Contemporary Civilization Syllabus Reading List 2007-8

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This is a list of readings that should be assigned in all sections of CC.  Each mandatory reading is followed by a number in parentheses indicating the minimum number of class sections to be devoted to discussion of this reading.  Longer readings may be excerpted unless this list indicates to the contrary.   Thus 17 sections should be devoted to mandatory readings in the Fall and 19 in the Spring.  This leaves at least 7 sessions in each semester for readings assigned at the instructor’s discretion (either more discussion of required texts, or supplementary texts chosen by the instructor).  Instructors’ discretionary readings often take the form of additional texts to be purchased, packets of photocopied readings, or texts drawn from the Internet.

Required CC Readings - CC 1101, Fall 2007

Plato, Republic (complete)  (2)

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics and Politics  (2)

Hebrew Bible: Exodus (Chpts 1-21, 25, 31-3, 40); Judges (Chpts 4-10); Isaiah (Chpts 1, 5-11, 52-3); 1 Samuel (Chpt 2: 22-3:21; Chpt 7: 15-8:22); Nehemiah (Chpts 8-10); Ecclesiastes (Chpts 1-4, 7) (Tanakh selections on CC Web).  (1)

Hellenistic and Roman Thought: Epicurus (selections on CC Web); and either Epictetus, Handbook or Marcus Aurelius Meditations (selections).  (1)

The New Testament: Gospel of Matthew (entire), Romans (Chpts 1-8), Acts (Chpts 2, 3, 9, 11, 15), Galatians (entire), 1 Corinthians (Chpt 13) ( selections on CC Web)  (1)

Augustine, City of God  (1)

The Qur’an  (1) 

Comparative Mysticism:  Al-Ghazali, The Rescuer from Error; The Essential Kabbalah pp. 134-7, 148-58, 206-17; (Mother) Julian of Norwich Revelations of Divine Love (Chpts 1-6, 32, 82-6). (all on CC Web)   (1)

Comparative Rationalism: Averroes (Ibn Rushd), On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy; Maimonides The Guide of the Perplexed (II:40, III:27-31, III:54); Aquinas, Selected Writings (pp. 3-7, 14-29, 30-38, 46-53) (all on CC Web)   (1)

Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses  (1)

The Protestant Reformation: Hillerbrand Anthology  (1)

Descartes, Discourse on Method (text below), and Galileo, Letter to the Grand Duchess (CC Web) (1)

New World:  selections from Vitoria’s On the American Indians, Jean de Léry’s History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, and Guamán Poma’s Appeal Concerning the Priests (all on CC Web)  (1)

Hobbes Leviathan    (1)

Locke Second Treatise and Letter on Toleration  (both on CC Web)   (1)

Required CC Readings - CC 1102, Spring 2008

Assignment for discussion in the first Spring class: at the end of Fall 2007, instructors should e-mail the students in their Spring section giving them a reading assignment over the break drawn from one of the following:  Kant “What is Enlightenment?” (optional accompaniment: Foucault “What is Enlightenment?”); Kant Perpetual Peace; Montesquieu Persian Letters (selections); Voltaire Candide. All readings, except Voltaire, are on CC Web. 

Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality and Social Contract  (2)

Smith, Wealth of Nations (selections) and Theory of Moral Sentiments (selections on CC Web) (1)

Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1)

Rights and Revolutions I:   Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, Preface to the Constitution of 1793, Haitian Constitution  (all on CC Web)
optional: Federalist Papers 10, 84; Robespierre “On the Moral and Political Principles of Domestic Policy”; Sieyès “What is the Third Estate?” (all on CC Web)    (1)

Rights and Revolutions II:  Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (selections); Olympe de Gouges, “Declaration of the Rights of Woman”; Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” (all on CC Web)
optional: Bentham, “Anarchical Fallacies”; Marx, “On the Jewish Question” (both on CC Web) (1)

Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women   (1)

Tocqueville, Democracy in America   (1)

Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History  (1)

Mill, On Liberty   (1)
Mill, Utilitarianism  (1)

Marx, selections from the Marx-Engels Reader  (1)

Darwin, Origin of Species (Chpts 3,4,6,14: pp.132-77; 211-22; 379-98) and Descent of Man (Chpts 2&3:508-33)  (1)

Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals   (1)

Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk   (1)

Freud, “Formulations Regarding the Two Principles in Mental Functioning,” “A Note on the Unconscious in Psychoanalysis,” “On Narcissism,” “Repression,” “Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams,” “The Libido Theory”  (all on CC Web) (1)

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

Late twentieth century:  at least one text from the following list (1):  Arendt, The Human Condition; Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth; Foucault, Discipline and Punish; MacKinnon, Towards a Feminist Theory of the State; Rawls, A Theory of Justice ; Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy