Above right are images from medieval manuscripts of two of the most famous intellectuals in the Western tradition, also famous lovers, Heloise and Abelard.  These images interpret the pair's experience differently.  Why so?  Was Heloise and Abelard's relationship chiefly intellectual or erotic?   Did they or other major figures in the cultural and intellectual history of the West have seen the intellectual and the erotic as different or in conflict, as moderns frequently do?  During these two blocks we will  address such interpretive questions to primary sources for the classical, medieval and modern pasts.

HISTORY 105 Civilization  in the West   a First-Year Experience course fulfilling the Critical Perspectives: The West in Time requirement and the entry level of the History major Blocks 1-2, 2005-6

Instructors: Carol Neel, Palmer 233E, phone 389-6527, e-mail cneel@coloradocollege.edu

Office hours Monday and Wednesday 9:30-11:30

                   Bryant Ragan, Palmer 229, phone 389-6534, e-mail bragan@coloradocollege.edu

Office hours Tuesday and Thursday 9:30-11:30

Mentors:     Sarah Matthews, e-mail s_matthews@coloradocollege.edu

                   Sally Elmer, e-mail  sg_elmer@coloradocollege.edu 

Course description and requirements 

This course explores the history of Mediterranean and European peoples.  It poses a central historical question: how did the people of the past construct their individual and community identities? 

Class discussions as well as student writing and presentations will be centered on primary sources--the texts and artifacts left behind by ancients, medievals and moderns.   Films and individual research will suggest the ways in which others of our times have understood prior European cultures, but emphasis here will be for this group--its students and teachers working together--to build a common sense of the Western past from the raw materials of historical literature and documents. An important and distinctive feature of our course will be a commitment to reading whole works; very few common texts will be excerpted or treated in part, and very few sources will be made available electronically or in photocopy form.  As a result, students will need to pace their preparation carefully, looking ahead and getting ahead on longer readings, especially the lengthy modern works assigned toward the end of Block 2.  Most importantly, all class participants will need to read with care and imagination, annotating hard copy of common texts thoughtfully and sharing their perspectives generously. 

This particular iteration of History 105 has the great advantage of bringing together as team-teachers faculty rained in different historical periods.  Carol Neel is a medievalist and Tip Ragan a modernist.  They will share direction of class discussions in general, but students will here have the benefit of the respective instructors' expertise in their presentation of background material and scholarly perspectives on our primary source-centered reading list.  Both faculty members will review and assess all written work; both will be resources for students on all class-related topics.

During the first block, students will be expected to 

• complete readings and research assignments on the days for which they are respectively assigned
• participate actively in in-class discussions
• submit one two-page response paper on a common reading
• draft, then rewrite two  five-page critical essays on common readings
• complete one five-page individual review essay followed by a group oral critique 

During the second block, requirements will include 

• continued reading and participation
• individual or team leadership of at least one class discussion
• one ten-page research essay based on primary research supported by one book-length critical study or three articles in refereed journals
• one group oral examination demanding reconsideration of the materials of both blocks

Evaluation of student work will be based on 

1. group participation (classroom discussion and and project presentations), 
2. critical and research essays, and 
3. written/oral midterm and final.  

All written work must acknowledge Colorado College's Honor Code.  

Reading materials for purchase

The following books are available for purchase in the Colorado College Bookstore.  Many of the texts represented in these editions are available in other translations, but it will be helpful if class members use the same translations so that we can refer to specific pages and passages during our discussions.  If students avail themselves of discounted prices at internet sources, they should be careful to find the editions listed.               

Gilgamesh, trans. Mitchell (Free Press, 2006) ISBN 0743261690

Plato, Last Days of Socrates, trans. Tredennick (Penguin, 2003) ISBN 0140449280

Tacitus, Agricola  and Germania, trans. Handford and Mattingly (Penguin, 1971)  ISBN 0140442413

Augustine, Confessions 1-9, trans. Warner (Signet, 2001) ISBN 0451527801

Beowulf, trans. Heaney (Norton, 2001) ISBN 0393320979

Song of Roland, trans. Sayres (Penguin, 1957) ISBN 0140440755

Clare of Assisi, The Lady, Clare if Assisi: Early Documents (New City, 2006) ISBN 1565482212

Petrarch, My Secret Book (Hesperus, 2003) ISBN 18843910268

Martin Luther, Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, trans. Dillenberger (Anchor, 1958) ISBN 0385098766

Bartolomé de las Casas, Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, trans. Griffin (Penguin, 1999) ISBN 0140445625

Aphra Behn, Oronooko (Penguin,, 1999)  ISBN 0140433384

Lynn Hunt, French Revolution and Human Rights (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1996) ISBN 0312108028

Flora Tristan, Flora Tristan, Utopian Feminist: Her Travel Diaries and Personal Crusade, trans. Beik and Beik (Indiana UP, 1993) ISBN 0253207665

Emile Zola, Ladies’ Paradise, trans. Nelson (Oxford, 1999) ISBN 0192836021

George Orwell, Burmese Days (Harvest/HBJ, 1974) ISBN 0156148501

Milan Kundera, Book of Laughter and Forgetting, trans. Asher (Harper, 1999) ISBN 0060932147

Excerpts from the following further works will be otherwise available:                

Genesis and Matthew, in Revised English Bible (Oxford) (photocopy distributed in class)

Immanuel Kant, "Was ist Aufklärung," http://philosophy.eserver.org/kant/what-is-enlightenment.txt

The following films will be subjects for common discussion;  copies for review will be available from the instructors

Régis Wargnier, Indochine (1992)

Ridley Scott, Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Fred Zinnemann, A Man for All Seasons (1966)

François Truffaut, The Wild Child (1970)

Steven Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan (1999)

Alain Resnais, Night and Fog (1955)

 

Schedule of readings, meetings, written work and presentations

Meeting topics are listed in boldface, special scheduling in red, and dates/topics of papers and presentations in purple.  Students should note that not all reading assignments are of equal length or difficulty.  It is wise to plan carefully for big assignments.

