CORE 2007 -- Perspectives on the Individual

Thich Nhat Hanh, "Thây's Fourteen Precepts," in CORE book.
Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid's Tale.
David Ferry. Gilgamesh. Noonday Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN: 0-374-52383-5
Plato. Euthyphro, Apology, Crito. Translated by Church. Macmillan. ISBN: 0-02-322410-X
The Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel according to Matthew, in CORE book.
Pico della Mirandola, from "Oration on the Dignity of Man," in CORE book.
William Wordsworth. "Tintern Abbey," and "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," in CORE book.
Sigmund Freud. Civilization and Its Discontents. Norton. ISBN: 0-393-30158-3
Tillie Olsen. "Tell Me A Riddle" and "I Stand Here Ironing," in CORE book.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Ballantine. ISBN: 0-345-35068-5
Elie Wiesel. Night. ISBN: 0-553-27253-5

Style Manual for Papers:
Diana Hacker. A Pocket Style Manual. Boston: Bedford Books/ St. Martin's Press, 1993. The proper guide for making references to on-line sources is the MLA style sheet. It is not available on line. However examples of correct references may be found at the University of Georgia Libraries' MLA Style Sheet site.  The MLA format must be followed precisely for all formal writing and textual quotations.

Course Description:
This course is designed to expose students to the universal commitment of applying value to the individual.  Through an analysis of the assigned readings, students in this course will focus on the various perspectives of one's individualism and the factors that influence the emergence of the individual.  These factors will be viewed as the external and internal forces that either prohibit or encourage one's individual expression and development.

Course Assessments:
1.  Blackboard Discussion:  Since this class will be delivered entirely online, our class discussions will take place on FDU's Blackboard; your participation is expected and will be mandatory.  These discussions will be initiated by a list of Focusing Questions which can be accessed by a link to each text. 
2.  Two Formal Papers, one of 3 pages, the second of 5 pages.  All formal writing must precisely follow the MLA format. Topics will be taken from the Focusing Questions.
3.  Class Participation: since CORE 2007 will be considered a student-centered, participative course, it is your responsibility to read the assigned texts and be prepared for each class session to contribute to the ongoing discussion or writing.  Your participation grade will be assessed according to the quality and frequency of your Blackboard contributions and the level of expression employed in your formal writing.  Active, motivated, and engaged behavior will be expected!
4. Personal Response Project: This is a chance to explore and summarize your reactions to the term's material.  The form will be your personal choice: it may be a personal essay (I'd suggest a three-to-four-page minimum), a poem (I'd suggest at least twenty lines or more), a piece of art (pasted into an electronic document), a performance piece (pasted as an audio file) or a streaming video.  If you choose any of the art/performance formats, be sure that a written commentary accompanies your chosen piece (I'd suggest a three-to-four-page minimum).  This project constitutes 1/2 of the Second Formal Paper; failure to complete this will earn a zero for half of the essay.  Successful completion does not alter the grade of the paper, but particularly outstanding work (or, conversely, clearly half-hearted work) will be duly noted and credited.

Course Grading:
 

Blackboard Contributions	30%
Two Formal Papers	50%
Personal Response Project	10%
Class Participation	10%

 

92-100=A	75-77=C
90-91=A-	70-74=C-
88-89=B+	65-69=D
82-87=B	64-below=F
80-81=B-
78-79=C+

Assignment Policy:
It is expected that you will participate in every class session during the entire term.  However, if you are unable to complete any assignment (Blackboard Discussion or formal essay), it is your responsibility to notify the instructor BEFORE the assignment's required due date to obtain any appropriate accommodations or extensions.  With rare exceptions, no late assignments will be accepted.  In order to complete the coursework in a timely fashion, it is important for each student to visit the Blackboard site several times a week and to understand the assignments' parameters and requirements.

Academic Integrity:  Please note the University's policy on cheating, plagiarism, and other violations of integrity in the Student Handbook. Click on Academic Regulations.

