HUMA 1301 Spring 2011
Dr. Suanna H. Davis
HUMA 1301
Spring 2011
second
start
CRN 70218
Class meets TTh 7-9 p.m. in FAC 316
Text: Adventures in the Human Spirit (AHS) by Philip E. Bishop
E-mail: suanna.davis@hccs.edu
Phone: 713-718-6671 (ENGL
Office)
Office: FAC 206
Available to meet with students: MWF 10-10:50
a.m. and TTh 7:30-8:20 a.m. Also by arrangement at other times.
Course description: HUMA 1301 provides an introduction to the arts
and humanities. The course investigates the relationship between
individual human lives and works of imagination and thought.
Course prerequisites: Must be placed into college-level reading (or take
GUST 0342 as a co-requisite) and be placed into college-level writing (or
take ENGL 0310/0349 as a co-requisite).
Course goal: To expand the student’s knowledge and understanding of
how human culture has expressed itself via mythology, drama, poetry,
philosophy, visual art, music, film, and various related modes.
Student learning outcomes: The student will be able to (1) describe
representative themes and developments in the humanities; (2) interpret
representative terms, works, figures and artists in philosophy, literature,
and the visual and performing arts; (3) compare and contrast
representative terms, works, figures and artists in philosophy, literature,
and the visual and performing arts; and (4) evaluate cultural creations in
the humanities.
HUMA 1301 is a Core Curriculum course.
Even though it is an introductory course, this class is READING
INTENSIVE.
It is a survey course.
We will be reading a lot.
We will do
lots of fun things and reading will be a large part of that.
POLICIES:
Course Withdrawal
If you wish to drop a course, you must do so by the withdrawal date. After
this date the course cannot be dropped, professors can no longer give a
grade of “W” at the end of the semester. Instead, students must be given the
grade earned, which is usually an “F” if the student stopped coming to class.
Attendance
Texas State law requires 87.5% minimum attendance for college courses.
You will be dropped if you miss more than 12.5% of instruction (a total of
six hours). This can be combined absences or tardies.
Students who are sleeping, talking, or texting during class will be marked
absent. Students who leave class repeatedly, come in late and leave early, or
are doing other work/reading during the class will be marked absent.
If a student is present every day for class, two points will be added to their
final average. If they are absent once, one point will be added. If they are
absent three times before the drop date, they will be dropped. Four
absences total after the drop date will result in the state-mandated failure
of the course.
Late Work
Late work will not be accepted in this class. The homework is
primarily reading and note-taking. There will be daily quizzes.
Scholastic Dishonesty
According to the Student Handbook for the
Houston Community College System (27-28), “scholastic dishonesty”
includes, but is not limited to, cheating on a test, plagiarism, and collusion.
The consequences for scholastic dishonesty range from a minimum of a 0
on the work through a 0 in the course to expulsion from the college.
Grades
A = 90-100
B = 80-89
C = 70-79
D = 60-69
F = 0-59
40% = Instructor’s choice: attendance, participation, quizzes
20% =
Experience papers (2)
10% = First exam
10% = Historical
presentation
10% = Second exam
10% = Creative presentation
This image is by Jason Hogan of HCC.
This syllabus may be revised as the term progresses at the
professor’s discretion.
“Thanks to art, instead of seeing a single world, our own, we see it
multiply until we have before us as many worlds as there are artists.” –
Marcel Proust
February 15
Initial Music: 10 min. Music of the Ancient
World
Introduction to DavisEnglish.com and syllabus.
Introduction to
teacher, class, and students.
Email etiquette.
Sculpture
introduction.
Diagnostic writing.
Hwk:
1. Read AHS chapter 1, pages
16-26.
2. Find one sculpture online that you like. Send the URL to Dr.
Davis by commenting on the homework post on DavisEnglish.com. (You
will not be able to see the comment until it is approved, but I will approve
it.) Please see the homework post for more details on this assignment.
February 17
Initial Music: 3 min. Lyre and Pipes, Mesopotamia
Bring
the wood piece.
Quiz
Introduction to the Cultural Event experience
paper.
