Minot State University College of Arts and Sciences, Division of Humanities
Humanities 251: Classical to Early Medieval Western Civilization
11-12:15 Tuesdays and Thursdays, 330 West Hartnett Hall
Dyplon Crater, Winged Victory Pericles of Athens
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Course Info
Instructor: Robert E. Kibler
Office: 229 West Hartnett Hall
Office Hours: 12-1:00, T/Th, 12-1:00 MW
Telephone:
Work: 858 3876
Cell: 720 2716
E-mail:
Required Texts (on course instructor website or in Bookstore)
L. Cunningham, Culture and Values (optional, but all lectures come from this text)
Tom Holland, Persian fire
Homer’s Odyssey
Thucydides’ Peloponnesian Wars (Book 5 on website)
Sappho, Poems
Sophocles, Antigone
Caesar, Gallic Wars
Catullus, Tibullus, Sulpicia, Poems (on website)
Tacitus, Germania
Heaney, Beowulf
Course Overview
Humanities 251 helps fulfill Minot State University’s General Education requirement, and is the first in a three-course sequence designed to introduce us you to the tremendous intellectual, artistic, and cultural heritage left by those who have already had their day in the sun. As such, its primary goal is to afford you the opportunity to critically evaluate past thought and culture both for itself and as it relates to life and culture now, here in Minot, in the year 2011.
During the Fall 2012 term we will explore enduring aspects of Western civilization as we find them beginning about the 8th century BCE in the land of the Persians and Greeks—Of the Persian Emperors Cyrus and Xerxes, of the Greek thinkers and poets, Socrates, Aristotle, Sophocles, Homer, Sappho, and others-- then moving westward through space and onwards through time, we pass through the ancient Roman world of Caesar, Catullus, and Tacitus-- from thence into early medieval Europe, the land and time of Beowulf and other warring people. We end in the European world of early medieval Germanic tribes, wrestling not only with each other after the fall of Western Rome, but also with a new style of belief--Christianity. I will introduce what is currently known about these Western people and their worlds, and more importantly, together we will read what they actually say themselves, through their art, music, diaries, diatribes, philosophies, and poems. In such a way, by term’s end, we will have acquired the intellectual resources necessary to evaluate the merit of many aspects of the ongoing human story in terms of the classical Western past, and to know a little bit more about the world we today call our own as a result of it.
Because this course is part of the General Education program at MSU, it has five goals, called “strands.” When you complete this course, you should be able to:
1. Analyze art and culture of the period in historical, formal, and personal ways.
2. Identify or define the things necessary to understand the art and culture of the period.
3. Trace the general influences and lines of development of the art and culture of this period.
4. Understand how cultures—including non-Western ones—express values and perceptions in artistic and philosophic forms appropriate to our own contemporary cultures.
5. Understand what constitutes sublimity or beauty in the arts and culture of the period.
Humanities 251 is constituted as a mix of lecture and class discussion, so come prepared to contribute to the great adventure in learning! It is what is called an “enquiry-based” course, because we search for questions and answers through dialogue, often live, in the classroom. So always come ready to add your voice to our classroom.
Attendance:
You have to be in class. When you miss a class, you probably miss a quiz or a test and you will definitely miss information for which you will be responsible later. I also lower your course grade by one letter for every ‘fourth’ absence. Expect short reading quizzes almost daily—especially at first.
Course Specifics
Our work is divided into three geo-historic periods—Classical Persia/Greece, Classical Rome, Medieval Europe, and is of two types—informational and analytical. That is to say, expect to simply have to know/memorize some dates, facts, bits of information about the periods and their prevalent art, literature, and philosophy. Also expect to read both secondary and primary sources related to these three periods, and to draw thoughtful conclusions from what you read, supported by specific proofs from the texts.
Formal evaluation of our term’s work will come in three forms: quizzes, exams, and short response papers. We will have many of these—quizzes will happen almost daily and will constitute 25% of the grade for a given period. Response papers constitute 25% of the grade for a given period. Exams constitute 50% of the weight for a given period. The cumulative quizzes, exams, and papers for any given geo-historic period will result in one 25% grade for that period, even though the number of quizzes, exams, and papers will probably vary from period to period, depending on the level and quality of classroom discussion. As a result, we will have four (4) big grades for the term, and roughly the following amount of work per section:
Persia/Greece 25% (5-10 quizzes, 1test, 2-3 two-page typed papers)
Rome 25% (same)
Europe 25% (same)
Europe and Cumulative final 25% plus 25% Medieval Europe (comprehensive, 2-3 short essays, 20-30 identifications of dates, distances, directions, persons, events, ideas, artworks, based on all that we have done during the term. Note that exam for Medieval Europe is folded into the comprehensive final exam, so expect a significant number of questions for this period on the exam.
There will be no make up quizzes or exams, and no late papers accepted without a good reason given.
Syllabus
***keep in mind that this syllabus is a rough map of where we hope to go this term and when. As a rough map, it is subject to change, and we will likely change it as the need arises. Bring this syllabus with you to class so that you can record the changes as they are likely to happen.
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Ancient Greece
Week 1 Aug 21-3
Introductions, dates, distances, directions, gods and goddesses, Pre-Socratics, Geometric pottery.
Film on ancient Greece
Quiz on syllabus, columns, musical styles.
Begin Holland’s Persian fire
Watch “The 300”
Week 2 August 28-30
Hollands Persian Fire
Discussion from Cunningham Chapters 2 and 3
Quizzes
Week 3 Sept 4-6
Persian Fire
Greek Statuary
The Pre-Socratics, Socratic and Aristotelian analytic methods.
Read Thucydides’ “Melian Dialogue” (website)
Week 4 Sept 11-13
Homer’s Odyssey
Week 5 Sept 18-20
Homer’s Odyssey
Week 6 Sept 25-27
Sappho, and Sophocles’Antigone
Exam I on Classical Greece
Introduction to Rome
Rome
Week 7 Oct 2-4
Discussion from Cunningham Chapter 4, pages 89-119.
Introduction to Rome: Movie
Dates, places, gods and goddesses for Roman World
Week 8 Oct 9-11
Catullus, Propertius, Sulpicia, and Roman Love Elegy
Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul
Week 9 Oct 16-18
Conquest of Gaul
Week 10 Oct 23-25
Tacitus’ Germania
Week 11 October 30 and November 1
EXAM II: Romans and Greeks, prep and exam.
Early Medieval Europe
Week 12 Nov 6-8
Introduction Early Medieval Europe
Discussion from Cunningham Chapter 9
Parable of the Sparrow/Dream of the Rood
Gregorian Chant
Beowulf
Week 13 Nov 13-15
“Beowulf”
Week 14 Nov 20,, class cancelled 22nd for Thanksgiving
Beowulf
Week 15 November 27-29
B
December 1: Final Exam week
Final Exam to be held at _____, on December ______, in 330 Hartnett Hall West.
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