Arts, Letters, and
Science From the
Renaissance to the Age of Enlightenment
a version of the Austin College course
Heritage
of Western Culture (HWC) 101: The Early Western World
instructors:
Max Grober
VISION,
REFLECTION, DISCOVERY – Schedule of Meetings for 2004
All
lectures will be at 11 AM in the Ida Green Theater. Discussions will be conducted in small group classrooms at
the times and places listed on your schedule.
All
reading assignments should be completed BEFORE class on the day specified.
Friday
Sept 3 Lecture:
The Medieval Background Ida
Green
Monday
Sept 6 Lecture:
Nature had more power than his intelligence Ida
Green
Read: Boccaccio, The Decameron, pp. 3-49, 99-113,
165-79, 266-93, 419-25, 787-807
Wednesday
Sept 8 Discussion Small
Group
Unit 2: Leonardo da Vinci and the Marvels of Nature (Prof. Fontana)
Friday
Sept 10 Lecture:
Introduction to Leonardo da Vincis
Life,
Art, and Writings Ida
Green
Read:
Leonardo on Painting, pp.
1-46, 119-27
Monday
Sept 13 Lecture:
Optics and Perspective Ida
Green
Read:
Leonardo on Painting, pp.
49-68 and
excerpt
from the Notebooks (website)
Wednesday
Sept 15 Discussion Small
Group
Friday
Sept 17 Lecture:
Anatomy and Scientific Illustration Ida
Green
Read:
Leonardo on Painting, pp.
130-32
Monday
Sept 20 Lecture:
Depicting the Intentions of the Mind:
Motion,
Expression, and Physiognomy Ida
Green
Read:
Leonardo on Painting, pp.
132-53
Wednesday
Sept 22 Discussion Small
Group
Unit 3: Franois Rabelais and the Northern Renaissance (Prof. Grober)
Friday
Sept 24 Lecture:
Renaissance Humanism and Northern Europe Ida
Green
Monday
Sept 27 Lecture:
The Rabelaisian Carnival Ida
Green
Read:
Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel,
pp. 35-278
Wednesday
Sept 29 Discussion Small Group
Friday
Oct 1 MIDTERM
EXAM #1 Ida
Green
Monday
Oct 4 Lecture:
Galileo is the Starry Messenger Ida
Green Read:
"Introduction: First
Part" and
"The Starry Messenger" pp. 1-58 in
Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo by Galileo Galilei
And
Stillman Drake
Wednesday
Oct 6 Lecture:
The Earth and the Sun Both Move! Ida
Green
Read:
"Introduction: Second Part" and "Letters on Sunspots"
pp. 59-144 58 in Discoveries and
Opinions of Galileo
by Galileo Galilei and Stillman Drake
Friday
Oct 8 FALL
BREAK
Monday
Oct 11 Discussion Small
Group
Wednesday
Oct 13 Lecture:
Who Can Read the Book of Nature? Ida
Green
Read:
"Introduction: Third Part" and "Letter to the
Grand Duchess Christina" pp. 145-216 in Discoveries and
Opinions of Galileo by Galileo Galilei and Stillman Drake
Friday
Oct 15 Lecture:
Worlds in Conflict Ida
Green
Read: "The First Day" pp. 9-121 in Dialogue Concerning the
Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei
and Stillman Drake
Monday
Oct 18 Discussion Small
Group
Wednesday
Oct 20 Lecture:
Shakespeares Politics Ida
Green
Read:
Shakespeare, The Winters Tale,
pp.
vii-xi, xxvi-xxxvii
Friday
Oct 22 Lecture:
Shakespearean Romance Ida
Green
Read:
Shakespeare, The Winters Tale,
pp.
3-116, 171-83
Monday
Oct 25 Discussion Small
Group
Wednesday
Oct 27 Lecture:
New Conceptions of Nature and Space Ida
Green
Read:
Samuel Y. Edgerton, Jr., Galileo,
Florentine
Disegno, and the Strange
Spottednesse
of the Moon (website)
Friday
Oct 29 Lecture:
Johannes Vermeer and the Camera Obscura Ida
Green
Read:
Charles Seymour, Jr., Dark Chamber and
Light-Filled
Room: Vermeer and the Camera
Obscura (website)
Monday
Nov 1 Discussion Small
Group
Wednesday
Nov 3 MIDTERM
EXAM #2 Ida
Green
Friday
Nov 5 Lecture:
The Lincean Academy and the Microscope Ida
Green
Read: "The Lynxes" pp. 65-77, "The Chastity of Bees"
and "The Microscope and the
Vernacular" pp. 151-194
in The Eye of the Lynx by David Freedberg (website)
Monday
Nov 8 Lecture:
The Academia del Cimento Ida
Green
Read: "The Academia del
Cimento" pp. 127-140
in In the Wake of Galileo by
Michael Segre (website)
Wednesday
Nov 10 Discussion Small
Group
Friday
Nov 12 Lecture:
Robert Hooke and the Royal Society of
London Ida
Green
Read: "Sharing" pp. 74-94
in Servants of Nature by
Lewis Pyenson and Susan
Sheets-Pyensen and Robert Hooke,
F.R.S. (1635-1703)
(website)
*** WRITING
ASSIGNMENT DUE IN CLASS ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15
Monday
Nov 15 Lecture:
Hooke's Microscopic Discoveries Ida
Green
Read: Selections from Micrographia by Robert Hooke
(website)
Wednesday
Nov 17 Discussion Small
Group
Friday
Nov 19 Lecture:
The Mostly Successful Enlightenment Project Ida
Green
Monday
Nov 22 Lecture:
Whose Nature, Whose Reason? Ida
Green
Read:
Diderot, Rameaus Nephew, pp. 8-87
Wednesday
Nov 24 Discussion Small
Group
Friday
Nov 26 THANKSGIVING
BREAK
Unit 9: Neo-Classicism and the Purity of the Greeks (Prof. Fontana)
Monday
Nov 29 Lecture:
Nature, the Ideal, and the Virtuous Contour Ida
Green
Read:
Johann Joachim Winckelmann, excerpts
from Reflections on the Imitation of
the Painting
and Sculpture of the Greeks and History of Ancient
Art (website)
Wednesday
Dec 1 Lecture:
Architectural Logic and the Primitive Hut Ida
Green
Read:
Marc-Antoine Laugier, An Essay on
Architecture (website)
Friday
Dec 3 Discussion Small
Group
Monday,
Dec 6 Review
Day: No class meeting unless announced
by
your small group instructor
Tuesday
Dec 7 FINAL
EXAM (9 AM) Ida
Green
General rules for the course
BOOKS YOU NEED TO OWN AND USE IN THIS COURSE:
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron (Signet)
Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo on Painting (Yale)
Franois Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (Penguin)
Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief
World Systems (Modern Library)
Galileo Galilei, Discoveries and Opinions of
Galileo (Anchor)
William Shakespeare, The Winters Tale, Newly
Revised Edition (Signet)
Denis
Diderot, Rameaus Nephew and DAlemberts
Dream (Hackett)
Note:
Additional required readings will be made available to you through
library reserve or on the course website:
http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/hwc101vrd/vrd2004.htm
Meeting Patterns:
The full assembly of about 90 students will frequently
meet, as the Schedule indicates, from 11 AM to 12 noon in the Ida Green
Theater. Such meetings will
include lectures for which you are responsible on tests (so thoughtful
note-taking and later review-&-expansion-of-notes are wise). The style of meetings will vary with
the instructor and with the needs of the day.
Section meetings (small group discussion) with each students instructor are opportunities to
follow up and explore matters that have been raised in lectures and
the reading assignments; the three instructors will have the same general
aim to deepen your understandings and help prepare you for tests and
writings, but we feel free to vary the specific activities or emphases of
a meeting in order to fit what each of us does best. These meetings will
take place in smaller classrooms at 10 or 11 AM. See your course schedule for details.
Grade Policy:
The grade for the course will be based on three exams,
one writing assignment, and additional work assigned by your small group
instructor:
Midterm Exam #1 (Oct
1) 20% (100 points)
Midterm Exam #2 (Nov
3) 20%. (100
points)
Writing assignment (Nov
15) 20% (100 points)
Final Exam (Dec
7)
20%.
(100 points)
Small group work 20% (100 points)
Final grades for the course will be based on the following scale:
465-500 A
450-464 A-
435-449 B+
415-434 B
400-414 B-
385-399 C+
365-384 C
350-364 C-
335-349 D+
315-334 D
300-314 D-
0-299 F
All of your work will be graded by your small group
instructor. He will total your
scores for all assignments and award your final grade.
Exams:
Exams will be non-cumulative. Each exam will last one hour. Within the limits of that
fast-writing task, you will be expected to show a memory of representative parts
of the readings and lectures as well as an ability to think it all over, put
pieces together, and express your judgment about the topics presented in
the course. The format of each
exam will be announced prior to your final study for it; generally, all
exams will have a similar format. All exams will be closed-book and
closed-note, and assisting or receiving assistance from other students is
forbidden.
Writing Assignment:
The paper is due to be handed in to your small
group instructor on the date specified in the syllabus. The topics will be announced two weeks
before the due date.
Small
Group Work:
20%
of your course grade will be based on special small group activities and/or
assignments. These will be
announced by your small group instructor.
They will vary somewhat from instructor to instructor, so be sure to do
the assignment(s) for your own group.
Academic Integrity:
We
place a high value on academic integrity and will not tolerate abuse of the
academic process. Cheating and
plagiarism are primary violations of academic integrity. Helping another student to cheat or
plagiarize is also a violation.
Cheating means purposely using or receiving assistance from another
student or source on an assignment where such help is not permitted.
Examples include copying from or using bought papers and using "crib
sheets" or electronic devices (e.g., a cell phone) on an exam. Plagiarism means using someone else's
work and attempting to pass it off as your own. This may be the work of
another student or information obtained from a book, journal, faculty member,
or internet source. In written
work, if you use or are dependent in any way on any words or ideas beyond
comments made in these class meetings, you must clearly acknowledge and
cite that dependence. Words that
you take from any source must be in quotation marks and clearly
attributed. Information or ideas
that you have adapted or paraphrased from any source must also be clearly
acknowledged, even if you do not quote directly. Paraphrasing someone elses ideas does not make them your
own. The consequences for academic
integrity violations will be at our discretion, but may include a failing grade
in the course. We will also report
the violation to the Vice President for Academic Affairs for possible further
disciplinary action.
The
mission of the Heritage of Western Culture Program is to ensure that every
graduate of Austin College has the skills necessary to enjoy lifelong
participation in community life as an informed citizen.
Goal/expected student outcome #1:
Provide
opportunities for interdisciplinary inquiry and reflection about the multiple
factors involved in explaining from where our society has come.
Goal/expected student outcome #2:
Create
arenas for the intentional exercise of critical listening, thinking, reading
and writing.
Goal/expected student outcome #3:
Systematically
explore the premodern and modern eras.