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PERSPECTIVES ON THE INDIVIDUAL
CORE 1001
University Core Curriculum
The purpose of this course is to stimulate personal reflection by carefully examining
situations in which individuals struggle to come to grips with some very important features of
self— integrity, purity of heart, the ability to make choices. Individuals seek to find meaning in the
consciousness of their own mortality and to forge understandings of themselves through
consciousness of their relation to nature. The effects of genetics, internal conflict, the totalitarian
state,t and social prejudice pose challenges to the very survival of a sense of self, but the challenges
show individuals’ courage to grow and to survive.
Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:
1. Explain with examples how an individual's values and ethics are open to challenge by
competing systems of values and ethics and by the individuals who express them.
2. Describe the ways in which the narratives of selected representative individuals have, or
have not, affected their own self-understanding.
3. Identify significant elements of the relationship between personal identity as a given
(biological, materialist, metaphysical, etc.) and personal identity as a construction (social,
ideological, or through personal decisions and choices).
4. Explain how the formation of the individual can be damaged by political power, family,
and psychological forces.
Texts
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Anchor Books.
Ferry, David. Gilgamesh. Noonday Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Freud. Civilization and Its Discontents. Norton.
Halley, Alex. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Ballantine Books.
Kuehl, James, ed. Perspectives on the Individual. Copley Pubs.
Plato. Euthyphro, Apology, Crito. Translated by Church. Macmillan.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Hill and Wang.
Style Manual for Papers
Diana Hacker. A Pocket Style Manual. Boston: Bedford Books,St. Martin's Press, 1993. The proper guide
for making references to on-line sources is the MLA style sheet. It is not available on line. However
examples of correct references may be found at the University of Georgia Libraries' MLA Style Sheet
site.
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Grading
Class Participation and Journals--25%
Journals are to be turned in on a regular basis. Some of the journal assignments may be submitted
on Blackboard. Sometimes the topics may be assigned, but if an assignment is not given, the journal
is to be done on the subject matter of the course-- on readings, videos, class discussions.
Papers -- 40% Two formal papers, one of 3 pages, the second of 5 pages. Each paper will be
submitted in a preliminary draft and a final draft.
Tests 35% There will be a midterm examination (worth 15%) of your grade and a final
examination (worth20%). The final examination will be cumulative; it will be composed of essayquestions.
Please note the university's policy on cheating, plagiarism, and other violations of academic
integrity. You can find the regulations in The Student Handbook on the web.
By a crude mathematical formula, it can be suggested that what students teach students should be
one-third of an undergraduate education, what professors teach students should be another third,
and what each student does alone in the library, the laboratory, and the study should be the
remaining third;... From Jeroslav Pelikan, The Idea of the University: A Reexamination (New Haven:
Yale UP,
1992): 61.
PART I: BIOLOGY AND PERSONALITY
1 Class Lecture: Orientation
Assignment: Read “The Five Sexes,” in Perspectives on the Individual (PI)
2 Video: “The Search for Mind”
Focusing Questions: (1) Why are the anthropologists so impressed by the simple figure of a man
painted on the French cave wall? How does the picture relate to what the cave man actually saw?
Could a chimpanzee have painted it? (2) Is man essentially different from or like the rest of the
animal kingdom according to Charles Darwin's theory of the descent of man? (3) "Ed" says that his
condition, autism, "means to be different from other people." How is he different in his relationship
to other people? Is the source of his behavior cultural (poor parenting) or biological (brain
damage)? How does he compensate for his difficulty? (4) What do "Joe" and "Ed" have in common?
How do they differ? What effect does the severance of the corpus callosum have on the way Joe
processes information? Explain in terms of the brain structure why Joe is unable to name an object
that he sees but is able to draw it. Is it a conscious process? (5) Clive Wearing, the musician, has
sustained damage to his temporal lobe. What specific effect does this injury to his brain have on his
mind functions? By what process is he able to "remember" how to play the piano and sing?
3 Class Lecture and Discussion: "The Five Sexes." Optional Videos: Is It a Boy or a Girl and
The Transgender Revolution.
