General Studies 500 Lecture 60 (GNST 500 L60)

Heritage II - Integration

 Summer 2008
Lectures: July 02 - August 14

Meetings: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays

 Hours: 11:00 - 14:40

Scurfield Hall (SH) 280

 

 

Instructor:	Dr. Andrei Paul Zlatescu
Office Location:	SS 209
E-Mail:	anz@ucalgary.ca
Web Page:	http://www.freewebs.com/comcul/
Office Hours:	Tuesdays: 15.00-15.50 (SS 209) or by appointment

Additional Information

 

This course has a Blackboard Intranet website. To access the BB module, please, make sure that you have a valid UCID. Please, bookmark and check periodically for frequent updates:

http://blackboard.ucalgary.ca/webapps/login

Course Description:

"If we are historically minded, I think we may perhaps suppose that a time will come when men shall care very little about the accidents and circumstances of beauty; they shall care for beauty itself." Jorge Luis Borges

This class draws upon the notions taught in General Studies 300 Heritage-I, and, within a detailed study of the last 200 years, offers the student a relevant perspective of Western Civilization as a whole. Our historical and philosophical narrative starts with the French revolution and ends with the speculative epistemology of the twenty-first century.

After 1789, technical and liberal intellectuals formulated the rational assignments of modernity, which had in common not only the spell of emancipation, but also an untold fear concerning the solitude of human condition in an infinite, incomprehensible Universe. Enlightenment did away with the tolerance of sixteenth-century Humanism, and chose instead to combine the search for scientific certainty with ethical rigor. If the struggle between superstition and reason crystallized in the equivocal notion of progress, eventually this triumph of man's disenchanted liberty from the laws of nature was adjudicated at a great price. The Western world opted for a cultural endeavor that has brought contemporary man discretionary power over nature and irrecoverable disappointments on ethical grounds. While direful events in the twentieth century, such as the two World Wars, the Holocaust and Hiroshima, have separated the notion of history from its traditional ethical foundations, Quantum Physics and the Theory of Relativity destroyed the last positive hopes concerning the meaning of time, turning the very idea of reality into a poorly contoured illusion on the verge of nothingness. The irresoluteness of our moral and epistemological perspectives has been only amplified by the boom of the new media, which has brought forth perplexities specific to our postmodern anxiety, beyond new communication rituals.

If we are to learn something from the convoluted history of the last two centuries, it becomes imperative to take into account our human status in an economy of knowledge that has nearly destroyed our own moral expectations from the future. In this course, we will reflect on some of the unsettled philosophical questions of our age, in an attempt to formulate our genuine responses, or, at least, in order to better articulate the subject matters at hand.

Objectives of the Course:

In the spirit of interdisciplinarity cultivated within our GNST 500 class, students will be expected to complete the course with a provable understanding of the following:

-social and political outcomes in Western society of the 19th and 20th centuries;

- theoretical frameworks of political, economic and aesthetic structures studied;

- the specific influence of scientific and technological achievements on each cultural epoch;

- the channels of symbolic interchange between Western and Non-Western cultures;

- the major confluences between society, science, beliefs, cultural movements and popular culture;

- knowledge of major issues at stake regarding our contemporary society.

Textbooks and Readings:

Lawrence S. Cunningham, John J. Reich, Culture and Values, A Survey of the Humanities, Wadsworth, Thomson Learning, Alternate Edition (in one volume);

Classics of Western Thought III - The Modern World, Wadsworth, Thomson Learning.

Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, any edition.

Assignments and Evaluation

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

Course requirements (weighting of assignment, exams and participation in class):

Lecture dates: July 2 to August 14.

o Individual (essay) project proposal (1 page) and bibliography - 5%, July 8

o Class presentation period begins. Short written proposal (1 page) - 5%, July 8

o First research-essay, eight pages + Academic Bibliography - 20 %, July 15

o Midterm exam - 20%, Monday, (open book, written in class, 2 hours) July  22

o Individual participation in class and on BB Discussion Boards - 10%

o 2^nd Assignment 10-15 min. Class presentation - 20%: between July 8  and August 14

 

-Conclusions and final review based on students' questions: August 13 and 14

 

o Final exam - 20% -Take-home exam: to be submitted via BB dropbox on August 15

 

(Final exam subjects will be posted on Blackboard a week in advance)

It is the student's responsibility to keep a copy of each submitted assignment.
Note: Please hand in your essays directly to your tutor or 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.

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 need help with your writing, you may use the Writing Centre.  Visit the website for more details: www.efwr.ucalgary.ca

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. 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 (SS 106, efwr.ucalgary.ca) 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/su

"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.

Ethics

Whenever you perform research with human participants (i.e. surveys, interviews, observation) as part of your university studies, you are responsible for following university research ethics guidelines.  Your instructor must review and approve of your research plans and supervise your research.  For more information about your research ethics responsibilities, see

The Faculty of Communication and Culture Research Ethics site: http://www.comcul.ucalgary.ca/ethics

or the University of Calgary Research Ethics site: http://www.ucalgary.ca/research/compliance/ethics/info/undergrad/

Schedule of Lectures and Readings

Tentative calendar of readings to be announced in class and posted on Blackboard. For frequent updates, consult the GNST 500 L20 individualized Blackboard intranet module.