University Education:  "By a crude mathematical formula, it can be suggested that what students teach students should be one-third of an undergraduate education, what professors teach students should be another third, and what each student does alone in the library, the laboratory, and the study should be the remaining third."
From Jeroslav Pelikan, The Idea of the University: A Reexamination (New Haven: Yale UP, 1992): 61.

                              
                                                          Course Calendar

  Week Number                                                                                            Text

Week #1	Gilgamesh
Week #2	The Sermon on the Mount; "Oration on the Dignity of Man"
Week #3	"Thay's 14 Precepts" (questions will be provided)
Week #4	"The Apology" and "Crito"
Week #5	The Handmaid's Tale I-VIII
Week #6 First Formal Paper Due	The Handmaid's Tale IX-XV
Week #7	Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing"
Week #8	Olsen's "Tell Me a Riddle" (questions will be provided)
Week #9	Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey"; "Ode, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood"
Week #10	Malcolm X's Autobiography: "Nightmare" pp.1-22, "Detroit Red" pp.87-96; "Satan" pp.165-171; "Saved" pp.182-194.
Week #11	Malcolm X's Autobiography: "Savior" pp.195-206; "Minister Malcolm X" pp.226-239; "Black Muslims" pp.240-270; "Mecca" pp.325-348; "1965" pp.371-389.
Week #12 Second Formal Paper Due	Wiesel's Night
Week #13	Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents
Week #14	Personal Response Projects
Week #15	Final postings

Gilgamesh:
(1) Heroes provide one perspective on the individual, since heroes serve as exemplary individuals or models of conduct. Gilgamesh is one of the first heroes in world literature. How does he exemplify heroic behavior?
(2) Other perspectives on the individual are provided by consideration of those factors that shape our identities. Enkidu first appears in Gilgamesh as a wild man, totally outside human society. How is he socialized into human society? What role does his friendship with Gilgamesh play in Enkidu's socialization?
(3) As Enkidu lies dying, he bitterly complains that the temple prostitute "Made me see things as a man, and a man sees death in things"(49). To what extent is awareness of mortality a distinctive human trait?
(4) In their adventures together, Gilgamesh and Enkidu defeat the monster Humbaba. Exactly what is Humbaba? Do you think this figure, at least in some respects, symbolizes some natural phenomenon? You may wish to reread the descriptions of Humbaba on pages 29 and 38.
(5) As Gilgamesh and Enkidu approach Humbaba's forest, Gilgamesh is described as being "revitalized by danger"(35). To what extent is a person's individual development enhanced by confronting danger or adversity? Are challenges and hardships essential to building character?
(6) The death of Enkidu drives Gilgamesh into a frenzy of grief. To what extent do extreme pain or bereavement isolate or "desocialize" an individual?
(7) Gilgamesh's search for Utnapishtim and the secret of immortality is an early example of the heroic quest. While there are possible elements of a real journey in Gilgamesh's quest, it is easy to see this quest as a symbolic journey that brings Gilgamesh to a deeper understanding of human mortality. Which elements of the journey seem to you to be the most realistic? Which elements seem the most symbolic? Little is said in the text about Gilgamesh's behavior and actions after his return. How would you imagine him to have been changed by this journey?
(8) The story of Utnapishtim is clearly similar to the biblical account of Noah and the Ark. What are the similarities between the two stories? What important differences are there?
(9) What can you infer from Gilgamesh about the religious beliefs of the ancient Mesopotamians? What attitudes to the Mesopotamian gods appear in the story? See, for example, Utnapishtim's comments to Gilgamesh on pages 78-79. What beliefs, if any, about an afterlife seem to be implied in the story?
 

