Instructor: Sarah Iepson
Office: M2-32D
Phone: 215.751.8802
Email: siepson@ccp.edu
Office Hours: MW 9:00-10:00
Additional office hours by appointment

Course Description and Objectives:

Welcome to Humanities 101!

This course is an interdisciplinary study of the history and culture of ancient world to the renaissance that focuses on literature, philosophy, music, and art. The course will develop and discuss connections that exist between the humanistic arts within a specific time period. In addition, we will discuss crucial themes of continuing importance, such as the hero, love and loss, justice and injustice, self-awareness, and faith as they pertain to both Western and non-Western cultures. These themes will be the focus of much of our dialogue in the course, specifically the discussion of how they transcend cultural or religious boundaries to appear in a myriad of primary sources throughout history. It is this sharing of humanistic patterns that will be the main focus of the course.

This course is designed to develop an understanding of broad cultural and historical relationships. By the end of the semester, you are expected to:

• Understand and utilize terms and ideas for key concepts of theme, style, period, and interpretation of the periods and artists that will be the focus of the course. In other words, you should be literate in the terminology associated with Humanities studies.

• Use specific humanities methodology to create a discussion of objects, readings, and concepts.

• Feel comfortable with the key categories of Humanities studies (art, music, literature, history, religion, etc.) and with comparing, contrasting, and developing connections between them.

• Develop analytic skills for looking at and writing or speaking about works from the periods that will be the topic of our discussions.

• Feel comfortable using textual and online sources to enhance your study of the Humanities. This includes developing knowledge of the academic quality of texts and web sources that helps you to distinguish an academic source from a less-reliable source of information.

Class Expectations and Responsibilities:

Attendance:

Attendance is mandatory. Attending the lectures will be paramount to your understanding and grasp of the information. Missing two weeks or more of classes – 6 classes - WILL result in a lowered grade, and may result in being dropped from the class. Attendance will be taken at the start of every class. Arriving late on two occasions will equate to one absence.

Please note: Attendance is not simply coming to class. Attendance for this course includes being prepared and ready to discuss assigned readings, study questions, or other materials provided for the day or week of classes. It is expected that all students in the class will participate in class discussions, which will be the main method of teaching in this course. It is imperative that you are on schedule with the readings AND that you have taken the time to annotate your readings with notes for discussion (these can be part of your Journal, explained below).

Museum Trip:

We will plan a trip to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. This trip will be taken as a class (to the best of our scheduling ability). If you cannot attend with the class, you should plan on getting to the museum on your own, as there is a writing assignment associated with the visit. This will all be further addressed in class.

Email and Webstudy:

Please utilize your ccp.edu email for this course. All relevant notifications, messages, or other communication will be made through CCP's email system. Please make sure that you are checking this email or having it forwarded to an outside account. When sending an email, please follow appropriate etiquette – including addressing the email to the recipient (Dear Professor, Hi Professor, etc.) and signing the email (Thanks, Sarah).

We will be taking advantage of supplemental webspace through a program called WebStudy. Typically utilized for online courses, WebStudy will house all course documents, readings, and assignments, as well as provide a location for your weekly discussion submissions via online forum spaces. Webstudy will also house a virtual Timeline for the course….this will let you know what material will be covered each week. More details will follow in class, including a tutorial for using WebStudy.

All students will access WebStudy with a single username and password.

Username: guest116198
Password: hum101

Graded Material:

You will be graded on the following materials:

• Writing Assignments - 40% of your grade- explained below
• Forum Posts - 40% of your grade – including in class discussions
• Final Exam - 20%

Writing Assignments:

You will have three writing assignments to complete during the class. These papers will cover a variety of materials, including our museum trip and will be based on your readings and your interpretation of materials. Again, a handout on WebStudy will further explain each writing assignment.

Forum Posts and Discussions:

You will be asked to respond to a question in the WebStudy forum area. This is not intended as a quiz, but rather an opportunity for you to work on a more complex reading of the materials that we will be studying. You will be graded not on whether your answer is “right” or “wrong” but on your answer is thoughtful, reflective, and able to promote discussion about the readings.

For each forum question, you are expected to write at least 150 words in response (FYI: these two paragraphs are 170 words!). At least two students will be assigned the role of seminar facilitator for the in-class discussion of the forum question. Your job as facilitator will be to utilize the forum posts to continue the discussion about the reading(s) in class. You may choose to argue or agree with your classmates, or delve more deeply into the material based on forum responses. This will be a major part of your final grade, so please be prepared for the discussions and participate fully in the forum response.

Exams:

You will have a final exam. You will receive a Study Guide for the final exam with a list of questions during the final weeks of classes. The final exam will be cumulative.

Texts:

You will need to purchase the following texts for the course. Please take note of editions, authors, or publishers when purchasing the texts so that we are all on the same page, so to speak!

Seamus Heaney, The Burial at Thebes
ISBN: 0374530076

Dante Alighieri, Dante's Inferno, Digireads publisher
ISBN: 1420926381

Narayan, The Ramayana: Shortened Modern Prose Version
ISBN: 0143039679

J.M. Roberts, The New Penguin History of the World
ISBN: 9780141030425

Additional readings will be given as handouts.

http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/

Tentative Schedule of Classes

Week:	Reading/Lecture Assignment:	Assignments
1	Introduction Fish, NY Times Article Fish, Will the Humanities Save Us? Knox, The Walls of Thebes	Introduction Forum Fish and Knox Forum
2	Discussion of Fish and Knox Humanities – Why Study This
3	Major Theme Introduction – The Hero Pericles' Funeral Oration Campbell – The Hero Roberts, New Penguin History of the World (NPHW), 165-187	Writing Assignment #1
4	The Iliad, Books 1, 9, 22, and 24 Roberts, 165-187	Rage of Achilles Forum
5	The Iliad Continued	Hector a Hero? Forum
6	Seamus, Heaney, The Burial at Thebes	Writing Assignment #2 The Burial at Thebes Forum
7	Plato and Greek Art Plato on Art from The Republic	Plato on Art Forum
8	Hinduism and the Ramanyana Narayan, The Ramayana Roberts, 422-433
9	The Ramanyana Continued	Ramayana Forum
10	Rome and the Meditations Roberts, 227-244 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Readings on Augustus and Constantine
11	Dante and Christianity Dante's Inferno	Dante's Inferno Forum
12	Romanesque and Gothic Churches Art of the Western World Video Series
13	Vasari and Renaissance Art Vasari on Leonardo Vasari on Michelangelo
14	Vasari Continued
15	Final Exam Week