CULTURES and TRADITIONS: Spring Semester 1999

[Underlined readings contain internet links]

 Date

 Day

 Topic

Part I: The Enlightenment: Reason and Individuality
 Jan 13
 W

LECTURE: The Enlightenment (Melissa Butler)

 15
 F

Immanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment? [Readings Book B]

 18
 M

John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (selections) [Readings
Book C]

20
W

"Declaration of Independence," "Bill of Rights," and the "Declaration of the Rights of Man." [Readings Book D]

22
F

 Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (selections) [Readings Book E]

25
M

Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Human Mind (selections) and David Hume, "Of Miracles" (selections) [Readings Book F]

 27
W

Romantic Prose and Poetry [Readings Book G]

29
F

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (selections) [Readings Book H]

 Part II: The Enlightenment: Criticism and Crisis
Feb 1
M

LECTURE: Extensions and Excesses of the Enlightenment Dream (Cheryl Hughes)

 3
W

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments," and "The Solitude of Self" [Readings Book I]

 5
F

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, and The Communist Manifesto (selections) [Readings Book J]

 8
M

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: First Part, The Gay Science, and "On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense" (selections) [Readings Book K]

 10
W

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents (selections)

 12
F

LECTURE: Crisis of the Enlightenment: The Holocaust (Stephen Webb)

15
 M

 Jewish Life in Pre-War Europe. Stories: I. L. Peretz, "The Golem"; Sholem Asch, "Kola Street"; Isaac Bashevis Singer, "Gimpel the Fool"; Photographs from Roman Vishniac, A Vanished World (slides) [Readings Book L]

 17
W

Holocaust Poetry, and Elie Wiesel "A Prayer for the Days of Awe" [Readings
Book M]

 17, 18
W, Th

VIDEO: Alain Resnais, Night and Fog (1955), 30 minutes. Shown both days at 4 and 7 in Korb Classroom

 19
F

Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, Chapters 1-3, and Night and Fog (discussion)

22
M

 Levi, Chapters 4-5

24
W

United Nations "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" [Readings Book N]

 Part III: Science and the Legacy of the Enlightenment
26
F

 LECTURE: Discovery, Innovation, and Risk (Scott Feller)

Mar 1
M

Edward O. Wilson, Consilience (selections) [Readings Book O]

3
W

Peter B. Medawar, The Limits of Science (selections) [Readings Book P]

5
F

Discussion: Thinking about the Enlightenment

 Spring Break 7-15 March

 Part IV: The African American Experience
15
M

LECTURE: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Dream Deferred (Peter Frederick)

17
W

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

19
F

Booker T. Washington, "Atlanta Exposition Address" [Readings Book Q] and W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Chapter 3

22
M

W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Chapters 1, 11, 13

24
W

LECTURE: Music and Art from the Harlem Renaissance (Joy Castro and Trevor Weston)

26
F

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (selections), and selected poems by Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes [Readings Book R]

29
M

LECTURE: Malcolm, Martin, and the Black Religious Experience (Michael Brown)

29, 30
M, Tu

VIDEO: Eyes on the Prize (1986), 1 hour and 30 minutes. Shown both days at 4:00 and 7:00 P.M. in Korb

31
W

Eyes on the Prize (discussion)

Apr 2
F

The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chapters 1-3, 7, 9-11

5
M

The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chapters 13-14, 17, 19, pp. 419-39 of Epilogue

7
W

Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail" [Readings Book S]

7, 8
W, Th

VIDEO: George T. Nierenberg, Say Amen, Somebody (1983), Shown both days at 4:00 and 7:00 P.M. in Korb classroom

9
F

Alice Walker, "The Welcome Table," James Cone, God of the Oppressed (selections) [Readings Book T], and Say Amen, Somebody (discussion)

12
M

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Colored People (selections) [Readings Book U]

Part V: Thinking about Culture
14
W

Lecture: What is Culture? (William Placher and Raymond Williams)

16
F

E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Magic, Witchcraft, and Oracles among the Azande (selections) [Readings Book V]

19
M

Margaret Mead, Coming of Age in Samoa (selections) [Readings Book W]

21
W

Clifford Geertz: "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight" [Readings Book X]

21, 22
W, Th

VIDEO: "Deep Play" at Wabash (1998), 60 minutes. Shown both days at 4:00 and 7:00 P.M. in Korb

23
F

Elihu Baldwin, "Inaugural Address" [Readings Book Y]; "Deep Play" at Wabash (discussion)

26
M

Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (selections) [Readings Book Z]

28
W

Martha Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity (selections) [Readings Book AA]

30
F

Discussion & Recapitulation