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S
?
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
S. c&,.t,o
MEMORANDUM
To: Senate
?
From: Senate Committee on
Undergraduate Studies
Subject:
Humanities: New Course
?
Date:
October 6, 1986
Proposals
- - - Action undertaken by the Senate Committee-on Undergraduate Studies at its
meeting of September 30, 1986 gives rise to the following motion:
MOTION:
"That Senate approve and recommend approval to the Board of
Governors, as set forth in S.86-6o, the proposed new courses
S
HUM. 201-3 Great Texts in the Humanities I
HUM. 202-3 Great Texts in the Humanities II
HUM. 380-3 Special Topics in the Humanities
0
 
SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
I ?
MEMORANDUM
?
SLJS
FC-6
10........
.
O..
Heath, Secretary
Senate Committee on
U
ate Studies
Subject.. Humanities: New
.
Cours...roposalS
olerts
Date. .. July• . 18 ?
1986
.
S
The Faculty of Arts Curriculum Committee, at its meeting of July 17, 1986,
approved the following courses for permanent inclusion in the calendar:
HUM. 201-3 GREAT TEXTS IN THE HUMANITIES I
HUN. 202-3 GREAT TEXTS IN THE HUMANITIES II
HUM. 380-3
?
SPECIAL TOPICS IN THE HUMANITIES
Would you please place these items on the agenda of tbenext meeting-of the -
SedtCoftteeon Undergraduate Studies.
Sheila Roberts
end.
SR/ sjc
cc: P. Dutton
ILfN
U
0
 
SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES
?
Ca6 - 13
- ?
NEW COURSE PROPOSAL FORM
1.
Calendar Information ?
Department HUMANITIES
Abbreviation Code: HUM.
?
Course Number: 201
?
Credit
Title of Course: GREAT TEXTS IN THE HUMANITIES I
Calendar Description of Course: This course is an intensive study of some of the major works
which have had a formative influence on the structure and development of western thought.
Reading and discussion of primary texts and the major themes which emerge from them will
introduce students to essential philosophical, literary, social, and religious themes of
western civilization. Texts for this course will be drawn from the Ancient World, Middle Ages.
Nature of Course
?
?
.
?
and the Renaissance.
Lecture and Tutorial
Prerequisites (or special instructions): HIST 105 or PHIL 150 (or may be taken concurrently).
What course (courses), if any, is being dropped from the calendar if this course is
approved: none
2. Scheduling
How frequently will the course be offered?
?
once a year
Semester In which the course will first be offered? 87-3
Which of your present faculty would be available to make the proposed offering
possible? P. Dutton, J. Hutchinson, J. Tietz
3.
Objectives of the Course
see attached
4.
Budgetary and Space Requirements (for Information only)
What additional resources will be required in the following areas:
Faculty - Faculty secondment or sessional stipend occasionally may
,
be required.
Staff
Library
Audio Visual
Space
Equipment
5.
Approval
/ ?
mont
?
ap ?
Dean
?
Chairman, SCUS
Coo dinator' umanit es
'-CUS 73-34b:- (When corn
?
nj9is
form, for instructions see Memorandum SCUS 73-34a.
.ttach course outline).
Arts 78-3
 
SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES
- ?
NEW COURSE PROPOSAL FORM
'
Calendar Information ?
Department HUMANITIES
Abbreviation Code: HUM. ?
Course Number: 202 ?
Credit Hours: 3 Vector: 1-2-0
Title of Course: GREAT TEXTS IN THE HUMANITIES II
Calendar Description of Course: This course is an intensive study of some of the major works
which have had a formative influence on the structure and development of western thought.
Reading and discussion of primary texts and the major themes which emerge from them will
introduce students to essential philosophical, literary, social, and religious themes of
western civilization. Texts for this course will be drawn from the 17th Century through
Nature of Course
?
? . ?
the Modern period.
Lecture and Tutorial
Prerequisites (or special instructions): HIST 106 or PHIL 151 (or may be taken concurrently)
What course (courses), if any, is being dropped from the calendar if this course is
approved:
- 2. Scheduling -
?
-
How frequently will the course be offered?
?
once a year
Semester in which the course will first be offered? 88-1
Which of your present faculty would be available to make the proposed offering
possible? J. Tietz, J. Hutchinson, B. Koepke, J. Zaslove
o
Objectives of the Course
see attached
4. Budgetary and Space Requirements (for information only)
What additional resources will be required in the following areas:
Faculty- Faculty secondment or sessional stipend occasionally may be required.
Staff
Library
Audio Visual
Space
Equipment
5. Approval
Date
?
April 3,
Dean
Coord
I ?
atm
1
ator, Humanities Minor Program
10S
73-34b:- (When completing this form,
.tach course outline).
Arts 78-3
Chairman, SCUS
for instructions see Memorandum SCUS 73-34a.
 
