Honors 212
Civilizations: Past, Present, and Future IV
Spring 2017
101 Neville Hall / Thursdays / 3:30 - 5:20
NOTES:
1. R = required; S = supplemental; ♫ = musical selection
2. All materials other than texts to be purchased are available on Blackboard – go to
www.courses.maine.edu and select Honors 212-2001. If Honors 212-2001 is not available to you,
please contact the course coordinator, Noelle Leon-Palmer, immediately.
3. For further information about the course, please refer to both the Civilizations syllabus and information
provided by your preceptor.
4. The staff coordinator for this course is Noelle Leon-Palmer who can be reached at
[email protected]. The faculty coordinator for this course is Josh Roiland who can be reached at
[email protected]
5. Thinking ahead: The final essay of the four-semester Civilizations course (in HON 212) will entail a
close, critical reading of your intellectual experience in the Honors sequence. It should draw on at least
five texts* from the Civilizations sequence, including one chosen from each of the four semesters (the
fifth text will be your choice from any semester). This essay will serve as an “intellectual portfolio,”
describing not only your personal experience of the readings but also the development of Western
civilization and society as it has changed. Using your selected texts, you will be expected to chart a
theme or narrative as it emerges in your thinking. This essay could take many forms but it is essential
that the undertaking consider both your academic and personally authentic experience. [* Text refers to
reading material, art, music or movie included in the Civilizations course materials.]
Nathan Stormer (Communication)
Week 1
Jan. 19
R: Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense” (Blackboard)
S: Friedrich Nietzsche, “Origin of Language
♫: Richard Wagner- Tannhauser (overture)
Edie Elwood (Honors/Sociology)
Week 2
Jan. 26
R (Blackboard):
Civilizations and Its Discontents; chapters 3, 5 & 8 (Sigmund Freud. Trans. Peter Gay. NY:
Norton, 1990)
The Rules of Sociological Method; Chapter 1 (Durkheim)
The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism; Ch. 1 & 2: Pg. 3-28 & end of Ch. 5: Pg.
122-125 (Weber)
S (Blackboard):
Egotistic Suicide; Ch. 2 (Durkheim)
♫ (Blackboard):
Debussy- Prelude to the Afternoon Faun
Cheryl Gilkes (W.E.B. Du Bois/African American Studies, Colby)
R: Souls of Black Folk (W. E. B. Du Bois. New York: Bantam, 1989.)
ISBN: 9780553213362
Week 3
Feb. 2
♫ (Blackboard):
Miles Davis- A Night in Tunisia
Frisk Jubilee Singers- Wade in Water, Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
Poole Brothers- Nobody knows the Trouble I see
Church Services- Lay Down my Body, Sign of the Judgment, Sit down Servant
Owen Smith (Art & Intermedia) &
David Gross (Honors/Comparative Literature)
R:
Story or stories to be chosen by preceptor from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (Franz
Kafka. Trans. Stanley Appelbaum. NY:Dover, 1996.) ISBN: 9780486290300
Week 4
Feb. 9
Duchamp’s Images (Blackboard)
Duchamp’s Writings and “The Ready Made” (Paz) (Blackboard)
S (Blackboard):
The Castle of Purity (Paz); John Cage on Marcel Duchamp (an interview)
♫ (on blackboard):
Stravinsky – Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring)
Jim Page (UM System/Philosophy)
Week 5
Feb. 16
R:
The Seven Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli)
ISBN: 978-0399184413
S (Blackboard):
The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory (Werner Heisenberg)
The Development of Philosophical Ideas Since Descartes in Comparison with the New
Situation in Quantum Theory (Werner Heisenberg)
A Philosopher Looks at Quantum Mechanics (Hilary Putnam)
Michael Grillo (Art)
Week 6
Feb. 23
Film Showing & Discussion
Metropolis Directed by Fritz Lang, 1927
**Lecture will run until 6pm**
Laura Cowan (English)
Week 7
Mar. 2
R:
Mrs. Dalloway, (Virginia Woolf. New York: Harvest Books, 1990.) ISBN: 9780156628709
Dulce et Decorum Est – Wilfred Owen (Blackboard)
♫:
Delius – A Dance Rapsody No. 2
Mar. 6 to
Mar. 19
Spring Break
Phillip Silver (Music)
R:
Survival in Auschwitz, (Primo Levi. Touchstone, 1996) ISBN-13: 978-0684826806
Week 8
Mar. 23
Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison (C. Haney, C. Banks and P. Zimbardo)
(Blackboard)
S (Blackboard):
The Drowned and The Saved (Primo Levi) (Ch. 1 & 2)
BBC Documentary on the Zimbardo Experiment :Rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The
BBC Prison Study (S. Reicher and S.A. Haslam)
♫ (Blackboard):
Das Lied von der Erde, mvt. 6 “Der Abschied (The Farewell)”— Gustav Mahler
Andrei Alyokhin (Biology & Ecology) &
Sharon Tisher (Honors/Economics)
Week 9
Mar. 30
R:
Silent Spring (Rachel Carson. New York: Mariner Books, 2002.) ISBN: 9780618249060
S (Blackboard):
Pesticides Quiz and Primer
♫ (Blackboard):
The Grateful Dead – Sugar Magnolia
Samuel Barber – Adagio for Strings – Op. 11
Edie Elwood (Honors/Sociology) &
Kathleen Ellis (Honors/English)
Week 10
Apr. 6
R (Blackboard):
Of Women Born; Preface, Introduction, Ch. 1-2, Selected Poems (Rich, Adrienne)
S (Blackboard):
The Wreck in New Republic written by Michelle Dean
♫:
Various musical selections from the 60s and 70s
Josh Roiland (Journalism)
Week 11
Apr. 13
R (Blackboard):
David Foster Wallace, "This Is Water" Commencement Speech, Kenyon College, Gambier,
OH, May 21, 2005.