The Sermon on the Mount:
(1) The beatitudes (5:3-10) are considered a proclamation of a new approach to the good life. Would Gilgamesh have accepted these notions of goodness? Would he have rejected them all, accepted some? What about Socrates?
(2) Do you see any similarities between Socrates' attitude toward the gods and Jesus' attitude toward God?
(3) In these sayings there is a heavy emphasis on heaven and hell. What value do you think this has for the formation of a self? Is it necessary? Is it good? Is it harmful?
(4) There is also a strong emphasis on an interior goodness that goes beyond outward good behavior. Is this important, valuable? or does it impose an impossible ideal?
(5) Similarly, what do you think of such well-known ideas as turning the other cheek? loving your enemies? and so on. Do they have any validity, or are they unreal or even unjust notions?
(6) Jesus' insistence that we not be anxious about food and clothing sounds like Socrates' insistence that men not be anxious about acquiring honors and possessions. In what ways are they the same? different?
 

"Oration on the Dignity of Man":
(1) What is the importance for the individual human person of having a particular place in the "Great Chain of Being," that is, in the immense natural world, from atoms to galaxies?
(2) In what way does Pico de la Mirandola's understanding of human nature differ from the duality we saw in Gilgamesh between man as animal (Enkidu) and man as God (Gilgamesh)?
(3) In what way do human persons differ from the rest of nature in Pico de la Mirandola? Is Pico's a legitimate way to define the relationship in today's science-governed understanding?
 

"The Apology" and "Crito":
(1) Socrates claims that "An unexamined life is not worth living." What is an "examined life"? How is examining one's life related to being an individual in our culture? Is living an examined life always desirable? Is it possible to examine everything about our lives? Do you accept Plato's suggestion that the more heroic individual is the reflective, independent thinker rather than the warrior?
(2) What role does reasoning play in freeing us from the domination of traditional myths and social demands? What is the community's interest in controlling dissent?
(3) Socrates claims that his sole "wisdom" consists in the realization that he is not wise. What does he mean? Is his behavior during his trial and imprisonment consistent with this claim?
(4) It is sometimes argued that Socrates committed a form of suicide. In what sense, if any, is this true?
 

The Handmaid's Tale:
(1) The Handmaid's Tale warns us that we must address certain threats to our individuality in the present-day USA if we are to avoid having to face them in a fully realized way in the future. Discuss these threats to our individuality.
(2) Aunt Lydia talks of two kinds of freedom: "freedom to" and "freedom from," and warns the handmaids not to underrate "freedom from." What does each kind of freedom mean? Give examples. What does Lydia mean in warning not to underrate "freedom from"?
(3) Offred tells the commander that what is missing from Gilead is the opportunity to "fall in love." Do you agree that this is the greatest failure of Gilead?
(4) Handmaids' names are composed of "of," followed by the names of their commanders. In our own society, the majority of married women adopt their husbands' names. Discuss similarities and differences between the two practices.
(5) Do you agree with Professor Pieixoto that "our job is not to censure [practices in Gilead], but to understand [them]"?
(6) Is Offred a heroic individual? Why or why not?
(7) The Handmaid's Tale presents us with a dystopia in which individuality is largely crushed. Which one of all your freedoms today now seems more precious as a result of reading The Handmaid's Tale?
 

"I Stand Here Ironing":
(1) There are many sources of the pain which Emily has experienced in her life. Who or what is mainly responsible for this pain?
(2) Does Emily have the freedom to overcome the difficulties of her early life? What might Freud say? Pico?
(3) "I Stand Here Ironing" has been called a work which de-romanticizes motherhood. Is it? Why or why not?
(4) Poverty plays a large role in this work by Olsen.  In what ways does poverty limit the freedom of the main characters?  In what ways are such limitations overcome?
(5) Individuality is most certainly linked to the discovery of meaning in our lives.  How do the main characters in this story discover or fail to discover meaning?
(6) Critics have claimed that there is a movement from grief to hope in this tale.  Do you agree?
 

