Instructor: Dr. Jason Swedene

Office location and phone number: LBR 327 (phone: 635-2122)

e-mail: jswedene@lssu.edu

Office Hours: Tuesdays 12:30 to 2:00 and by appointment

This course is an examination of our inherited culture through historical, philosophical, religious, literary, and artistic analyses. Our specific focus is on the styles from the Renaissance through Postmodernism. The aim of this course is not only to understand the triumphs and shortcomings of the humanistic subjects, but most importantly, to examine our own place in the wider culture that transcends each of us.

Required Texts:

1. 1) Fleming, William, Arts & Ideas, 9^th ed.(Australia, Wadsworth, 1995).
2. 2) Supplemental Readings are on website.

http://www.lssu.edu/faculty/jswedene

Course Requirements:

1. You must attend class regularly and participate in all class activities. A loss of 4% from your final grade will follow the 2^nd absence. After the 3^rd absence and each absence thereafter, a 2% grade reduction will follow.
2. All assignments for a given day must be done before class.
3. There will be six one-hour tests. The final test, test six, is a non-cumulative exam to be held during the final class. Make-up tests are given only as warranted by circumstance (e.g., documented illness or documented family emergency) and as granted by instructor.
4. "In compliance with Lake Superior State University policy and equal access laws, disability-related (learning, medical, physical, etc.) accommodations and services are available. Students are to meet with their professor in a timely manner, preferably the first week of class, to discuss their accommodation needs. Students will not receive services until they register with the Resource Center for Students with Disabilities (RCSD). Proper registration will enable the RCSD to verify the disability and determine reasonable academic accommodations. RCSD is located in South Hall, office 206, extension 2355."
5. Students are responsible for the assignments outlined on this syllabus and the course website. Absence at a previous class is not an acceptable excuse for not completing assignments on time.
6. An important note about extra credit: students may add up to 4% to their final grade by doing extra credit work. The first 2% may be earned by completing a chapter summary of a book, pre-approved by the instructor. The due date for that extra credit opportunity is July 15th (by 2p.m.): Click here for the appropriate form to submit for that credit. The next 2% may be earned by attending a cultural event and submitting a two-page journal entry on the experience. The due date for all cultural event journal submissions is July 31st (by 2 p.m.).  Click here for cultural event report guidelines.   No late extra-credit submissions will be accepted.
7. Instructor reserves right to amend this syllabus with sufficient notice to students.

Your final grade is the average of your six test grades plus any extra credit (see course requirement #6). Failure to meet the attendance requirement will result in a final grade deduction (see course requirement #1). Truancy, tardiness, and leaving class early each will be counted against your attendance grade. Beware of this policy so that you arrange other engagements such as work, dinner parties, vacations, child care, hunting excursions, etc. accordingly.

Cheating Policy:

Any form of cheating or plagiarism will result in certain disciplinary action, which might include failure of specific project and/or failure of the complete course. Cheating includes (but is not limited to) the use of any unauthorized assistance in taking quizzes, tests, or examinations; dependence upon the aid of sources beyond those authorized by the instructor in writing papers, preparing reports, solving problems, or carrying out other assignments; or, the acquisition, without permission, of tests or other academic material belonging to a member of university faculty or staff. Quotations must be used when the words are not your own and citations must accompany the use of others’ ideas, even if you paraphrase their wording. Failure to do so is plagiarism.

Week 1 (June 24-26)

Wednesday:

A: Course Intro; Hume "Of the Standard of Taste"

B: The Renaissance in the West (An overview of Fleming Chs. 9-11)
 

Week 2 (June 30-July 3)

Monday:

A: Fleming, Ch. 11

B: Fleming Ch. 12

Wednesday:

A: TEST ONE (On Chs. 11-12), Fleming Ch. 13; Luther; The Catholic Reformation Report to the Pope; The Diet of Worms. Luther on Trial. 1521.

B: Fleming, Chs. 13-4; Hume: an articulation of the Argument from Design; Galileo's Letter to the Duchess of Tuscany; Loyola. Regimini Militantia Ecclesiae
 
 

Week 3 (July 7-10)

Monday:

A: Fleming, Ch. 14 (We will continue using the outline downloaded last week for Ch. 14); Francis Bacon; The Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon

B: Fleming, Ch. 15; Calvin; Descartes' Meditation 1; Descartes' Meditation 2
 

Wednesday:

A: TEST TWO (On Chs. 13-14), Ch. 16;

B: Fleming, Ch. 16-7; Kant "What is Enlightenment?"; Jonathan Edwards "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"
 

Week 4 (July 14-17)

Monday:

A: Fleming, Ch. 17 (we will here use the same outline from Ch. 17 begun the previous session); Fall of the Bastille; American Declaration of Independence

B: Fleming, Ch. 17-18
 

Wednesday:

A: TEST THREE (On Chs. 15-17), Fleming, Ch. 18 (we will here use the same outline from Ch. 18 begun the previous session)

B: Fleming, Ch. 19; Marx and Engels;  Dickens from "Hard Times"
 

Week 5 (July 21-24)

Monday:

A: Fleming, Ch. 19 (we will here use the same outline from Ch. 19 begun the previous session); Nietzsche (Selections)

B: TEST FOUR (On Chs. 18-19), Fleming, Ch. 20
 

Wednesday:

A: Fleming, Ch. 20; Freud (to be distributed in class on Mon 7/21)

B: Fleming, Ch. 21; Sartre; Albert Camus
 

Week 6 (July 28-31)

Monday:

A: TEST FIVE (On Chs. 20-1)

B: Fleming, Ch. 22
 

Wednesday:

A: Fleming, Ch. 22; Herodotus and Ruth Benedict (to be distributed in class)

B: Fleming, Ch. 23
 
 

Week 7 (August 4)

Monday:

A: REVIEW

B: TEST SIX (On Chs. 22-23)