This course is a selective survey of the culture of the Western world. It presents major developments in the art, architecture, music, philosophy, and literature of the various periods in their cultural context. Interrelationships among these arts and the dominant tendencies and ideas of each period will be considered in an attempt to establish connections, perspectives, and synthesis. The first semester, HUM 201, covers the following periods: Ancient and Classical, Early Christian and Byzantine, Medieval, and Early Renaissance.

The purposes of the course are these:

1. to gain an integrated sense of the most significant and characteristic cultural achievements of each period, to explore the values and ideas expressed through its arts, to become acquainted with the major art forms;

2. to understand something of the impact of these developments on Western civilization;

3. to experience the humanities directly through field trips.

Inadequate attendance and participation will lower your course grade (from 2 to10% for 2-4 weeks of absence; absences exceeding that number will result in no credit for the course)

HONOR STUDENTS have the choice of lengthening their 2 field trip reports or doing a 3^rd report, due Week 13 at the latest (reschedule your 2^nd report accordingly).

This is an interesting and rewarding second-year college-level course. You will learn a great deal, including attitudes of responsibility that help you succeed. To do well, you must make a serious commitment to devote the necessary time (6-10 hours of study per week) and plan ahead to fulfill the course’s obligations. If your schedule is overburdened or complicated, then this is not the time to take a course that requires considerable reading, thought, and study. Instead, join us at a future time more favorable for success.

Tests are given weekly at the beginning of class and are ten minutes in length. For the first make-up test there is no penalty. On any subsequent make-up test, 5 percentage points will be deducted from that test’s score. A make-up test is given the following week in the classroom during the class break (thus eliminating or shortening your class break that night). If you arrive late to class after the test has begun, you must decide whether to take the test with less time, or to take it during the break that same night.

LATE ASSIGNMENTS

Any non-test written assignment not given to me in class on the due date must be delivered or mailed to my desk (Humanities Division, AA252). If it is mailed, the postmark will count as the date received. There is no penalty for any emergency-caused one-day lateness if it is explained, but after that time there is a grade penalty that increases for each day the assignment is overdue. (For very exceptional circumstances the penalty might be reduced or eliminated after discussion with me.)

READING AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR HUMANITIES 201:
SURVEY OF ANCIENT AND CLASSICAL, EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE, MEDIEVAL, AND EARLY RENAISSANCE PERIODS

NOTE: The reading assignment listed for the week should be completed prior to the class meeting in the following week, when the weekly quiz on that assignment is given. (Except for the Quiz on Week 1 Readings—an open-book take-home quiz to acquaint you with the format—the weekly quiz is closed book, completed in the first ten minutes of the class session. The textbook is abbreviated below as C&V. The C&V chapter exercises provide stimulating and useful topics that may be worth thinking about to integrate the material you have read. Refer to the glossary at the end of C&V for definitions of some important terms. Read all supplementary sheets and handouts thoroughly within a few days of receiving them; clarify matters you have questions about at the next class session. Before and after reading each chapter in C&V, examine the "timeline" chart that precedes it. For your convenience, each chapter contains a pronunciation guide.

WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE; PALEOLITHIC AND NEOLITHIC BEGINNINGS; ANCIENT EGYPT

C&V: The Arts: An Introduction (xi-xvii)
Reminder: examine timeline that begins each chapter.
The Beginnings of Civilization (3-13)

Begin right away taking good, thorough notes on readings, class sessions, and videos to utilize and integrate the materials for your end-of-the-semester final exam (see p. 7).

WEEK 2: MESOPOTAMIA; AEGEAN CULTURE
Quiz on Week 1 Readings
C&V: The Beginnings of Civilization, cont’d (14-31)
[read selections from The Epic of Gilgamesh]
Continue taking your reading and class notes.

