printer friendly pageIHUM 2: Epic Journeys, Modern Quests
First of a two quarter sequence. Through the metaphor of the journey, epic poems externalize the human quest for identity and self-definition: as the epic hero crosses the physical world and descends into the underworld, to visit the dead and seek counsel from them, he gradually comes closer to himself. The different goals of such journeys and the evolution of the epic hero as he struggles to reach his destination, with attention to how exile and alienation, the encounter with ancestors, the female voice, and divine guidance define the trajectories traced by the various epics in question.The diminished importance of the dead and the increased emphasis on the power of the living in various literary genres. How concepts of humanity and society are defined by the sense of rupture with the past, including a heightened importance given to innovation, the present, the living, and the everyday that contrasts with the formative power of the afterlife, tradition, and the dead.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:IHUM-2
Instructors:
Daube, M. (PI)
;
Flynn, C. (PI)
;
Harrison, R. (PI)
;
Hunter, M. (PI)
;
LEWIS, K. (PI)
;
Leonard, G. (PI)
;
Pierson, I. (PI)
;
Wittman, L. (PI)
IHUM 3: Epic Journeys, Modern Quests
Second of a two quarter sequence. Through the metaphor of the journey, epic poems externalize the human quest for identity and self-definition: as the epic hero crosses the physical world and descends into the underworld, to visit the dead and seek counsel from them, he gradually comes closer to himself. The different goals of such journeys and the evolution of the epic hero as he struggles to reach his destination, with attention to how exile and alienation, the encounter with ancestors, the female voice, and divine guidance define the trajectories traced by the various epics in question.The diminished importance of the dead and the increased emphasis on the power of the living in various literary genres. How concepts of humanity and society are defined by the sense of rupture with the past, including a heightened importance given to innovation, the present, the living, and the everyday that contrasts with the formative power of the afterlife, tradition, and the dead.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:IHUM-3
Instructors:
Apostolides, J. (PI)
;
Daube, M. (PI)
;
Flynn, C. (PI)
...
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Instructors:
Apostolides, J. (PI)
;
Daube, M. (PI)
;
Flynn, C. (PI)
;
Hui, A. (PI)
;
Hunter, M. (PI)
;
Leonard, G. (PI)
;
Pierson, I. (PI)
;
Robert, Y. (PI)
IHUM 10A: Philosophical Perspectives on Science
First in a two quarter sequence. A humanistic perspective views science itself as an essential part of human culture and explores the many relationships between scientific activity and religion, philosophy, society, politics, and the arts. Exploration of these relationships from a philosophical point of view, across a large part of the development of Western science from ancient Greece and the medieval period, through the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, and up to recent times.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:IHUM-2
Instructors:
Feke, J. (PI)
;
Friedman, M. (PI)
;
Genone, J. (PI)
...
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Instructors:
Feke, J. (PI)
;
Friedman, M. (PI)
;
Genone, J. (PI)
;
Giberman, D. (PI)
;
Maguire, L. (PI)
;
van Harten, A. (PI)
IHUM 10B: Philosophical Perspectives on Science
Second in a two quarter sequence. A humanistic perspective views science itself as an essential part of human culture and explores the many relationships between scientific activity and religion, philosophy, society, politics, and the arts. Exploration of these relationships from a philosophical point of view, across a large part of the development of Western science from ancient Greece and the medieval period, through the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, and up to recent times.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:IHUM-3
IHUM 23A: The Fate of Reason
Two quarter sequence. Every day, each one of us faces problems about what to believe and how to act. Socrates began the tradition of philosophy by insisting that answers to these problems ought to be guided by reason¿that if we could only believe and act more rationally, our lives would be better for us overall. This course explores the fate of Socrates¿ proposal.nnSome of our authors defend the power of reason to improve our lives. Others insist that purely rational principles demand too much of us, or else are insufficient to help us act well or reach important insights. Many writers focus on working out the proper relation between reason and the passions, or emotions. We will trace the fate of reason in several cultural traditions, thereby exploring the fundamental basis for our commitments about how to live, and for our most important beliefs about God, ourselves, the world, and our place within it.
Last offered: Winter 2011
| UG Reqs: GER:IHUM-2
IHUM 28A: Poetic Justice: Order and Imagination in Russia
Russia is where the most beautiful dreams and the ugliest nightmares of other places come true. There the doctrines of Christianity, Marxism, and now free-market capitalism, born elsewhere, have developed in fantastic ways, and borrowed artistic forms, from the novel to the ballet, have reached a new level. This course traces Russian culture over a millennium, focusing on the tensions that developed there between beauty and power, self and other, past and future. We start the winter with Biblical stories, folktales about princes and peasants, medieval icons and saints' lives, then turn to masterpieces of nineteenth-century literature. Alexander Pushkin transforms the bloody history of the Pugachev rebellion into a novella about disguise, power and love. Nikolai Gogol imagines an uneasy world where your own nose could leave your body to become your rival. Fedor Dostoevsky, in The Brothers Karamazov, questions why we trust the state, the church, the family, and language itself. Lev Tolstoy, in Hadji Murad, explores the margins of the ungovernable empire and the equally ungovernable interior of the self. At the end of the quarter, in the poetry of Blok and the music of Stravinsky, we hear the rhythm of violent revolution on its way.nnnPoetic Justice maintains an extensive website at:
www.stanford.edu/class/ihum28a.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:IHUM-2
Instructors:
Leidy, W. (PI)
;
Roberts, T. (PI)
;
Safran, G. (PI)
...
