HUMANITIES 1010 OBJECTIVES AND ASSIGNMENTS
Fall 2006
INSTRUCTOR: Terre Burton OFFICE: McDonald Center 225
PHONE: 652-7812 (W) - 674-2972 (H) OFFICE HOURS: M-Th 10:15-11:00
E-MAIL: burton@dixie.edu W 4-5
TEXT
Landmarks of Humanities, Gloria Fiero
GENERAL COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course fills a requirement for graduation in the humanities area. It can also
be taken as an elective or as a background course for majors in English, humanities,
history, or philosophy. The course will cover significant ideas, art forms,
philosophies, and scientific developments in Western culture. Through examining
such ideas and events, we can see the traditional ways in which humans viewed their
relationship with the past, with the future, with God, with nature, with other
humans, and with themselves.
This may prove to be one of the most challenging courses you have ever
attempted. You will be exposed to a great number of ideas, writers, and artists–as
well as their works and the civilizations they represent. They may be frightening at
first, but when you have completed this all-too-brief excursion into the cultural
history of western civilization, you will have a better idea of what a rich cultural
legacy has been bequeathed to us.
We will be looking at a number of genres, including painting, sculpture,
architecture, literature, drama, music, dance, and film. And we will be considering
a number of themes that seem common to various civilizations throughout history,
including the following:
1. Codes and Value Systems: What kinds of laws do we need? What kinds of
behavior are acceptable?
2. Family Life and Growing Up
3. Love and Marriage: Is it okay to love? Who should we marry? Why should we
marry?
4. The Hero: How does he exemplify a society’s values?
5. Woman’s Nature: Is she human? Good? Evil? Equal?
6. The Good Society: What is the good life?
7. Religion: Who or what is God or the gods?
8. Illusion and Reality: Is what we see real? Are there different ways of seeing?
9. Nature: How is the physical world represented?
10. War and Violence
11. Art and the Artist: Why do people create? What is beautiful
12. Freedom: What is it? Is it worth fighting for?
