Humanities 202

LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY:

Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Bernard Shaw: Pygmalion (1914)

MUSIC:

Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe:
   My Fair Lady (1956)
The Edwin Hawkins Singers:
   "He'll Be There" (about 1970)
Stephem Foster:
   "I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" (1854)
   (Performance: Jussi Bjoerling, 1955)

PAINTING:

Works of Rogier van der Weyden (1400-1464)
and
Georges de La Tour (1593-1652)

PHILOSOPHY AND DRAMA:

Plato (429 B. C.-347 B. C.): The Apology, trans. Hugh Tredennick in Last Days of Socrates

Aristophanes (450 B. C.-386 B. C.): Clouds, trans. William Arrowsmith in Four Plays by Aristophanes

Goals and objectives:

This course has six official goals. They are listed below in no particular order. The course also has the tacit goals of getting you (1) to read a novel first published almost two-hundred years ago for readers very different from us in mental background and cultural habits, (2) to read a brief philosophic dialogue written so long ago (over 2400 years) that the English language did not yet exist, (3 and 4) to read a early twentieth-century play, that advocates "revolutionary" ideas, and an ancient Greek comedy that advocates "traditional" ideas; (5) to see a small selection of paintings; and (6) to listen to a small selection of musical works.

To gain confidence in reading literary and philosophic texts for concepts, not just for information.

To consider critically the concept of "story."

To see how values can be incorporated into works of art.

To gain greater access to understanding images (paintings and other images, including the images we invent in our imaginations while reading)

To gain greater understanding of the specific artistic and cultural powers of music and to see how these powers are incorporated into everyday activities.

To improve written and oral expression, with special concentration on:

1.  Giving accurate factual accounts (getting facts straight) (Why does Strepsiades want to take Socrates’s course in the 'Wrong Logic'?)

2. Identifying and citing evidence for a claim     

3. Interpreting a passage (What does the author expect you to know after you've read chapter two?)