OBJECTIVES OF
?
.
GREAT TEXTS IN THE HUMANITIES I AND II
A two semester course, roughly paralleling the chronological outlines
of HIST 105/106 and PHIL 150/151, to supply what those courses cannot:
intensive contact with primary texts. Thus, one of the chief objectives
of HUM. 201 and 202 would be to supplement the work done in those courses,
which we emphasize as integral to our Humanities lower level requirements.
We would hope to enrich the basic knowledge students possess about
western civilization before they move to upper level courses. At a
rudimentary level we would be introducing lower level students to a
wide range of important texts which would serve as a basis for further
reading and enrichment as they move through other courses in the Faculty
of Arts. We would also be introducing them to the art of reading. Not
only do recent high school graduates lack exposure to a wide range of
books, but they have not attained the skills for dealing with difficult
and challenging texts. We would in HUM, 201 and 202 emphasize, through
regular reading and writing assignments, a critical approach to texts.
The texts chosen for the course need only be 'representative', relatively
short, and available at reasonable cost. The samples on the following
pages for HUM, 201 and HUM. 202 contain a mixture of genres, perspectives,
and themes.
 
Sample
SHUM. 2 0
READINGS
?
WEEK I
?
a selection of Greek plays: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex; Euripides, Medea etc.
?
II ?
Socrates' last days: Plato, The Apology, Crito, Phaedo etc.
?
III
?
a sampling of Roman historiography: Sallust, Jugurthine War and Catiline
IV Latin humanism: Seneca, The Letters
-- ?
- --
?
- early Christian hagiogràpliy: Lives of the Desert Fathers
or
ancient Stoicism: ?
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations
VI Augustine, a philosophical work like the De magistro or a selection of Sermons
?
VII ?
Roman law: Justinian's Corpus luris Civilis (Penguin has a short vol. on this)
• VIII a medieval romance: The Song of Roland
IX the 12th century renaissance: The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
with the Historia
X medieval political theory: Thomas Aquinas, On Kingship
?
XI ?
Renaissance of the 14th.century: Petrarch, Love Sonnets
?
XII ?
Renaissance Political theory: Machiavelli, The Prince
 
SAMPLE
HUM. 202
WEEK ?
TEXT
1-3 ?
Shakespeare: one or two from Hamlet, Othello, Lear,
Hobbes: Leviathan (selections), Milton: Paradise
Lost (selections)
4-5 ?
Descartes: Discourse on Method, Meditations I
?
II,
Montaigne: Apology for Raimond Sebond, M,ntescuieu,
- The Spirit of the Laws, Bayle: Dictionary (selections),
Vico: Principles of a New Science
6 ?
Molire: Tartuffe, Montesqueiu: Persian Letters
Locke: Second Treatise on Civil Government
7-8 ?
Pope: An Essay on Man, Swift: Gulliver's Travels
Dafoe: Robinson Crusoe
9 ?
Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, a summary
of Kant's response
10 ?
Carlyle: Heroes and Hero-Worship, Proudhon: What is
Property?, de Tocqueville: Democracy in America,
Rousseau: Social Contract (selections)
11-12 ?
Shelley: A Defence of Poetry, and selections from English
romantic poets, Dostoevsky: The Grand Inquisitor,
selections from William Godwin: Political Justice, and
Mary Wolistonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Women
13 ?
Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther, Freud: Civilization
and its Discontents
Four short essays (80% of final grade) and a take-home final (20% of final grade).
The essays will be critical and analytical in nature, emphasizing central concepts
and arguments in the readings, and are intended to strengthen,the student's
dialectical skills as well as his or her grasp of the text. The final exam will
be devoted to one or two questions inviting the student to characterize an
historical period and to defend their view by selecting representative passages
from the readings.
9
 
