INTRODUCTION:  Why study Core Humanities?  Jan. 23

               
HOMER:  Heroic values.  Epic poetry.  (8th c. B.C.E.)

ARCHILOCHUS, SAPPHO, ALKMAN:  The birth of the self.  Lyric poetry.  (7th c. B.C.E.)
                           
SOPHOCLES:  The limits of the self.  Tragedy.  (5th c. B.C.E.)

EURIPIDES:  The limits of the self (continued).  Tragedy.  (485-406 B.C.E.)

PLATO:  Philosophy, the new heroism.  Dialogue.  (427-347 B.C.E.)
     
ARISTOTLE:  The balanced life.  Lecture notes.  (384-322 B.C.E.)
Nicomachean Ethics (e-reserve link to readings) (net ID required for access)
               
MIDTERM EXAMINATION    Mar. 8

MARCUS AURELIUS:  Love of humankind.  Philosophic journal.  (121-180 C.E.)
Meditations, Books I-VI, Mar. 13; Books VII-XII, Mar. 15

SPRING BREAK

THE HEBREW BIBLE:  Creation.  Covenant.  Love of God and neighbor.   (2000-1300 B.C.E.)
Genesis, Chapters 1-3, Mar. 27
Chapters 4-50, Mar. 29 (note extended assignment!)
(2000-1500 B.C.E.)       
               
Exodus, entire; Leviticus, Chapter 19.18; Deuteronomy, Chapter 6.4-8, 11.13-22, Apr. 3
(1250 B.C.E.)

Jonah, entire, Apr. 5
(5th or 4th c. B.C.E.)

THE TALMUD:  Truth, justice and peace.  Judaism.
Pirke Avot (Sayings of the Fathers), Chapters 1 (text and notes only), Apr. 5
Chapters 2-6, Apr. 10         
(300 B.C.E.-200 C.E.)   

THE NEW TESTAMENT:  Love of enemy.  Christianity.
Matthew, Chapters 1-7, Apr. 12
Chapters 8-28, Apr. 17
(90 C.E.)

THE QUR’AN:  Merciful justice.  Islam.    
The Koran, Chapters 1, 2, 5, 7, 36, 56, 72, 96, 97,101, 112, 114, 117, Apr. 19 & Apr. 24
 (610-632 C.E.)                        

DANTE:  Hell.  Christian epic.  (1265-1321)
Inferno, Cantos 1-9, Apr. 26
Cantos 10-21, May 1
Cantos 22-34, May 3
(1308 C.E.)       
               
CONCLUSION           
Second paper due, May 8

FINAL EXAMINATION, Wednesday, May 16, 7:30-9:30 a.m.  (note correction of day!)


COURSE TOPICS:  Pre-modern western thought and culture.  What is it to be human?

COURSE GOAL:  Increased understanding of the course topics.  Self-knowledge.  Autonomy.       

COURSE TEXTS:  Course texts are available for purchase at the University Bookstore.  You are required to use the editions listed above except in the case of the Bible.  You may use any edition of the Bible you choose so long as it is a translation and not a paraphrase.

The Odyssey of Homer, Lattimore translation (Harper Collins)

Selections from Greek lyric poetry (linked to course webpage)

Sophocles, Oedipus the King, Berg and Clay translation (Oxford University Press)

The Bacchae of Euripides, C.K. Williams translation (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Plato, Five Dialogues, Grube translation (Hackett Publishing  Company)

Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, Ross translation (Oxford University Press)

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Grube translation (Hackett Publishing Company)

New Oxford Annotated Bible, Metzger & Murphy edition (Oxford University Press)

Pirke Avot:  A Modern Commentary on Jewish Ethics, Kravitz and Olitzky translation (UAHC Press)

The Koran, Dawood translation (Penguin)

Dante, The Divine Comedy  Vol. I:  Inferno, Musa translation (Penguin)

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
Readings as assigned
Attendance at lectures and discussion groups
Participation in discussion
Thirteen in-class quizzes  Quiz 1  Quiz 2  Quiz 3  Quiz 4  Quiz 5  Quiz 6  Quiz 7  Quiz 8  Quiz 9  Quiz 10  Quiz 11  Quiz 12  Quiz 13
Two papers (5 or 6 pages long)
Midterm examination (March 8)
Final examination (Friday, May 16, 7:30 - 9:30 a.m.) (note correction of day!)

ATTENDANCE:  Students are expected to be in attendance, both at lectures and in discussion groups, except in cases of illness, emergency or religious holiday, to be in attendance for the whole period and not to make appointments that conflict with lectures or discussion groups.

Attendance is required and will be taken at the beginning of lectures and discussion groups.  After the first lecture, students will sign in with their discussion leader at every lecture and discussion group. 

