COMING INTO ONE'S OWN
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USEM 27B
Instructor:
Professor Andreas Teuber
teuber@brandeis.edu
Department of Philosophy
BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY
Waltham, Massachusetts 02554
Tel: 781-736-2788
Rabb 306
Office Hours:
Tuesday & Fridays 2:00-3:00 PM
and by appointment
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Course
Description
Course
Requirements
Texts
Texts
Online
Author Biographies & Links
Web
Resources
Reading List Online
Course
Syllabus Part I
Academic Honesty & Plagiarism
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Much of the literature
of the early modern period can be read as an attempt to give meaning to
human activities whose reference points were no longer fixed in a stable
system of deference and authority, to transform the villains and vagabonds
who first appeared along the highways and in the rapidly expanding cities
of 15th and 16th century Europe into prototypes of humanity itself.
With the collapse of the old imagery of "hierarchy"
and "harmony" these new "individuals," cut loose from their social moorings,
set adrift from their rural estates, without a master or secure social
place, needed new symbols and images to orient them in the world.
How is a person to act in a world without definite
limits or the benefit of fixed principles?
The course will examine the problems of acting
in a world where the outward signs denoting inner life are no longer believed
to be adequate.
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COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Class Times
The course will meet on Tuesdays, and Fridays from 12:10 PM to 1:30 PM.
Reading
The Reading for the course will be blocked out week by week in the
Syllabus . You can already find Part One Online. Primary Texts are available in the University Bookstore. In every instance the least expensive paperback was ordered. Ten texts are available in Dover Thrift editions for One Dollar apiece (Amazon.Com Online and The New England Book Fair in Newton has these same texts for 80 cents each); two texts, HUCKLEBERRY FINN and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, may be purchased for Two Dollars apiece (One Dollar and Sixty Cents at Amazon.Com and The New England Book Fair). Although a number of the texts are available online (see Texts
Online below), it is useful to have your own copies. The texts are on display at
USEM 27b Reading List Online.
Writing
Four papers are required on topics growing
out of the readings and class discussions. The papers should be about 5
pages in length, preferably typewritten. Paper topics will be available
at least ten (10) days before a paper is due. It is wise to make a copy
of a paper before handing in the original. If you are working on a computer,
make a back-up.
USEM Logs (Journals)
You shall also be asked to keep a log or
journal throughout the semester. The log should not be used for note-taking
or for jotting down quotations or for making commentaries on the
readings (although you may wish to use a separate note-book for these tasks),
but should be reserved exclusively to give and develop your own answers
to certain basic questions on human rights issues. Questions will
arise throughout the semester, questions for which there may not necessarily
be any, easy or obvious answer, and these questions will be singled-out
and identified as questions for the logs. Arrangements shall also
be made to have these questions ON LINE and to make it possible for anyone
in the class to put their answers on a BULLETIN BOARD as well as the opportunity
to comment upon and respond to readings and to the answers and commentaries
of other students in the class. I have already created a Bulletin Board
for the course which is located on the Internet at http://www.brandeis.edu:8900.
Once you have found the course number (USEM 27B), you will need to create
your own account and your own password to gain access.
Examinations
There will be a short-answer quiz in class towards the end of the
semester. There will be no other written examinations, final or otherwise.
Grading
Grading will be broken down as follows: 30% for
your strongest essay, 25% and 20% for your next best efforts respectively,
and 15% for the essay which is least successful of the four. Participation
in class discussion and/or on the Bulletin Board will count for 5% and
the quiz will make up for the remaining 5%.
Attendance
Attendance is required. You are allowed two unexcused absences.
Any further absences will have an impact on your final grade.
Office Hours
I shall hold office hours from 2:00 to 3:00 PM
on Tuesdays and Fridays and by appointment. My office is located in RABB,
Room 306 (Tel. 736-2787).
Messages
If you wish to leave messages for me, you
may do so on my Voice Mail at 736-2787 or my e-mail address: teuber@brandeis.edu.
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TEXTS
Primary texts will be available at the University Book Store:
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Machiavelli,
The Prince, Dover Thrift
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Shakespeare,
Hamlet, Dover Thrift
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Poe,
The Gold Bug and Other Tales, Dover Thrift
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Diderot
Rameau's Nephew, Penguin
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Kant,
Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals, Hackett
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Austen,
Pride and Prejudice, Dover Thrift
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Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays, Dover Thrift
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Twain,
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Dover Thrift
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Sartre,
Existentialism and Human Emotions, Citadel
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Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Anchor
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Shelley,
Frankenstein, Dover Thrift
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Stevenson,
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Dover Thrift
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Dostoevsky,
The Double, Dover Thrift
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Melville,
Bartleby & Benito Cereno, Dover Thrift
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Chekhov,
Five Great Stories, Dover Thrift
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Conrad,
Heart of Darkness, Dover Thrift
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Fitzgerald,
The Great Gatsby, Scribner's
A number
of the texts fot the course are also available on the Web. Where this is
the case, I have entered a link to the text in the Syllabus.
A complete list of texts available on the Web are listed under Texts
Online. I have also set up links to various sites on the Internet for
each of the authors whose work we shall be reading in the course. If you
click on the name of one of the authors above, you will be forwarded to
the relevant page for that particular author. From time to time I shall
pass out handouts or selections from texts or establish links to sites
that may help us come to grips with the subject matter of the course. several
pages have already been created. The short essay by Francis Bacon is already
Online and several other Handdouts as well:
I have also created several pages with links to a
variety of sites that may help you - in some more measure - with your writing:
Writing Aids and Resources on the Internet
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TEXTS ONLINE
The following texts are available on the WEB. Please be careful
to note any and all copyright information that accompanies any one of these
texts. The present "Fair Use" provision of the Copyright Law does permit
you to read all of these texts Online and in many, if not all instances,
to download the text for your own personal use.
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES & LINKS
BIOGRAPHIES
LINKS
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