Reed College
Reed College

Humanities 110

Introduction to the Humanities

Syllabus - Fall 2015

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Full Schedule

Week 1

Mon 31 Aug

Assignment

  • Anonymous, The Epic of Gilgamesh, pp. xiii-lii, 1-100, 175-195
  • Freeman, Egypt, Greece and Rome, pp. 1-18

Lecture: Panel Discussion

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Wed 2 Sep

Assignment

  • Anonymous, The Epic of Gilgamesh
  • Freeman, pp. 19-39 (2nd edition) or 16-36 (3rd edition)

Lecture: "Gilgamesh: When Terrified by Death..."
Nathalia King

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Fri 4 Sep

Assignment

  • Anonymous, The Epic of Gilgamesh
  • The Code of Hammurabi (online)
  • Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference

Lecture: "Of Gods, Kings, and Law"
David Garrett

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Week 2

Mon 7 Sep

Labor Day Holiday. No class.

Wed 9 Sep

Assignment

  • "The Great Hymn to Osiris" (Lichtheim II: 81-86) (on e-reserves)
  • "Coffin Text 148" (Simpson 263-65) (on e-reserves)
  • "Horus and Seth" (Lichtheim II: 214-23) (on e-reserves)
  • Freeman, pp. 40-62 (2nd edition) or 37-55 (3rd edition)
  • Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference.

Lecture: "Sirius Rising: Religion and Art in Ancient Egypt"
Pancho Savery

Map 1 Map 2
Fri 11 Sep

Assignment

  • "Pyramid Texts" (Lichtheim I: 29-50) and "Coffin Texts" (Lichtheim I: 131-133) (on e-reserves)
  • "The Book of the Dead" (Lichtheim II: 119-132) (on e-reserves)
  • "The Dialogue of a Man and His Soul", Tale of Sinuhe and Other Egyptian Poems, pp. 151-65
  • Freeman, pp. 63-79 (2nd edition) or 56-77 (3rd edition)
  • Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference.

Lecture: "Tomorrow is the Question: The Literature of Death"
Pancho Savery

Map 1 Map 2
Sat 12 Sep

First Paper Due

Due Saturday, September 12, at 5:00 PM to your conference leader.

View Paper Topics

Week 3

Mon 14 Sep

Assignment

  • Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference
  • "The Tale of Sinuhe" and "The Teachings of Khety," Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems, pp. 21-53, 273-83
  • Freeman, pp. 80-93 (2nd edition) or 81-92 (3rd edition)

Lecture: "'The Barbarian Born in the Homeland': Literature and the Symbolic Order of the Middle Kingdom"
Nigel Nicholson

Map 1 Map 2
Wed 16 Sep

Assignment

  • Tom Buckley, "The Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb" (on e-reserves)
  • I. E. S. Edwards, "Treasures of Tutankhamun: Catalogue," study text and images (on e-reserves)

Lecture: "Democratizing Culture: King Tut and the Canon Wars"
Sarah Wagner-McCoy

Map 1 Map 2
Fri 18 Sep

Assignment

  • Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference
  • Fowler, Love Lyrics of Ancient Egypt (selections) (on e-reserves)
  • Foster, Ancient Egyptian Literature (selections) (on e-reserves)
  • Foster, Love Songs of the New Kingdom (selections) (on e-reserves)

Lecture: "Familiar Yet Strange: Love Lyrics of New Kingdom Egypt"
Dustin Simpson

Map 1 Map 2

Week 4

Mon 21 Sep

Assignment

  • Genesis (including the Introduction from the Oxford Study Bible)
  • Freeman, pp. 94-109 (2nd edition) or 93-107 (3rd edition)

Lecture: "The Geneses of Genesis"
Michael Faletra

Map 1 Map 2 Map 3
Wed 23 Sep

Assignment

  • Genesis

Lecture: "Babble"
Jan Mieszkowski

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Fri 25 Sep

Assignment

  • Selections from Exodus (1-15)
  • Jaffee, Early Judaism, pp. 19-28; 172-188 (on e-reserves)

Lecture: "A People in Between: Exodus and the Israelites at the Crossroads of Empire"
Margot Minardi

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Week 5

Mon 28 Sep

Assignment

  • Selections from Exodus (16-35 and 40.16-34)

Lecture: "Moses as a Nation Builder"
Tamara Metz

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Wed 30 Sep

Assignment

  • The Book of Job

Lecture: "A Questioning Text: Text and Context in the Book of Job"
Kristin Scheible

