As always, even after the syllabus has been posted, be aware that assignments may change. HONS 2103 students are encouraged to watch the Announcements section of the course’s blackboard site and their emails, and to listen and make note of any changes as they are announced in class.
HONS2103 printable syllabus for Fall 2023
PLEASE NOTE: The schedule information that follows hereafter is “under construction.” In the meantime, refer to the course schedule that is included in the syllabus (which can be accessed by clicking the green link above).
What’s modern about the modern world? (The World of theReformation)
Martin Luther, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1529. Uffizi, Florence-
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Read before class:
- Luther, On Christian Liberty (Introduction to Contemporary Civilizations in the West (hereafter, ICCW, 717-728)
- Luther, Address to the Nobility of the German Nation (ICCW 702-704, 713-17); “On Temporal Authority” (Course packet, hereafter CP, 1-4)
The Reformation of the World
John Calvin, Oil on wood, attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger-
Thursday, September 1, 2022
Read before class:
- Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (ICCW 731-751)
- St. Ignatius of Loyola, Thinking with the Church (ICCW 767-773)
Conquest, Conversion, and Encounter in New Spain
Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda-
Tuesday, September 6, 2022
Read before class:
- Instructions to Nicolas de Ovanda, Governor of Hispaniola, from King Ferdinand and Isabella, 1501 (CP 5-6)
- Sepulveda, Democrates Alter (ICCW 523-529)
- Las Casas, Apologetic History of the Indies, Thirty Very Juridical Propositions, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (ICCW 530-43 (Norton Anthology of World Literature, hereafter NAWL, 566-571)
- Gonzales Jimenez de Quesada, “One After Another, they All Fell under Your Majesty’s Rule” (Colombia Reader 22-33)
Early Modern England: Divine Right or Democracy?
John Lilburne (engraving by George Glover, 1641)-
Thursday, September 8, 2022
Read before class:- Queen Elizabeth I speech to the troops at Tilbury, 1588 (CP 7)
- King James I, The Trew Law of Free Monarchies (ICCW 923-931)
- “An Agreement of the People” (ICCW 941-957)
Early Modern France: The Creation of the Sovereigh State
St. Jean de Brébeuf, S.J.-
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Read before class:- Cardinal Richelieu, Political Testament (ICCW 867-871)
- Montaigne, “Intro” and “To the Reader” (NAWL 318-321); “That is is Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity,” (CP, 8-10)
- Extracts from Jean Baptiste Colbert (ICCW 890-894); Fenelon (ICCW 880-885)
- The Jesuit Relations (CP 11-21)
A New Science of Politics
Frontispiece of "Leviathan"-
Thursday, September 15, 2022
Read before class:- Hobbes, Leviathan (ICCW 961-972, 979-993)
Late Ming and Early Qing China
Huang Zongxi-
Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Read before class- Chinese responses to early Christian contacts (Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume II, hereafter SCT 142-154)
- The Chinese Rites Controversy (CP 22-23)
- Yuan Huang, Ledger of Merit and Demerit (SCT, Volume I, 906-911)
- Huang Zongxi, Waiting for the Dawn (SCT 4-12)
- Wang Fuzhi, selections (SCT 26-35)
Politics and property
John Locke, by Sir Godfrey Kneller. St. Petersburg: State Hermitage Museum-
Thursday, September 22, 2022
Read before class:- Locke, Second Treatise of Government (ICCW 1010-1025, 1032-1039, 1044-1053)
A Revolution in Science
Galileo Galilei, portrait by Justus Sustermans, 1636-
Tuesday, September 27, 2022
Read before class:
- Bacon, Novum Organum, The Advancement of Learning (CP 24); (Readings in Epistemology, hereafter RE 3-10)
- Galileo, The Assayer, Letter to Grand Duchess Christina (ICCW 786-799)
- Bellarmine, “Letter on Galileo’s Theories” (CP 25-26)
- Newton, Principia, (ICCW 849-852)
First Paper Due
Rationalism and Method
René Descartes, by Frans Hals. Paris: Louvre-
Thursday, September 29, 2022
Read before class:
- Descartes, Discourse on Method, Meditations on the First Philosophy (RE 19-33, 35-43, 46-53)
Europeans and Ottomans
1840 portrait of Muhammad Ali Pasha by Auguste Couder-
Tuesday, October 4, 2022
Read before class:
- De Busbecq, The Turkish Letters (CP 27-28)
- Celebi, The Book of Travels (NAWL 84-92)
- Lady Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters (29-36)
- Pasha, The Book of Counsel for Viziers and Governors (CP 37-40)
- Status of Christians & Jews 1772 (CP 41-43)
Test 1
Has modern society made us better?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, by Maurice Quentin de la Tour, 1753. San Quentin: Musée Antoine Lécuyer-
Thursday, October 6, 2022
Read before class:
- Kant, What is Enlightenment, 1784 (CP 44-47)
- Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, The Social Contract, (The Communist Manifesto and Other Revolutionary Writings, hereafter CMRW 1-19, ICCW 1269-1282, 1295-1306)
Fall Break – No Classes
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Tuesday, October 11, 2022
Empiricism and Skepticism
David Hume, painted by Alan Ramsey-
Thursday, October 13, 2022
Read before class:
- Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (RE 129-152)
Reason and its Limits
Immanuel Kant-
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Read before class:
- Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to the First Edition, Preface to the Second Edition (RE 155-171, 188-201)
Qing China: Tradition and Adaptation
Emporer Quian Long-
Thursday, October 20, 2022
Read before class:
- The Sacred Edict (SCT 70-72)
- Chen Hongmou, selections (SCT 156-168)
- Hong Liangji, selections (SCT 172-179)
- Emperor Qian Long, “Letter to King George III” (CP 48-45)
The Holy Spirit in Colombia and Mexico
Detail from posthumous portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (by Miguel Cabrera -- oil on canvas, 1750)-
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Read before class:
- Anna Maria Splendiani and Tulio Aristizabal, Miracles Made Possible (Colombia Reader 105-109)
- Francisca Josefa Castillo, My Soul Impoverished and Unclothed (Colombia Reader 110-112)
- Sor Juana de la Cruz, “You Foolish Men” (CP 51)
- Sor Juana de la Cruz, Reply to Sor Filotea (CP 52)
Money and Morals
Adam Smith -
Thursday, October 27, 2022
Read before class:- Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, The Wealth of Nations (CP 53-57) (ICCW 1314-1333)
Revolution: Those Unruly Colonies
Thomas Jefferson, by Rembrandt Peale, 1805. New York Historical Society-
Tuesday, November 1, 2022
Read before class:
- Paine, “Appendix to Common Sense” (CMRW 56-62)
- Jefferson, “A Summary View of the Rights of British America” (CMRW 41-55)
- Gordon and Trenchard, Cato’s Letters (CP 58-64)
Second paper due
Revolution: Liberté, egalité, fraternité!
