HY 104--
Culture, Society, and History

 

 

 

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Schedule of class discussions and assignments


COURSE DESCRIPTION AND REQUIREMENTS

This course has been designed toward three principal curricular goals.  First, it is an option for the College's First Course, the initial two-block academic element in the First-Year Experience.  Further, it offers students the opportunity to fulfill Colorado College's Alternative Perspectives: C (either Western or non-Western studies) requirement.  Finally, it presents the student with particular interest in the past with one of several possible pathways into the History major.

The fall 2001 version Culture, Society, and History will pose four fundamental questions in the development of world civilizations:

In offering students the materials to respond to these questions, the course will address the general shape of European and East Asian civilizations from antiquity to the twentieth century. Rather than survey these broad culture areas chronologically, however, its readings and discussions will begin with twentieth-century circumstances and recur to ancient origins to discern intracultural development and continuity as well as intercultural likeness and difference.

All students will be expected to complete readings before the discussion for which they are assigned, to participate actively in large-group sessions and electronic conversation, and to complete written work and oral presentations in a thoughtful and timely fashion. Discussion and lecture topics suggest themes for each class meeting; awareness of these themes will encourage students to read critically, and to come to each meeting ready to share individual impressions and interpretations.  Numerous electronic journaling assignments throughout the two blocks will offer the opportunity for writing practice and continue discussion outside the classroom.  During Block 1, two short (five-page) critical essays on common questions will encourage the development of skills in writing and revision.  A longer (ten-page) multi-source-based paper on individual topics in historical material culture will enhance library and electronic research capabilities; its in-class presentation will require Powerpoint usage and clear oral presentation.  Finally, a take-home essay exam will enable students' synthesis of the variety of course materials and experiences.

ASSESSMENT

Successful work in this course presumes regular attendance and participation.

BOOKS FOR PURCHASE

The following works are available for purchase in the College bookstore.  All represent useful elements in the permanent library of an educated individual, but they form a costly package.  The instructors will be sympathetic to students' sharing of materials, but urge that each member of the class own his/her own photocopied course packet.
Silone, Abruzzo Trilogy    
Chen, Dragon's Village
Plato, Last Days of Socrates
Mencius
 Tacitus, Agricola and the Germania
Sima Qian, Historical Records
Song of Roland
Davis, Return of Martin Guerre
Spence, Death of Woman Wang
Voltaire, Candide
Shen Fu, Six Records of a Floating Life
Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto

Added Mattingly, Armada

Added Huang, Year of No Significance

PHOTOCOPIED READINGS AND HANDOUTS

The following texts are available for purchase in the College bookstore in a single packet.  A few further photocopied items will be distributed in class.

         Huntington, "Clash of Civilizations?"
         Rosecrance, review of Huntingdon
         Chinese Legalist texts (excerpt)
         Three Kingdoms (excerpt)
         Suger, Memoirs of the Abbot Suger (excerpt) 
         Chu Hsi's family rituals (excerpt)     
         Petrarch, "Ascent of Mont Ventoux"
         Mao, comments on peasant life (excerpt)


SCHEDULE OF CLASS DISCUSSIONS AND READING ASSIGNMENTS

Class sessions will be at 9:30 in Palmer 223 unless otherwise announced.  Instructors will announce and post individual office hours.  All assignments are for entire published works or photocopied excerpts unless sections or page numbers are specified in class.

BLOCK 1

Week 1 (September 3)
Monday
    Discussion: Outline of themes and introduction to tools
    Brief meeting after Convocation (10:30)
            Introductions and syllabus
    Additional afternoon session (1:00)
            Reading: Huntington and Rosecrance

Tuesday
    Discussion: Beginning at the end--the twentieth century in Europe
            Reading: begin Silone, Fontamara (about 80 pp.) 
    Additional afternoon session (1:00, Palmer 20): 
            Using electronic journaling (with technology specialist Marla Gerein)

FROM THIS POINT, ELECTRONIC JOURNALING WILL BE A CONTINUING RESPONSIBILITY OF ALL CLASS PARTICIPANTS, AND AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT IN ASSESSMENT.  
Wednesday
    Discussion: Family, village, politics, religion
            Reading: complete Silone, Fontamara
    Additional afternoon session (1:00):
            Film: Christ Stopped at Eboli

Thursday
    Discussion: Beginning at the end: the twentieth century in China
            Reading: begin Chen, Dragon's Village (to p. 117)
    Additional afternoon session (1:00):
            Using library resources (with librarian Krystyna Mrozek, beginning in classroom)
    Evening e-journaling assignment due posted by 8 AM Friday:

What fundamental differences between European and Asian cultures emerge from Silone's and Chen's portrayals of mid-twentieth century villages riven by social and political change?  Are these representations historically meaningful?

Friday
    Discussion: Family, village, politics, religion--again
             Reading: complete Chen, Dragon's Village (skip through pp. 95-202, read on closely to end)

Week 2 (September 10)
Monday
    Discussion: The citizen in the ancient Mediterranean world
            Reading: Plato, Apology, in Death of Socrates
    Evening e-journaling assignment due posted by 8 AM Tuesday:

Does Socrates make you angry?  Are you in this sense like or unlike the Athenians?  Why?

Tuesday
    Discussion: The polis in ancient Greece
            Reading: Plato, Crito, in Death of Socrates

Wednesday
    Discussion: Moral polity and the role of the Chinese sage
            Reading: Mencius (introduction and books 1A, 2A, 4 A/B, and 6A)
    Evening e-journaling assignment due posted by 8 AM Thursday:

Does Mencius make more sense to you than Socrates?  To whom do you feel closer, the Athenian or the ancient Chinese?

Thursday
    Discussion: Critique of ancient Confucianism
            Reading: Legalist texts in photocopied packet
    Special evening session (6:00): dinner at Carol Neel's home, reprise of this weeks' discussions

Friday
    No class meeting: extended office hours for writing assistance


Week 3 (September 17)
Monday
    Lecture: Ancient Empires
    First hard-copy writing assignment due:

Make an argument (about 5 pages) comparing Plato's and Mencius' visions of the appropriate role of the thinking person in civic life.

Tuesday
    Discussion: Roman virtue and a Roman world
            Reading: Agricola    

Wednesday
    Discussion: The Chinese leader and his emperor 

Reading: Sima Qian (introduction, "Birth of the First Emperor," "Biography of the Chief Minister   of  Qin")
Evening e-journaling assignment due posted by 8 AM:

What should we (in this course) talk about that we haven't?

Thursday
    Discussion: Building toward heaven
            Reading: Suger (in photocopied packet); begin Song of Roland
    Afternoon session (1 PM)
            Film: Monty Python and the Holy Grail
    Evening e-journaling assignment due posted by 8 AM:

Why is Monty Python funny and Roland tragic?

Friday
    Discussion: Fighting for heaven
             Reading: complete Song of Roland
    

Week 4 (September 24)
Monday
    Discussion: Only earth
            Reading: Three Kingdoms (in photocopied packet, skipping through pp. 196-242)

Tuesday
    Lecture: Medieval worlds
     Second hard-copy writing assignment due 3 PM: 

Choose one Western and one Chinese hero or villain from among the primary texts (excluding Plato and Mencius) we have read together.  Compare them.  What do they show us about differences between ancient or medieval Chinese and Western senses of order, goodness, and beauty, as they are represented in these visions of good and evil?   

Wednesday
    Informal brunch session at Carol Neel's home (9 AM):
    Discussion: Reading and seeing the deep past

 

BLOCK 2


SYLLABUS TO BE CONSTRUCTED
 

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last updated: 9/4/01