General Studies (GNST) 500 - Lecture 01
Heritage II: Integration
Fall 2006
MWF 13:00 - 13:50  

Instructor:	Prof. R. Glasberg
Office Location:	SS 328
Office Phone:	220-7124
E-Mail:	rglasber@ucalgary.ca
Web Page:
Office Hours:	T R: 13:00-14:00

Course Description

The course is an interdisciplinary engagement with the ideas, cultural themes and basic assumptions of Western Civilization from the early 19th Century to the present day. The following are just examples of what will be explored: the meaning of freedom and how it may best be achieved; the nature of growth in spiritual and material contexts; the nature and functioning of the 'system' (military-industrial-communications complex); the changing nature of cultural objectives and the conflicts engendered thereby; the dynamics of discourse in a world of new communicative possibilities.

Although students may do the work in a relatively traditional way, the course is organized 'tribally', where that means students set their own assignments, mark weightings, and due dates. Presentations of work done for the class and intense discussion is balanced with the instructor's input. In short, the class is what students chose to make it, and in that sense the aforementioned themes of freedom, growth, and discourse dynamics are actually lived out rather than just discussed in an abstract manner.

Objectives of the Course

(1) To synthesize from a variety of disciplinary contexts the most fundamental meanings inherent in the current trajectory of Western (and to a certain extent, World) Civilization;

(2) To critique the dysfunctional qualities of Western Civilization and to come up with viable alternatives;

(3) to satisfy one's deepest curiosity and realize one's greatest talents in the context of the course;

(4) to generate an authentic community of learning by the sharing of one's greatest gifts with other members of the class.

Textbooks and Readings:

Lawrence S. Cunningham and John J. Reich, Culture and Values: A Survey of the Humanities, Vol. II, 6th Edition. Belmont, Calif.: Thomson Wadswoth, 2006.

Edgar E. Knoebel, ed. Classics of Western Thought, Vol. III, The Modern World, 4th Edition. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988.

Donald S. Gochberg, ed. Classics of Western Thought, Vol. IV, The Twentieth Century. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980.

R. Glasberg, ed. GNST 500 L02, Heritage II: Integration Book of Readings, Fall 2006 & Winter 2007. The University of Calgary

Assignments and Evaluation

It is the student's responsibility to keep a copy of each submitted assignment.

Note: Please return assignments directly to the instructor if possible. If it is not possible to do so, a daytime drop box is available in SS110; a date stamp is provided for your use. A night drop box is also available for after-hours submission. Assignments will be removed the following morning, stamped with the previous day's date, and placed in the instructor's mailbox.

If students opt for the tribal method, assignments, weightings, due dates are set by the individual in consultation with the instructor.

If a more non-tribal method is adopted, the following is expected :

(1) Midterm Takehome: Oct. 30, 2006; 25%

(2) December Takehome: Dec. 8, 2006; 25%

(3) Group Project/Major Essay: Feb. 16, 2007; 25%

(4) April Takehome: April 13, 2007; 25%

Registrar-scheduled Final Examination: No

Please note: If your class is held in the evening, the Registrar's Office will make every attempt to schedule the final exam during the evening; however, there is NO guarantee that the exam will NOT be scheduled during the day.

Policy for Late Assignments

Assignments submitted after the deadline may be penalized with the loss of a grade (e.g.: A- to B+) for each day late.

Writing Skills Statement

Faculty policy directs that all written assignments (including, although to a lesser extent, written exam responses) will be assessed at least partly on writing skills. For details see www.comcul.ucalgary.ca/info. Writing skills include not only surface correctness (grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc) but also general clarity and organization. Research papers must be properly documented.

If you wish help with your writing at any stage, including drafts, you are invited to contact the Writing Centre, SS110, 220-7255.

Grading System

The following grading system is used in the Faculty of Communication and Culture:

A+ (96-100); A (92-95); A- (86-91); B+ (81-85); B (77-80); B- (71-76);
C+ (65-70); C (62-64); C- (59-61); D+ (55-58); D (50-54); F (0-49)

 

Plagiarism

Using any source whatsoever without clearly documenting it is a serious academic offense. For details see www.comcul.ucalgary.ca/info. Consequences include failure on the assignment, failure in the course and possibly suspension or expulsion from the university.

You must document not only direct quotations but also paraphrases and ideas where they appear in your text. A reference list at the end is insufficient by itself. Readers must be able to tell exactly where your words and ideas end and other people’s words and ideas begin. This includes assignments submitted in non-traditional formats such as Web pages or visual media, and material taken from such sources.

