Myth Reason and Faith: The Seminar
Syllabus, Fall 2005.
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Please note that the preferred style of citations for written work in the course will be MLA style; a guide to this style of citing sources is on line at www.bucknell.edu/Library_computing/Doing_Research_Aids/Citation_Guides.html (linked from the library catalog page through "Doing Research"). |
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Two five-to-seven-page papers and seven reading journal entries will be required. You will have the opportunity to revise essays after getting a first-round of comments from me, if you wish. |
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| In the earliest times, which were so susceptible to vague speculation and the inevitable ordering of the universe, there can have existed no division between the poetic and the prosaic. Everything must have been tinged with magic. Thor was not the god of Thunder; he was the thunder and the god. --Jorge Luis Borges, "The Gold of the Tigers" ...in recent times we have seen a huge split develop between a classic culture and a romantic counterculture - two worlds growing alienated and hateful toward each other with everyone wondering if it will always be this way... --Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, an Inquiry into Values | |
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Week One. August 25. Iliad 1, 9, Campbell and Meletinsky
selections Week Two. August 30 and September 1. T: Iliad 16, 18, 22, 24. First journal due. R: Odyssey 1-6 Week Three. September 6 and 8. T: Odyssey 7-12. Second journal due. R: Odyssey 13-18 Week Four. September 13 and 15. T: Odyssey 19-24, Aldo Leopold selection. Third journal due R: Genesis 1-17 Week Five. September 20. T: Genesis 18-50 |
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| Two great principles divide the world, and contend for the mastery: antiquity and the Middle Ages. These are the two civilizations that have preceded us, the two elements of which ours is composed. All political as well as religious questions reduce themselves practically to this. --Lord Acton, unpublished manuscript, c. 1859 [In postmodern culture, the past] can be regarded more as a source of images, narratives and ideas that can be plundered, re-combined or re-staged to simulate, or to perform - independently of any desire to emulate its cultural or spiritual ideas and practices. --Stephanie Trigg, critiquing Acton's comment, The Heidelberg Review of English Studies (Sept. 11, 2001) | |
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Week Five. September 22. R: Oresteia F: First Essay Due Week Six. September 27 and 29. T: Oresteia R: Symposium
Week Seven. October 4 and 6. T: FALL BREAK R: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Simpsons selection |
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| ...we have to hasten to the hills as the fish to the sea, lest if we linger [in the city] we should forget the inner life. --St. Antony, in his Life by Athanasius the Great | |
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Week Nine. October 18 and 20. T: Vergil, Aeneid 1-4 R: Aeneid 6-8, 12 Week Ten. October 25 and 27. T: Gospel of St. John, Eriugena selection, Fifth Journal due R: Gospel of John Week Eleven. November 1 and 3. T: Selections from Life of St. Antony, Augustine R: Augustine, Cassian selections. Sixth Journal due Week Twelve. November 8 and 10. T: Étain/St. Brigit R: Lanval/Rubey selection |
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| What had thus been gained in equality and therefore in performance and historicity had perhaps been lost at the level of the experience of identification...difference and identity...the source of ecstasy and mysticism. --Julia Kristeva, "Dostoevsky, the Writing of Suffering, and Forgiveness" | |
Week Thirteen. November 15 and 17.
Week Fourteen. November 22 and 24. T: Vita Nuova, Paradiso selection R: Tolkien selections Week Sixteen. December 6. T: Tolkien. Course conclusion. Optional Rewrite of Second Paper Due |
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Journals (35%). Seven times this semester you will be required to write
a 2-3 page journal on the readings for that week, using topics that I will
assign. This journal will be collected at the beginning the class in which
it is due. The purpose of the journals is for you to directly engage with
some aspect of the text under discussion and with a particular problem in
college writing in general, so use of secondary sources (except for reference
works) is prohibited. We will talk more about how a journal differs from
an essay in class.
Essays (40%) . Two 5-7 page papers on topics that I will assign. The first
paper will be graded in two stages, once on a first draft that you submit
and again on the final draft when you resubmit it. The second will have
an optional rewriting portion.
Class Participation (25%). The goal of this course is to help you to acquire a set of skills, as well as to give you access to a body of knowledge. Understanding involves articulation and expression, and the more you participate in discussion, the better you will get at making sense of difficult tests. Being articulate is a life skill, as well as a way to make ideas that you're studying meaningful in your own life and for others in our community while building your own personal portfolio of talents. |