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Focusing Questions: (I) In "The Five Sexes," Fausto-Sterling states that experts estimate "as
many as four percent of births" are intersex or hermaphrodite babies who are neither male nor
female, but some kind of true or pseudo- hermaphrodite. What do you think and how do you feel,
knowing that one in 20 to 25 students attending class at FDU, about 400 of our roughly 10,000
students, are intersex, hermaphrodite, or transsexual persons? (2) How might you react if you
discovered that a member of your family, a close friend, or a fellow student is a hermaphrodite or
intersex? How might you react and feel if you discovered that a parent, family member, close
friend, or fellow student was seriously planning to have a sex change operation? (3) Until
recently few questioned the "assumption
that without medical care (and early genital surgery to correct an intersex condition]
hermaphrodites are doomed to a life of misery. Do you agree or disagree with this assumption,
and why? (4) Fausto-Sterling concludes that the medical community is fmally recognizing the real
harm and psychological damage its "biopower"--its ability to alter anatomical sex, and surgically
and hormonally force intersexual persons and hermaphrodites into either male or female
pigeonholes--has done to intersex and hermaphrodite persons. How do you think people, and
our society as a whole, will react now that the gender experts, physicians, and psychologists are
concluding that it is better not to operate on or medically treat intersex and hermaphrodite
babies right after birth, and more humane and ethical to let them grow up as intersex persons
until they can make a decision about their own treatment? (5) Explain why you agree or disagree
with Fausto-Sterling's suggestion "that the three intersexes, herm, merm, and ferm, deserve to be
considered additional sexes each in its own right." Remember, she clearly suggests "that sex is a
vast, indefinitely malleable continuum that defies the constraints of even five sexes." Why are
male and female not enough? Why are five sexes not enough? (6) Intersexual and hermaphrodite
persons, Fausto-Sterling tells us, were recognized and discussed by Plato, early interpreters of
the Bible and the Genesis story of creation, and in the Jewish books of laws. Why did this change
at the end of the Middle Ages? Do you think new medical knowledge about the biological origins
of intersex, hermaphrodite, and transsexual persons, and our new knowledge about the varieties
and biological causes of our sexual orientations will force us to again recognize this diversity of
human sexualities? Will we and our society be able to recognize the equality and rights of all
persons, whatever their sexual identity, role, and/or orientation?
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Class Lecture and Discussion: Genetics.
Focusing Questions: (l) Is science objective? Why? Why not? (2) What percentage of our
humanity is directed by our genetic structure? (3) Is genetic engineering against the "natural
order" of things? (4) If you could protect your child genetically against developing AIDS, would
you? (5) Should there be legislation against modifying the human genome (engineering of a gene
that would affect future generations)? (6) What would constitute a genetic "improvement"?
Could this be culture specific or time specific? (7) Don't we already reward/punish genetic traits
like intelligence, appearance, talents? Is this unfair? discriminatory? arbitrary? (8) Who should
decide what a "good" gene is? (9) Where should be draw the line? (10) Can we draw the line?
Questions in relation to other texts in the; Course: "The Five Sexes": who should decide
what is biologically normal? Should we intervene in future generations? The Handmaid's Tale:
What is the danger of genocide of the genetically handicapped? Do the needs of society take
precedence over the needs of the individual in the use of genetic information? Socrates teaches
that the search for knowledge and the search for justice are the ultimate goods. Do these conflict
with each other with respect to genetic research and engineering? The Sermon on the Mount
tells us to "Beware of false prophets. By their fruits you shall know them." Is this relevant to the
new study of genetics? Pico: Does man have the capacity to equal or supersede the divine power of
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creation? Freud: Science has always tried to control nature but never achieves human satisfaction.
Will the aggressive instincts of man, pointed out by Freud, always thwart our efforts to achieve
civilized lives. Night: What does the medical experimentation that went on during the holocaust
tell us about the human capacity for evil? Is there anything to control this darker side of humanity?
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Class Lecture and Discussion: Genetics.
Assignment: Read The Handmaid's Tale. Three-page paper due, class 10.
PART II: DYSTOPIA
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Class Lecture and Discussion: THT.
