FAD Syllabus: UNCA HUM324
Overview
Syllabus shared by a UNC System faculty member.
Sample Syllabus
Humanities 324, University of North Carolina Asheville, Spring 2024 Common Syllabus, Foundations of American Democracy material is highlighted and bolded throughout in brown. Other material directly related to Foundations of American Democracy material is highlighted and bolded throughout in blue.
Before turning to the syllabus, some information about the Humanities Program at UNC Asheville is in order. For over 50 years we have required a course, essentially readings in The Humanities, for every student during each of the four years enrolled at UNCA. These readings are overwhelmingly primary source materials. The junior year the course is titled “Global Humanities: Mid-17th-20th Century,” Humanities 324 (there is an alternate course, Humanities 378 that focuses on “Race, Identity, Belonging and Cultures in the Americas.” We tend to offer three to five sections of that course every semester (my sense of it is that this course could also be modified to fit the Foundations of American Democracy requirement). Note that in our curriculum then every student that graduates from UNC Asheville takes one of these two courses no matter their major. This is already the case and figures into our overall curriculum.
HUM 324: Global Modernities – Course Description and Student Learning Outcomes
This course Investigates events, ideas and values from the 16th to the early 20th centuries during what is commonly described as the Modern era. The course presents diverse multicultural perspectives on the scientific, political, industrial and social changes that came about during this time: (e.g., the rise of globalization, feminism and international declarations of rights). Students investigate the profound influence of these historical moments on philosophy, religion, literature and the arts. Sources are drawn from multiple disciplines and include global cultural forms. The course narrative considers the intersection of local and international conditions
that led to the era’s ongoing significance. All sections meet weekly for a common lecture, and classes may include close reading, discussion, writing, presentations and project-based activities. Fall and Spring. (Fewer sections offered in the fall.)
Student Learning Outcomes
- Students demonstrate knowledge of the intellectual and cultural trends of modern civilization as global.
- Students identify different values and worldviews, with an emphasis upon understanding relationships: between government, religion, art, and science and between the individual, society, and the global community.
- Students write a well-supported, organized, and clearly articulated argument using both primary and secondary sources, and correct documentation style.
- Students critically analyze, in writing and orally, religious and secular philosophies, power-structures and their meaning in the modern world.
The Four Student Learning Outcomes above are in place currently. The following two will be incorporated into the course SLOs and specifically and applied across the board but in addition intentionally to the Foundations of American Democracy and related material (as indicated throughout the syllabus by bolding and color-code). These SLOs are already essentially present in the original four but the language will be modified and the focus made plain and transparent.
- Evaluate key concepts, principles, arguments, and contexts in founding documents of the American Republic, including the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and a representative selection of the Federalist Papers.
- Evaluate key milestones in progress and challenges in the effort to form “a more perfect Union,” including the arguments and contexts surrounding the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Letter from Birmingham Jail, as well as other texts that reflect the breadth of American experiences.
Sample Semester Syllabus begins on the next page following…
WEEK ONE: 1/16 – 1/19 (Classes open on Tuesday, January 16 – There will be no Faculty Talk in Lipinsky this week)
Required Core Readings: Doctrine of Discovery, “Requerimiento,” https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/requerimiento; UNC Asheville Land Acknowledgement, https://indigenous.unca.edu/university-values/land- acknowledgment/; “An Historical Cross-Cultural Introduction” by Tracey Rizzo in the Global Humanities Reader: Engaging Modern Worlds and Perspectives, pp. 1-4 (Hereafter noted as AR). Also peruse “Comprehensive Timeline: Modern Worlds Comprehensive Timeline I (1450-1750 CE), (AR, p. 32).
Further Readings and Material–Supplemental: “Why Europe?” by Jack Goldstone in Worlds of History, Volume 2: A Comparative Reader, Since 1400, ed. Kevin Reilly.
Friday: 1/19 – No Common Lecture/View Kaplan video, “Longitude.” https://youtu.be/S3OXek9BqjA?si=PWpCgNjV_B7dk3SX&t=1
WEEK TWO: 1/22 – 1/26
Required Core Readings: Galileo, “The Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina,” (AR, p. 54); Zera Yacob, Hatata, (AR, p. 44): Sor Juana Inés de
la Cruz, “Response to the Very Illustrious ‘Sor Philotea,’” (AR, p. 92); K’ang-hsi, “Self-Portrait of K’ang-hsi (The Emperor) by K’ang-hsi,” (AR, p. 115); and Isaac Newton, Principia, (PDF).
Friday 1/26 Faculty Delivered Common Lecture – Dr. Tracey Rizzo, Department of History, “What is the Enlightenment?”
WEEK THREE: 1/29 – 2/2
Core Required Readings: John Locke, “from Two Treatises on Government, (PDF); Jean-Jacques Rousseau, from The Social Contract, (PDF); Olaudah Equiano, from The Interesting Narrative…, (AR, p. 200); Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?” (PDF); and The Declaration of Independence,: https://www.archives.gov/founding- docs/declaration-transcript (Open Access at the National Archives)
Further Readings and Material–Supplemental: Francis Bacon, from Novum Organum Scientiarum (The New Method of Science, 1620), “The Four Idols.” (PDF) and Mary Wollstonecraft from A Vindication of the Rights of Women, (AR, p 320).
