Reed College
Reed College

Humanities 110

Introduction to the Humanities

Paper Topics | Spring 2016 | Paper 2

Due Saturday, March 12th, by 5 p.m., in your conference leader's Eliot Hall mailbox.
Length: 6-8 pages (1500-2000 words)

Choose one of the following questions:

  1. The critic Simon Goldhill claims that "Social and intellectual exclusivity . . . is as integral to the contextualization of Hellenistic writing as the values and institutions of collectivity and openness are to fifth-century theatre." Choose one of Theocritus' "Idylls," and show how that poem generates a sense of the difference between outsiders and insiders, and hence of social and intellectual exclusivity. Be sure to consider such matters as diction (word choice), figurative language, and implicit or explicit characterization of speakers within the poem.

  2. Both Aristotle and Polybius believe that the character of a people is shaped by the constitution governing their community. Yet these two political theorists have very different views about what constitutes the best constitution. What are the grounds on which they differ? On what basis--philosophical or empirical--might one go about choosing between these views?

  3. Choose 2-3 artifacts from the set of images from Alexandria (http://cdm-workspace.reed.edu/gallery/4219) and show how those objects help us understand a form of collective identity that doesn't presume the coherence of either a Greek or Egyptian people. (NOTE: if you are off campus, you will need to use the library proxy to access the image set.)

  4. Lucretius' On the Nature of Things both presents an account of the physical universe and offers what Martha Nussbaum calls a kind of "therapy" for the ills of human life. But unlike Aristotle, Lucretius does not supply us with an explicit theory of ethics. Does the work nonetheless imply an ethics? If so, what are its main features, and what relationship does the implied ethical theory bear to the poem's understanding of "nature"? If not, what would account for the absence of ethics from the story that Lucretius tells?

  5. Write your own essay topic. If you choose this option, it is necessary to have your conference leader approve your topic before you start working on it.