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There
is a lot of reading for this course, and a lot of writing, as it fulfills a Gordon
Rule requirement. The rough rule for college courses is that you spend 3
hours of study outside of class for every hour in class; for the typical
3-credit course, that means about 9 hours of "home" work per week.
So, for this online course during the regular school year, you should be
prepared to devote at least 12 hours a week to it. For a summer semester, the
pace is twice as fast: thus this Summer semester 2008 you should be devoting
at least 15 hours a week to the course.
You should not be registered for it if you have not taken
ENC 1101 and ENC 1102 or their equivalent! You will NOT be able to meet the
essay-writing demands without having the competence required for ENC 1101 and
ENC 1102.
If the WebCT/FIU Online system
crashes, you can find this syllabus and the course calendar at www.fiu.edu/~harveyb,
via the link at the top of that page.
Prof. Bruce A. Harvey, Director of FIU's
Humanities Program at the Biscayne Bay Campus, has designed the content and
structure.
I’m Jeremy Rowan, a professor in the History
department at the University Park Campus, and am in charge of student
interaction, assessing exams and papers, and administering this course in
general. All questions pertaining to course matters should be directed to me
through the WebCT email module.
If you need to discuss course matters in person, visit me
during my University Park Campus office hours listed below. Please email me
to specify a time.
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Instructor:
Jeremy Rowan,
Ph.D.
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Course
Design Professor:
Bruce A. Harvey
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Office: DM 399 University Park Campus
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Office:
AC1 378 Biscayne Bay Campus
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Office
Hours: by
appointment
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Office
Hours: by
appointment
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Phone: (305) 348-4791
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Phone:
(305) 919-5254
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E-mail: rowanj@fiu.edu
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Fax:
(305) 919-5734
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E-mail:
harveyb@fiu.edu
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Welcome to Online HUM
3306:
History of Ideas, from the Age of Enlightenment to the Age of Anxiety!
I have high ambitions for
what you will obtain from enrolling in HUM 3306. Many of you will have signed
up with the notion that you're just completing an FIU requirement, but I hope
that by the time you conclude the class you will have opened your minds and
hearts to fascinating realms of human inquiry as expressed in the works
you'll be reading. Ideally, how you see the world, and your identity within
that world, will be richly and complexly transformed.
The readings will span political philosophy, economic theory, biology and psychology,
as well as fiction and poetry.
We'll be tracking a set of key issues and themes: the confident emergence in
the 17th & 18th century (called the "Age of Reason" or the
"Age of Enlightenment") of a non-dogmatic, rational approach to
social problems and nature's mysteries; the struggle in the 19th century to
maximize individuality and interiority (the "Romantic Era") in the
face of widespread economic alienation (the "Industrial Age") and
de-humancentric discoveries such as Darwinian
evolution; and finally, in the 20th century, the persuasive sense of
unease--whether from global conflict, the loss of local community, or
philosophical angst.
This course primarily studies European intellectual history, but there
remains an entire globe of cultures extending beyond that which has developed
in the West. And so you are encouraged, once you have taken this course, to
take others in the Humanities Program or elsewhere at FIU (either online or
classroom-oriented) that will round out your interests in and understanding
of other, diverse cultural traditions.
I look forward to an intellectually exciting semester with you!
--Yours, Dr. Jeremy Rowan
- To increase your knowledge
about key thinkers of the post-Renaissance (16th-century) Western world
and their historical contexts.
- To help you understand their
significance to our contemporary moment.
- To improve your ability to
analyze and reflect critically on sophisticated, complex texts.
- To develop your skill and
pleasure in communicating ideas via effective, mature prose.
- To develop your ability to
use critically, in analytical argumentation, secondary materials as they
relate to primary materials.
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MAJOR
& CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES TARGETED
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This course satisfies one
of FIU's University Core Curriculum
"Humanities with Writing" requirements. As a 3000-level HUM course,
it also serves as an elective for the Humanities Major and may satisfy elective
requirements for other majors. Contact Prof. Harvey if you have a
question.
