussion of Hobbes continued

 

Wednesday

Focus on Descartes


Study Guide for the Second Exam 

 

Review the Cultures Week schedule for possible participation and extra credit.

Week Eight 3/7-3/9

The Development of Liberalism Continued

 

Monday

A)    Liberalism and Secularism

B)     New Conceptions of Freedom in Rationalism/Empiricism debate –new political science.

C)    Lockean Liberalism –Natural Freedom, Natural Rights, Imperialism and Slavery.

Reading Notes and Assignments for Locke

Paper Assignment # 6 due

Wednesday

Exam 2

Introduction to the Enlightenment

Readings: Text, Chapter 16.

 

 

Week Nine 3/14-3/16

Spring Break

 

Monday

NO CLASS

Readings: Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (in MP) and Reader C16 (Wollstonecraft, Diderot, Voltaire) during this break.

Wednesday

NO CLASS

 

Week Ten 3/21-3/23

The Enlightenment

Monday

Basic Features of the Enlightenment.

A)    The Power of Reason –The Failure of Faith

B)     Art in the Enlightenment

C)    Power Politics

Read: Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” (Reader, 134-138); Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Reader, 138-141); and, Voltaire, Candide (Reader, 147-155). These are all relatively short selections. Please read these over break.

Read: Text, Chapter 16 “The Age of Reason”

Discussion: Readings and Art.

Reading Notes and Assignments on Kant, Wollstonecraft, and Voltaire

 

Wednesday

Discussion: Hume’s Dialogues

Reading Notes on Hume


Assignment # 7 due.

Continue Discussion of Art

 

Week Eleven 3/28-3/30

The Enlightenment, Romanticism and Revolution

Monday

Reactions to the Enlightenment

A)    Political Revolutions

B)     From Neo-Classicism to Romanticism

C)    Romanticism and Philosophy (the birth of German Idealism)

Read: Jefferson, Declaration of the Rights of Man, Keats, Mary Shelley (in Reader)

Read: Text, Chapter 17 “Revolution, Reaction and Cultural Response”

Discussion: Poetry, Politics and Art

Remember that the coming weekend is the last weekend for A Midsummer Night's DreamYou need to see this play since you will be asked to do a reaction paper on the staging of this play.  Student tickets are $12.

 

Wednesday

Discussion of Kant, Prolegomena and continued discussion of poetry

Read: Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (Selections)

Reading Notes on Kant's Prolegomena

Assignment # 8 due.
 

Week Twelve 4/4-4/6

The Bourgeoisie

Monday

Capitalism and Liberalism

A)    Continued Development of German Romanticism and Idealism (The Bourgeois Subject and its critics)

B)     The Political Economy of Liberalism and Smith on capitalism

C)   New Departures in Philosophy

Read: Read selections from Goethe's Faust in Reader and selections from Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (Introduction and Book 1, Chapter 1) on the web

Read: Text, Chapter 18 “The Triumph of the Bourgeoisie”

Discussion of Faust and art

 

Wednesday

Read: Hegel, “Self-Certainty” & “Lordship and Bondage” from The Phenomenology of Spirit in 19th Century Philosophy

Discussion of Hegel 

Reading Notes on Hegel and Kierkegaard

Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind

Assignment # 9 due   

Week Thirteen 4/11-4/13

A Challenge from the Working Class

Monday

Capitalism and Liberalism

A)    Critical Analysis of Liberalism

B)     Marx’s Critique of Capitalism

C)    Art and Music as a response to Capital

ReadSelections from Darwin, Dickinson (other poems), Flaubert, Dickens, Douglas, Thoreau, Dostoyevsky in the Reader.

Discussion of Reader selections and realism in art

Study Guide for the 3rd Exam

Wednesday

Read: Marx, all the selections in 19th Century Philosophy (especially focusing on The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts and The German Ideology selections).  Also read Marx's very brief  "Theses on Feuerbach" on the web.

Summary of Marx's Theory of Alienation

Summary of Marx's Theory of Ideology

Assignment # 10 due

Discussion of Marx and the Critique of Capitalism

Week Fourteen 4/18-4/20

Nineteenth Century Music and Early Modernism

Monday

Exam Three

 

Wednesday

Read: Text, Chapter 19 “The Age of Early Modernism”


Week Fifteen 4/25-4/27

Nietzsche

 

Monday

Read: Nietzsche, selections from Birth of Tragedy, selections from Zarathustra. (Go buy the book –or get it out of the library. You will need the Walter Kaufmann translation.)

Nietzsche reading assignment and A. R. P. assignment

Discussion of Nietzsche.

Wednesday

Read: Freud, Kafka in the Reader

Read: Text Chapter 20 “The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism”

Week Sixteen 5/2-5/4

The Twentieth Century

Monday

Read: Text Chapter 21, “The Age of Anxiety and Beyond”

Read: Sartre selections in 20th Century Philosophy

Reading Notes on Sartre

A.R.P. # 12 due

 

Wednesday

Read: Selections from Woolf, Joyce, and Simone de Beauvoir in the Reader

Discussion of reading selections and art

Study Guide for the 4th Exam

Notes about finishing the seminar

Final Exam Questions

Saturday Field Trip!

Meet at the front steps of the Art Institute at 10:00 AM sharp.

Week Seventeen 5/9-5/11

Reflections on Western Culture

 Monday

4th Exam

General Reflections on “What It All Means.”

Read: Selections from James Baldwin and Malcolm X/Alex Haley in the Reader
 

 Wednesday

Final Exam

  Friday Honors Banquet