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Fri 2 Oct

Assignment

  • The Book of Esther

Lecture: "Narratives and Identities: Jews in the Persian Empire"
Gail Sherman

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Week 6

Mon 5 Oct

Assignment

  • Homer, The Iliad, Bks 1-5

Lecture: "Fighting Words"
Jan Mieszkowski

Map 1 Map 2
Wed 7 Oct

Assignment

  • Homer, The Iliad, Bks 6-10
  • Freeman, pp. 121-38 (2nd edition) or 116-39 (3rd edition)

Lecture: "Divine and Human Values in <em>The Iliad</em>"
Ann Delehanty

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Fri 9 Oct

Assignment

  • Homer, The Iliad, Bks 11-15

Lecture: "Oral Tradition in Homer: Giving Form to Action"
Nathalia King

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Sat 10 Oct

Second Paper Due

Due Saturday, October 10, at 5:00 PM to your conference leader.

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Week 7

Mon 12 Oct

Assignment

  • Homer, The Iliad, Bks 16-20

Lecture: "Leaves, Fire, War: Homeric Similes"
Gail Sherman

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Wed 14 Oct

Assignment

  • Homer, The Iliad, Bks 21-24

Lecture: "Love Is a Battlefield"
Jay Dickson

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Fri 16 Oct

Assignment

  • Hesiod , Theogony
  • Freeman, pp. 139-44 (2nd edition) or 139-43 (3rd edition)

Lecture: "Feeble, Ignorant, Ugly, and Smelly: Gods and Humans in Hesiod's <em>Theogony</em>"
Sonia Sabnis

Map 1 Map 2
Sat 17 Oct

Fall Break

October 17 – October 25

Week 8

Mon 26 Oct

Assignment

  • Hesiod, Works and Days

Lecture: "'When the Artichoke Flowers': The Works and Days of Hesiod"
Lena Lencek

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Wed 28 Oct

Assignment

Lecture: "Life Forms"
Kris Cohen

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Fri 30 Oct

Assignment

  • Visual Images: study these images before lecture and conference:
      Kouroi
      Egyptian Sculpture
  • Hurwit, The Art and Culture of Early Greece, pp. 125-202 (on e-reserves)

Lecture: "Defining Art"
Ann Delehanty

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Week 9

Mon 2 Nov

Assignment

  • Miller, Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation: Archilochus, pp. 1-12; Alcman, pp. 31-37; Solon, pp. 64-76
  • Freeman, pp. 144-82 (2nd edition) or 144-83 (3rd edition)

Lecture: "How to Read Poetry and Why"
Marat Grinberg

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Wed 4 Nov

Assignment

  • Miller, Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation: Sappho, pp. 51-63; Theognis, pp. 82-94
  • Ibycus, pp. 95-98; Anacreon, pp. 99-103

Lecture: "Speaking Sappho: Lyric Form, Lyric Voice"
Lucía Martínez

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Fri 6 Nov

Assignment

  • Presocratics Reader, pp. 13-65
  • Freeman, pp. 183-97 (2nd edition) 184-201 (3rd edition)

Lecture: "The Myth of the Birth of Science"
Troy Cross

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Week 10

Mon 9 Nov

Assignment

  • Herodotus, Histories, Bk/Ch. 1.1-1.170; 1.201-1.216
  • Freeman, pp. 198-214 (2nd edition) or 202-18 (3rd edition)

Lecture: "Oracular History and Athenian Empire"
Margot Minardi

Map 1 Map 2 Map 3
Wed 11 Nov

Assignment

  • Herodotus, Histories, Bk/Ch. 2.1-2.64, 2.113-2.120, 2.142-2.151, 2.164-2.182; 3.1-3.38, 3.66-3.89; 5.39-5.78

Lecture: "Herodotus and/or the Rest of Us"
Robert Knapp

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Fri 13 Nov

Assignment

  • Herodotus, Histories, Bk/Ch. 6.48-6.84, 6.103-6.131; 7.1-7.152, 7.172-7.239

Lecture: No lecture

Map
Sat 14 Nov

Third Paper Due

Due Saturday, November 14, at 5:00 PM to your conference leader.

