HON 306: HONORS HUMANITIES II (3 credits) Rich and Newhart

SYLLABUS Fall, 2004

TR 9:30 (11814) 11:00 (11815) Case 162

Purpose

The central goal in this course is to explore some issues that confront anyone who thinks seriously about how to lead his or her life. We will try to meet this goal by studying some great works from philosophy and literature and by engaging in careful thought, discussion and writing ourselves. In order to achieve this goal effectively, we will be trying to promote the development of several skills, (1) some having to do with the reading of philosophic and literary texts, (2) some with the practices of effective thinking and writing, and (3) some with working effectively with other people.

To help with (1) and (2), we will engage in various sorts of classroom activities, group discussions, lectures, etc. The first goal of these activities will be to enhance our ability to use the various resources in the course (the texts we read, the instructors’ and students’ ideas) to help us to think deeply and carefully about how we decide to live our lives. A second goal will be to improve our skills at monitoring and correcting our own practices of thinking. These practices will include both cognitive abilities and non-cognitive abilities as we learn to notice how both logic and emotions (for better or worse) play important roles in our reflection on how we are to live.

The instructors in this course do not have very many plans for you. We do hope that you will not leave this course believing that the only purpose of education is for you to learn to express the views of your teachers. (This would be particularly hard in this course since it is not true that your teachers agree about all intellectual matters.) We also hope that you will not leave here believing that all views about how humans should live their lives are equally reasonable and worthy of approval. We do hope that you will develop habits and skills that will help you examine your own value-judgments more deeply and that you will gain some practice at using these habits and skills to help others think well about their value-judgments. We hope that in this class a spirit of helping each other to think about the issues under discussion will emerge. For in these difficult and important matters we all need all the help we can get.

Disabilities Statement

If you are registered with the Office of Services for Individuals with Disabilities, please make an appointment with the course instructors to discuss any academic accommodations you need. If you need academic accommodations and are not registered with the Office of Services for Individuals with Disabilities, please contact the Office directly either in person on the first floor of Turley House or by telephone at (859)622-1500 V/TTY. Upon individual request, this syllabus can be made available in alternative forms.

Required Texts

Jean Baudrillard, The Ecstasy of Communication (Semiotexte, 1988)

Charles Dickens, Hard Times (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001)

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (W.W. Norton & Co., 1961).

Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler (Dover Publications, 1990)

Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Basic Political Writings (Hackett, 1987).

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Bantam, 1991)

Required Texts cont.

John Troyer, ed. The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill (Hackett, 2003)

These books are available in paperback at the university bookstore.

Attendance and Classroom Expectations

You are expected to attend all classes. If you miss any classes for whatever reason, you are still responsible for anything said or done in class during your absence.

Please come to class having read the assigned material and prepared to engage in an active discussion. Please refrain from carrying on side conversations that are distracting to other class members.

Access to your Instructors

Rich’s office hours are: M 12:30-4:00; T/TH 1:00-2:00 and 3:30-4:00; W 11:30-1:15 and 2:15-4:00

and by appointment.

Office: Case Annex 499. Office phone: 622‑3178. Home phone: 859-260-8530.

E-mail: Charlotte.Rich@eku.edu

Newhart’s office hours are: MWF 1:25-2:15; TH 12:30-1:45 and by appointment.

Office: Case Annex 257. Office phone: 622-2574. Home phone: 626-3054.

E-Mail: Laura.Newhart@eku.edu

Neither instructor wishes to restrict your access to him or her to formal office hours. You should feel free to ask for appointments at other times and to visit them in their offices whenever they happen to be there.

Grading

There will be three in-class essay exams. The final exam, also an essay exam, will have two parts. The first part will be over material from the last unit of the course; the second part will be a traditional final exam type question dealing with various ideas discussed throughout the semester.

You will also be asked to write a term paper. The term paper should be a 7-9 page (1800-2000 word) essay on a topic either selected from the list we provide or devised by yourself and approved by your instructors. The whole term paper process will involve 200 points. 60 of these points will be awarded for “good faith” efforts in producing your proposal and rough drafts and discussing them with an instructor. Another 40 points will be awarded for the way your essay improves from the rough draft to the final draft in response to the suggestions made by that same instructor. Topics for papers will come from the first two units of the course.

Important: Along with your rough draft and your final draft you must submit substantial evidence of your writing process in the form of previous drafts, notes, outlines, etc., or the rough and/or final draft will not be graded.

Late Paper Policy: 5 points will be deducted for each class meeting that that rough draft and final paper are late.

Additionally, groups of 2-3 students will prepare presentations on a topic related to the readings of their choice from the final two units of the course. The presentation should be 10-15 minutes long.

Finally, there will be 10 required 1-2 page reading responses each worth at most 5 points.

Each of these assignments will have the following values in determining your final grade:

Assignment	Value for each item of this type	Total points from this type
In-class exams	100	300
Final Exam	200	200
Term Paper	200	200
Presentation	50	50
Reading Response Papers	5	50

You may earn up to a maximum of 20 extra credit points by completing additional Reading Response Papers of your choice. Each of these will be worth at most 5 points, and there will be at least 10 such opportunities. These will be added to your point total as extra credit points.

Your final grade will be determined on the following scale: 720-800= A, 640-719 = B, 560-639= C,

480-559= D, 0-479= F.

Your midterm grade, which will be made available through Banner shortly before the midpoint of the semester, will be based on your first in-class exam grade.

List of Tentative Due Dates for Readings, Exams, and Papers

(HO = Handout)

Date	Reading Assignment	Exams and Papers
August 26	Introduction
August 31	Kant and Condorcet (HO)
September 2	Rousseau, 1-10
September 7	Rousseau, 10-21
September 9	Shelley, Frankenstein
September 14	Shelley, Frankenstein
September 16	Shelley, Frankenstein
September 21		Exam 1
September 23	Bentham 1-22
September 28	Dickens, Hard Times
September 30	Dickens, Hard Times	Paper proposal due
October 5	Dickens, Hard Times
October 7	Mill 94-127
October 12	No class! Fall Break
October 14		Exam 2
October 19	Ibsen, Hedda Gabler
October 21	Ibsen, Hedda Gabler	Rough draft of paper due
October 26	Freud, 10-52
October 28	Freud, 53-112
November 2	No Class! Election Day
November 4		Exam 3
November 9	Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49	Final draft of paper due
November 11	Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
November 16	Pynchon/ Jameson (HO)
November 18	Baudrillard, 9-27
November 23	Baudrillard, 29-56
November 30	Baudrillard, 97-104	final draft of paper due
December 2	Presentations
December 7	Presentations
December 9	General Review
December 14	9:30 class: 8:00-10:00 11:00 class: 10:30-12:30	Final Exam