Students may miss three classes without penalty (a class is a lecture or a discussion group).  Two points will be subtracted from the final grade for each class missed after that.  Exceptions will be made in the case of illness, emergency or religious holiday.  A written excuse must be provided for exceptions to be made.  If lecture and discussion group are on the same day, students who contact their discussion leader by e-mail before the lecture will have only two points subtracted from their grade for both absences.  Students who have ten or more unexcused absences will fail the course (no matter what their mathematical average is).

QUIZZES:  There will be thirteen closed book, closed note quizzes.  They will be held in your discussion group and generally will take about ten minutes.  The quiz question(s) will be assigned ahead of time.  There will be no make-up quizzes.  Quizzes will be collected at the end of the time allotted for them.  No one who arrives after quizzes are collected will be allowed to take a quiz.  Your lowest two quiz scores will be dropped before your quiz grade is calculated.

PAPERS:  The papers will be essays, not research papers.  They will be 5-6 pages long.  You need use no books other than the course texts in order to write the papers.  Similarly, you do not need to utilize internet resources to write them.  In an essay, you state a thesis, explain it and argue for it.  The basic structure of an essay is:  an introduction in which you state your thesis; the body of the essay in which you explain and argue for your thesis; the conclusion in which you summarize or highlight what you have done in the essay.

Essays will be word-processed or typed, double-spaced, in 10- or 12-point type.  They will have a title and a title page.  They will be in finished form and without errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation.  All quotations will be accompanied by a reference in parentheses.  Long quotations will be block indented.  Essays will be evaluated on the following basis:

1.  Do you have the parts mentioned above (introduction, body, conclusion)?
2.  Do you fulfill the functions mentioned above (state thesis, explain it, argue for it, summarize or highlight)?
3.  Is the thesis you are writing about an interesting and important one?
4.  Does your explanation of the thesis show that it is an interesting and important one?  Does your explanation make the basic concepts and terms in your essay clear to the reader?
5.  Are your arguments clear and convincing to the reader?
6.  Do you use specific examples from the book you are writing about to make your arguments stronger?  Do you use direct quotations from the book you are writing about to make your arguments stronger?
7.  Does your conclusion add something to the essay as a whole?

In addition, essays will lose a letter grade (10 points) for each day (24 hours) that they are late.

REFERENCES:  Quotations in the text should end with quotation marks followed by a reference in parentheses followed by a period (references to classical texts will be explained in class).  For example: 

As the chorus says, “arrogance insatiable pride/breed the tyrant” (1116-17).

“Courage, for example, when it is not wisdom but like a kind of recklessness:  when a man is reckless without understanding, he is harmed, when with understanding he is benefited” (88b).

The Qur’an begins with a reference to God’s compassion and mercy:  “Praise be to God, Lord of the Universe, the Compassionate, the Merciful” (1:2-4).

EXAMINATIONS:  The examinations will have two sections, an informational section and an essay section, each section worth 50 points.  The informational section will ask you to answer basic, not obscure, informational questions about the readings.  Regarding history, the questions will be basic, not obscure, questions from the lectures.  Regarding fiction, the questions will be basic questions about who the main characters are and what are the main events that happen to them.  Regarding philosophy, the questions will be questions about basic concepts and arguments.  The essay section will include four or five questions; you will select one of them to answer in the form of an essay.  There will be no make-up exams except in cases of illness, emergency or religious holiday.

EVALUATION:  Grades will be determined by your discussion leader.  They will be based on your quizzes, exams and papers, weighted equally (1/3, 1/3, 1/3).  The two lowest quiz grades will be dropped before the quiz grade is determined.  Excellent participation in discussion may raise your grade somewhat over the mathematical average, at the discretion of the discussion leader. 

Papers and quizzes will be turned in not e-mailed.  There are no make-up examinations except in the case of illness, emergency or religious holiday.  There will be no extra credit work.  The student will be held responsible for knowing what goes on in class.  Absences will not excuse you from knowing due dates of  quizzes and papers.

The grading scale is:  94-100, A; 90-93 A-; 87-89 B+; 84-86 B; 80-83 B-; 77-79 C+; 74-76 C; 70-73 C-; 67-69 D+; 64-66 D; 60-63 D-; below 60, F. 
It is the instructor's policy that cheating, plagiarism or submission of written work for this course that was submitted in another course merits a course grade of F.

DISCUSSION GROUPS:  The discussion groups will be group discussions of topics raised by the course texts.  Discussion groups are intended to focus and make relevant the topics discussed in the lectures.  In addition, they are intended to help you with your reading.

COURSE LINKS:  The course outline and other material can be accessed through my homepage: <www.unr.nevada.edu/~achten/homepage.html>.  They will also be distributed in class.  My homepage can also be accessed through the Department of Philosophy website:  <www.unr.edu/philosophy>; through the University of Nevada, Reno homepage directory:   <http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage> ; or by means of a search engine such as Google:  <www.google.com> (search for “Deborah Achtenberg” homepage).