"Tintern Abbey" and/or "Ode, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood":
(1) What does it means to say "the child is father to the man"? Is it true?
(2) Wordsworth's natural world is much more intimate and vivid than the abstract vision of the cosmos considered by Pico. In what way does this modify the way we think of ourselves in relation to nature?
(3) Why is it the child's relation to nature that is so important in "Tintern Abbey" and "Ode"?
(4) For Wordsworth, the outer self is the social self. Why does he reject this outer self in favor of an inner, private self? Is this same rejection found in any way in Gilgamesh or in Plato's "Apology" and "Crito"?
(5) Why does Wordsworth find the Socratic or Platonic ideal of reason inadequate for the making of a self? Whom would Wordsworth admire more-- Socrates or Gilgamesh?
(6) Wordsworth suggests that we become prisoners as we grow older. Do we find this experience reflected, for instance, in Gilgamesh or in Socrates? Do we find it in our own experience?
(7) Childhood, nature, and the folk are the sources from which Wordsworth builds an inner self. How are they related?
 

Malcolm X's Autobiography:
(1) In what ways was Malcolm's individuality denied him because of his race?
(2) Malcolm said his life was a series of changes. What were the major changes in his life? How did the various names and nicknames he had mark some of the changes? What was the difference between the childhood of Malcolm X and the childhood that Wordsworth describes?
(3) What personal experiences made him open to accepting the teaching that "the white man is the devil"? What reading in history? In what way did his hajj change his attitude?
(4) What message did Malcolm have for African-Americans? For white Americans? Why did human rights become his central idea, and not just civil rights? What were his final spiritual teachings?
(5) Malcolm's life can be seen as a process of mental liberation, of "decolonizing the mind." How did his self-education contribute? How did his break with Elijah Muhammad?
(6) What can Malcolm tell us about the value of education?
(7) What was his attitude toward women in general, and in particular, towards Ella, his mother, Betty Shabbaz? What was his attitude toward Jews? Toward violence?
(8) What would you say about the claim that Malcolm found himself through commitment to a higher cause?
(9) How do racial and other group identifications shape our sense of who we are?
 

Night:
(1) In what way is the narrator's early life in Sighet like the early life described by Wordsworth? Note several elements of this early life which constitute the narrator's individuality. Show how each is taken away from him by his life in the camps.
(2) The relationship of Eliezer to his father is very important in the second half of the book. Why? From this relationship, what lesson does Eliezer learn about an individual's potential for good and evil?
(3) Just prior to the Nazi invasion of Hungary, the Jews of Sighet took comfort against rumors to the effect that Hitler was harming European Jews by asking: "Was he going to wipe out the whole people?. . . So many millions! . . . And in the middle of the twentieth century!" The twentieth century individual, they thought, was incapable of repeating the atrocities, the mass murders of the dim past. What assumptions about the effect of Western culture on the "twentieth century" individual are being made here? How have your ideas about "progress" been affected by this text?
(4) The Holocaust could not have occurred without the active collaboration of many ordinary citizens and the silent compliance of countless others. At the war crimes tribunal following World War II at Nuremberg, many Nazi defendants pleaded the case that they were "just following orders," that actions taken against Jews were "legal." Individual citizens in our own society sometimes confront laws they find to be immoral. Give some instances in recent United States history in which individuals have refused to obey laws they condemn morally. Are there any laws which would prompt your disobedience for ethical reasons?
(5) This course begins with a dystopia. Toward the close of the course we have now read a tale of a lived dystopia. What similarities to Gilead do you find in the world described in Night?
(6) Imagine that Plato and Freud are alive and have just completed reading Wiesel's Night. Compose letters written by them to Wiesel telling him how their own thoughts relate to the tragedy depicted in Night.
 

Civilization and Its Discontents:
(1) How does Freud differ from Wordsworth in his explanation of the struggle between instinctual drives and the expectations of civilization? Which one, do you think, better explains the tension?
(2) Wordsworth sees nature as a refuge from civilization. How does Freud see it?
(3) Does the struggle between civilization and instinct contribute to or inhibit personal growth?
(4) What is the difference between Freud's notion of law and that of Socrates?
(5) How widespread is discontent in American civilization? What are the principal sources of this discontent? Can technology relieve us of these problems? What does Freud think?
(6) What is the relationship between Freud's theories and the way the struggle between instinct and culture has been managed in The Handmaid's Tale?