Space
Equipment
5. Approval
Arts 78-3
SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES
?
C. ?
-i3
NEW COURSE PROPOSAL FORM
Department HUMANITIES
Credit Hours: 3 Vector: 0-3-0_
Ô
Calendar Information
Abbreviation Code:
HUM.
?
Course Number: 380
Title of Course: SPECIAL TOPICS IN THE HUMANITIES
Calendar Description of Course: Topics and themes will vary, but will explore the
relationship of the Humanities to other disciplines, or will focus on major problems
in understanding the range and value of the Humanities.
Nature of Course Seminar
Prerequisites (or special instructions): 18 hours of Humanities related courses at the
lower division or permission of the Program Coordinator.
What course (courses), if any, is being dropped from the calendar if this course is
approved:
?
none
Scheduling ? -
How frequently will the course be offered? once a year
Semester in which the course will first be offered? not yet set
Which of your present faculty would be available to make the proposed offering
possible? P. Dutton, J. Zaslove, S. Duguid, J. Tietz etc.
o
Objectives of the Course
To provide more opportunities for interested faculty members to teach topics not currently
listed in our offerings.
4. Budgetary and Space Requirements (for information only)
What additional resources will be required in the following areas:
Faculty -
Staff
Library
Audio Visual
"-I
Chairman, SCUS
,gram
is form, for instructions see Memorandum SCUS 73-34a.
 
Sample
FREUD AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: A PROBLEM IN THE HISTORY
AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMANITIES IN RELATIONSHIP TO
THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE MODERN WORLD
In the 20th century Freud and his followers have provoked intense debates
about the humanities. These debates concern such large issues as the
general trajectory of history, the meaning and burden of culture,
and the plight of modern individual. By uncovering the unconscious
dynamic of history, Freudians and their followers have shifted
terms of humanist inquiry. Through a close examination of their
writings, this course will assess the significance of Freud and the
psychoanalytical movement for the humanities.
Required Books
S. Frued, Civilization and its Discontents
S. Freud, The Questions of Lay Analysis
B.
Betteiheim, The Informed Heart
N.O. Brown, Life against Death
R. Sennett, The Fall of Public Man
C.
Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism
Course Requirements
Grades will be determined by:
General attendance and participation 10%
Short Mid-term Paper ?
30%
Final Paper
?
'I,,
 
SAMPLE
I
•RAN1TIES
THEME: SPECULATIONS ON THE HUMAN POSSIBILITY - A COMPARATIVE STUDY
OF APOLLONIAN VISIONS- AND. DIONYSIAN NIGHTMARES FROM ROUSSEAU
TO MODERN TIMES
Major figures which will be studied:
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Tho
,
pas Paine
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Robert Owen
Karl Marx
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Sigmund Freud
Man, the 'Common Man', or the 'worker'
One of the "perennial auestions" addressed in Franklin Baumer's Modern
European Thought is simply the Question of man - are we to be optimistic or
pessimistic about our collective futures? is our nature essentially good,
albeit frequentl y
corrupted, or are we 'had', possessing bestial Qualities
that must be controlled? Are we spiritually as well as socially at one with
each other, or are we fundamentally alone in the world, perhaps lost?
Answers to these questions have varied considerably over time. From
the pessimism implicit in doctrines of original sin, an early attempt at
optimism proposed that some
were
good, while most were doomed. This elitist
tradition was challenged In the 18th century by a series of writers who
managed to link a belief in the limitless potential of human progress through
the exercise of reason with a newly discovered social conscience. Hence it was
p
roposed that all men were good and could collectively achieve perfection. This
Apollonian vision, so foreign to our pessimistic age, is the core of this course.
Wp will
examine the antecedents of this vision, its relation co its times, and
its manifestations in social and political reality.
In examining the ideas of Rousseau, Paine, Proudhon, Owen and Marx we are
dealing with spokesmen for the inarticulate, for the mass of humanity so often
absent in the ruminations of Intellectuals. It is the democratization of
theory which makes this era truly modern. Because the central feature of this
vision
was its ruthless detertiiinatiofl to include everyone in the model, we must
stray from th(
,
realm of ideas and look as well at the people concerned, people
who
were living in an era of revolutionary disruption. intense social change,
and economic dislocation - people forced to choose between alienation or new
solidarities. ?
I rake as a key to this course thc. poi-.it
made by Raymond Williams
that the twin cataclysms of the French and Industrial .ovoletions which so
dominated the era were not merely a backdrop to
philOsc)hic
and creative
endeavour, but were "...rather, the mould in which general experience was cast."
To keep this reality more than a backdrop, we will use E.P. Thompson's classic
.
?
study The Making of the English Working Class as a form of reality therapy
throughout the course.
 