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Instructors:
Leidy, W. (PI)
;
Roberts, T. (PI)
;
Safran, G. (PI)
;
Sukhonos, N. (PI)
;
Walker, M. (PI)
IHUM 28B: Poetic Justice: Order and Imagination in Russia
Two quarter sequence. The difference between justice and law in 19th- and 20th-century Russian writers. Focus is on the notion of poetic justice: the artistic representation of order whether divine, natural, or human. Goal is to heighten awareness of familiar narratives, mythologies, ideas, and images, and to convey a sense of a long-established national culture with its own dynamic vision.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:IHUM-3
Instructors:
Leidy, W. (PI)
;
Roberts, T. (PI)
;
Skakov, N. (PI)
...
more instructors for IHUM 28B »
Instructors:
Leidy, W. (PI)
;
Roberts, T. (PI)
;
Skakov, N. (PI)
;
Sukhonos, N. (PI)
;
Walker, M. (PI)
IHUM 39A: Inventing Classics: Greek and Roman Literature in Its Mediterranean Context
First in a two quarter sequence. Are you concerned with fundamental questions about the human condition? Do you ask yourself whether your life is controlled more by your own free choices or by your genetic code? Do you wonder whether the universe is just or unjust? Do you worry whether a superpower can function without hubristic arrogance? If these sorts of issues seem central to your intellectual and personal explorations, this IHUM sequence will reveal to you that the ancient Mediterranean world was equally consumed with identical questions about the nature of human society and human existence. We will undertake our explorations by reading a wide and deep selection of important and influential literary texts from Greece and Rome, amplified by a smaller selection of texts from other cultures in the Mediterranean and the Near East. The sequence will be organized historically, with the winter quarter covering the period from c.2000BC to the fourth century BC, and the spring quarter continuing to the end of classical antiquity. In the winter term, drawing from both the Near East and Greece, creation texts, epic, lyric, tragedy, history, and philosophy will be studied. In the spring, the discussion will center on how the emergence of the Roman Empire transformed the ideas of the Greeks, as well as their adaptation by the early Christians.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:IHUM-2
Instructors:
Clayton, B. (PI)
;
Culverhouse, Z. (PI)
;
Jacobson, D. (PI)
...
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Instructors:
Clayton, B. (PI)
;
Culverhouse, Z. (PI)
;
Jacobson, D. (PI)
;
McCall, M. (PI)
;
Slatin, P. (PI)
IHUM 39B: Inventing Classics: Greek and Roman Literature in Its Mediterranean Context
Second in a two quarter sequence. Are you concerned with fundamental questions about the human condition? Do you ask yourself whether your life is controlled more by your own free choices or by your genetic code? Do you wonder whether the universe is just or unjust? Do you worry whether a superpower can function without hubristic arrogance? If these sorts of issues seem central to your intellectual and personal explorations, this IHUM sequence will reveal to you that the ancient Mediterranean world was equally consumed with identical questions about the nature of human society and human existence. We will undertake our explorations by reading a wide and deep selection of important and influential literary texts from Greece and Rome, amplified by a smaller selection of texts from other cultures in the Mediterranean and the Near East. The sequence will be organized historically, with the winter quarter covering the period from c.2000BC to the fourth century BC, and the spring quarter continuing to the end of classical antiquity. In the winter term, drawing from both the Near East and Greece, creation texts, epic, lyric, tragedy, history, and philosophy will be studied. In the spring, the discussion will center on how the emergence of the Roman Empire transformed the ideas of the Greeks, as well as their adaptation by the early Christians.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:IHUM-3
Instructors:
Clayton, B. (PI)
;
Jacobson, D. (PI)
;
Pollok, A. (PI)
...
more instructors for IHUM 39B »
Instructors:
Clayton, B. (PI)
;
Jacobson, D. (PI)
;
Pollok, A. (PI)
;
Skipper, L. (PI)
;
Slatin, P. (PI)
IHUM 40A: World Archaeology and Global Heritage
First in a two quarter sequence. In a world marked by rapid globalization and forward-looking technology, heritage presents a particular paradox. Increasingly, heritage sites are flashpoints in cultural and religious conflicts around the globe. Simultaneously heritage is viewed as a unifying force in nation-building and in forging international alliances. Clearly, ¿history¿ matters but how do certain histories come to matter in particular ways, and to whom? How is research on the past shaped through present-day concerns about identity, community, nation, alongside transnational flows of people, money, and goods?nn The main topics of our course are the impact of the past on the present, and the impact of the present on the past. Thus we will be looking both at how the past plays a role in contemporary society, and at contemporary archaeological research, management and conservation. Through close study of important archaeological sites, we will critically analyze landscapes, architecture, and objects as well as related literary works, religious texts, films, political essays, and scientific articles. We will examine topics as diverse as debates about the peopling of the New World to present-day religious conflicts over heritage sites. Far from being a neutral scholarly exercise, archaeology is embedded in the heated debates about heritage and present-day conflicts.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:IHUM-2
Instructors:
Baer, A. (PI)
;
Chenoweth, J. (PI)
;
Hodder, I. (PI)
...
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Instructors:
Baer, A. (PI)
;
Chenoweth, J. (PI)
;
Hodder, I. (PI)
;
Maldonado, D. (PI)
;
Peelo, S. (PI)
;
Reinhart, K. (PI)
;
Wright, J. (PI)
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