HON 205: HONORS HUMANITIES I (3 credits) Kopacz and Newhart

SYLLABUS Spring 2005

TR 9:30,11:00 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. 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

Michael L. Morgan, Classics of Moral and Political Theory, third edition (Hackett Publishing, 2001).

Betty Radice, trans. and ed., The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, (Penguin Books).

Shakespeare, King Lear, (Signet Classics, New American Library, 1982).

Sophocles, The Complete Plays, R.C. Jebb, translator, (Bantam Books, 1982).

These books are available in paperback at the university bookstore.

Attendance

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.

Access to your Instructors

Kopacz’s office hours are: MF 10:00-11:00; TR 8:00-9:30

Office: Case Annex 390. Office phone: 622‑3088

E-mail: paula.kopacz@eku.edu

Newhart’s office hours are: MWF 12:20-1:10; TH 12:30-1:45

Office: Case Annex 257. Office phone: 622-2574

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 exams. The final 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 paper on issues related to the first unit of the course (Ancient Greece). The paper should be a 5-6 page (1200-1400 word) essay on a topic either selected from the list we provide or devised by yourself and approved by your instructors. The whole paper process will involve 150 points. 40 of these points will be awarded for “good faith” efforts in producing your proposal and rough drafts and discussing them with an instructor. Another 10 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.

You will also be asked to participate with two or three other students in a group presentation. You will choose a presentation topic from a list provided or may generate your own with professors’ approval. The topic must deal with some issue related to the Middle Ages or Renaissance.

Finally, there will be 10 required 1-2 page reading responses each worth at most 5 points. All of these assignments will be related to the assigned readings. 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
Paper	150	150
Reading Response Papers	5	50
Group Presentation	100	100

You may also earn 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. 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.

The first in-class exam will be graded and returned before mid-term.

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

(CMPT = Classics of Moral and Political Theory. HO = Handout)

Date	Reading Assignment	Exams and Papers
January 11	Introduction to course and each other
January 13	Sophocles, Oedipus the King
January 18	Sophocles, Oedipus the King
January 20	Sophocles, Oedipus the King
January 25	Aristotle, CMPT, 195-205
January 27	Aristotle, CMPT, 205-224
February 1	Aristotle, CMPT, 224-235
February 3		Exam 1
February 8	Plato, CMPT, 5-17
February 10	Plato, CMPT, 18-27	Paper proposal due
February 15	Plato, CMPT, 18-27 cont.
February 17	Sophocles, Antigone
February 22	Sophocles, Antigone
February 24		Exam 2
March 1	Early Islam: Al Farabi (HO)	Paper rough draft due
March 3	Early Islam: Al Gazali (HO)
March 15	Early Islam: Rumi (HO)
March 17	Abelard (HO)
March 22	Heloise & Abelard
March 24	Heloise & Abelard	Paper final draft due
March 29		Exam 3
March 31	Hobbes, CMPT, 531-538
April 5	Hobbes, CMPT, 538-544
April 7	Finish Hobbes, begin King Lear
April 12	King Lear
April 14	King Lear
April 19	King Lear
April 21	Group Presentations
April 26	Group Presentations
April 28	General Review
May 3 (9:30 class) 8:00 a.m.		Final Exam
May 5 (11:00 class) 10:30 a.m.		Final Exam