Humanities 2B Reading List and Semester Plan: Spring 2017
Seminars:
11 Cooper DMH 354
21 Hohmann DMH 357
31 Peter ENG 403
41 Lindahl SH 241
1. Thursday January 26
Karl Marx and the Industrial Revolution
Read: Philosophic Classics: Marx, “Alienated Labor,” pages 986-994; “Communist Manifesto,”
pages 995-1003.
2. Tuesday January 31
John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism and Individualism
Read: Philosophic Classics: Mill, Utilitarianism, pages 920-939; Mill, On Liberty, Chapters
1 & 2 (Website).
3. Thursday February 2
Darwin and Social Darwinism
Read: Darwin, The Origin of Species, Chapter 4, “Natural Selection” (Website). See also:
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin.html
4. Tuesday February 7
Slavery, Abolitionism and the Beginnings of the Women’s Rights
Movement in the United States
Read: Heffner: Chapter 10 “The Abolitionist Crusade,” including excerpts from the first issue of
“The Liberator”; Chapter 11 “The Sectional Conflict,” including texts by John C. Calhoun and
William J. Grayson; Chapter 12 “The Fateful Decade,” including the Seneca Falls “Declaration of
Sentiments” and excerpts from the U.S. Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sanford. Frederick
Douglass, “What, to the American Slave, is Your 4Th of July?” (Website)
Recommended Reading: Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American
Slave. Written by Himself. (http://docsouThursday.unc.edu/neh/douglass/menu.html)
5. Thursday February 9
Transcendentalism: Emerson and Thoreau
Read: Emerson, “The Poet” in Self-Reliance and other Essays; Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” and
“Walking” in Civil Disobedience and other Essays.
6. Tuesday February 14
The American Civil War and Abraham Lincoln
Read: Heffner: Chapter 13 “War,” including Lincoln's “First Inaugural Address”; Chapter 14 “The
Prophet of Democracy,” including “The Emancipation Proclamation” and Lincoln’s “Gettysburg
Address”; Chapter 15 “The Conflict over Reconstruction,” including Lincoln's “Second Inaugural
Address”.
7. Thursday February 16 American Literary Realism and NaturalismRead: Gilman, “The
Yellow Wall-Paper” in The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Stories; Crane, "Maggie, Girl of the
Streets" in The Open Boat and Other Stories.
8. Tuesday February 21 Realism and Impressionism in The Visual Arts
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Read: Stokstad: Vol. 6, Chapter 31, “Realism and The Avant-Garde,” pages 972-987,
“Impressionism,” pages 987-1007.
9. Thursday February 23
of Values
Friedrich Nietzsche: The Limits of Knowledge and The Revaluation
Read: Philosophic Classics: Nietzsche, pages 1033-1060; Nietzsche, "The Relation of the
Rhetorical to Language" and "On Truth and Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense" (Excerpts) (Website)
10. Tuesday February 28
Joseph Conrad and Colonialism
Read: Norton vol. F, Conrad, "Heart of Darkness," pages 14-78.
11. Thursday March 2
Freud
Read: Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, Chs. III, IV, V, VI and VIII.
12. Tuesday March 7
Early 20th Century Art–Modernism, Post-Modernism, and Pop-Art
Read: Stokstad: Vol. 6, Chapter 32, “Early Modern Art,” pages 1017-1031, “Postwar Art,” pages
1071-1080; Chapter 33, “Pop Art” and “The Dematerialization of The Art Object,” pages 10911103.
13. Thursday March 9
Populism and Progressivism in The United States
Read: Heffner: Chapter 18 “Grassroots Rebellion,” pages 261-272, including “The Populist Party
Platform”; Chapter 20 “The Progressive Ferment,” pages 297-312, including Theodore Roosevelt’s
“The New Nationalism.” W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (Excerpts) (Website)
Recommended Reading: Gerston and Christensen, California Government and Politics: A
Practical Approach (any recent edition [10th or later]), Chapter 1.
14. Tuesday March 14
World War I
Read: Remarque, All Quiet on The Western Front, pages 1-186.
15. Thursday March 16
Twentieth Century Revolutions
Read: Remarque, All Quiet on The Western Front, pages 187-296. Lenin and Mao Tse Tung
selections (Website.)
16. Tuesday March 21
“Classical” Music from the 20th to the 21st Century
Reading: Review course materials and notes
MIDTERM EXAM IN SEMINAR
17. Thursday March 23
Modernist Poetry
Read: Norton vol. F: C.P. Cavafy, “When the Watchman Saw the Light” (page 511), “Waiting for
the Barbarians” (page 512), and “The City” (page 513); Pablo Neruda, “Tonight I Can Write,”
(pages 585-6) “Walking Around” (pages 586-7) and “Ode to the Tomato” (pages 597-99).
Also read, on Handout:
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Marianne Moore, “Poetry”; “The Fish”; Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”; “Let
America be America Again”; “Madam and the Phone Bill”; Ezra Pound, “L’Art”; “Portrait D’une
Femme”; “The Seeing Eye”; “Ancora”; William Carlos Williams, “3 Stances”; “To Elsie”
Spring Break and Caesar Chavez Day
18. Tuesday April 4
French Existentialism
Read: Norton vol. F, Camus, “The Guest,” pages 754-762. Philosophic Classics: Sartre,
“Existentialism is a Humanism,” pages 1156-1173.
