IDSC 151: Athens To New York

Language, Identity and Power

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Syllabus and Study Guide

Spring, 2000
Professor Kim Pearson
Bliss Hall 217
phone: 771-2692
fax: 637-5112
kpearson@tcnj.edu
Class Hours:
Section 15: 11:00 - 12:20PM MR Rm: 234
Section 17: 2:00 - 3:20PM TF Rm: 235
Office Hours: 3:30-5:00 Tuesday and Thursday

Purpose

Four central questions are thought to be at the center of the interdisciplinary core courses you are required to take at the College:

• What does it mean to be human?
• What does it mean to be a member of a community?
• What does it mean to moral, ethical or just?
• How do individuals and communities respond to differences of race, class, gender and ethnicity?

We will approach these questions by looking at the intertwined relationships between language, identity and power, both in the ancient world and the modern world.

Course Requirements

• Class Participation -- including Message Board participation: 10 percent
  
• Midterm: 20 percent
• Major project: 15 percent
• Talk Show project: 35 percent
• Journal of your service learning experience, with a summary statement tying your experience to the course themes. The General Education program has a suggested format for you to follow. You must complete this to get a passing grade.: 5 percent
• E-mail address
• Read materials for class when due
• Adherence to college rules with regard to style, footnoting, attribution
• No make-up exams without a doctor's note.
• All written assignments other than message board contributions, are to be placed in the "Submit" folder on the "O" drive for our class.
  

In addition, you are encouraged to form study groups with other members of the class. We will discuss study groups during the first class session.

Description of major class assignments

1. The e-mail assignment: Each section of the class will have a web-based message board. The board for Section 15 is here. Section 17's message board is here. You will each be responsible for generating discussion questions for a specific class session and placing them on the message board. At least two questions are expected for each session. During the first class, you will be asked to sign up for your session as discussion moderator.

After each session, you will each be expected to be prepared to respond in class, to the discussion question for that class. (these questions can come from discussions in your study groups.) You are ALSO required to post responses to at least five of the message board questions during the course of the semester. These responses must be thoughtful, with references to readings and class discussions as appropriate. This will be part of your class participation grade. You are also encouraged to add your own questions and observations to the discussion. If, for some reason, you cannot attend class, you may respond by e-mail.

The questions posted to the message board should relate to at least two of the following themes:

• The concept of, or relationship to, the Divine
• The value placed upon freedom, individuality, and imagination
• The importance and/or consequences ascribed to a person's ability to reason
• The value placed upon living ethically and justly
• The rights of the community versus the rights of the individual
• Attitudes toward difference

2. Project #1: Presentation on Your Major. (Week of February 21) Details TBA.

3. Project #2: The IDSC Talk Show: Week of April 24
Students will be divided into four groups. Each group will prepare a 20-minute TV talk-show which will people who either participated in the founding of the United States, or have been major interpreters or critics of the American idea. Each group must have at least the participants listed below. If there are more people in your group, you may add additional interviewees with my approval.

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4
Host/Hostess	Host/Hostess	Host/Hostess	Host/Hostess
Thomas Jefferson	Pat Buchanan	Roger Taney	W.E.B. Du Bois
Benjamin Banneker	Venture Smith	David Walker	Linda Chavez
Chief Wilma Mankiller	Ronald Takaki	Anna Julia Cooper	Russell Simmons
Mary Wollstonecraft	Caesar Chavez	Newt Gingrich	Russell Means
Farai Chideya	Glenn Loury	Charles Murray	Reginald Lewis

Grading Criteria

B Logic and facts are in order. The writing is clear and competent. Errors are minimal.

C The writing is thoughtful and produced with care. Some errors.

D An effort has been made to meet the requirements of the assignment, but substantial work is needed.

F The requirements have not been addressed.

0 The work has not been handed in, and no extensions have been given.

Class topics, readings and schedule

COVENANT

We will:

Respect each other.
• Try to understand each other's differing perspectives
• Try to be non-judgmental
• Try to let everyone who wants to speak at least once before we speak a second time
• Try to be honest
• Realize that there are no silly questions
• ASK whatever you want or need to

In class

January 17/18 Overview
exercise -- exploring our worldviews;
discuss service learning and enrichment sessions

January 20/21: Presentations, America 1900 and the nature of knowledge

January 24/25

Identity and Power in the Ancient World:
In antiquity, religion was not yet separable from other forms of public life. Ones worship was dictated mainly by ones nationality and by other forms of social identification such as the household to which one belonged or the city in which one lived. The family, including slaves as well as the immediate kin groups, honored its own household gods, celebrated with religious rites, feasting and various entertainments. In the Roman world, some religious aspect must be paid to the genius or divinity of the ruling city, and later on, to the emperor who embodies its rule. ... Philosophical groups, too, sometimes organized themselves as voluntary communities of worship, as did social clubs. Even so, for most people, religion remained a part of their familial or ethnic identity; and since the individual had no place in society...one scarcely thought of changing ones worship except as part of a larger social unit

L. William Countryman -- Dirt, Greed and Sex. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, c 1988. p 21 Historical backgound on Athens. Read and view:

• The Ancient Greek World
• Trial and Death of Socrates. You might look at: Euthyphro, Apology, The Hypertext Crito

  Question for class discussion: Of what city is Socrates a citizen? How might his teaching be construed as a violation of his duties as a citizen?

  For a different view of the relationship between the individual and the state read

  • King: Letter From Birmingham City Jail

  January 28, February 1

  Read: Antigone study guide and text
  Of what city is Antigone a citizen?
  Note: (A production of Antigone will be shown in the dorms somtime early in the semester.)
  Also: do you see parallels between the characters of Ismene and Crito? What are they?

  February 2
  Service Learning registration; 8-5pm, SC202; 1 pm

  February 3/4
  Identity and Power in the Modern World: Read Bad Subjects essay.

  February 7/8 -- Next, we will consider a theory of human nature and human motivation that had a powerful impact on the architects of American government.

  • Jeremy Bentham: On The Principle of Utility
  • Just for fun: A Bentham Curiosity
  It is worth noting though, that scholars have wondered whether the experience of modern life has, in some ways, altered our nature. In an effort to find out, researchers set about studying the navigators of the Central Caroline Islands, who preserve and pass down their skills through the use of folklore:
• Traditional Navigation in the Western Pacific: A Search for a Pattern