Timeline
Guennol Lioness, 5000 years old, most expensive
sculpture ever
Art: Painting. ancient painting introduction (some
sculpture)
Swoosh
Architecture
Reconstructing Stonehenge
Photos
at Wikipedia on Stonehenge
John Constable’s
Stonehenge
Music.
Literature: Epic of Gilgamesh oldest. Oldest known
love poem, 2030 BC. Iliad and Odyssey, written about 800 BC.
Art of the
First Cities
Why Study Art?
Ancient Art Podcast 1, The Scarab in
Ancient Egypt
A Dance Depicting Ancient Egyptian Art
Hwk:
1. Read
AHS chapter 2, pages 27-41
2. Take photographs of three “cave painting”
equivalents. If you do not have a cell phone with picture capability, you can
find six online photographs and print them out. Please make sure the URL
is included.
Impressionists Opening:
Museum of Fine Arts
Houston
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the
National Gallery of Art
February 20-May 23, 2011
The National Gallery´s Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection
ranks among the finest of any museum in the world and features some of
the most famous artists active in France between the 1860s and the early
20th century. The MFAH presentation showcases masterpieces by Mary
Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, Édouard Manet,
Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. An
unrivaled loan in the National Gallery’s history, this exhibition offers a
splendid overview of one of the greatest periods in European art and a
survey of movements that changed the course of art history.
February 22
Initial Music: 4 min. Macedonian music
Modern cave
paintings.
Greek mythology. Presentation. Group readings.
Discussion.
Aesop’s fables. “Tortoise and the Hair;” “The Ants and the
Grasshopper;” others.
Why would these fables have been relevant to the
people of that era and today?
Hwk:
1. Read AHS chapter 3, pages 4268.
2. Find a modern moral tale. Print it out. Include the link.
February 24
Quiz
Modern moral tales.
Greek: not just monolithic
cultures
Athens and Sparta
The United States, different
cultures.
transliteration of names using Greek alphabet
Hwk:
Read
AHS chapter 4, pages 69-99
Free concert:
Winter Concert
Friday, February 25, 8 pm
Free and
open to the public
featuring full orchestra and chorus performing
Christ
Evangelical Presbyterian Church
8300 Katy Freeway
713-526-1188
March 1
Quiz
Roman introduction.
satire (Roman) Weird Al
Yankovich
Hwk:
Study for exam.
March 3
Exam over class to date, especially ancient, Greek, and Roman
humanities topics.
There will be essay and short answer
questions.
Review the survey of African art.
Hwk:
1. Go to the Art
Institute of Chicago and peruse their African collection. There are more
than 400 pieces. You do not have to look at all of them. Find one that you
think is interesting. Then find a modern corollary to the piece. Link to both
the African work and the modern corollary in the homework post on
DavisEnglish.com.
2. Begin work on your presentation.
Andy Warhol and TV + Menil by Moonlight
Friday, March 4, 2011,
7:00 p.m. at the Menil
In collaboration with the Aurora Picture Show and the Andy Warhol
Museum, this curated screening includes excerpts of TV works created by
or featuring artist Andy Warhol: episodes from Andy Warhol’s Fifteen
Minutes, a cable television series from the 1980s which featured celebrities
interviewed by Warhol; clips from the Factory Diaries, home videos from
the ’70s; and highlights from Warhol’s cameos on The Love Boat and
Saturday Night Live.
The museum will be open till 9:00 p.m. in a special after-hours evening for
new members, with all galleries open – and special incentives offered for
joining the Menil (by moonlight!).
The Whole World Was Watching
Saturday, March 5, 2011, 2:00 –
4:00 p.m. Gregory School, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. at the Menil
The civil rights-era photographs in this exhibition – by Dan Budnik, Danny
Lyon, Bruce Davidson, Leonard Freed, Bob Adelman, and Elliott Erwitt –
were selected from the 230 images given to the museum by Edmund
Carpenter and Adelaide de Menil, and document the profound changes that
swept the United States in the 1960s. The exhibition’s title echoes a phrase
chanted by protestors who used the presence of photographers and
television cameras to remind perpetrators of racial or civil violence that
their actions would not go unseen.