Finally, to avoid ; fdse but luxertous optimism, we will return
the end of the course to a more familiar vision, the Dionysian view
o f
mm alone, confused, lost or impelled. For this we turn to Dostoevsky,
Fr('I!d, Kafka and in a somewhat controversial sense, to Lenin who brought
eHtism full circle. In the late 19th centur
y
when visionaries became social
engineers and evils persisted, the intellectual mood shifted - angst and
doubt rtp1nced reason and perfectahility and the human possibility was
acc)rdingiy constrained.
Course Recuireinents:
flw
class will
be
divided into two components: a two hour lecture/
ner:I discussion and a one hour tutorial during which the emphasis will
he on student auestion, presentations and discussion.
Your informed and common sense as portrayed in class discussion will
bo
an important part of the overall success of the course and hence will
comprise 257 of the tiiiai mark.
One
major paper, a summary of which will be
presented to the class, will be worth 50% of the final mark and an-essay-style
final examination completes the evaluation process.
The research papers should focus on an individual, group, or movement
akin to but not including the major figures covtred by the course. You will
ho encouraged to select topics In which the theme of the course is approached
in an indirect manner, i.e., through literature, art or politics.
While a:pearitig to he legion in number, the texts are all eminently
readable and (with one exception) r:;ercifitllv concise. In some cases you
tra
y
find it sufficient to read only p
ortions of the book.
lean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
Tom
Paine,
The Rights of Man
E. 1
1
. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What Is Property?
Robert Owen, A New View of Society
Rius, Marx for Beginner.
Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
*Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground
*Sigmund Freud, Civilizstion and Its Discontents
0
 
1•'
;cHEl)U1.F OF READINGS:
?
W. Week 1: ?
Introduction
?
Week
2:
?
Russeni , The Social Contract., Books
?
& !
Thompson, Making of EngiL'h Working, CIass, chapters 1-2
?
Week
3:
?
Rousseau, Books 3 & 4
Tom Paine, The Rights of Man
Thompson, cha
p
ters 3-4
?
Week 4:
?
Paine
Godwin, "The Characters of Mn Originate in Their External Circumstances"
Proudhon, What Is Property?, chapter 1.
Thompson, chapter 5-6
?
Week 5: ?
Proudhon, chapter 3-6
Paine
Williams, "Contrasts"
Thompson,
ch:tpters 7-9
.-
Week 6: ?
Owen, first t'ssay - "The Formation of Character"
1roudhon,
?
taprer
5
Thompson, c,ipt:ers 10-11
Week 7:
?
owen, essays
2-4
rhompson , chapters 12-13
Rius, Marx for Beginners
Week
8: ?
Rius
Marx, The 18th Brumaire
Thompson, chapters 14-15
Week 9: ?
Marx, The 18th Brumaire
Thompson. chapter 16
Week
10: Dostoevsky, Notes From the Underground
Week 11: Dostoevsky
Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
Week
12:
Freud
Lenin,
what Is TO
1'.e Done?
Week
13:
Lukacs,
"The
Ideology of Modernism"
El

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