Humanities

Hum/H 1 ab. East Asian History. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. Late imperial values, institutions, and behaviors and their evolution in the 19th and 20th centuries. Hum/H 1 a will deal largely with China, and Hum/H 1 b with Japan. The readings will consist of selected thematic texts as well as a chronological textbook. Each term is independent of the other, and students will normally take only one of the two terms. Instructor: Staff.

Hum/H 2. American History. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. Among the major events, trends, and problems of our country’s history are the American Revolution, the framing and development of the Constitution, wars, slavery and emancipation, ethnic and gender relations, immigration, urbanization, westward conquest, economic fluctuations, changes in the sizes and functions of governments, foreign relations, class conflicts, domestic violence, and social and political movements. Although no one course can treat all of these themes, each freshman American history course will deal with two or more of them. How have American historians approached them? What arguments and evidence have scholars offered for their interpretations and how can we choose between them? In a word, what can we know about our heritage? Instructor: Kousser.

Hum/H 3 abc. European Civilization. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. This course will be divided into three terms, each of which will focus on a coherent period in the history of European civilization. Each term is independent of the others, and students will normally take only one of the three terms.

a. The Classical and Medieval Worlds. Will survey the evolution of Mediterranean and European civilization from antiquity through the end of the Middle Ages. It will emphasize the reading and discussion of primary sources, especially but not exclusively literary works, against the backdrop of the broad historical narrative of the periods. The readings will present students with the essential characteristics of various ancient and medieval societies and give students access to those societies’ cultural assumptions and perceptions of change. Instructors: Brown, Hoffman, Pigman.

b. Early Modern Europe. Will survey the evolution of European civilization from the 14th century to the early 19th century. The topics covered will depend on the individual instructor, but they will include some of the major changes that transformed Western civilization in the early modern period, such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the rise of sovereign states and the concomitant military revolution, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, and the French and industrial revolutions. Readings will include major works from the period, as well as studies by modern historians. Instructors: Brown, Hoffman, Pigman, Crosignani, Dennison.

c. Modern Europe. Will introduce students to major aspects of the politics and culture of modernity that have profoundly transformed Western society and consciousness from the French Revolution to the contemporary era. A variety of historical, literary, and artistic works will be used to illuminate major social, intellectual, and cultural movements. The focus will be on significant and wide-ranging historical change (e.g., the industrial revolution, imperialism, socialism, fascism); on cultural innovation (e.g., modernism, impressionism, cubism); and on the work of significant thinkers. Instructors: Kormos-Buchwald, Rosenstone.

Hum/H 4 abc. Civilization, Science, and Archaeology. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. This course will be divided into three terms, each of which will focus on a particular aspect of pre-classical antiquity or premodern science. Each term is independent of the others, and students will normally take only one of the three terms. Instructor: Buchwald.

a. Before Greece: The Origins of Civilization in Mesopotamia. This course will introduce students to the early development of civilization in Mesopotamia and Egypt from 4000 B.C.E. through 1000 B.C.E. Origins of agriculture and writing, the evolution of the city, and the structures of the Mesopotamian economy and social order will be discussed. Comparison with contemporary developments in Egypt during the Old and Middle Kingdoms may include a reading of Gilgamesh from 3000 B.C.E. and of the Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe. The course concludes with a discussion of life during the late Bronze Age. Focus will be on life as it was lived and experienced by many groups in pre-classical antiquity rather than on kings and dynasties.

b. Before Copernicus: Exploration of the Development of Science from Babylon through the Renaissance. Connections in antiquity between astrology and astronomy, the first comprehensive accounts of vision and light by al-Kindi in 9th-century Baghdad, the emergence of new concepts of knowledge about nature during the Middle Ages in Europe, alchemy in the early laboratory, and the development of linear perspective during the Renaissance.

c. The Origins of Polytheism and Monotheism in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Israel. The civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia gave rise to complex forms of religious belief and cult practices that were tightly connected to views concerning the social order, moral behavior, and the afterlife. Development of the concept of a moral death—that judgment of good and evil in life determines fate—in early Egypt, and the emergence there and in Mesopotamia of “sin” as a violation of cosmic order. The emergence of monotheism, which was born and shaped within this polytheistic matrix.

Hum/En 5. Major British Authors. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. This course will introduce students to some of the genres of English literature, including poetry, drama, and prose fiction, by studying major authors from different periods. Sometimes the course will cover a wide range of authors, while at others it will concentrate on a few. Authors might include Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Austen, George Eliot, or Joyce. Instructors: Gilmartin, Haugen, La Belle, Mandel, Pigman.

Hum/En 6. American Literature and Culture. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. Studies of American aesthetics, genres, and ideas from the birth of the nation to the present. Students will be introduced to the techniques of formal analysis. We will consider what constitutes evidence in relation to texts and how to develop a persuasive interpretation. Topics may include Nature’s Nation, slavery and its aftermath, individualism and the marketplace, the “New Woman,” and the relation between word and image. Instructors: Jurca, Weinstein.

Hum/En 7. Modern European Literature. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. An introduction to literary analysis through a sustained exploration of the rise and aftermath of modernism. What was the modernist revolt of the early 20th century, how did it challenge literary tradition and existing social forms, and to what extent have we inherited a world remade by modernism? While the course will focus on British and Continental literature, writers from other parts of the world whose work closely engages the European tradition may also be considered.Authors may include Flaubert, James, Conrad, Joyce, Woolf, Kafka, Borges, Yeats, and Eliot. Instructors: Gilmartin, Haugen, Pigman.

Hum/Pl 8. Right and Wrong. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. This course addresses the question “Where do moral ideas come from and how should they guide our conduct?” by exploring selections from the great works of moral and political philosophy—Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, Plato’s Republic, Hobbes’s Leviathan, Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, Mill’s Utilitarianism, Rousseau’s The Social Contract, Kant’s Groundings for a Metaphysics of Morals, Rawls’s A Theory of Justice—as well as a variety of more modern texts and commentaries. Throughout, an attempt will be made to acquaint students with the basic elements of Western moral and political tradition: notions about human rights, democracy, and the fundamental moral equality of all human beings. This historical approach will then provide a background for the issues that frame contemporary discussions of moral and political ideas. Instructor: Philosophy staff.

Hum/Pl 9. Knowledge and Reality. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. The theme of this course is the scope and limitations of rational belief and knowledge. Students will examine the nature of reality, the nature of the self, the nature of knowledge, and how we learn about the natural world. Students will be introduced to these issues through selections from some of the world’s greatest philosophical works, including Descartes’s Meditations, Pascal’s Pensées, Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge, and Kant’s Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. A variety of more contemporary readings will also be assigned. Instructor: Philosophy staff.

Hum/H/HPS 10. Introduction to the History of Science. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. Major topics include the following: What are the origins of modern Western science, when did it emerge as distinct from philosophy and other cultural and intellectual productions, and what are its distinguishing features? When and how did observation, experiment, quantification, and precision enter the practice of science? What were some of the major turning points in the history of science? What is the changing role of science and technology? Using primary and secondary sources, students will take up significant topics in the history of science, from ancient Greek science to the 20th-century revolution in physics, biology, and technology. Hum/H/HPS 10 may be taken for credit toward the additional 36-unit HSS requirement by HPS majors and minors who have already fulfilled their freshman humanities requirement and counts as a history course in satisfying the freshman humanities breadth requirement. Instructor: History staff.

Hum 119. Selected Topics in Humanities. 9 units (3-0-6); offered by announcement. Instructors: Staff, visitors.