Focusing Questions: (1) The Handmaid's Tale warns us that we must address certain threats to
our individuality in the present-day USA if we are to avoid having to face them in a fully realized
way in the future. Discuss these threats to our individuality. (2) Aunt Lydia talks of two kinds of
freedom: "freedom to" and "freedom from," and warns the handmaids not to underrate "freedom
from." What does each kind of freedom mean? Give examples. What does Lydia mean in warning
not to underrate "freedom from?" (3) Offred tells the commander that what is missing from Gilead
is the opportunity
to "fall in love." Do you agree that this is the greatest failure of Gilead? (4) Handmaids' names are
composed of "of," followed by the names of their commanders. In our own society, the majority of
married women adopt their husbands' names. Discuss similarities and differences between the
two practices. (5) Do you agree with Professor Piexoto that "our job is not to censure [practices in
Gilead], but to understand [them]"? (6) Is Offred a heroic individual? Why or why not? (7) The
Handmaid's Tale presents us with a dystopia in which individuality is largely crushed. Which one of
all your freedoms today now seems more precious as a result of reading The Handmaid's Tale.
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Class Lecture and Discussion: THT.
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Class Lecture and Discussion:THT.
Assignment: Read Gilgamesh.
PART III:SOURCES OF THE SELF
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Class Lecture and Discussion: G.
Focusing Questions: On Gilgamesh: (1) Heroes provide one perspective on the individual, since
heroes serve as exemplary individuals or models of conduct. Gilgamesh is one of the first heroes in
world literature. How does he exemplify heroic behavior? (2) Other perspectives on the individual
are provided by consideration of those factors that shape our identities. Enkidu first appears in
Gilgamesh as a wild man, totally outside human society. How is he socialized into human society?
What role does his friendship with Gilgamesh play in Enkidu's socialization? (3) as Enkidu lies
dying he bitterly complains that the temple prostitute "made me see things as a man, and a man
sees death in things"(49). To what extent is awareness of mortality a distinctive human train? (4)
In their adventures together, Gilgamesh and Enkidu defeat the monster Huwawa. Exactly what is
Huwawa? Do you think this figure, at least in some respects, symbolizes some natural phenomenon?
(5) As Gilgamesh and Enkidu approach Huwawa's forest, Gilgamesh is described as being
revitalized by danger. To what extent is a person's individual development enhanced by
confronting danger or adversity? Are challenges and hardships essential to building character? (6)
The death of Enkidu drives Gilgamesh into a frenzy of grief. To what extent do extreme pain or
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bereavement isolate or "dissocialize" an individual? (7) Gilgamesh's search for Utnapishtim and
the secret of immortality is an early example of the heroic quest. While there are possible
elements of a real journey in Gilgamesh's quest, it is easy to see this quest as a symbolic journey
that brings Gilgamesh to a deeper understanding of human mortality. Which elements of the
journey seem to you to be the most realistic? Which elements seem the most symbolic? Little is
said in the text about Gilgamesh's behavior and actions after his return. How would you imagine
him to have been changed by this journey? (8) The story of Utnapishtim is clearly similar to the
biblical· account of Noah and the Ark. What are the similarities between the two stories? What
important differences are there? (9) What can you infer from Gilgamesh about the religious
beliefs of the ancient Mesopotamians? What attitudes to the Mesopotamian gods appear in the
story? What beliefs, if any, about an afterlife seem to be implied in the story?
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Class Lecture and Discussion: G.
Assignment: Read Plato's "The Apology" and "Crito." First three-page paper due.
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Class Lecture and Discussion: Apology and Crito. Optional Video: The Death of Socrates.
Focusing Questions: (1) Socrates claims that "An unexamined life is not worth living. What is an
"examined life"? How is examining one's life related to being an individual in our culture? Is living
an examined life always desirable? Is it possible to examine everything about our lives? Do you
accept Plato's suggestion that the more heroic individual is the reflective, independent thinker
rather than the warrior? (2) What role does reasoning play in freeing us from the domination of
traditional myths and social demands? What is the community's interest in controlling dissent?
(3) Socrates claims that his sole "wisdom" consists in the realization that he is not wise. What
does he mean? Is his behavior during his trial and imprisonment consistent with this claim? (4) It
is sometimes argued that Socrates committed a form of suicide. In what sense, if any, is this true?
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Class Lecture and Discussion: A&C.
Assignment: Read “ The Sermon on the Mount ” ( in Perspectives on the Individual.) Read “The
Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings” in (PI) First paper returned;
revision due in class 14.
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Class Lecture and Discussion: Sermon.
