Fall 2001: Core Humanities 1001-18
TR 3.45-5.00 White 120; Dr. Hugh Ormsby-Lennon, SAC 466 Office Hours TR 2.15-3.30
COMMUNICATION: E-mail: hugh.ormsby-lennon@villanova.edu (this is best). Feel free to call me directly at home: 215-592-8102. A phone-call there is more immediately effective than one to my office: x94655. For emergencies with papers, I have a home fax 215-238-1187, but please clear the transmission with me first.
I shall be using e-mail to communicate with the class on a regular basis. Please keep up to date. Students who have non-VU e-mail accounts (yahoo, hotmail &c) must still access their Villanova accounts, via web-mail, to keep abreast of my communications. If you prefer to receive mail in your non-VU accounts, you must go into your VU account via web mail and have all VU mail forwarded. I will not accept non-VU mail addresses.
Please note that my home page has many links to sites that are of direct relevance to this class; visits to them will prove rewarding.
Both this syllabus and "Protocols" for my classes can be directly accessed from my home page (which I have also made available on our class page).
CLASS DESCRIPTION
Many historians agree that "the modern age"--indeed
modernity itself--begins with the philosophical investigations of Rene Descartes and
Francis Bacon at the outset of the seventeenth century. It is easy to see what is modern
about modernity--its dreams of progress, its emphasis upon technological advancement, the
conviction that people's behaviour will match the material improvement of their lives--but
how can we square ideologies of modernism with Augustinian perceptions of original sin?
Much of our discussion will be devoted to exploring such aporias, both in the
authors on the syllabus and in light of news stories which bring us daily reports of
meliorism. We shall also investigate how modernity may have influenced our ideas of what
it means to be human, exploring shifting views of soul, spirit, body, identity,
personality . . .
READING LIST
Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Ballantine, 1968)
John Cottingham, Descartes (Routledge, 1999)
Dave Robinson and Chris Garratt, Introducing Descartes (Totem, 1998)
Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor's Tale: I: My Father Bleeds History (Pantheon, 1986)
Brian Vickers, Francis Bacon: A Critical Edition of the Major Works (Oxford, 1996)
William Rankin, Introducing Newton (Totem, 1994)
Voltaire, Letters concerning the English Nation (Oxford, 1994)
Voltaire, Candide (Dover, 1991)
Jonathan Swift, Writings (Norton, 1973)
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (Norton, 1986)
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (Grove)
US Constitution (Oak Hill, 1999)
[T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems, ed, F. Kermode (Penguin, 1998)]
[Richard Lanham, Revising Prose (4th ed., Allyn
& Bacon)]
SYLLABUS
Aug 28-30 Introduction to class. Screening of Blade Runner, a classic science fiction film (released in 1982; Director's Cut, 1993) that is based upon Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Sept 4-6 Discussion of Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? How much do the director Ridley Scott and the novelist Philip K. Dick owe to the philosophy of Rene Descartes? We shall also begin our analysis of Descartes himself.
Please note that Thursday 6 is St. Thomas of Villanova Day. Our class will meet from 12.15-1.05 in White 120.
Sept 11-13; Sept 18-20: T-R/T-R
Complete discussion of Descartes; Spiegelman's Maus; Swift, Writings, 340-355, 389, 522-5, 535-550 (attacks on Descartes and Christian reassertions of original sin and of the weakness of the flesh)
Sept 25-27; Oct 2: T-R-T
Bacon, "Introduction and Chronology," The New Atlantis and notes, xv-xlvi.456-489; 785-802. Other readings will shortly be assigned.
Swift's "Tritical Essay," Writings, 425-6; "Laputa, Lagado and the Struldbruggs," 132-164, 177-184.
Oct 4; Oct 9-11: R-T-R
Conclude Bacon; Introducing Newton; begin Voltaire's Letters (focussing upon Letters XI-XVIII, XXIV, modern medicine and philosophy, Bacon, Descartes, Newton, the Royal Society). ContinueVoltaire's Letters (with special attention to Letters I-X); Start Voltaire's Candide.
Fall Break 15-21 October.
Oct 23 Discussion of papers (with extracts).
Oct 25 Conferences.
Oct 30 Conclude Voltaire's Letters and Candide; If there's time we shall examine Swift's poems, 518-20, 525, 527, 531.
Nov 1; Nov 6-8: R-T-R
Franklin's Autobiography; xeroxes of other writings by Franklin.
Nov 13 Beckett's Waiting for Godot.
Class Trip to see play at Villanova Theater.
Nov 20 Beckett's Waiting for Godot; Swift, Writings, 326-31, 369-71.
Nov 22 Thanksgiving.
Nov 27 Franklin's Autobiography and related Writings.
Nov 29 Conclude Franklin; Swift on astrology, Writings, 426-441;522-525.
Dec 4 Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution.
Dec 6 Gulliver's Travels on page and screen.
Dec 11 No class: day has been designated Friday by University.
Dec 13 Gulliver's Travels on page and screen.
Final Examination: Tuesday Dec 18, 10-45-1.15, White 120