HRS 105 Approaches to the Humanities Tuesday/Thursday 3:00-4:15 MND 1024 Professor V. Shinbrot Office: 2014 Mendocino Hall Office Hours: Tues.4:20-6:20, Thurs. 4:20-5:20 Email: vshinbrot@csus.edu Please Note: I will send updates, essay prompts, etc. to you via your saclink email. Please be sure that the email address you provided when you registered is current and active. Course Description: An advanced study of interdisciplinary methods applied to the contemporary arts (literature, music, and other modes of humanistic expression). Course Objectives: This course aims to develop a clear understanding and vocabulary of basic stylistic principles and ideas across the disciplines (literature, art, music, history and philosophy) and to enable the student to conduct cross-disciplinary research and analysis. We will focus our study on the idea of transformation and more specifically how notions about the function of art and the role of the artist change throughout Western culture. Additional objectives include: Developing keen analytical skills through close and careful readings of the texts, thoughtful, well-written essays and class discussion. Demonstrating the ability to use and apply a basic vocabulary of terms and principles that refer to the visual arts, literature and philosophy. Identifying and explaining key terms like Romanticism and Expressionism and comparing how these terms apply to the different branches of the arts and humanities and how they vary across national boundaries and historical contexts. Conducting thorough research using the library s vast resources and other media such as slides, power point, recordings etc. to assist in oral and written presentations. Required Texts: The Tempest, Shakespeare All other Readings for the Class have been uploaded to Canvas and listed under week assigned. Please print and bring to class the readings for each class period (except for context readings). We do close readings in class and it is essential that you read beforehand and come to class prepared. Grading and Assignments: Class attendance and participation are essential requirements of the course. Students are expected to come to class prepared with their own questions, ideas, comments and creative input to discuss in an open-minded and stimulating environment. Failure to prepare for or attend class will seriously lower your grade. Departmental Policy states that more than one week of absences from class will
result in the lowering of the student s grade one-half step per each additional absence. Please do not schedule appointments that conflict or coincide with the scheduled meeting time of this class. Leaving early for an appointment will count as an unexcused absence. At the start of class please be sure to turn off all electronic devices including laptops and cell phones. Laptops are not permitted due to the frequency of student misconduct. Sending text messages, answering cell phones, doing other work in class, chatting with neighbors, falling asleep or behaving or speaking in an uncivil or aggressive manner to any member of the class including the instructor, will automatically lower your participation grade by one full grade each time you do so. Engaging in the afore mentioned activities, especially text messaging, will also result in your immediate dismissal from the classroom. Note: If you have a disability and require accommodations, you need to provide disability documentation to SSWD, Lassen Hall 1008; 278-6955. Course Requirements: Reader Responses: 10% Class Participation 10 % Reading Quizzes 10% Exam One: 15% Exam Two: 15 % Essay One: 20% Essay Two: 20% NB: No make-up exams will be given. Failure to attend class will result in an F for the exam barring exemptions made by the instructor. Reader Response Papers: In 1-2 paragraphs of clearly written close textual analysis, discuss a key idea in a specific passage of the assigned reading. Absolutely no late papers accepted. Plagiarism: Should you plagiarize intentionally or unintentionally regulations require that the assignment receive the grade of F and that the matter be referred to Student Affairs for further disciplinary action. Please bring relevant assigned readings to each class meeting. Assignments must be completed by the date listed on the syllabus. This syllabus may be subject to change as the semester proceeds. Week One: Tuesday, August 27th Thursday, August 29th Introduction to the Course Please bring paper for pop quizzes to every class meeting Read Selected contextual Essays on Classical Antiquity. Also read, print and bring to class excerpts from Hesiod s Theogony and Ovid s Orpheus and Pygmalion Week Two: Tuesday, Sept. 4th Continue discussion of Ovid. Read, print and bring to class excerpts from Plato s Republic
and Ion and selection from Plotinus. Thursday, Sept. 6th Week Three: Tuesday, Sept. 11th Thursday, Sept. 13th Introduction to Renaissance. Read context essays and read, print and bring to class selections from Alberti and Da Vinci in Reader. Response Paper 1 Due to Canvas by 3:00 p.m. The Renaissance/Reformation. Read and bring to class The Tempest Acts I-II Also go to British Library link and read: https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/keyfeatures-of-renaissance-culture Read and bring to class The Tempest Acts III- V. Also go to British library and read Butler essay The Tempest and the Literature of Wonder at https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/thetempest-and-the-literature-of-wonder Week Four: Tuesday, Sept. 18th Thursday, Sept. 20th Tuesday, Sept. 25th Thursday, Sept. 27th The Tempest continued. Please go to British Library website and read Postcolonial Readings of The Tempest by Jyotsna Singh at https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/postcolonial-reading-of-the-tempest The Tempest concluded Response Two Due to Canvas by 3:00 p.m. Introduction to the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Read, print and bring to class selections from Kant and Schiller, Kleist and Hoffman as well as Blake s The Tyger, and Shelley s Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. Writing Workshop. Please bring 3 copies of the first two pages of your essay to class. Week Six: Tuesday, Oct. 2nd Thursday, Oct. 4th Please read, print and bring to class excerpts of Wordsworth s Preface to the Lyrical Ballads and read Wordsworth s The Solitary Reaper, Keats s Ode to a Nightingale, and Charlotte Smith s poems. Essay One Due to Canvas by 3:00 p.m.
Continue discussion of poems. Week Seven: Tuesday, Oct. 9th Thursday, Oct. 11th Week Eight Tuesday, Oct. 16th Please read, print and bring to class Shelley s Defence of Poetry, Kubla Khan and Byron s Prometheus. The Transcendental Imagination. Read, print and bring to class selections from Emerson and Hawthorne s Artist of the Beautiful. Exam One Thursday, Oct. 18th Week Nine: Tuesday, Oct. 23rd Thursday, Oct. 25th Week Ten: Tuesday, Oct. 30th Thursday, Nov. 1st Intro to The Mid-Nineteenth- Century/Realism/Impression. Please Read context article on Canvas. The Mid-Nineteenth-Century. Please Read, print and bring to class Ruskin s The Stones of Venice and poems by Rossetti and Tennyson. Please read, print and bring to class Baudelaire s The Poet and Modern Life and poems and selections from Wilde. Intro to Modernism. Please read, print and bring to class selections from Nietzsche in Reader and context article on Canvas. Response 3 Due to Canvas Modernism and Modernist Art continued Week Eleven: Tuesday, Nov. 6th Thursday, Nov. 8th Week Twelve: Tuesday, Nov. 13th Modernism Continued. Dada and Café Voltaire. Please read, print and bring to class selections from Tzara s Dada Manifesto and other poems. from V.Woolf, poems by H.D and others Expressionism. Please read, print and bring to class selections from Freud and Kafka s A Hunger Artist.
Thursday, Nov. 15th Week Thirteen: Tuesday, Nov.20th Thursday, Nov. 22nd Week Fourteen: Tuesday, Nov. 27th Thursday, Nov. 29th Week Fifteen: Tuesday, Dec. 4th Thursday, Dec.6th Final: Tuesday December 11 th 3:00-5:00 from Langston Hughes, Baldwin and others. Response 4 Due to turnitin.com T.B.A. Thanksgiving from David Foster Wallace, Baudrillard and others. Read Postmodernism is Dead at https://www.thetls.co.uk/articles/public/postmodernismdead-comes-next/ Please read, print and bring to class Carter s The Loves of Lady Purple Draft Workshop: Please be sure to bring 3 copies of the first two pages of your essay to class. Draft Workshop Essay two Due to Canvas by 3:00 pm.