The Death of Marat, by Jacques-Louis David, 1793. Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels-
Thursday, November 3, 2022
Read before class:
- Sieyes, What Is The Third Estate? (CMRW 70-74)
- Decree upon the National Assembly (CMRW 75-76)
- The Tennis Court Oath (CMRW 77-78)
- Marat, “Are We Undone?” (CMRW 82-84)
- “La Marseillaise” (CP 65-66)
Test 2
Virtue, Terror and Slavery in France and Haiti
18th Century Oil on Canvas thought to be a portrait of Ottabah Cugoana-
Tuesday, November 8, 2022
Read before class:
- Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (CP 67-73)
- Robespierre, “Speech on the Principles of Political Morality” (CP 74-77)
- Ottabah Cugoana, “Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery” (CP 78-81)
- Toussaint L’Ouverture, Final Declaration 1801 (CP 82-83)
- Anonymous, “The Revolution in Saint-Dominique…” (CP 84-90)
- Wordsworth, To Toussaint L’Ouverture (CP 91)
Rights Talk
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen-
Thursday, November 10, 2022
Read before class:
- The Declaration of Independence (CMORW 63-66)
- Madison, The Federalist, no. 10 (ICCW 1307-1313)
- The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (CMORW 79-81)
- Wollstonecraft, The Vindication of the Rights of Women (CP 92-97)
The Emergence of Nationalism
Jacques Louis David - Bonaparte crossing the Great St. Bernard , 20 May 1800-
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Read before class:
- DeMaistre, Considerations on France, Study on Sovereignty (CP 98-99)
- Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation (CP 100-102)
- Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History (CP 103-107)
Bolivar and South American Independence
Posthumous portrait of Simón Bolívar (by Ricardo Acevedo Bernal)-
Thursday, November 17, 2022
- To Santafé! To Santafé! (Colombia Reader 182-188)
- Gregorio José Rodríguez Carrillo, Bishop of Cartagena, A King of Cups (Colombia Reader 113-117)
- Bolivar, “War to the Death” (Colombia Reader 328-330)
- Bolivar, Address to the Congress of Angostura, 1819 (CP 108-114)
- Bolivar “Letter to General Juan Jose Flores, 9 November 1830” (CP 115)
Third paper due
Romanticism and Science
Artwork from the 1831 edition of "Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus"-
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Read before class:
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Thanksgiving Holiday
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Thursday, November 24, 2022
The Romantic Sensibility I
Margaret Fuller in 1846 (Daguerreotype by John Plumbe)-
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Read before class:
- Rousseau, The Confessions (CP 116)
- Wordsworth “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey…” (CP 117-120)
- John Keats, “Ode to Autumn”(CP 121)
- Margaret Fuller, “Meditations” and “Flaxman” (CP 122-124)
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Frost at Midnight” (CP 125-126)
Modernity and the Middle East
Statue of Al-Tahtawi at Sohag University, Egypt-
Thursday, December 1, 2022
Read before class:
- Al Wahhab, The History and Doctrines of the Wahhabis (Norton Islam 250-56)
- Ottoman Imperial Proclamation “The French Revolution Refuted” (CP 127)
- Al-Jabarti, Chronicles (Norton Islam 518-26)
- Al-Tahtawi, The Extraction of Gold or an Overview of Paris, The Honest Guide for Girls and Boys (CP 128-134)
- The Gülhane Decree (CP 135-138)
The Romantic Sensibility II
Goethe in the Roman Campagna (Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, Oil on canvas, 1786)-
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
This class will feature a special presentation by Dr. Dena Levine: Romanticism in Music
Read before class:
- Goethe, Poetry and Truth, Conversations with Eckermann (CP 139-142)
- Schiller, Ode to Joy (CP 143-144)
- Adam Mickiewicz, Selections (CP 145)
- Alexander von Humboldt, Diary 1801 (Colombia Reader 517-521)
- Thomas Moore, “The Last Rose of Summer”; “The Minstrel Boy” (CP 146)
The Ambivalence of Modern Democracy
Alexis de Tocqueville, by Theodore de Chasseriau, 1850-
Thursday, December 8, 2022
Read before class:
- Tocqueville, Democracy in America, selections (CP 147-161)
Test 3