Learning Goals:
As a course that counts for the Comparative Humanities major, this course carries the following learning goals:
- Understand the central movements of the Western tradition and the ways in which that tradition has been constructed. (2,3)
- Understand all cultural norms as provisional positions in a historical process of change and conflict. (2,5)
- Compare and evaluate cultural differences in a non-hierarchical manner across boundaries of all kinds:
- Historical (including situations, intellectual products, and material remains of different periods);
- Cultural (including race, gender, nationality, religion, and sexual orientation); and
- Formal (between different modes of thought and expression). (2, 5, 6)
- Meaningfully compare intellectual materials of different or opposing types: textual with material artifacts; narrative with non-narrative texts; artistic with analytical modes of thought. (6,8)
- Appreciate the benefits, problems, and intellectual challenge of comparative study across historical, cultural, or generic boundaries. (5,6)
- Demonstrate effective expository skills, both orally and in writing. (7,8)