Other links will be added here (check this page periodically for them):  map of ancient Greece (Wilfred Major), timeline of ancient Greece, Hellenic Culture site (official site of the Greek Ministry of Culture, includes a link to all Greek museums and archaeological sites with photos).

Images of Odysseus (mythfolklore site; click on image for more images):  Odysseus and the cyclops, Polyphemous, Odysseus and Circe.  Images of Athena (Theoi Project site):  birth of Athena, Athena armed, Museum of Cycladic Art, Minoan frescoes (Basic, Oklahoma University), 5th-4th c. Greek lyre (Athens), British Museum (Barbara McManus site).

Perseus site (Tufts University):  Parthenon (Athens), Athena Parthenos (Athens), Temple of Apollo (Corinth); Oedipus and the Sphinx (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), Pericles' funeral oration, Dionysius (theoi site), Dionysius with Maenads (theoi site), Maenad with thyrsos (Beazley site), Maenads with satyr (Perlman site), Maenads killing Orpheus (McManus site), Maenads killing Orpheus or Pentheus (terracotta, McManus site), Death of Pentheus (480 BCE; painter, Douris; potter, Python) (U. Texas myth site).

Plato's Academy (Hellenic Ministry of Culture site), Socrates by Lysippos (c. 370 BCE, copy) (Ancient Greek Cities site), Acropolis (Hellenic Culture site), Hermes with baby Dionysius (Praxiteles) (Hellenic culture site), Socrates in the middle.  Aristotle (Palazzo Altemps, Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome, Italy.

Poseidon or Zeus (Hellenic Culture site), Laocoön (Bryn Mawr graduate group site), Sleeping Satyr/Barberini Faun (200 BCE) (Mlahanas site), Chrysippus.

Timeline of the Hebrew Bible.  Ten Commandments.  Matthew (in Greek).  The Shahadah.  Contemporary Muslim debate:  Tariq Ramadan (describing a European Islam); The Adventures of Iman (a pious, but independent, Muslim superhero); Ni Putes Ni Soumises (secular feminist movement founded by French Muslim women); Inferno (Andrade site).

Liddell, Scott, Jones Lexicon
Perseus's on-line version of the Liddell, Scott, Jones lexicon (dictionary) of ancient Greek.  (To look up a transliterated Greek word--such as logos or physis--type the word in the Find space, click on the Submit Query button, then double-click on Middle Liddell which will take you to definitions found in the middle-sized Liddell, Scott, Jones Lexicon.)

Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
The electronic version of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, published in 1961, with updates.

Oxford English Dictionary
The electronic version of the OED with the latest new and revised entries.

USE OF THE INTERNET:  There is no need to consult internet resources to write papers.  Students should use their own ideas in papers they write.  In addition, they should be aware that papers plagiarized from internet sources can easily be detected through the use of a search engine such as Google.

PLAGIARISM:  Plagiarism is a serious offense.  You plagiarize when you use someone else’s words or ideas without attribution.  When you do this, you are putting forward someone else’s work as if it were your own. 

Changing a few words in a phrase or sentence is not enough to avoid plagiarism.  (1) Instead, when you utilize someone else’s exact phrases, put them in quotation marks and cite in parentheses the person whose words you have used.  (2) It is fine to paraphrase someone, but when you do, you must say so.  You can make it clear by saying “As Plato says...” or “According to the Qur’an...”.  (3) Finally, do not utilize even short phrases from another person’s work without a citation.  If you follow these guidelines, you will find it is easy to use sources in your own writing without being academically dishonest.

DISABILITY POLICY:  If you have a disability for which you will need to request accommodations, please contact me or the Disability Resource Center (Thompson Building, Suite 101) as soon as possible to arrange for appropriate accommodations.



Discussion leaders:  The discussion leaders are:


Discussion leaders have regular office hours at which time you may see them to discuss the course topics or your progress in the course. 

My office hours are 11:00 - 1:00 a.m., Wednesday, 108D, Cain Hall (EJCH), or by appointment.  Please feel free to come by to discuss the course topics or your progress in the course.  I am happy to meet with you at some other time if it is more convenient.  If you wish to make an appointment to see me at some other time, call 784-6742 (my office).  If you try to get in touch with me and cannot, leave a message or a note with your phone number so that I can call you. 

My e-mail address is:  <achten@unr.nevada.edu>.  I invite you to e-mail me but, for many matters, personal contact is preferable to contact by e-mail.  For example, due to time delays, e-mail can be an unsuccessful medium for making appointments or for taking care of other time-sensitive matters.  In addition, I prefer to do most advisement in person rather than by e-mail.

A few suggestions:  Many students will find that they do better in this course if they study together with other students, not alone.  Students will do better in this course if they take notes at the lectures and in the discussion groups.  Every student should bring the text to be discussed with them to lectures and discussion groups.