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TEXTBOOKS
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You
must use the editions specified, as assignments and review notes will be
keyed to their page numbers. Click on the author names or book covers to get
additional publisher information.
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The Second Treatise of Government,
John Locke,
Dover Publications; New Ed edition, August 2002,
ISBN: 0486424642
This is the social-political text that all the Founding Fathers read
before devising the U.S.
Constitution.
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The Life of Olaudah Equiano,
Olaudah Equiano,
Dover Publications, January 1999,
ISBN: 048640661X
A marvelous account of one African’s journey from idyllic
childhood, through the horrific Middle Passage, to the U.S. and England. Equiano’s
story asks: what does it mean to the “self” when the self is
defined in economic terms?
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Frankenstein,
Mary Shelley,
Pocket; Reissue edition, April 27, 2004,
ISBN: 0743487583
A classic monster story, critiquing
techno-obsessions.
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The Communist Manifesto,
Karl Marx,
Oxford University Press, USA;
New Ed edition, July 1998,
ISBN: 0192834371
Karl said, “Workers of the world, unite!” In these days of huge profits for
Big Oil, his ideas are provocative.
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The Origin of Species,
Charles Darwin,
W. W. Norton & Company; 2nd Abridged edition, February 2002,
ISBN: 0393978672
You may (or may not) be persuaded that
we are descended from monkeys after reading what Darwin wrote in his
seminal, iconoclastic scientific volume.
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Civilization and its Discontents,
Sigmund Freud,
W. W. Norton & Company; Reissue edition, July 1989,
ISBN:0393301583
Another revolutionary thinker who gave
a blow to our self-satisfaction by revealing we are not in control of
ourselves as much as we may think.
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You do not need to bring
to this course previously-gained historical or literary or philosophic
knowledge, but it will demand strong intellectual commitment. Also, as the
course is a 3000-level one, it assumes mastery of skills learned in ENC 1101
and 1102 (the Freshman Composition sequence).
You will NOT be able to meet the essay-writing
demands without having the competence required for ENC 1101 and ENC 1102.
For more information
about prerequisites, click here.
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COMMUNICATING
WITH THE INSTRUCTOR
&
BEING IN DIALOGUE WITH YOUR ONLINE CLASSMATES
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·
Instructor E-mail and phone: For routine course
questions email me, Jeremy Rowan, via the course's WebCT
email module. I will usually respond within 2 days. Essay feedback will take
between 7-10 days. For unusual/emergency situations, you may use my FIU email
address, jeremy.rowan @fiu.edu or call or leave a
message on my office phone #, 305-348-4791.
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Instructor
Conferences: I will always be happy
to meet with you during office hours (listed above) to talk more about the
readings, assignments, or other course matters. It's best if you email me
beforehand to specify a time.
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Class
E-mail: The WebCT email module allows you to
contact other students taking the course, and you should feel free to do so.
But please respect privacy issues--do not divulge inappropriate private
matters and do not solicit others to do so.
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Discussion
Forum: The discussion forum--a WebCT module--will
be divided into 2 forum areas: the Academic Forum, a mandatory part of the
course in which you respond to and discuss question cues or topics pertinent
to the intellectual issues in our authors and texts, posed by me or your
classmates; and the General Forum, where you can post questions or topics
about online learning and the online management of this specific course,
questions about an assignment if you don’t understand it, or questions
about the meaning of being a student, having a career, and etc. See below
under "Assignments" for instructions on the Academic Forum.
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Course Requirements
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Weights
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Academic
Discussion Forum
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25%
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Essay
#1
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25%
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Essay
#2
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25%
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Final
Essay Exam
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25%
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Total
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100%
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Incompletes: University
policy is that these can only be given in the case of a health or family
emergency, and only one outstanding assignment is allowed to permit the
incomplete being granted.
