Office: 213E Anderson Hall
Tel: 215-204-6768
Email: dmg33@temple.edu
Office hours: T/Th 3:30-5:30 and by appointment
This semester we will explore questions posed—and answers given—to life’s paradoxes over millennia and across the world: animal nature, human nature, higher reality—and the compromises by which we live.
Your goals for this course are to develop your critical skills—reading closely, writing persuasively, debating well—while learning about the works that have shaped our worldview. Our texts will serve as departure points for discussing timeless questions of human nature, such as order and chaos; the wild and the civilized; the real and the ideal; self and other; self and society; constructions of race, gender, and the body; the limits and possibilities of language; and the journey to self-knowledge. You will share your insights through a mix of expressive modes: blogging, creative and analytical projects, informal exercises.
Required Texts
Course texts are available at the TU bookstore. Please use the edition or translation listed.
1. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Trans. Andrew George (Penguin Classics)
2. Bartolome de las Casas. An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies. Ed. Franklin W. Knight. Trans. Andrew Hurley (Hackett)
3. Freud, Sigmund. Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis: The Standard Edition. Trans. and ed. James Strachey (W.W. Norton and Company)
4. Kafka, Franz. The Sons (Schocken Books)
5. Plato. The Trial and Death of Socrates, 3rd edition. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Rev. John M. Cooper (Hackett)
6. Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk (Pocket Books)
7. The Holy Bible: The New Revised Standard Version (Zondervan)
8. Laozi. The Daodejing of Laozi. Ed. and trans. Philip Ivanhoe (Hackett)
Blackboard
We will use Blackboard for blogging. Everything else (our schedule, course policies, additional resources for viewing, watching, listening, or reading) will be hosted on this site.
Requirements
I expect you to attend regularly (and to arrive on time!), prepare responsibly, and participate actively. Your success (and the success of the course) depends on your full engagement with the texts (which I expect you to bring to every class) and with one another (in class and online).
I take attendance. After three unexcused absences I will lower your final grade by one grade increment (e.g. B to B-) per additional unexcused absence.
Respect one another. Respect the learning environment. Listen thoughtfully to your peers, and respond constructively. The classroom is a space for debate, but not negative comments or behavior.
Do not use your cellphones or other disruptive electronic devices during class.
Grading
You must earn a grade of at least C- to avoid repeating this course. Your final grade will be determined as follows:
Attendance and class participation 20%
Blogging 20% Our blog will serve many functions: it will be a laboratory for your papers, a chance to share your observations and insights with your colleagues, and valuable feedback for me. For every unit and text I will provide prompts to jog your thoughts. You may choose one as a point of departure for your post, or you may develop an insight or question or intuition of your own. Your posts should not be plot summaries or class notes (though they may be sparked by something raised in class discussion); I expect thoughtful responses to our readings. You might choose to examine a literary motif or a writing strategy; or you might choose to compare texts in some way; or you might choose to relate a text to an issue in your world, your community, or your life.
Your posts should demonstrate your knowledge of the material covered. Every post should be approximately 300 words in length (about half of a single-spaced page of text). You may certainly write more! Good posts will cite thought-provoking lines or passages from the text. You may build on a colleague's post for your own post (agreeing and expanding with evidence of your own, or disagreeing and challenging with evidence of your own). Feel free to incorporate relevant media (images, music, video, websites) in your posts. You are also strongly encouraged to respond to your classmates' posts.
You should post the day or the evening before we meet to discuss the text on which you are writing. I will sometimes respond with blog posts or comments of my own.
Your blogging will be graded per thematic unit (Power, Money, Science, City). If you post 4 times in a given unit, you will earn an A for that unit (A- to A+, depending on the quality of the work); if you post 3 times, you will earn a B for that unit (B- to B+); if you post 2 times, you will earn a C for that unit (C- to C+); if you post once, you will earn a D for that unit (D- to D+). Posts are due by the last class day of a unit. You cannot make up posts after the unit has passed. Your final grade will be the average of your grades per unit.
Essays 40% You will write two 4-page essays. Details and deadlines to follow.
Final Project: 20% You will complete a final project instead of an exam.
Resources
You can find my office hours and contact information on my home page. Please do not hesitate to contact me (after class, via email, etc.) with any questions or concerns you may have.
IH Tutoring in 215 Anderson Hall. Trained peers can help you with understanding these texts and writing about them. I will post the tutoring schedule online.
The Writing Center has resources and tutors to assist you. You can arrange for a tutoring session in person or via email.
Disability Statement
This course is open to all students who meet the academic requirements for participation. Any student who has a need for accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me to discuss the situation as soon as possible. Contact Disability Resources and Services at 215-204-1280 in 100 Ritter Annex to arrange for reasonable accommodations for documented disabilities.
Policy on Academic Honesty
The following statement is quoted from the Temple University Bulletin. Plagiarism in my course will result in a failing grade.
Temple University believes strongly in academic honesty and integrity. Plagiarism and academic cheating are, therefore, prohibited. Essential to intellectual growth is the development of independent thought and a respect for the thoughts of others. The prohibition against plagiarism and cheating is intended to foster this independence and respect.
Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of another person's labor, another person's ideas, another person's words, another person's assistance. Normally, all work done for courses—papers, examinations, homework exercises, laboratory reports, oral presentations—is expected to be the individual effort of the student presenting the work. Any assistance must be reported to the instructor. If the work has entailed consulting other resources—journals, books, or other media—these resources must be cited in a manner appropriate to the course. It is the instructor's responsibility to indicate the appropriate manner of citation. Everything used from other sources—suggestions for organization of ideas, ideas themselves, or actual language—must be cited. Failure to cite borrowed material constitutes plagiarism. Undocumented use of materials from the World Wide Web is plagiarism.
Academic cheating is, generally, the thwarting or breaking of the general rules of academic work or the specific rules of the individual courses. It includes falsifying data; submitting, without the instructor's approval, work in one course which was done for another; helping others to plagiarize or cheat from one's own or another's work; or actually doing the work of another person.
Mosaic I