19. Thursday April 6
The Great Depression and The New Deal
Read: Heffner: Chapter 22 “Boom and Bust”; Chapter 23 “The Roosevelt Revolution,” including
FDR's “First Inaugural Address” and “A Rendezvous With Destiny.”
20. Tuesday April 11
The Rise of Totalitarianism, Bureaucracy, and the Way to War
Read: B. Mussolini, “The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism” (Excerpts). A. Hitler, My
Struggle (Excerpts) (Website)
21. Thursday April 13
World War II and the Homefront
Read: Heffner: Chapter 24 “The End of Isolation," pages 386-406. Start reading Elie Wiesel, Night,
pages 1-26.
22. Tuesday April 18
The Holocaust, Genocides, and Acts of Inhumanity to
Peoples in the 20th Century
Read: Elie Wiesel, Night, pages 27-109.
23. Thursday April 20
Postcolonial African Literature
Read : Norton vol. F: Tayeb Salih, “The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid” (pages 815-824); Ngugi Wa
Thiong’o, “Wedding at the Cross” (pages 1037-1048); Bessie Head, “The Deep River” (pages
1098-1103); Nawal el Saadawi, “In Camera” (1104-1114).
24. Tuesday April 25
California Government (Guest)
Read: Gerston and Christensen, California Government and Politics: A Practical Approach (any
recent edition [10th, 11th, or 12th]), Chapters 2-9.
25. Thursday April 27
Pop Music
Read: Heffner: Chapter 26 “America at Midcentury,” pages 425-436.
TEST ON CALIFORNIA GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS IN SEMINAR
26. Tuesday May 2
Equal Protection of the Law: The Continuing Struggle for Civil
Rights
Read: Heffner: Chapter 27 “From the New Frontier to the Great Society,” pages 439-445, 457-476.
27. Thursday May 4
Feminist Theory: Gender, Sexuality, and the Realities of
Being a Woman
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Read: Heffner: Chapter 27: “Roe v. Wade”, pages 542-548; Judith Butler, from “Performative Acts
and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” (Introduction &
Section I, pages 519-524.); and Michelle Goldberg, “What is a Woman: The Dispute Between
Radical Feminism and Transgenderism” (Website)
Link: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2
28. Tuesday May 9
The Cold War, Vietnam, and Watergate
Read: Heffner: Chapters 25-28 especially George Marshall “The Marshall Plan,” George F.
Kennan “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” “Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address,” John F.
Kennedy “Inaugural Address,” Lyndon Johnson “Great Society” speech, House Judiciary
Committee Watergate Articles of Impeachment v. Richard M. Nixon.
29. Thursday May 11
Four Themes in American Culture and History: 1980-present
Read: Heffner: Chapters 29-32 especially Reagan “Inaugural Addresses,” Obama “The Politics of
Hope.” Also postwar American poetry: The Beats and The New York School Poets—A Sampling.
Allen Ginsberg, “A Supermarket in California.” Frank O’Hara; “Ave Maria”; “A Step Away from
Them”; “The Day Lady Died” (Website).
30. Tuesday May 16
Celebration
FINAL EXAMINATIONS:
Monday May 22, 9:45-12:00. Short Answer Final in LECTURE hall.
Wednesday May 24, 9:45-12:00. Long Answer Final in SEMINAR rooms.
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Book List for Humanities 2B
New Books for Humanities 2B:
Crane, Stephen, The Open Boat and Other Stories (Dover Thrift). ISBN-13: 978-0486275475.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Self-Reliance and Other Essays, Dover. ISBN: 978-0-486-27790-5
Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and its Discontents, Norton, ISBN: 978-0393304510
Gerston and Christensen, California Government and Politics: A Practical Approach (any recent
edition [10th, 11th, 12th, 13th]). Used copies are available on Amazon for less than $5. We
recommend against buying a new copy for $95—it is a very slim paperback.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Stories, Dover. ISBN-13: 9780486298573.
Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on The Western Front, Ballantine Books. ISBN: 9780449213940
Henry David Thoreau. Civil Disobedience and Other Essays. Dover Thrift. ISBN-13: 9780486275635
Wiesel, Elie. Night, Bantam. ISBN: 978-0553272536
Books used in Humanities 2B purchased for previous semesters (useful for students
joining the program out-of-sequence):
Heffner, Richard. A Documentary History of The United States. Expanded and Updated edition.
Signet/Penguin [Heffner]
Baird, F. E. and Kaufmann, W., Philosophic Classics: From Plato to Nietzsche, 6th ed. (PrenticeHall). [Philosophic Classics]
Stokstad, M. and Cothren, M.W., Art History: Portable Edition, 5th ed., vol. 6. (Pearson).
[Stokstad]
Sprague, J. and Stuart D., The Speaker’s Compact Handbook, 5th ed. (Wadsworth Cengage).
Online Readings [Website]:
Online readings will be found on Professor Lindahl’s website here:
http://www.sjsu.edu/people/james.lindahl/courses
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