Statue of King Mycerinus,
4th Dynasty, 2548-2530 BC
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
History 112: Western Civilization I
Dr. John Lewis Spring, 2006
Office: 113 Andrews Phone: 289-5346
Office Hours: Before Class, in Andrews 113
email: classicalideals@yahoo.com
website: www.classicalideals.com
This course will examine selected aspects of the historical development of Western Civilization, from the earliest Near Eastern settlements to the Italian Renaissance. Special emphasis will be placed on the Judeo-Christian, and Greco-Roman, traditions, and the political events that outline their transmission and development. To do this we must necessarily be selective. We must ask, at any point, not only what it is we are discussing, but why we are discussing that particular point.
What is civilization? There are wide and narrow answers to this question. There was a “civilization” in ancient Rome, and a civilization in ancient Greece, and a Judaic civilization. These are all part of “Western Civilization,” a wider historical phenomenon that encompasses various aspects of all of these particular civilizations. We may also speak of “civilization” as existing from the stone age to the present day, ranging from China to Egypt, Mesoamerica and Africa. What is the common denominator(s) that distinguishes specifically “Western” Civilization?
The textbook is your guide to the class. The primary sources are the historical evidence we will use to investigate our subject. Be ready to discuss the readings for each class. Class lectures are designed primarily to add to the material in the text. The readings are mandatory, and must be completed prior to the assigned class date.
Unannounced short quizzes will factor into your grade, both to assess reading comprehension and to reward those who persevere. This includes map quizzes.
Keep a notebook in which you address the study questions on a weekly basis. Each answer should be a 1 page essay addressing the question. The purpose is for you to focus on the question, and to engage with it actively; it should not be typed. It is not necessary to develop a definitive interpretation of every aspect of the problem, but you must consider the relevant facts as well as a method of approach to those facts. Be ready to discuss the assigned questions during the class. The secret to this class is to remain up to date on the readings and the questions. The notebooks will not be collected; they will be your study guide for the midterm and final exams.
Writing assignments are in addition to the notebooks. For each assignment, select from one of the topics listed below, develop a title and a theme, and write a 1500 word essay addressing the topic. The essay must be typed and edited for grammar, citing your sources (use the Chicago citation style), expressing an argument and supporting it with the readings. I am available throughout term to discuss your topic and your approach. For the first paper you may improve your grade by up to 5 points by revising it, based on my comments, and resubmitting it with the Midterm Exam (resubmit the original and the revision). For the second paper there can be no revisions. No late papers will be accepted. No exceptions.
Grading: Grades are based on the following:
Quizzes 10%
2 Writing assignments 20% each
Midtern exam 20%
Final Exam 30%
Class participation / attendance can affect your final grade by one letter grade.
Plagiarism results in an F for the paper, and may result in an F for the course. Please note carefully: plagiarism is stealing someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. ANY DIRECT COPYING that is not enclosed in quotation marks is plagiarism, even if the source is cited. USING SOMEONE ELSE’S IDEAS WITHOUT CITATION is plagiarism, even if you do not quote the words exactly. If you are in doubt, see me in advance. If I am in doubt, I reserve the right to ask you to pass a short oral examination on your paper.
No internet web sites under any circumstances are acceptable for any written work. For this course, you must read books.
Accommodations Statement from Classroom Support Services: “For students who have specific physical, psychiatric, or learning disabilities and require accommodations, please let me know early in the semester so that your learning needs can be appropriately met. It is your responsibility to provide documentation for your disability to the Office of Disability Services, 105 Amstutz Hall, ext. 5953.”
Academic Responsibility and Integrity
Statement: “Academic integrity
must be maintained at all times. No form of cheating or plagiarism will be
tolerated. Such actions will be dealt with in accordance with the
procedures documented in the Ashland University Student Handbook.”