WEEK 3: ANCIENT GREECE
Quiz on Week 2 Readings
Keep your graded quizzes until the semester ends.
C&V: Early Greece (35-71)
[read selections from Homer, Iliad, Books XV and XXIV; Sappho,
selected poems; Presocratics—Heraclitus; Herodotus, History of the
Persian Wars]

WEEK 4: Quiz on Week 3 Readings
Begin planning the first field trip (report due in Week 7 class meeting).
C&V: Classical Greece and the Hellenistic Period (75-103)

WEEK 5: Quiz on Week 4 Readings
C&V: Classical Greece, cont’d (103, bottom-131)
[read Sophocles, Oedipus the King; selections from Plato, Apology, Phaedo (Socrates’ trial and death), from The Republic, Book
VII,"The Allegory of the Cave"]

WEEK 6: ANCIENT ROME
Quiz on Week 5 Readings
Complete work on the first field trip, due next week.
Consult and follow the format requirements in the handout on field trip
reports.
C&V: The Roman Legacy (135-185)
[read selections from Catullus; Vergil, Aeneid, Book I, lines 238-304 only—pp. 172-173, and Book IV, entire selection; Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations: Book II)

WEEK 7: EARLY JUDAISM AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY
Quiz on Week 6 Readings
FIRST FIELD TRIP REPORT DUE IN WEEK 7 CLASS MEETING
C&V: Jerusalem and Early Christianity (189-219)
[read selections from Genesis, Job, Exodus, Matthew; "The Passion of
Perpetua and Felicity"]

WEEK 8: CHRISTIANITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES
Quiz on Week 7 Readings
C&V: Byzantium and the Rise of Islam (225-267)
[read selections from St. Augustine, Confessions; from The Qur-an, The Table Spread]

WEEK 9: Quiz on Week 8 Readings
Begin planning the second field trip (report due in Week 12 class meeting). Keep your graded first field trip report to resubmit in Week 12. (Do not revise it.)
C&V: Charlemagne and the Rise of Medieval Culture (271-291)

WEEK 10: Quiz on Week 9 Readings
C&V: Charlemagne and the Rise of Medieval Culture, cont’d (292-321)
[read Hrosvitha, The Conversion of the Harlot Thais; selections
from The Song of Roland]

WEEK 11: Quiz on Week 10 Readings
Complete work on the second field trip report, due next week.
Consult and follow format requirements in the field trip report handout.
Resubmit your graded (unrevised) first field trip report.
NO READING ASSIGNMENT—no quiz next week.
(Use this "breather" to concentrate on the field trip report &/or to work
ahead on assignments.)

WEEK 12: No reading quiz
SECOND FIELD TRIP REPORT DUE IN WEEK 12 CLASS
MEETING
Any HONORS third field trip report due next week.
C&V: High Middle Ages: The Search for Synthesis (325-355)

WEEK 13: Quiz on Week 12 Readings
ANY HONORS FIELD TRIP REPORT DUE IN WEEK 13 CLASS
MEETING
C&V: High Middle Ages: The Search for Synthesis, cont’d (356-385)
[read selections from Saint Francis of Assissi, "The Canticle of
Brother Sun"; Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto I;
Purgatory, Canto I; Paradise, Canto XXXIII]

WEEK 14: THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY: TRANSITIONS AND THE
BEGINNINGS OF THE RENAISSANCE
Quiz on Week 13 Readings
C&V: The Fourteenth Century: A Time of Transition (389-413)

WEEK 15: No quiz today; quiz on Week 14 & Week 15 readings given in Week 16
C&V: The Fourteenth Century: A Time of Transition, cont’d (414-433)
[read selections from Boccaccio, Decameron; Chaucer,
Canterbury Tales, "General Prologue"; de Pisan, The Book of the
City of Ladies]

WEEK: 16 FINAL EXAMINATION and quiz on Week 14 & Week 15 readings
No make-ups on final exam.
No Incompletes (I grades) given.

NOTE: The Final Exam consists of 40-50 short-answer items covering the entire semester. To prepare: (1) review especially the weekly notes you have made on the readings, class sessions, and videos, including any notes you have written in your textbook; (2) examine chapter "timelines," headings, and summaries to remind yourself of major aspects; (3) look at the weekly quizzes to recall materials that have been covered, although exam items are different in that they are more comprehensive and less detailed.; and, finally, (4) have some sense of the chronology of important events (e.g., that the Punic Wars occurred after the Peloponnesian War).

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