Focusing Questions: (1) The beatitudes (5:3-10) are considered a proclamation of a new
approach to the good life. Would Gilgamesh have accepted these notions of goodness? Would he
have rejected them all, accepted some? What about Socrates? (2) Do you see any similarities
between Socrates's attitude toward the gods and Jesus' attitude toward God? (3) In these sayings
there is a heavy emphasis on heaven and hell. What value do you think this has for the formation
of a self? Is it necessary? Is it good? Is it harmful? (4) There is also a strong emphasis on an
interior goodness that goes beyond outward good behavior. Is this important, valuable? or does
it impose an impossible ideal? (5) Similarly, what do you think of such well-known ideas as
turning the other cheek? loving your enemies? and so on. Do they have any validity or are they
unreal or even unjust notions? (6) Jesus' insistence that we not be anxious about food and clothing
sounds like Socrates's insistence that people should not be anxious about acquiring honors and
possessions. In what ways are they the same? different?
Assignment: Read "The Sermon at Benares."
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Class Lecture and Discussion: "The Sermon at Benares" and “The Fourteen Mindfulness
Trainings”
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Assignment: Revised paper due.
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Midterm Examination.
Assignment: Read Pico della Mirandola, "Oration on the Dignity of Man." PI
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Class Lecture and Discussion: Pico.
Focusing Questions: (1) What is the importance for the individual human person of having a
particular place in the "Great Chain of Being," that is, in the immense natural world, from atoms to
galaxies? (2) In what way does Pico de la Mirandola's understanding of human nature differ from
the duality we saw in Gilgamesh between man as animal (Enkidu) and man as God (Gilgamesh)? (3)
In what way do human persons differ from the rest of nature in Pico de la Mirandola? Is Pico's a
legitimate way to define the relationship in today's science-governed understanding?
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Class Lecture and Discussion: Pico's world in art.
Focusing Questions: (1) Can you list six or seven details you noted in the pictures shown in the
class? (2) Does what's in the foreground always seem more important than what's in the
background? (3) What of Pico's ideas did you find in the slides shown in the class? (4) Do these
pictures say something to us even if we don't know exactly who the characters are? (5) How much
does knowing the society in which art is produced determine our ability to understand art? (6) Do
the pictures you've looked at seem to have a purpose? If you answer yes, then what is it that the
slides teach? (7) Write one journal page on one of the slides describing as carefully as you can the
details you consider important.
Assignment: Read William Wordsworth, "Tintem Abbey" and "Ode: Intimations of lmmortality
from Recollections of Early Childhood." PI Begin five-page paper, due class 22.
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Class Lecture and Discussion: TA and/or Ode.
Focusing Questions: (1) What does it mean to say "the child is father to the man"? Is it true? (2)
Wordsworth's natural world is much more intimate and vivid than the abstract vision of the
cosmos considered by Pico. In what way does this modify the way we ·think of ourselves in relation
to nature? (3) Why is it the child's relation to nature that is so important in "Tintem Abbey" and
"Ode"? (4) For Wordsworth the outer self is the social self. Why does he reject this outer self in
favor of an inner, private self? Is this same rejection found in any way in Gilgamesh or in Plato's
"Apology" and "Crito"? (5) Why does Wordsworth find the Socratic or Platonic ideal of reason
inadequate for the making of a self? Who would Wordsworth admire more, Socrates or Gilgamesh?
(6) Wordsworth suggests that we become prisoners as we grow older. Do we find this experience
reflected, for instance, in Gilgamesh or in Socrates? Do we find it in our own experience? (7)
Wordsworth talks of a Creature “moving about in worlds not realized,” a Presence, something
a spirit that “rolls through all things.” What’s he talking about?
Assignment: Work and the paper and read ahead.
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Class Lecture and Discussion: Reviewing and catching up.
Assignment: Read chapters III to VII of Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents.
PART IV: CHALLENGES TO THE SELF
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Class Lecture and Discussion: Optional CD, or video on Freud or on socialization.
Focusing Questions: (1) How does Freud differ from Wordsworth in his explanation of the
struggle between instinctual drives and the expectations of civilization? Which one, do you think,
better explains the tension? (2) Wordsworth sees nature as a refuge from civilization. How does
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Freud see it? (3) Does the struggle between civilization and instinct contribute to or inhibit personal
growth? (4) What is the difference between Freud's notion of law and that of Socrates? (5) How
widespread is discontent in American civilization? What are the principal sources of this discontent?
Can technology relieve us of these problems? What does Freud think? (6) What is the relationship
between Freud's theories and the way the struggle between instinct and culture has been managed
in The Handmaid's Tale?
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Class Lecture and Discussion: CD.