Late Submissions: Late essays will be accepted only under
extraordinary, documented emergencies. Otherwise, for every day late,
an essay will be docked a notch (i.e., B to B-).
Academic
Forum:
This is crucial to making the online learning experience match the benefits
of a “real” classroom. It is designed to provide for relatively
uninhibited student interaction and, at the same time, to give you a chance
to convey your understanding of the material and your being on
"top" of it on a weekly basis.
You should participate/contribute in respect to each of our major authors or
texts, but you should avoid looking upon the Academic Forum as merely busy
work. Rather, imagine the spontaneous dialogue during discussion in a
traditional classroom. Discussion cues occasionally will be provided by me,
but you should also post initiating topics that especially interest you
and/or respond to other students that have initiated topics.
Online courses require academic maturity: you are being asked to show real
engagement with the materials, from the beginning to the end of the
semester. Very roughly: a total of 1500 words
(equivalent to 6 pages double-spaced) for the entire semester would indicate
active involvement, but each of you will have a different style--some
of you will post long meditative paragraphs, others will offer more
quick-fire insights, and still others will have sidebar discussions with
another student or two, etc.
Your Academic Forum participation grade will be worth 25% of the total course
grade. Although a "grading curve" mode of grading is not
mechanically used, you should take note of the responses from your peers.
Those who respond routinely, with more than several sentences here or several
sentences there, and show true insight into the course materials (and write
solid, error-free prose!) should provide you with an "A" zone
example of Academic Forum participation. Those who do not respond to all our
major authors, or respond in a sometimes perfunctory, non-insightful way,
will be in the "B" or lower zone. Sporadic responses will put you
in the "C" or "D" zone; etc.
Your grade for this component of the course will be assessed at the end of
the semester. Should you want to know how you are doing before that, however,
feel free to email me. If you request an assessment, you should provide a
cut-&-pasted document of your significant responses; you are required to
submit such at the end of the semester, regardless.
Decent grammar, proper sentence construction and punctuation, and so on are
expected. Avoid "getting personal"; and please treat others in the
forum as you would wish to be treated!
The Academic Forum will have 5-7 primary discussion groups, divided according
to your last name (A-D, E-I, J-M, N-Q, R-Z, for example), depending on the
number of students enrolled. Please stick to your group and work hard to make
conversation/discussion engaging and intellectually productive. Note: use
common sense in deciding whether to initiate a new
discussion-“tree” or keep your topics/replies under an
already-established discussion-“tree.” It is important to have a
good balance between topics and replies; otherwise the Discussion Forum will
become too unruly.
Please
routinely cut-and-paste your dated substantial contributions to the Academic
Forum into a "Word" file. You will be asked to submit this at the
end of the semester so that the totality of your contributions can be
accurately assessed. PLEASE READ THE LAST TWO SENTENCES AGAIN!
Papers: I will give guidelines for the two essays as the semester
progresses, in the right column of the class calendar. The first essay will
be about five pages long, research-free; the second essay will be about eight
pages long, and will require you to consult several provided
secondary/research sources.
Students who get very low grades on their first paper may be asked to use the
FIU Learning Center
resources, which would require, potentially, several trips to either the BBC
or the UP campus.
Papers will be submitted through the "Turnitin"
site, which has a link on this course's main online menu.
Final Exam: This will be a comprehensive essay, requiring you to
demonstrate your synthesis of all the course materials. It will consist of
one or several questions, and be given about a week before the submission
date, which will be August 11.
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ACADEMIC
MISCONDUCT POLICY
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By taking this online course, you promise to adhere to FIU’s
Student Code of Academic Integrity. For details on the policy and procedures
go to ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT
(Section 2.44)
Intensive auditing of the course via “Turnitin”
will be conducted to prevent academic misconduct. It is very easy to detect
plagiarism: SO DON'T DO IT: YOU WILL BE CAUGHT!!! And, when you are caught,
the consequences will be severe, such as getting an "F" in the
course or worse.