Please consult your instructor or the Writing Centre (SS110) if you have any questions regarding how to document sources.

Students with Disabilities

If you are a student with a disability who may require academic accommodation, it is your responsibility to register with the Disability Resource Centre (220-8237) and discuss your needs with your instructor no later than fourteen (14) days after the start of the course.

Students' Union

For details about the current Students' Union contacts for the Faculty of Communication and Culture see www.comcul.ucalgary.ca/info

"SAFEWALK" Program -- 220-5333

Campus Security will escort individuals day or night -- call 220-5333 for assistance. Use any campus phone, emergency phone or the yellow phone located at most parking lot booths.

Schedule of Lectures and Readings

 GNST 500 Readings 2006-2207

Abbreviations:

CWT,III = Classics of Western Thought, Vol. III CWT,IV = Classics of Western Thought, Vol. IV C&V, II = Culture & Values, Vol. II RP = Reading Package, GNST 500 L02 (Prepared by R. Glasberg)

1st Term

Sept. 11: Introduction – Basic Concepts and Principles

Sept. 13: RP – Quinn, Beyond Civilization

Sept. 15: Rousseau and Revolution: C&V,II, 241-242, 243-246; CWT,III,131-140

Sept. 18: Lee Harris & the critique of Rousseau and Quinn: RP – Harris

Sept. 20: Romanticism & Romantic Poetry: C&V,II,271-272,295-296; 311-312; CWT,III, 260-273

Sept. 22: [continue with above readings] & Poe’s Oval Portrait – C&V,II,318-319

Sept. 25: The Faustian Motif: C&V,II,294-295; CWT,III,221-259

Sept. 27: [continue with above readings]

Sept. 29: Conservative Romanticism – Edmund Burke: CWT,III,202-220

Oct. 2: The Realities of Class – Dickens: C&V,II,296-298;313-316

Oct. 4: Radical Romanticism – Hegel:C&V,II, 272-275;CWT,III, 338-349

Oct. 6: [continue with above readings]

Oct. 9: Thanksgiving – No lectures

Oct. 11: Liberalism – Mill’s Utilitarianism: CWT,III, 332-337

Oct. 13: Mill’s, On Liberty: CWT,III, 323-332

Oct. 16: Contemporary Liberalism and Its Enemies: RP – Berman

Oct. 18:The Communist Solution of Marx: CWT,III, 367-389

Oct. 20: Communism in a Contemporary Context: RP – Kors

Oct. 23: Bakunin’s Anarchist alternative: CWT,III, 390-404

Oct. 25: De Tocqueville, Whitman and the American Way: C&V,II, 299-302; 319-322; CWT,III, 280-298

Oct. 27: Thoreau’s Radical Individualism and Civil Disobedience: CWT,III, 299-322

Oct. 30: [continue with above readings]

Nov. 1: Religious Conservatism – Leo XIII and Tolstoy: CWT,III, 405-420; C&V,II, 316-318

Nov. 3: The Darwinian Revolution: CWT,III, 350-366

Nov. 6: Social Darwinism – Dobzhansky and Lorenz: CWT,IV, 261-270; 288-302

Nov. 8: The Critique of Mass Society – Nietzsche: C&V,II, 327-329; CWT,III, 443-457

Nov. 10: [continue with above readings] & Chekhov’s The Bet: C&V,II,352-353; 357-359

Nov. 13: Reading Day -- No Class

Nov. 15: Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor: CWT,III, 421-442

Nov. 17: [continue with above readings]

Nov. 20: The Question of Gender – Ibsen: C&V,II, 353-354; CWT,III, 458-534

Nov. 22: [continue with above readings]

Nov. 24: Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Chopin’s Story Of An Hour – C&V,II,359-363

Nov. 27: Freud and the Unconscious: C&V,II, 413,421; CWT,III, 546-549;

Nov. 29: [continue with above readings] & Freud’s Future Of An Illusion – CWT,IV,393-397

Dec. 1: Jung and the Collective Unconscious: CWT,III, 560-576

Dec. 4: Jung and the Archetypes: CWT,IV, 398-314

Dec. 6: Gender Identity in the Context of Homosexuality: RP – Oosterhuis and Chauncy

