Vision, Reflection, Discovery

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:

Jeffrey Fontana

Max Grober

Don Salisbury

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Syllabus and Course Guide

Fall, 2004

 

 


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.

 

 

Unit 1:  The Not-So-Divine Comedy of Giovanni Boccaccio  (Prof. Grober)

 

Wednesday Sept 1                    Lecture: Introduction to the course                              Ida Green

 

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

 

Unit 4:  Galileo Galilei  (Prof. Salisbury)

 

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

 

Unit 5:  William Shakespeare and The Winters Tale  (Prof. Grober)

 

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

 

Unit 6:  Art and Assisted Vision in the Age of the Baroque  (Prof. Fontana)

 

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

 

Unit 7:  Scientific Societies  and the Microscope (Prof. Salisbury)

 

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

 

Unit 8:  Denis Diderot, the Reasonably Virtuous Atheist  (Prof. Grober)

 

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.

 

 

Statement of Goals and Expected Student Outcomes

 

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.