HUM 212-H01 THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD
HUM 212 is a writing and reading intensive course that is designed to inculcate critical thinking. The
readings, art, and musical selections are almost exclusively primary materials. The content focuses upon
cultural history, not political, military, or social history, but these latter areas form part of the context for
the cultural expressions. The historical time frame of the course is approximately the seventeenth century
to mid twentieth century with connections to the present.
Course dates: Wednesday, September 5, 2012 through Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Meetings: Wednesday and Friday, 10:00-11:25am
Instructor: Rolanne Henry, PhD, J.D.
417 Cullimore
973-596-5608
rolanne.henry@njit.edu Subject: HUM212-H01
Office Hours: Wednesday and Friday 11:30am-12:45pm; Thursday 5:00-5:45pm
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING
The course requirements include: A short three page analytical and researched paper (MLA in-text
citations and Works Cited); one researched and fully documented analytical paper of approximately
eight to ten pages (MLA format of in-text citations and Works Cited) developed in stages on a topic
approved by the instructor. Late papers may result in a lowered grade for the assignment; one group
report discussing issues that are generated by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness within the assigned
topic. There will be three quizzes and a final examination. The course culminates in a portfolio
required by the Humanities Department, which must be submitted by the time of the final exam to
complete the course. The portfolio is to have a cover jacket within which the contents are to be bound.
There is to be a Table of Contents and Tabs separating the sections. The syllabus is to be the first item of
content, followed by the two papers with the related assignments—Proposal, Annotated Bibliography.
Then the group work, and finally the quizzes follow. GRADING—Short paper: 15%; documented
analytical research paper: 30%; Quizzes: 30% and Final exam: 10%; Group reports: 10%; Class
participation and Portfolio: 5%. Late paper and group assignments may result in a lowered grade for
the completed product.
POLICIES
Attendance is required, and unexcused absences (those other than documented medical, etc.) may result in
a lowered grade. Provisions of the NJIT Academic Honor Code about plagiarism and other violations
will be upheld. Any violations will be brought to the attention of the Dean of Students. See
http://www.njit.edu/academics/honorcode.php. To withdraw from the course, contact the Registrar
directly on or before Thursday, November 3. See http://www.njit.edu/registrar/calendars/fall 12.php.
Use of cell phones or recording devices is not permitted in the classroom, and all sound from the phone
must be turned off. Computers may be used only as necessary for access to the course material and for
presentations.
TEXTBOOK AND RESOURCES
The required textbook is The Norton Anthology Western Literature. Vol. 2 Eighth Edition. 2006.
ISBN 978-0-393-92616-3. The text has been ordered in the NJIT Bookstore and is available for rent.
Additionally, web links will be supplied or material posted in our class website in moodle
(http://moodle.njit.edu) or made available in a Wiki or on reserve for our class in the Van Houten Library,
NJIT.
Also, Mrs. Davida Scharf, Reference Librarian in Van Houten, has been assigned to assist students and
faculty in the Humanities with research for course papers. Mrs. Heather Dalal is also available to assist
with research and information literacy.
Students will be responsible for checking the Moodle postings. Go to our site in Moodle:
http://moodle.njit.edu. All page numbers refer to readings in The Norton Anthology.
FORMATTING THE RESEARCHED PAPERS (print format)
Double space in size 12 Times New Roman font, one-inch margins all around. Your name, course and
section number, instructor’s name and date are placed on the Title Page. Pages are to be numbered.
Repeat the title on page 1 and your name and page number on each page in the upper right corner.
Current MLA format is to be used for in-text parenthetical citations and the Works Cited page. Include
web URLs in the Works Cited and test them to be certain that a reader will be led directly to the source.
Note whether the source is print, web, or DVD and include the date that you accessed web material. For
MLA format go to http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/.
RESEARCHED PAPER
The research paper is to develop a thesis on a topic within the timeframe of the course beginning with the
late Renaissance or seventeenth century through the mid twentieth century. The paper is to be researched
and fully documented and is to be submitted in stages. The proposal requires approval by the instructor.