READINGS:
Primary Sources, distributed in handouts, will include:
Sophocles Antigone
Thucydides History
Suetonius (or Plutarch) Lives
Einhard Life of Charlemagne
Pico della Mirandola On the Dignity of Man
Secondary, Textbook Reading:
T. F. X. Noble, Western Civilization: The Continuing Experiment (4th edn.).
Various chronologies, and map study sheets to be distributed.
CLASS SCHEDULE:
Week 1, (Week of) 1/15: What is Civilization? The role of ideas in history.
Read: Noble Ch 1.
Study Questions:
What is civilization, in the broad and
narrow senses of the term?
What are the main geographic areas in which
Western Civilization developed,
and what
is the chronological order of that
development?
What can you infer about the organization
of ancient Near Eastern
civilizations?
Week 2, 1/22: Western Asia and Early Greece. (No Class on Thursday, 1/25)
Read: Noble Ch. 2
Selections from a Mesopotamian creation
epic (Handout)
The Bible: selections from Exodus (Handout)
Handout: Hebraic Chronology
Study Questions:
How did Near Eastern natural religions differ from Judaism?What is the primary Judaic contribution to the Judeo-Christian tradition?
What is different about Early Greece, in relation to the Near East?
Week 3, 1/29: The Rise of the Greeks.
Read: Noble Ch. 3.
Handout: Perikles Funeral Oration
Study Questions:
What are the basic chronological periods
associated with the Greeks?
Describe the major issues in the Great War
between Athens and Sparta.
What ideals does Perikles uphold in the
Thucydides Funeral Oration?
Week 4, 2/5: The Greeks and the Fifth-Century Intellectual Revolution
Read: Sophocles Antigone
Study Questions:
What is the basic plot of the Antigone?
What is the source of the “moral right”
that Antigone calls upon, and why is
Kreon’s decree immoral?
How does Kreon’s rule differ from the Rule
of Law?
Week 5, 2/12: Greek Philosophy: The Discovery of Moral Philosophy
Read: Selections from Plato Apology of Socrates; Aristotle, Politics
Study Questions:
Before what forum does Socrates make his speech?
What god does he claim to believe in, and what does this god do for him?
What is Aristotle’s basic explanation for the rise of the polis?
First Writing Assignment Due: Thursday, 2/22
Week 6, 2/19: The Hellenistic World. The Founding of Rome
Read: Noble ch. 4
Study Questions:
What was Alexander's major impact on Western Civilization?
What were the major Hellenistic kingdoms?
Discuss the political situation during the rise of Rome.
Week 7. 2/26: The Roman Republic and Empire
Read: Noble ch. 5.
Plutarch Life of Caesar
Handout: Roman Chronology
Study Questions:
What was the political difference between
the Roman Republic and the Empire?
Who was Caesar, what happened to him, and
what was his significance?
What was the “new order” that Augustus
brought? What problems did it solve?
Week 8, 3/5: Imperial Rome
Read: Noble ch. 6.
Study Questions:
Who were the Julio-Claudian Emperors?
What was Rome’s relationship with its provinces?
What relationship can you find between the Romans and the Christians?
MIDTERM EXAM
Week 9, 3/12: Spring Break
Week 10, 3/19: Late Antiquity, Christianity and Empire
Read:
Noble ch. 7.
Handouts: Letter of Pliny on the Christians;
The Rise of Christianity
Study Questions:
What was the "cultural soil" from which Christianity rose?
What attitudes of the Romans towards the Christians can you infer from
Pliny’s letter and Trajan’s response?
How did Diocletian and Constantine approach the Christians?
Week 11, 3/26: Early Medieval Civilizations
Read: Noble ch. 8
Handout:
Einhard, Life of Charlemagne
Gelasius, Two Swords Doctrine
Study Questions:
What was the political situation in western Europe, versus the Islamic East
and
the Byzantine Empire?
Describe the Rise of Islam as a political and military event.
What problems do you find reading in Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne?