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Class Lecture and Discussion: CD.
Assignment: Read Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing" and/or “Tell Me a Riddle,”PI Second paper
due.
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Class Lecture and Discussion: Olsen.
Focusing Questions: (1)There are many sources of the pain which Emily has experienced in her
life. Who or what is mainly responsible for this pain? (2) Does Emily have the freedom to overcome
the difficulties of her early life? What might Freud say? Pico? (3) "I Stand Here Ironing" has been
called a work which de-romanticizes motherhood. Is it? Why or why not?
Assignment: Read The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Page numbers are given according to the
present edition) Minimum selection: "Nightmare," 1-22; "Detroit Red," first half, 84-96; "Satan,"
last half, 162-168; "Saved,"last two-thirds, 178-190; "Savior," first 10 pages, 191-199; "Minister
Malcolm," last half, 222-235; "Black Muslims," 236-265; "Mecca," 318-342; "El Hajj," 343-363;
"1965," 364-382. Additional passages-optional: "Ella's Pride," 32; "Be a Carpenter,"
36"Hustler,"114-117, include West Indian Archie; Section on Bimbi, 153; "Satan," whole chapter;
"Saved,"whole chapter; "Epilogue, 383-456; "On Malcolm," 457-460.
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Class Lecture and Discussion: MX.
Focusing Questions: (1) In what ways was Malcolm's individuality denied him because of his race?
(2) Malcolm said his life was a series of changes. What were the major changes in his life? How did
the various names and nicknames he had mark some of the changes. What was the difference
between the childhood of Malcolm X and the childhood that Wordsworth describes? (3) What
personal experiences made him open to accepting the teaching that "the white man is the devil"?
What reading in history? In what way did his hajj change his attitude? (4) What message did Malcolm
have for African-Americans? For white Americans? Why did human rights become his central idea,
and not just civil rights? What were his fmal spiritual teachings? (5) Malcolm's life can be seen as a
process of mental liberation, of "decolonizing the mind." How did his self-education contribute? How
did his break with Elijah Muhammad? (6) What can Malcolm tell us about the value of education?(7)
What was his attitude toward women in general, and in particular, towards Ella, his mother, Betty
Shabbaz? What was his attitude toward Jews? Toward violence? (8) What would you say about the
claim that Malcolm found himself through commitment to a higher cause? (9) How do racial and
other group identifications shape our sense of who we are?
Assignment: Second paper returned for revisions.
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Class Lecture and Discussion: MX.
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Class Lecture and Discussion: MX.
Assignment: Read Night. Revision of second paper due.
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PART V: THE DENIAL OF THE SELF
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Class Lecture and Discussion: N.
Focusing Questions: (1) In what way is the narrator's early life in Sighet like the early life described
by Wordsworth? Note several elements of this early life which constitute the narrator's individuality.
Show how each is taken away from him by his life in the camps. (2) The relationship of Eliezer to his
father is very important in the second half of the book. Why? From this relationship, what lesson does
Eliezer learn about an individual's potential for good and evil? (3) Just prior to the Nazi invasion of
Hungary, the Jews of Sighet took comfort against rumors to the effect that Hitler was harming
European Jews by asking: "Was he going to wipe out the whole people?... So many millions! ... And
in the middle of the twentieth century!" The twentieth century individual, they thought, was incapable
of repeating the atrocities, the mass murders of the dim past. What assumptions about the effect of
Western culture on the "twentieth century" individual are being made here? How have your ideas
about "progress" been affected by this text? (4) The Holocaust could not have occurred without the
active collaboration of many ordinary citizens and the silent compliance of countless others. At
the war crimes tribunal following World War II at Nuremberg, many Nazi defendants pleaded the
case that they were "just following orders," that actions taken against Jews were "legal." Individual
citizens in our own society sometimes confront laws they find to be immoral. Give some instances
in recent United States history in which individuals have refused to obey laws they condemn
morally. Are there any laws which would prompt your disobedience for ethical reasons? (5) This
course begins with a dystopia. Toward the close of the course we have now read a tale of a lived
dystopia. What similarities to Gilead do you find in the world described in Night. (6) Imagine that
Plato and Freud are alive and have just completed reading Wiesel's Night. Compose letters written
by them to Wiesel telling him how their own thoughts relate to the tragedy depicted in Night.
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Class Lecture and Discussion: N.
FINAL EXAMINATION