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 1996), 343-374.
David Foster Wallace, "Good Old Neon" in Oblivion (New York: Little, Brown and Co.,
2004), 141-181.
David Foster Wallace, "Consider the Lobster" in Consider the Lobster (New York: Little,
Brown and Co., 2005), 235-254.
S (Blackboard):
David Foster Wallace, "Forever Overhead" in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (New York:
Little, Brown and Co., 1999), 5-16.
David Foster Wallace, "The View from Mrs. Thompson's" in Consider the Lobster (New
York: Little, Brown and Co., 2005), 128-140.
David Foster Wallace, “Federer: Both Flesh and Not” in Both Flesh and Not (New York:
Little, Brown and Co., 2012), 5-36
David Lipsky, “The Lost Years and Last Days of David Foster Wallace” Rolling Stone
Magazine
Mary Karr, “Suicide’s Note: An Annual” (Poem)
Joshua Roiland, “The Fine Print: The True Story of David Foster Wallace and the Reality
Boundary”
Stefano Tijerina (Post-Colonialism)
Week 12
Apr. 20
R:
Isabel Allende, The Stories of Eva Luna
Prologue, Two Words, The Road North, And of Clay we are Created
ISBN: 9781501117138
S:
A fourth story of your choosing
Climate Panel
(Stephen Coughlan (Freshwater Fisheries Ecology), Susan Erich (Soil Chemistry,
School of Food and Agriculture), Ivan Fernandez (Soil Science and Forest Resources,
Climate Change Institute) and Jillian Pelto (Climate Change Institute), moderated by
Sharon Tisher (School of Economics/Honors)
R (Blackboard):
Science: Summary for Policy Makers, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's
2014 Synthesis Report (pages 1-17)
Philosophy, ethics, religion: Pope Francis, “Laudato-si,” encyclical letter on climate and
environment, May 2015
Science, Policy, Activism: TED Talk, Al Gore, “The Case for Optimism on Climate
Change,” February 2016, latest and much abbreviated version of Nobel Prize-winning slide
show on climate.
Week 13
Apr. 27
[Preceptors may substitute any of the supplemental material by Pope Francis and/or Al
Gore]
S (Blackboard):
Science, Maine-specific: Ivan Fernandez, et al., Maine’s Climate Future: 2015 Update,
Climate Change Institute, University of Maine.
Politics: Video of Senator Susan Collins' remarks at a Maine Conservation Alliance panel
on climate change in Portland, February, 2015;
Video of Senator Angus King's debut speech on the floor of the Senate, comparing climate
denial and inaction to ignoring the Nazi threat before WWII. (Blackboard)
Sharon Tisher and Peter Mills, “Climate Policy 2015: Reports from the Congressional
Trenches,” Maine Policy Review, Spring 2016.
International Law and Policy: Robinson Meyer, “A Reader’s Guide to the Paris Agreement:
the most important piece of international diplomacy in years, deciphered,” The Atlantic,
December 16, 2015.
Art: Jillian Pelto
Poetry: “Sea Change,” by Jorie Graham, from Sea Change (New York: HarperCollins
2008).
Psychology: Kharunya Paramaguru, “The Battle Over Global Warming is All in Your
Head,” Time Climate Science, August 19, 2013
Engineering: Michael Specter, “The Climate Fixers: Is there a technological solution to
global warming?” The New Yorker, May 2, 2012.
Week 14
May 4
Classes Meet, No Lecture