Week 12, 4/2: Medieval Civilization at its Height, 900-1300
Read: Noble ch. 10
Handouts: The Magna Charta; The Founding of the University of Paris
Study Questions:
What was the Magna Charta, and what problem was it intended to solve?
What were the traditional orders of society?
What is the Carolingian legacy, and what was a Medieval University?
Week 13, 4/9: Crisis and Recovery in Late Medieval Europe, 1300-1500
Read: Noble ch. 11
Study Questions:
What factors gave rise to the need for Church reform in the 11th century?
What was the Hundred Years war, and what issues caused it?
Where, and in what ways, did late medieval
governments consolidate?
Week 14, 4/16: The Renaissance: the Second Emancipation of Reason
Read: Noble ch. 12
Study Questions:
When and where did the Italian Renaissance
occur?
What was the political situation in
Renaissance Italy?
In what sense was the Renaissance a rebirth
of Greece and Rome?
Second Writing Assignment Due: Thursday 4/26
Week 15, 4/23: The Italian Renaissance
Read: Pico della Mirandola
Study Questions:
What is Renaissance Humanism?
How and why do Pico and the Renaissance
artists call on classical antiquity?
What is Pico's view of man in his Oration?
Week 16, 4/30: From the Renaissance to the Modern Day
Galileo, Bacon, and the Scientific Revolution
Class wrap-up
Week 17, 5/7: FINAL EXAM J
ESSAY ASSIGNMENTS. Choose from one of these topics for each of the two essays. Develop a theme, a title, and an approach, based on one or more of the questions asked. You need not list the questions and answer them; write an essay addressing the issues presented by the questions. Then, write a first class essay that addresses the issue and question (s) you have selected. Write approx. 1500 words (5 pages, double-spaced, 1” margins).
Go to the library, and find your source. The books underlined here are on reserve, for three day loans. Use nothing from internet sites. If you are in doubt about a source of a topic, ask beforehand. I will encourage you to use other sources, but ask first. If you want to write about something that is not listed here, come and ask. (Last semester someone did a wonderful paper on Medieval castles: history, construction, and warfare. Just ask first!)
1. Discuss the evolution of moral thinking in the Euthyphro and / or Apology of Plato. When did Socrates live? What was the issue in his trial? What was his distinctive contribution to western thought and the Greco-Roman / Judeo-Christian traditions? (Source: Plato on the Trial of Socrates)
2. Discuss Plutarch’s Life of Caesar and Life of Pompey. How did Caesar challenge the Roman political order? What is the meaning of his murder in the Senate? (Primary sources: the biographies in Plutarch: Fall of the Roman Republic; for secondary assistance, use LeGlay A History of Rome)
3. Discuss the war between the Greeks and the Persians. What was the issue at stake? What were the motivations of the two parties? What was the final result? (The primary source is Herodotus Histories; Greece and the Persians by J.S. Smith is a secondary account.)
4. Discuss the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. What was the issue at stake? What were the motivations of the two parties? What was the final result? (Thucydides History is the primary source; Athens and Sparta by S.C. Todd is a secondary account.)
5. Discuss the events surrounding one of the Julio-Claudian Roman Emperors. What events brought him to power? What controversy, conspiracy, or campaign has defined his place in history? (The primary source is Suetonius The Twelve Caesars; a secondary account is The Julio-Claudian Emperors by T. Weideman)
7. Discuss Charlemagne, and the two biographies written about him. Who was he, and how did his biographers view him? How can we use these works as primary historical sources? (Primary: Einhard’s and Notker’s biographies in Two Lives of Charlemagne.)
8. Discuss the life of an Italian Renaissance artist of your choosing. How did these men go about their crafts? What were their relationships with their patrons? How can we use these biographies—and the art of these artists—as primary historical sources? (Source: G. Vasari, Lives of the Artists.)
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This page updated 01/14/07 Dr. John Lewis jlewis8@ashland.edu