Class meetings will take place at 1 PM unless otherwise noted, and in Palmer 233 unless an alternate location is specified.

BLOCK 1

Week 1 (9/4)

Monday

Discussion: Using the historian's tools

10:30 am--introduction

2:30 pm--film

Screening: Wargnier, Indochine    

Tuesday 

Discussion: Our pasts, others' pasts, deep pasts

Reading: Gilgamesh

Wednesday

Discussion: Inventing beginnings

Reading: Genesis 1-22

1 PM--two-page response paper due: In what sense are the Wargnier film Indochine and the ancient epic Gilgamesh both historical sources?

Thursday

Presentations: Framing individual identity

Reading: Plato, Euthyphro and Apology

Friday

Discussion: Thinking politically

Reading: Plato, Crito and Phaedo

Week 2 (9/11)

Monday 

10 AM--Writing Center session with director Tracy Santa (Tutt Library Learning Commons) 

Discussion: Defining civilization

Reading: Tacitus, Agricola and Germania 

Tuesday 

Discussion:  Imagining heaven

Reading:  Matthew, Augustine bk. 1, prologue

Wednesday 

9 am--individually scheduled appointments to review drafts of Plato papers

3 pm--five-page paper due: What did Socrates consider to be the right relationship between the citizen and the city?

Thursday         

Discussion: Bringing heaven down  

        Reading: Augustine bks. 1-5

Friday 

        Discussion: Knowledge and truth

        Reading: Augustine bks,. 6-9

Sunday

6 PM--dinner and a movie

Screening: Scott, Kingdom of Heaven

Week 3 (9/18)

Monday 

Discussion:  Facing dragons

Reading:  Beowulf

Tuesday                

        Discussion: Facing infidels

         Reading: Song of Roland

Wednesday

        Discussion:  New religion 

Reading: Clare pp. 39-85, 280-329    

Thursday 

9 am--Class meeting

        Discussion:  New humanism

Reading:  Petrarch

Friday 

        WRITING DAY--NO CLASS MEETING

3 PM--five-page paper due 3 PM: Traditional historical writing has argued that medievals and people of the earliest Renaissance constructed their identities less as individuals than do moderns.  In your reading of the texts we have considered together, is this interpretation true?

        Week 4 (9/25)

Monday 

        Discussion: Reading, reform, religion

Reading: Luther, "Introduction to Romans" and "Appeal to the Ruling Class" 

Tuesday

WRITING/EXAM PREPARATION DAY--NO CLASS MEETING, STUDY GROUPS

3 PM--INDIVIDUAL EXAM ESSAYS DUE

Wednesday 

9 am - NOON--GROUP ORAL EXAMS BASED ON ESSAYS

 

BLOCK BREAK

BLOCK 2

Week 1 (10/2)

Monday

9:30 AM--film followed by lunch and discussion

Screening: Zinnemann, Man for All Seasons

 Tuesday

        Discussion:  Encounter and devastation

        Reading:  Las Casas

Wednesday

        10 am--Library research session with Krystyna Mrozek (Tutt Library Reference Desk)

1-3 pm--Individual appointments with instructors on research topics 

Thursday

        Discussion: Sex and race

        Reading: Behn

        7-9 pm--movie 

Film: Truffaut, Wild Child

Friday  

        Discussion: Human nature and human possibility

        Reading: Kant   

Week 2 (10/9)

Monday

        Discussion: Revolution and human rights

        Reading: Hunt

Tuesday 

        Discussion: Social reality and social reform

Reading: Tristan

Wednesday 

        RESEARCH DAY--NO CLASS MEETING

Thursday 

        Discussion: Capitalism and material culture

        Reading: Zola chs. 1-7

Friday

        Discussion: Capitalism and gender

        Reading: Zola to end

Week 3 (10/16)

Monday 

        Discussion: Communist utopianism

        Reading: Zamyatin

Tuesday 

        Discussion: Imperialism and the colonials

        Reading: Orwell

Wednesday

        Discussion: Total war

9:30 am-1:30 pm--two movies and lunch

Screening: Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan; Resnais, Night and Fog 

Thursday  

RESEARCH/WRITING DAY--NO CLASS MEETING

        Friday 

       WRITING/EXAM PREPARATION DAY--NO CLASS MEETING 

Week 4 (10/23)

Monday 

        Discussion: Looking forward

        Reading:  Kundera

Tuesday 

        9 am-12, 1-3 pm--ORAL EXAMINATION

Wednesday 

        10 am--Research paper due 

BRUNCH MEETING AT 2404 CONSTELLATION DRIVE

 

ELECTRONIC RESOURCES

This course's research tools session will introduce students to many web-based collections useful for the preparation of assignments and further exploration.  It will also urge critical techniques for the assessment of WWW sites.  The following solid websites are a beginning to useful web research:

for Mediterranean antiquity--Perseus, at Tufts

for the European Middle Ages--the Labyrinth, at Georgetown

for the modern world--the Modern History Sourcebook, at Fordham