If you are tempted to plagiarize out of desperation to get an
assignment in on time, DON'T DO IT; talk to your professor first, in this
class and other classes.
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EXPECTATION
OF THIS COURSE
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This
is a fully online course, meaning that all course work (100%) will be
conducted online. Expectations for performance in fully online courses are
the same as for traditional courses; in fact, fully online courses require a
degree of self-motivation, self-discipline, and technology skills that can
make them more demanding for some students.
Tips for Success in your online course, click here.
Online Etiquette, click here.
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Assignments due
dates are given in the right column.
Prof = lectures notes. These also
will often have imbedded within them
E-texts which are additional primary texts or artwork or links to material
at other websites, which you should print out so that you can read and
study them.
All E-texts are required reading. The E-texts are also linked separately on
the calendar (i.e. you read the E-texts for a particular week, and then
later review my lecture/review notes that will again reference them).
Prof-NOT
READY =
link is not ready (i.e. lectures not updated from previous semesters yet)
Go = for your curiosity
(these are enhancement materials and websites; not "required")
Instructions = guidelines for papers
or exams
Red text = miscellaneous tips, info.,
and notes as the semester progresses
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Date
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Lectures
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Topic &
Readings
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Assignment Due
& Instructions
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Week 1:
June 25 - June 27
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Prof: Scientific Revolution & Protestant Revolution
Prof:
Enlightenment
Prof: Locke
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Before the Enlightenment: The Scientific Revolution and the
Protestant Reformation
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E-text: Great Chain of Being "Wiki"
article & illustration
E-text--Encarta: Scientific Revolution
E-text--Encarta: Reformation
E-text--Encarta: Enlightenment
CLICK
THE "Prof...." LINKS TO THE LEFT FOR MY LECTURE REVIEWS. YOU
SHOULD LOOK AT MY LECTURE SUMMARIES BEFORE, DURING, AND/OR AFTER YOU READ
OUR MAIN AUTHORS (IT'S UP TO YOU, ACCORDING TO YOUR LEARNING STYLE). WITHIN
THE LECTURES ARE LINKS TO E-TEXTS; THE E-TEXTS, FOR CLARITY, ARE ALSO
ALWAYS SEPARATED OUT AND GIVEN DIRECTLY, AS ABOVE. THE E-TEXTS ARE
MANDATORY READING.
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The Enlightenment I: Putting Nature in the Encyclopedia
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E-text: Charles W. Peale painting and Ben Franklin
perfection chart
E-text: Linnaeus website (read 1st several paragraphs,
and "Linnaen taxonomy" sections)
E-text: Scientific Revolution
Critique
E-text: Diderot
Enlightenment Encyclopedia table of contents image
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The Enlightenment II: Possessive Selfhood, Civil and Political
Rights, and the Delights of Property
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Locke, Second Treatise:
Editor’s note & Chapters I-V, VI (sections 54-58, 60, 70-76), VII
(sections 77, 87-91), VIII (sections 95-101, 115-22), IX, X, XVIII (199,
203, 204, 207-210) & XIX (211-212, 219-230, 240-243
Should
the FIU bookstore run out of copies of Locke's book, a tidy version may be
found at the link below. Please buy the ordered book, however, if you can.
http://www.liberty1.org/2dtreat.htm#1CHAP
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Week 2:
June 30 - July 4
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Prof: Equiano
Prof:
Enlightenment Big Trends Revisited
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The Enlightenment III: Skepticism, Critique, & the
Advancement of Freedom
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Equiano, The Life of...: Editor’s
Note or Introduction (not the Preface written by Equiano
himself!!!); Chapters I-III, IV (first several pages), V, VII-VIII, X-XI,
XII (first several pages; last several pages), & Preface (Preface only
makes sense after you've read the narrative)
Be
sure to read Chapter I, II, etc., not just the sections within the
chapters, which are also numbered I, II, etc.
