| Core Humanities Seminar: Modern Thought (chs 1001.051) |
||
 link to Writing Center             |
MW 4:30-5:45, Tolentine 427B Scott Black, SAC 427, 610-519-4642 office hours: MW, 1:30-2:20 & 3:30-4:20, and by appointment scott.black@villanova.edu http://www.homepage.villanova.edu/scott.black This course will consider modern thought less as an object of study than as a process to practice. We’ll look at the "modern" as a range of attempts to capture that process of thinking, and as experiments with representing that activity. We’ll start with the assumption that "modern thought" is not something you observe, but rather something you participate in. Because of this, the focus of the class is equally split between reading how others wrestled with these questions (how does thinking work? how is it organized? how is it best represented?), and our own responses to them. Our reading load is light so that we can focus on intensive reading: we’ll be reading in order to write, and writing in order to understand. In this way, we’ll be performing what our readings discuss: how does one know oneself and the world? how does one communicate one’s understanding? how do you listen to others? respond to others? live with others? As these questions indicate, we’ll approach modern thinking as centrally concerned with questions of connection. By practicing skills that allow you to make your own connection to these issues—including close reading, note-taking, informal and formal writing, research, oral presentation, and discussion—we’ll work on developing the habits that will let you to participate in that community of readers and writers whose books we read in order to realize—make and make better—our own communities today. Texts (available in bookstore): Guignon, ed., The Good Life Tom Stoppard, Arcadia Thomas Paine, Common Sense Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion (plus handouts) Requirements: participation (10%), reading journal (10%), short papers (30%), midterm (10%), research project: presentation (15%), paper (15%). (You must pass each part to pass the class.) Participation: This is a discussion class. Come to class prepared to discuss the readings. (To do this, of course, you must come to class: attendance is required). Writing: Because writing well is an integral component of reading well, there will be regular and frequent writing assignments in this class. These will be divided into three levels or stages: First: Reading journal. For each class, please prepare a brief "impressions" entry in a running journal. This should consist of—but is not limited to—your first response to the reading assignments. It could include reactions to the material or extensions of the ideas presented, how they relate to other things you’ve read (in this class or others), or other things you’ve seen ("hey, that’s just like last week’s Buffy!"), heard, or imagined. This is your free form forum: whatever you want to do is fine (within legal limits). It does need, however, to be honestly engaged with the material: "I didn’t like it because I was too lazy to try," for instance, won’t cut it. Saying why you didn’t like it, on the other hand, would. Second: Weekly papers. Every week a brief, one to two-page, paper will be due. These papers are opportunities to develop a single idea into an argument. I will offer you questions to address for each one, but would also be happy to let you address concerns that have evolved from your journals; in fact, I'd prefer to have you develop your own topics. If you do develop your own topic, please run it by me beforehand (either in class, by phone, or email). Every third week, there will be a rewriting assignment: instead of a new paper, you’ll pick one of your earlier papers to revise. (We’ll have in-class editing workshops to get you going on this.) Third: Research project. In the second half of the semester, each of you will do an independent research project on one of the readings. This could include studying the historical and/or cultural background to the material, critical responses to it, the larger theoretical concerns the work participates in, and so on. Topics will be developed individually, in consultation with me. There will be several stages of the project: a proposal, bibliographies, a works-in-progress presentation to the class (so we can all have the benefit of what you’ve learned), and a final paper (5-7 pages) that integrates your research with a reading of the primary material. You may work with a partner on the research project if you like, and do your presentation together; however each person must write his or her own final paper. week of: 1/15 1/22 1/29 2/5 2/12 2/19 2/26 3/12 3/19 3/26 4/2 4/9 4/16 4/23 4/30 |