Course Calendar, HUM 212-14 and 212-17, Spring, 2003
Tues. 1/14 Introduction to the course and the major themes
Unit One: Self
How do we learn who we are or who we want to be? Stories in Unit One dramatize moments when characters learn or test their values. In these readings, we will move from examples of decisive (if not always deliberate) characters to those who, for reasons we will explore, cannot quite decide the course their lives should take.
Thurs. 1/16, Updike, “A & P” and Housman, “Terrence, This Is Stupid Stuff”; Jewett, “A White Heron”;
Tues. 1/21, Mason, “Shiloh”
Thurs. 1/23, E. B. Browning, “How Do I Love Thee” Bishop, “The Fish” and Wright, “A Blessing”
Tues. 1/28, Silko, “Yellow Woman” and Buzzati, “The Falling Girl”
Thurs. 1/30, Joyce, “Eveline,” and Plath, “Daddy”; Min, “The One Who Goes Farthest Away” and Lee, “The Gift”
Tues. 2/4, AustenPride and Prejudice
Thurs. 2/6, AustenPride and Prejudice
Tues. 2/11, EXAM I
Unit Two: Individual and Society
The readings in this section focus on the tension between the individual and the social environment. Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily” dramatizes numerous issues, such as gender, class, sexuality, race, power, love, and alienation, emphasized by other readings. The selections are arranged to allow for progression from an examination of the outcast to representations of an indifferent community and then to various individuals’ reactions to the community, which may vary due to racial and cultural differences, sexual orientation, and gender, among other factors.
Thurs. 2/13, Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”; Browning, “My Last Duchess,” Keats, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium”
Tues. 2/18, Bentham, “Happiness Is to Do What Is Good for All People”; Allende, “And of Clay Are We Created”; Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts”
Thurs. 2/20, Conrad, “Amy Foster,”; Frost, “Mending Wall” . PAPER I due at class time.
Tues. 2/25, Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Thurs. 2/27, Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Tues. 3/4, Glaspell, “A Jury of Her Peers” ; Walker, “Everyday Use”;
Thurs. 3/6, Hughes, “Theme for English B” & Dove, “The House Slave”; Grahn, “Boys at the Rodeo” & McCann, ” My Mother’s Clothes”
Unit Three: Certainty and Doubt
This section explores one of the central issues of our time—the quest for certainty. Through philosophical arguments as well as fiction and poetry, writers explore the nature of humans’ desire for answers and direction.
Tues. 3/11, Benedict, “Ethics Are Relative,” Ngugi, “A Meeting in the Dark”, Arnold, “Dover Beach”, Yeats, “The Second Coming”
Thurs. 3/13, Stace, “Ethics Are Not Relative”; Hopkins, "God's Grandeur" and "The Windhover"
Tues. 3/25, O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,”; Tan, “Half and Half” & Stevens, “Anecdote of the Jar”, Housman, “To an Athlete Dying Young,”
Thurs. 3/27, EXAM IIOates, "Where are You Going, Where Have You Been", Yeats, "Leda and the Swan," Dickinson, Poems #465 and #712
Unit Four: Moral Choice
In this section we explore some of the ways in which philosophy and literature confront the problem of good and evil. As we consider several ethical philosophies and literary dramatizations of moral dilemmas, we are able to look more closely at our own concepts of morality.
Tues. 4/1, Shelley, "Ozymandias," Wordsworth, "The World is Too Much With Us"; Gaines, A Gathering of Old Men
Thurs. 4/3, Gaines, A Gathering of Old Men
Tues. 4/8, O'Brien, "The Things They Carried." PAPER II due at class time.
Thurs. 4/10, Jackson, "The Lottery," Kant, "Duty is Prior to Happiness"
Tues. 4/15, Nietzsche, "Happiness is Having Power"; Jarrell, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,”
Thurs. 4/17, Sartre, “Existential Ethics
Tues. 4/22, Sartre, continued.
Thurs. 4/24, Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado,”
Tues. 4/29, Catchup
Thurs. 5/1, Catchup
Final Exams:
HUM 212-14, Thursday, May 8, 8:00am
HUM 212-17, Monday, May 5 10:30am
Arachnophilia.