E-text: Equiano--click on
several (not all!) of the "next" buttons for the historical
context of Equiano's narrative
E-text: a summary of the intriguing
"fabrication" issue of the early chapters of Equiano's
narrative
Read the Paine and Wollstonecraft biographies below. Then sample their
writings in the next two e-texts.
E-text: Tom Paine--biography
E-text: Wollstonecraft--biography
E-text: Tom Paine--sample his
writing
E-text: Wollstonecraft--sample her writing (click on
any of the chapters in the link; you don't need to read all)
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Week 3:
July 7- July 11
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Prof:
Romanticism
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Bourgeois Spaces and the Sublime: The Romantic Rebellion &
the Discovery of Interiority
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E-text: Rousseau
E-text: W. Blake--Biography (just quickly note the
illustration of Issac Newton on left 1/3rd down!)
E-text: J. Keats--biography (read the "Life"
part after opening paragraph)
E-text: Romantic Era Poems
Shelley, Frankenstein
Get started on this novel over the weekend (after you turn in your
essay), and finish it next week. Read the editor's introduction &
chronologies (vii-xxi) before reading the novel. The editor's introduction
provides a very tidy cultural history of the shift from the Enlightenment
to Romantic periods.
Remember to contribute
to the Academic Forum; and remember to cut-and-paste your substantial
postings in an accumulating file, which you will turn in at the end of the semester!
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Instructions:
For Essay Due July 11 by Midnight
Sample Paper:
For Essay# 1
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Week 4:
July 14 - July 18
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Shelley,
Frankenstein
Read the bulk of the novel this week.
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Week 5:
July 21 - July 25
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Prof: Realism
Prof: Darwin
Prof: Marx
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Bourgeois Spaces and the City: The Rise of Realism
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Revolutionary Thinkers I: Rewriting the History of Nature
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Darwin, Origin of Species:
Editor’s Intro. (sections 1, 2, 3, & 5), Darwin’s
Intro. cut, Chapters I-III, Chapter IV (46-53top, 61bottom-65top,
72bottom-74), Chapter VI cut, & Chapter XIV (115bottom-121)
It is absolutely crucial
that you read the edition ordered for the course; it is a "great
hits" of Darwin's much, much longer treatise.
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Revolutionary Thinkers II: Rewriting the History of Social
Relations
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E-text: Adam Smith
Marx, Communist Manifesto: Read the editor's introduction; and then
Parts 1 (Bourgeois and Proletarians), 2 (Proletarians and Communists),
& 4 (Position of the Communists...).
Please note: there aren't
many pages to read in the E-text or Communist Manifesto, but they
are dense and will require coordinating with the Prof. lecture to the left.
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Week 6:
July 28 - Aug. 1
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ESSAY
WRITING WEEK
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Instructions:
For Essay#2 Due Aug. 1 by Midnight
SEE FINAL EXAM INSTRUCTIONS
BELOW AT WEEK 7 (EXAM IS DUE AUG. 11)
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Week 7:
Aug 4 - Aug 8
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Prof: Freud
Prof: Big
Summary Thus Far
Prof:
Modernism in Philosophy and Art
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Revolutionary Thinkers III: The Discovery of the Unconscious
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Freud: Civilization and its Discontents:
Chapters 1-VII (not Chapter VIII)
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Modernism: Angst, Aesthetics, and the Abysses of Horror
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There is no ordered text
for this last module. Instead, there are e-texts and links embedded within
this last lecture on "Modernism." Please take extra care so
that you read (and listen!) to everything intended. Thanks.
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The
Discussion Forum compilation is due August 4, by noon, via Turnitin.
Instructions: For Final Exam Due Aug. 11 by Midnight
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Aug 16
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Complete
grade report available to students by web and kiosks.
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