Celebrate the opening of “The Whole World Was Watching” with music by
Tierney Malone, tours of the exhibition, a performance of freedom songs,
and opening remarks by Reverend William A. Lawson.
March 8
I need to decide if we will have class OR GO TO RICE.
Lecture: “The Really Funny Thing About Tragedy” by Simon
Critchley
Tuesday, March 8, 2011, 7:00 p.m. at Rice University
Student Center – Farnsworth Pavillion. I think I like the idea of
going to Rice.
ancient beliefs in religion in the Middle East: Assyrian, Farsi,
Phoenecian…
History of Major World Religions
Middle East Maps of
War
Monotheism
Hwk:
Read AHS chapter 5, pages 100-132
March 10
I have to decide if we will do this OR GO TO film
premier on HCC’s Central Campus of the Carnaval
film
Quiz.
Monotheism
Jewish temples, ancient Judaism, Jewish
art
art of Islam, mosques
Hwk:
Work on presentation.
March 15 and 17
NO CLASS. Enjoy your St. Patrick’s day
safely.
First experience paper is due on Tuesday when you get back.
“Kara Walker Speaks About Her Art”
Kara Walker
Monday,
March 14, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
Menil Foyer, 1515 Sul Ross
Born in 1969, Kara Walker received an MFA in painting and printmaking
from Rhode Island School of Design. Winner of a MacArthur award, she
represented the U.S. in the 2002 São Paulo Biennial. The Walker Art
Center’s 2007 exhibition Kara Walker: My Complement, My Oppressor, My
Enemy, My Love was her first full-scale U.S. museum survey. She is a
professor of visual arts in the MFA program at Columbia University.
March 22
First experience paper due.
early medievalEngland
Norse mythology.
Angles and the missionaries to England and
King Aethelbert, who takes them to Bertha’s church
Beowulf.
Bayeux
tapestry
Hwk:
Work on presentation.
March 24
early medieval
drama- Second Shepherd’s Play or
Everyman
discussion of modern portrayal of Second Shepherd’s
Play
another discussion
Coventry Carol
Hwk: Read AHS chapter 6,
pages 133-160
March 29
Quiz
art and story: Judith
pilgrims, pilgrimages
pilgrim
badges (collector’s items of the 15th C)
Canterbury Tales by
Chaucer
What do we collect? What is cool to collect? Why? How are they
“badges”?
music
Hwk: Go through the Art Institute of Chicago’s Arms, Armor, Medieval,
and Renaissance gallery. Choose one work and find a modern corollary. Put
the URLs in the comments of today’s homework post on DavisEnglish.com.
March 31
Roland:
French hero of the 700s,
possibly nephew of
Charlemagne
Song of Roland written in 1000s
Is there any irony in the mix of pictures and music?
El Cid (Spanish early
middle ages 1043-1099)
discuss the video in terms of the story, history,
and military battles
Hwk:
Write your paper for your presentation.
April 5
Your presentation paper is due.
late medieval
Hwk:
Read
AHS chapter 7, part 1, pages 162-176
April 7
late medieval
Hwk:
Read AHS chapter 7, part 2, pages 177190
Prepare for presentations.
April 12
Quiz
Presentations
April 14
Presentations
Gallery opening:
Saturday April 16th at 5
pm attend the Poetry Pottery opening at Foelber Pottery Gallery.
This is
poetry written by HCC students about pottery created at Foelber Pottery
Gallery. You can get your work done and support your fellow students.
April 19
Quiz
early Renaissance
Hwk:
Study for the exam.
April 21
Exam 2. Hwk:
Read AHS chapter 8, pages 191226.
Second experience paper is due on Tuesday.
April 26
Second experience paper is due.
late
Renaissance
Hwk:
Read the handout on the romance play by
Shakespeare that we will be watching on Thursday. Make sure that you
understand the main storyline and know the names of the main characters.
April 28
Shakespeare play, one of the romances
Hwk:
Prepare for
your creative presentation.
May 3
Creative presentations
May 5
Creative presentations
Hwk:
Have a nice life!