Proposal due in moodle: Friday, September 28, 2012
Print draft (peer review) due: Friday, November 2, 2012
Print draft (instructor review) due: Friday, November 9, 2012
Final print draft due: Friday, November 16, 2012
COURSE OUTLINE
Renaissance Review
Wednesday, September 5 and Friday, September 7
Quiz I: Wednesday, September 12
Seventeenth Century: Baroque
Friday, September 14
Bernini (contrasted with Michelangelo); Francis Bacon and Galileo; philosopher Descartes; painters
Vermeer and Velasquez
Wednesday, September 19
painters Rubens and Caravaggio; architecture: Versailles; Monteverdi’s opera, Orfeo
Friday, September 21
Moliere, Tartuffe
Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment
Wednesday, September 26
musicians Handel and Bach; philosophers Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. La Fontaine,
“The Wolf and the Lamb”; Swift, A Modest Proposal; Mary Robinson, from “A Letter
to the Women of England, on the Injustice of Mental Subordination”
*Friday, September 28
Research paper proposal due in moodle
Quiz II: Friday, September 28
Wednesday, October 3
Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock and An Essay on Man, Epistle I
Friday, October 5
Samuel Johnson, Rasselas (1759)
Wednesday, October 10
American and French Revolutions; Jefferson, “The Declaration of Independence”; Letters of John and
Abigail Adams, pp. 645-657; Industrial Revolution and Adam Smith; Scientific Revolution
Friday, October 12
Hogarth; Jacques-Louis David; Jefferson, “Monticello”; Thomas Paine, “Address to the People of
France,” pp. 657-660
DUE Wednesday, October 17 (moodle)—Short Paper
Nineteenth Century: Romanticism
Wednesday, October 17, Friday, October 19 and Wednesday, October 24
Blake, “The Chimney Sweeper” (Innocence), p. 688 and (Experience), p. 692; Rousseau, “Confessions,
Part I”; Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,” p. 696; Keats, “Ode to a
Nightingale,” p. 760; Whitman, “Song of Myself” #1, #4, #21, #52; Dickenson #449, #585, #1129;
painters Turner, “Steam” and Goya, The Third of May, 1808; Wagner, Verdi and Grand Opera
(Aida, Otello)
Nineteenth Century: Realism
Friday, October 26 and Wednesday, October 31
Darwin, “The Descent of Man,” from Ch XXI, p. 1376 (1859); Karl Marx, from “Manifesto of the
Communist Party,” p. 1381 (1848); Giovanni Verga, “Freedom,” p. 1466 (1860); painter Edouard
Manet, Luncheon on the Grass (1863), Soren Kierkegaard; Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science from
Book Three, p. 1396 (1882); Mona Caird “The Emancipation of the Family” from The End of the
Patriarchal Family, p. 1403 (1890); Emile Zola from “J’accuse”, p. 1390 (1/13/1898)
Friday, November 2: QUIZ III
Nineteenth Century: Symbolism
Wednesday, November 7
Baudelaire, “Correspondences,” p. 1545; Verlaine, “Moonlight” and “The White Moon Glow,” p. 1569;
(see Watteau’s painting “Pilgrimage to the Isle of Cythera” of 1717 (Norton Anthology)); musician
Debussy, Clair de Lune; painter Eugene Delacroix, The Twenty-Eighth of July: Liberty Leading the
People (1830)
Nineteenth Century: Perspectives on Colonialism and Empire
Friday, November 9
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, pp. 856-881; 903911 (1845); painter Turner, The Slave Ship (1840); Giuseppe Garibaldi, “Memorandum 15 October
1860,” p. 1587; Sol T. Plaatje, Mafeking Diary from Chapter 1 (1899-1902), p. 1607
Nineteenth Century: Impressionism and Post Impressionism and Early Twentieth Century:
Civilization on Trial
Wednesday, November 14 and Friday, November 16
Sigmund Freud, from The Future of an Illusion and from Civilization and Its Discontents (1929),
p. 1692; William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”; Alfonsina Storni, “Squares and
Angles” and “You Want Me White,” p. 2049
GROUP REPORTS ON JOSEPH CONRAD’S HEART OF DARKNESS (1899), PP. 1632-1692
Wednesday, November 21 (Friday schedule); Wednesday, November 28; Friday, November 30
Happy Thanksgiving—No class November 23
Wednesday, December 5
T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men,” p. 2019 and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” p. 2003
Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Guernica
Mid Twentieth Century: Freedom and Responsibility
Friday, December 7
Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, “III. Freedom and
Responsibility,” p. 2102. Existentialism (Kierkegaard); Albert Camus, “The Guest,” p. 2253.
Wednesday, December 12
Simone de Beauvoir, “The Second Sex: Facts and Myths” from Myths: Dreams, Fears, Idols,
(1949), p. 2382
Abstract expressionism—Jackson Pollock and Rothko. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright
Portfolio
DUE: At the final examination
The Portfolio includes all the work of the semester in chronological sequence. The portfolio is to have a
cover jacket and Title Page identifying you, the course and section number, and the name of the
instructor. The contents are to be bound within the cover jacket. A copy of the Course Syllabus is to be
included. There is to be a Table of Contents and Tabs that divide the major sections: Research Paper
with Proposal, Outline, Draft #1,#2; Short Analytical Paper; Oral presentation material—notes, images,
PowerPoint (?); Quizzes, and any other work of the semester. An ePortfolio in Mahara (link in moodle)
may be submitted instead of print.
FINAL EXAMINATION
Final Examinations will be held from December 14 - 20 and are scheduled by the Registrar.
The final examination will consist primarily of material after the last quiz. The essays, however, will be
enhanced by reflections upon any of the material of the semester.