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Week 11

Mon 16 Nov

Assignment

  • Herodotus, Histories, Bk/Ch. 8.1-8.103, 9.17-9.82, 9.108-9.122

Lecture: "Interpreting the Persian Wars"
Radhika Natarajan

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Wed 18 Nov

Assignment

Lecture: "Empire of All Kinds"
Margot Minardi

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Fri 20 Nov

Assignment

  • Aeschylus, "Agamemnon," Oresteia
  • Freeman, pp. 247-69 (2nd edition) or 249-69 (3rd edition)

Lecture: "Feminine Speech in <em>The Oresteia</em>"
Michael Faletra

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Week 12

Mon 23 Nov

Assignment

  • Aeschylus, "The Libation Bearers" and "Eumenides," Oresteia

Lecture: "Justice in <em>The Oresteia</em>"
Peter Steinberger

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Wed 25 Nov

Assignment

  • Sophocles, Antigone

Lecture: "Antigone and Athen’s Democratic Anxieties"
Tamara Metz

Thu 26 Nov

Thanksgiving Vacation

November 26 – November 29

Week 13

Mon 30 Nov

Assignment

Lecture: "Iconoclasm, Image Excess, and Power: An Attempt at an Anthropology of the Visual in Ancient Athens"
William Diebold

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Wed 2 Dec

Assignment

  • Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Introduction, Bk/Ch. 1.1-1.146
  • Freeman, pp. 294-313 (2nd edition) or 293-312 (3rd edition)
  • Presocratics Reader, pp. 144-161

Lecture: "Thucydides and the Purpose of History"
Walter Englert

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Fri 4 Dec

Assignment

  • Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Bk/Ch. 2.1-2.65

Lecture: No lecture

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Sat 5 Dec

Fourth Paper Due

Due Saturday, December 5, at 5:00 PM to your conference leader.

View Paper Topics

Week 14

Mon 7 Dec

Assignment

  • Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Bk/Ch. 3.1-3.85, 5.13-5.24, 5.83-5.116

Lecture: "Thucydidean Thought"
Peter Steinberger

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Wed 9 Dec

Assignment

  • Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Bk/Ch. 6.1-6.41, 6.88-6.93, 6.105-7.18, 7.49-7.87, 8.65-8.71, 8.96-8.98

Lecture: "The Limits of Democracy"
Robert Knapp

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Tue 15 Dec

Final Exam

Tuesday, December 15, 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM

Course Logistics

Required Texts

  • Aeschylus, The Oresteia, trans. Fagles (Penguin)
  • Anonymous, The Epic of Gilgamesh, trans. George (Penguin)
  • New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, trans. Coogan, et al. (Oxford)
  • Curd, ed., Presocratics Reader: Selected Fragments and Testimonia, trans. McKirahan (Hackett)
  • Freeman, Egypt, Greece and Rome (Oxford)
  • Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Selincourt (Penguin)
  • Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, trans. Lombardo (Hackett)
  • Homer, The Iliad, trans. Lattimore (Chicago)
  • Miller, Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation (Hackett)
  • The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems, trans. Parkinson (Oxford)
  • Sophocles, Sophocles I: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, trans. Grene and Lattimore (Chicago)
  • Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans. Warner (Penguin)
  • Various Readings on The Ancient Mediterranean and Western Asia available on e-reserves

E-Reserves

To access texts that are listed as being on e-reserves, find the day's reading assignments and follow the link to the text. You will need your kerberos username and password to be able to access the texts. Learn more about accessing e-reserves on Moodle. Please bring a copy of the day's reading assignment to class.

Recommended Texts

Williams and Colomb, The Craft of Argument (Concise Edition) (Chicago)
Harvey, The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing (Hackett)

All texts may be purchased at the Reed College Bookstore; limited numbers of each are on reserve in Hauser Library. Also on reserve or in the reference section: Oxford Classical Dictionary; Oxford Companion to Classical Literature; Anchor Atlas of World History, Volume I; Richard Lanham, Revising Prose.

Conference Assignments

The Registrar makes initial assignments to conferences in this course that continue through the year. Students who subsequently find it necessary to change conferences must petition the Humanities staff (forms for this purpose may be obtained from the Registrar or from Kathy Kennedy, Chem 303). Return completed forms to Tamara Metz, chair of Hum 110. No conference changes will be permitted after the second week of the term.

Papers, Writing Assignments, and Examinations

Three course-wide papers will be assigned, due at the times designated on the schedule of readings and lectures; at least one of these papers will be revised. Individual conference leaders may assign additional writing. If the due date for an assignment conflicts with a religious holiday or obligation that you wish to observe, please consult with your conference leader. A four-hour final examination for the fall semester will be given Tuesday, Dec. 15, 6:00 – 10:00 pm in Vollum Lecture Hall. Rescheduling of the final exam will be allowed only for medical reasons

Writing Center

You can get additional help with all stages of the writing process from the Writing Center located in the Dorothy Johansen House. Drop-in help from writing tutors is available Sunday – Thursday, 6 p.m.-10 p.m.; additional hours will also be available during weeks that a paper is due (contact the Writing Center for more information).