Friday 2/2 Faculty Delivered Common Lecture – Dr. Alvis Dunn, Department of History, “The Question of Universal Rights and the Founding Documents of the United States.”
WEEK FOUR: 2/5 – 2/9
Core Readings: Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, “The Structure of Class and Caste,” (AR, p. 496); The Constitution of the United States (https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution) and the Bill of Rights (https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-
rights); Benjamin Banneker and Thomas Jefferson, “Letter from Benjamin Banneker and Thomas Jefferson’s Response,” (AR, p. 208); Olympe de Gouges, “Declaration of Rights of Woman and Citizen,” (AR, p. 496); Edmund Burke, from Reflections on the Revolution in France, (PDF); Simón Bolívar, “Message to the Congress of Angostura,” (AR, p. 300); The Federalist Papers #s 9, 10 (The threat of factions), 29 (Second Amendment), 47 (Separation of Powers), and 51 (Checks and
Balances); (Open Access from The Avalon Project, Yale Law School,
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/fed.asp ).
Further Readings and Material–Supplemental: “An Historical Cross-Cultural Introduction: Atlantic Worlds,” by Tracey Rizzo, (AR, pp. 4-13). Also “Modern Worlds Comprehensive Timeline II (1750-1850 CE),” (AR, p. 33).
Friday 2/9 Faculty Delivered Common Lecture – Dr. Jeff Konz, Department of Economics, “Industrialization, Capitalism, and Alienation.” (Foundations of American Democracy material covered)
WEEK FIVE: 2/12 – 2/16
Core Required Readings: Adam Smith, from The Wealth of Nations, (PDF); Flora Tristan, from The Female Workers’ Union, (AR, p. 566); Karl Marx, from Manifesto of the Communist Party, (AR, p. 458); Alexis de Tocqueville, from Democracy in America, (AR, p. 373); and Friedrich Engels, from The Condition of the Working Class…, (PDF).
Friday 2/16 Faculty Delivered Common Lecture – Dr. Ellen Pearson, Department of History, “Civilization and Its Multiple Meanings.” (Foundations of American Democracy material covered) / Dr. James Perkins, Department of Physics,“The Second Scientific Revolution.”
WEEK SIX: 2/19 – 2/23
Core Required Readings: Cherokee Sources during the Removal Period,” (AR, pp. 175. [“1785: Treaty of Hopewell,” “Petitions of the Cherokee Women’s Councils, 1817, 1818,” “Memorial of the Cherokee Indians, Cherokee Nation (1829),” “Address of the Committee and Council of the Cherokee Nation, in General Council Convened, to the People of the United States, Lewis Ross et al. (1830).”] Also, “Letter to United States President Andrew Jackson, 1831 by Tuskeneah,’” (AR, p. 294). Charles Darwin, from The Origin of Species, (PDF); Ohiyesa, from The Soul of the Indian, (AR, 412).
Further Readings and Material–Supplemental: Kenneth Miller, “Finding Darwin’s God,” (PDF): https://www.faculty.umb.edu/adam_beresford/courses/phil_100_08/reading
_finding_darwins_god.pdf
Friday 2/23 Faculty Delivered Common Lecture – Dr. SarahJudson, Department of History, “Visions of Citizenship, An Unfinished Story.” (Foundations of American Democracy material covered)
WEEK SEVEN: 2/26 – 3/1
Core Required Readings: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments,” (AR, p. 271); Sojourner Truth, “A’n’t I a Woman,” and “Address to the First Annual Meeting of the American Equal Rights Association,” (AR, p. 152); Frederick Douglass, from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” (AR, p. 216); “The Gettysburg Address,” (https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.24404500/?st=text): "The Emancipation Proclamation," (https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation- proclamation#:~:text=President%20Abraham%20Lincoln%20issued%20the
,and%20henceforward%20shall%20be%20free.%22); Booker T. Washington, “Address at the World’s Fair in Atlanta,” (AR, p. 440); Ida
B. Wells, “Speaking Out Against Lynching,” (AR, p. 232); and W.E.B. Du Bois, from “Strivings of the Negro People,” (AR, p. 247).
Further Readings and Material–Supplemental: Arturo Schomburg, “The Negro Digs Up His Past,” (AR, p. 62); Anna Julia Cooper, from A Voice from The South, (AR, p. 129); (AR, p. 152); Maria Eugenia Echenique and Josefina Pelliza de Sagasta, “The Emancipation of Women: Argentina 1876,” (AR, p. 278).
Friday 3/1 Faculty Delivered Common Lecture – Dr. Rodger Payne, Department of Religious Studies, “Islam in the Modern World.”
WEEK EIGHT: 3/4 – 3 / 8
Core Required Readings: Sayyid Ahmad Khan, “The Rights of Women,” (AR, p. 314); Jamal al-Din Al-Afghani, “Response to Ernest Renan’s Criticism of Islam,” (AR, p. 84); Sami Frasheri, “Transferring the New Civilization to the Islamic Peoples,” (AR, p. 420); Halidé Edib, from Turkey Faces West, (AR, p. 84); and Mustafa Kemal, “An Exhortation to Progress,” (AR, p. 384).