Dec. 8: Review

2nd Term

Jan. 8: The ‘System’ & how it ‘works’ – Ellul: CWT,IV, 131-145

Jan. 10: The World System – RP: Wallerstein

Jan. 12: Cannibal Culture – RP: Hartmann

Jan. 15: [continue with above readings]

Jan. 17: High Tech – RP: Naisbitt

Jan. 19: Life in the Burbs – Mumford: CWT,IV, 226-246

Jan. 22:McDonaldization – RP: Ritzer

Jan. 24: The New Industrial State – Galbraith, CWT,IV, 146-162

Jan. 26: The make-Believe Culture – RP: Jensen

Jan. 29: [continue with above readings]

Jan. 31: The Higher Immorality – C.W. Mills: CWT,IV, 204-221

Feb. 2: Literature and the Loss of Meaning – Eliot & Kafka: C&V,II,413-414; 435-442; 445-448

Feb. 5: [continue with above readings]

Feb. 7: Breton & Surrealism – C&V,II, 421-423; CWT,IV, 522-532

Feb. 9: The Absurd in Camus & Beckett: CWT,IV, 325-344

Feb. 12: Sartre’s Existentialism: C&V,II, 458-459; CWT,III, 616-634

Feb. 14: Einstein, Heisenberg and the Challenge of Modern Science: CWT,III, 535-545; CWT,IV, 303-313

Feb. 16: Communist Developments – Lenin: CWT.III, 577-596

Feb. 18-25: Reading Week

Feb. 26: Maoism – Mao Tse-tung: CWT,IV, 47-59

Feb. 28: Nazism – Hitler: CWT,III, 597-615

Mar. 2: The Holocaust – Bettelheim & Wiesel: CWT,IV, 1-29; C&V,II, 496-498

Mar. 5: The Holocaust – Arendt: CWT,IV, 30-46

Mar. 7: Soviet Terror – Solzhenitsyn: CWT,IV, 75-116

Mar. 9: Mind Control in the Brave New World – Huxley: C&V,II, 432-434; 448-453; CWT,IV 184-203

Mar. 12: The Perils of Affluence – Heller: CWT,IV, 345-370

Mar. 14: The Feminist Revolution – Woolf & De Beauvoir: CWT,III, 635-649; CWT,IV,486-505

Mar 16: Strategies of Gender Control – RP: Irvine and Barrera

Mar. 19: Class, Race & Gender – O’Connor, Brooks, Plath, & Rich: C&V,II, 487; 498-507

Mar.21: Decolonization – Fanon: CWT,IV, 506-521

Mar. 23: ‘Youth Culture’ – Ginsberg, Gleason & Huxley: CWT,IV, 383-390; 563-577; 589-603

Mar. 26: [continue with above readings]

Mar. 28: The Role of the University – Farber & Brustein: CWT,IV, 467-485

Mar. 30: Ecological Crisis – Commoner & Heilbroner: CWT,IV, 273-287; 627-639

Apr. 2:The Atheist Challenge – Robinson: CWT,IV, 422-437

Apr. 4: Conversations with God – RP: Walsch

Apr. 6: New Ages Visions – RP: McLaughlin and Davidson

Apr. 9: Toward A Higher Consciousness – RP: Wilber

Apr. 13: Final Review



On Tribalism, Assignments, and Marks

The ‘tribal’ approach to learning is not easy because most students are used to being told what to do and when to do it. They are not used to setting their own assignments, due dates, and ultimately deciding on what mark they deserve. Also unusual is the idea of each student contributing to the learning of the class and getting credit for that contribution. In short, freedom can be a shock in an educational setting just as much as it can be a shock in other areas of life. Moreover, just as freedom can be misused in one’s life in general, it can also be misused in the context of a tribal class. For example, some will procrastinate and not produce any work at all. Others will try to take advantage of the situationand parasitically seek to live off the work of others or give themselves a grade which they know that they have not earned. By the same token, one can also take advantage of a non-tribal system and turn it into a game by cheating or by jumping through the hoops in such a way that nothing has been learned.

So what does it mean to learn in an authentic way? It means to grow by way of some intellectual encounter with material one is seeking to understand; but because growth is highly personal, learning needs to be according to the needs and capacities of specific individuals. Tribal education, then, is nothing less than an attempt to ‘individualize’ one’s learning and free it from the hierarchical structures with which we are all too familiar. It is hierarchy that by its very nature undermines the individualistic component of learning by making it submit to the requirements of power.

