Humanities College Courses Fall 2011
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RESC 098 09 CRN: 15810
Myth, Reason, Faith
Prof. John Hunter, Comparative Humanities
Prof. Harold Schweizer, English
Prof. Janet Jones, Classics
Engineering Humanities, First-Year Course, Writing Level 1
Everyone knows that the seeds of modern Western culture were planted in the ancient world . . . but what precisely does that mean? This course is an introduction to the art, religion, philosophy, and material culture of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, beginning with the Hebrews and Greeks, continuing with the Roman empire(s), and ending with the emergence of Christianity, Islam, and what we call the "West." We start by acknowledging that the Western tradition is not a unified, easily-described body of permanent truths, but a complex, heavily-debated, and historically-mutable body of interpretations. The texts and artifacts that we study represent some of the most important cultural forms and currents of thought prior to the modern age (the Hebrew Bible, Greek tragedy and philosophy, epic poetry, architecture, etc.); we will examine them in their historical contexts, and explore the complex question of how the thought of the past interacts with that of the present. Among the other issues that we consider are: how has the understanding of divinity changed through time? What are the connections between spiritual beliefs and everyday life? What is the relation between law and justice? How do we mediate between tradition and innovation? How has the meaning of being human (along with ethnic and gender distinctions) evolved over time? Paralleling this course content is instruction in how to produce analytical writing, oral presentations, and research projects at the university level.