Friday 3/8 – NO FRIDAY LIVE TALK
WEEK NINE:3/11 – 3/15
Friday 3/15 SPRING BREAK and No Talk
WEEK TEN: 3/18 – 3/22
Instructor’s Choice for Core Readings.
Friday 3/22 Faculty Delivered Common Lecture – Dr. Grant Hardy, Department of History, “Modernization in East Asia.”/Dr. Keya Maitra, Department of Philosophy, “Indian Feminism and Modernity.”
WEEK ELEVEN: 3/25 – 3/29
Core Required Readings: Rokheya Hossein, Sultana’s Dream, (AR, p. 560); Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, from Annihilation of Caste, (AR, p. 142); Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi, “Correspondences between Gandhi and Tagore,” (AR, p. 349); Ito Hirobumi, from Sources of Japanese Tradition, “Reminiscences of the Drafting of the New Constitution,” (AR, p. 403); Sun Yat-sen, from Fundamentals of National Reconstruction, (AR, p. 287)
Friday 3/29 Faculty Delivered Common Lecture – Dr. James Perkins, Department of Physics, “The New Physics.”
WEEK TWELVE: 4/1 – 4 / 5
Core Required Readings: Albert Einstein, “Selections from the Writings of Albert Einstein,” (AR, p. 99); C.V. Raman, “Books That Have Influenced Me,” (AR, p. 37); Euclid, from Elements (PDF); Hannah Höch, ‘The Painter” and Carl Einstein, from Negro Sculpture, (AR, p. 70).
Friday 4/5 Faculty Delivered Common Lecture – Dr. Eric Roubinek, Department of History, “Drawing Lines: World War I and the Postwar Revolutions.” (Foundations of American Democracy material covered)
WEEK THIRTEEN: 4/8 – 4/12
Core Required Readings: Lucy Parsons, “The Principles of Anarchism,” (AR, p. 479); Emma Goldman, “What I Believe,” and “Speech Against Conscription and War,” (AR, p. 336); Helena Marie Swanwick, The War and Its Effect upon Women,” (AR, p. 500); Vladimir Lenin, from Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, (AR, p. 512); John Maynard Keynes, from The End of Laissez-Faire, (PDF); Harry Haywood, from Black Bolshevik, (AR, p. 447); Benito Mussolini, from The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism, (AR, p. 533); and Adolph Hitler, from Mein Kampf, (AR, p. 518).
Friday 4/12 Faculty Delivered Common Lecture – Dr. Kirk Boyle, Department of English, “Modernism: Aesthetic History, Political Contradictions.” (Foundations of American Democracy material covered)
WEEK FOURTEEN: 4/15 – 4/19
Core Required Readings: Gertrude Stein, “Picasso,” (PDF ); Radclyffe Hall, from The Well of Loneliness, (AR, p. 573); Anne Bethel Spencer, “White Things,” (AR, p. 254); Langston Hughes, “I, too,” (AR, p. 196); Christopher Isherwood, from The Berlin Stories, (AR, p. 159); Hannah Höch, ‘The Painter” and Carl Einstein, from Negro Sculpture, (AR, p. 70); Ralph Ellison, from The Invisible Man, (PDF); Gabriela Mistral, “Teaching and Telling Stories (“Contar”), (AR, p. 122).
Further Readings and Material–Supplemental: Frantz Kafka, “The Country Doctor”: (PDF).
Friday 4/19 Faculty Delivered Common Lecture – Dr. Duane Davis, Department of Philosophy, “Existentialism: Modernity as Crisis.”
WEEK FIFTEEN: 4/22 – 4/26
Core Required Readings: Simone de Beauvoir, from The Second Sex, (AR, p. 554); Albert Camus, from The Myth of Sisyphus, (PDF); Jean-Paul Sartre, “The Republic of Silence,” (PDF); Hannah Arendt, from The Origins of Totalitarianism, (AR, p. 527); Frantz Fanon, from The Wretched of The Earth, (AR, p. 579); C.L.R. James, “The Revolution and the Negro,” (AR, p. 541); Juan José Arevalo, “A New Guatemala,” (AR, p. 307); and Primo Levi, from “The Drowned and the Saved,” (PDF); Martin Luther King, Jr.,
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” (https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-from-birmingham-city- jail-excerpts/).
Friday 4/26 Faculty Delivered Common Lecture – Dr. Regine Criser, Department of Languages and Literatures, “Remembering the Holocaust Today.”
WEEK SIXTEEN: 4/29 and 4/30 – Final Week (Classes meet on Monday and Tuesday)
Core Required Readings: Monica Sone, from Nisei Daughter, (AR, p. 226); Ruth Klüger, from Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, (AR, p. 238).
Further Readings and Material–Supplemental: Clint Smith, “Monuments to the Unthinkable”: https://learnonline.unca.edu/pluginfile.php/1350812/mod_page/content/1/M onumentsToTheUnthinkable.pdf