I doubt that power structures can disappear completely. They are there for a reason although that does not mean that they cannot be minimized. To get a better sense of this students will start off by reading the Daniel Quinn selection in the Reading Package (RP). Then, as a group (or ‘tribe’ in Quinn’s sense of the term), students will decide how to pool their common resources and talents in order to learn the material. That means engaging in a serious consideration of learning, teaching, marks, group dynamics, etc. The bottom line is that marks are essential in the context of the university and the social milieu in which the university exists, just as money is essential in the wider world outside the university. The marks have to be real or authentic in the same way that money cannot be counterfeit, but it is still possible to avoid the more corrupting effects of either if one alters one’s attitudes. For example, it makes a big difference in the quality of one’s life if marks and money are earned co-operatively as opposed to competitively. Thus, students must decide how the course material is to be approached so that marks are legitimately earned in a structure that is no more hierarchical than it has to be to serve the ends of ndividualized learning.

Some Basic Steps

Each student should start by looking at the syllabus and the readings. In that context please submit to me a one or two-page statement explaining how you learn best and how that learning style may be translated into a set of assignments with due dates and mark breakdowns. Of course, as the year goes on, you might want to change some of these mark components; and while you are free to make such changes, you should at least submit one assignment per term so that you are left with something at the end of the year.

At the end of the year I will ask each of you to submit a mark brief stating what you have learned, how much of the material you have read (compared how much you think you would have read in a more traditional system), how well you have fulfilled your own goals as outlined in your initial proposal, and what mark you think you have earned on the basis of t4h foregoing assessment. As instructor and in the interests of fairness, I do reserve the right to over-rule a mark that is not supported by the appropriate evidence, but I trust that will not be necessary in most cases. Learning to live freely entails learning to live honorably.

That said, the aforementioned limits of freedom are counter-balanced by amazing opportunities – these being the chance to do exciting group work, bring visitors to class, put on plays, write poetry, engage in journalling, create videos, manage discussion groups, execute paintings, etc. The sky is the limit.

The level of participation is high, and with that comes all the tensions associated with the clash of personalities. Yet that is the reality of life and the cost of freedom. To help the tribe get started, each student will introduce themselves and choose (if she or he wishes) a tribal name that represents how that person wishes to be known in the group. Introduction typically involves stating where one is from (origin, background), where one is now, and finally where one is going (goals, purposes, etc.). More importantly, some kind of name tag must be placed before the student in all classes. Learning names is vital to creating an inclusive tribe rather than a set of factions. Secondly, at least part of one class per week should be set aside to consider tribal problems rather than letting them get out of hand.

Finally, please be patient. It takes time and work to engender a functional learning group. I will take a strong role at the outset and will always be there as someone who knows the material. Gradually, the tribe should unfold like a flower as participation increases in the context of a class that learns to teach itself. The point is that one is learning about freedom, not in some abstract theoretical way, but in the concrete setting of a lived experience. If Western Civilization or Global Civilization is ever to evolve toward freedom, the experience of freedom in all its complexity should be part of everyone’s education.

A Matter Of Choice

For those who feel too shocked to plunge straight in and desire to work in a more traditional way, the following assignments may be done (with due dates and mark weights given on p. 3 above):

(1) Midterm Takehome:

Write a 5-7 page essay (double-spaced) on your own experience of freedom (or lack thereof) and compar it to that of two of the figures you have read up to now.

Or

Write a 5-7 page essay (double-spaced) in which you consider the ideologies so far discussed in the course. Which is most conducive to the way you wish to live and which is the least?

(2) December Takehome:

Please do two of the following questions:

(a) Assuming Nietzsche to be a theater critic, write his review of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler.

(b) Assuming Dostoevsky were a patient of Freud, write a case report from Freud’s perspective on the mental health of Dostoevsky. (c) Assuming Jung to be a cultural critic of the current educational system, write a report on his assessment of educational practices at the University of Calgary.

(d) Assuming Darwin has been asked to assess the political ideologies you have read, which doyou think he would have found most in harmony with his theories and which the least?

(3) Group Project/Major Essay:

Students are encouraged to create their own topics with the following provisos:

(a) essays are to include at least 4 course texts from the second term;

(b) efforts are made to synthesize these texts;

(c) some statement is made as to how these texts embody what Western Civilization means to the writer(s) of the essay.

(4) Final Takehome:

Please write a 10-12 page essay on what you have learned, during the course of the year,about the relationship between freedom and consciousness. Please make reference to as many of the course readings as possible.