Class Syllabus

Class I:   January 19, 1999 

Players, Class style, Discussion Group, Course Location

Digital Technologies:  Technology Training Sessions, World Wide Web, E-mail The Expert, Conference Group, Multi-Media Authoring

What is a "course"?
What is a heuristic and what is our heuristic?

Reading:  Hemingway, Ernest, "Indian Camp," In Our Time, pp. 15-19
Simpson, Lorenzo, Technology, Time and the Conversations with Modernity (see introductory quotes)
Cotterill, Rodney, "The Brain – the Overall Picture," Enchanted Looms:  Conscious Networks in Brains and Computers, pp. 430-432.

Topic:  The Oral Mind

Conference Question #1 – How does the Homeric mentality differ from our own?  A way to pursue this is to find a passage that puzzles you (violates your expectations as a modern reader) and ask yourself why?  Another way of saying this is:  try to discover discontinuities in history (what was that is no more or that has been changed).  Express your view and comment on the views of others.  Please quote all shorter passages to which you refer.  If you refer to other texts or visual materials, please link to them (to be explained in technology training).

Class II & III:  January 21 & 26, 1999

Reading: Homer, Iliad , Books 1, 9, 22, 24
(Richmond Lattimore translation)
Snell, Bruno, "Homer's View of Man" in The Discovery of the Mind , pp. 1-22
Dodds, E.R., "Agamemnon's Apology" in The Greeks and the Irrational , pp. 1-27
Havelock, Eric, "The Psychology of the Poetic Performance," Preface to Plato , pp. 145-164

Topic:  Tragedy and the Evolution of Intelligence and Concepts of Identity in the 5^th Century

Conference Question #2 – Focusing on Electra and Orestes, indicate how each of the tragedians' "renditions" expresses a different conception of human identity, personality and value.  Please quote specific passages.  If you link to other data, please be clear about why.

Class IV & V:  January 28 & Feb 2, 1999

Reading:  Aeschylus, Oresteia
Zeitlin, Froma I., "Playing the Other:  Theater, Theatricality, and the Feminine in Greek Drama," Nothing to do with Dionysos? , pp. 63-96

Class VI:  February 4, 1999 

Reading:  Sophocles, Electra

Class VII:  February 9, 1999 

Reading:  Euripides, Electra

Topic:  The Euripidean Exploration of Personality and Culture
  
Conference Question #3 – What key questions does Euripides address in these four plays? What issues does he bring before the Athenian community? What can we learn about Euripides's is audience?  How is Euripides's perspective different than Aeschylus and Sophocles?

Class VIII:  February 11, 1999 

Reading:  Euripides, Orestes

Class VIV & X:  February 16 & 18, 1999 

Reading:  Euripides, Medea, Baachae

Class XI:  February 23, 1999

Reading:  Euripides, Heracles  

Topic:  The Philosophic Impulse

Conference Question #4:  Discuss how the concerns of the philosophers complement those of the tragedians?

Class XII & XIII:  February 25 & March 2, 1999 

Reading:   Wheelwright, Philip, The Presocratics
- Heraclitus, pp. 64-90
- Parmenides, pp. 91-105
- Democritus, pp. 181-200

Class XIV, XV & XVI:  March 4, 9, & 11,1999

Reading:  Plato, Ion, Apology, Crito, Symposium, Republic (Bks. 7 & 10)
Aristophanes, Frogs, Clouds

Topic:  Is a Human Being a Machine?

Class XVII & XVIII:  March 23 & 25, 1999 

Reading:  Searle, John, "Is the Brain's Mind a Computer Program?", Scientific American, January 1990, pp. 26-31
Minsky, Marvin, The Society of Self - CD ROM (1-888-292-5584)

Topic:  An Early Definition of Post-Modernism:  Frederic Jameson

Class XIX & XX:  March 30, April 1 & 6, 1999

Reading:  Jameson, Frederic, "Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism," pp. 53-91
Doctorow, Ragtime

Class XXI, XXII & XXIII:  April 8, 13, 15, 1999

Reading:  Gitlin, Todd, "Television's Screens:  Hegemony in Transition," pp. 241-263
DeLilo, Don, White Noise
Barnow, Eric, Tube of Plenty:  The Evolution of American Television

Topic:  Digital Culture and the Search for Meaning

Class XXIV, XXV & XXVI:  April 20, 22, 29, 1999

Reading:  Turkle, Sherry, "Identity of Age of Internet," Life on the Screen
Movie – Allen, Woody, Deconstructing Harry
Movie – Wender, Wim, Until the End of the World
Lab:  Exploring MUD's

(Students must view films before class discussion.  Deconstructing Harry and Until the End of the World will be screened just before each of the classes dedicated to them)