Summer 2001

Senior Perspective Course
SRP435 (also ENG 435, PHL 435)

LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, AND ECONOMICS: CRITICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF COMMERCIAL LIFE

Core (A) Curriculum Requirement

Certified Writing Course

GENERAL INFORMATION

• Professor: Dr. Fidel Fajardo-Acosta
• Course: SRP/ENG/PHL 435, Section A, Call No. 6194
• Class Time: see schedule below, additional class sessions may be added as necessary
• Class Room: Humanities Center, Room 8
• Course Dates: Summer Term 2, Monday, July 9-Thursday August 9
• Office Hours: by appointment
• Office: Hitchcock Communication Arts (CA), Room 304 A
• Office Phone:(402) 280-2522
• Email: fajardo@creighton.edu
• WWW Home Page: http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/english//fajardo/
  

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Drawing on contemporary work in critical theory, literary criticism, aesthetics, and rhetoric, this course examines the representation of economic phenomena in selected literary and philosophical texts. The course will explore 1) how an analysis of such texts can reveal underlying social forms such as private property, the commodity, wage labor, and capital; and 2) how these ethically consequential forms tie in with problems of poverty, unequal distributions of income and wealth, overconsumption and depletion of natural resources, competition and conflict, and social instability.

TEXTS

Required:

• Patrick Murray, ed., Reflections on Commercial Life: An Anthology of Classic Texts from Plato to the Present (Routledge, 1997)
• Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Norton Critical Edition)

Recommended:

• John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
  

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

1) Writing

1-Page Response Papers (25%)
One page of writing is required responding to each of the indicated readings and films (total of 10, see Course Schedule below). The writing can be in journal, loose leaf, handwritten form. When the material is accompanied by study questions, students should attempt to answer those questions in their writing. Students can choose which study questions to answer. The grade for the writing will be the percent of the total number of essays turned in (i.e. if all essays are turned in on time the grade is 100). Writing is due on the day when the assigned reading is discussed. No late submissions will be accepted for any reason.

Term Paper (50%)
Students will be asked to submit a term paper (approx. 5-10 pages) offering personal reflection on any aspect of the materials and ideas discussed in the course. Papers may concentrate on one or more of the texts studied and are expected to grow out of the class discussions, the texts' study questions, the course's guiding questions, and the writing in the response papers. Specially encouraged is consideration of the practical and ethical implications of the interdisciplinary analysis of economic life. The term paper should be neatly typewritten and must observe the Writing Guidelines provided by the instructor. A draft of the paper must be submitted on the date indicated in the schedule. The final version of the paper must substantially address the comments and suggestions offered by the instructor on the earlier draft.

2) In-Class Work and Participation (25%)

In addition to the writing, the instructor will assess and grade each student's overall involvement, development, and accomplishment in the course. This grade will take into account all aspects of a student's performance, including attendance, class participation, class preparation, contributions, effort, attentiveness, interest, improvement, responsibility, etc.

3) Make-up Work, Attendance and Other Policies

Make-ups/extensions for a missed deadline will only be given in cases of documented serious illness or other valid, non-frivolous excuses such as documented participation in official University sports or academic/service events (it will be up to the instructors to determine and decide on the acceptability of an excuse). An attendance measurement will be calculated equal to the percentage of total class time attended. The course grade may not exceed that percentage (i.e. if the student attended only 75% of the class time, the course grade may not be higher than 75 or C, on a 0-100 point scale where 90-100 = A, 87-89 = B+, 80-86 = B, 77-79 = C+, 70-76 = C, 60-69 = D, and 0-59 = F). Notice also that, at the discretion of the instructor, any student missing more than 30% of the total class time may fail the course. All students in the class are expected to observe the University's guidelines on student conduct as described in Creighton University's Student Handbook (see "Code of Conduct," and especially the section on "Academic Misconduct" dealing with problems of plagiarism, cheating, etc.).

READING AND DISCUSSION SCHEDULE

Click here for Course's Guiding Questions and Concerns

Click on the individual subjects for study questions. These questions will guide class discussions and should also be used as the basis of the writing in response papers. Notice that additional class sessions may be added if necessary.

Monday July 9 (meet 9:15-10:45)

• Introduction, no reading required

Tuesday July 10 (meet 9:15-10:45)

• Reading and Writing:
• "The Dawn of Humans: The First Steps" (handout)
• Genesis 1-3 (handout, response paper required)
• "Barbarism and Civilization," selections from Frederick Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (handout)
• Uke Iwago Uo, "Geriguigatugo" (handout)

Wednesday July 11 (meet 9:15-10:45)

• Reading and Writing:
  • Tantalus (handout, response paper required)
  • King Midas (from Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XI) (handout, response paper required)
  • The Ages of the World (from Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I) (handout, response paper required)

Thursday July 12 (meet 8:00-11:00)

• Film screening (in class): Wall Street (1987), dir. Oliver Stone (Reinert Alumni Library Media #3342), 126 min. (response paper required)
  

Tuesday July 17 (meet 8:00-11:00)

• Reading and Writing:
  • Selections from Plato's Republic, Book I (Murray Anthology, pp. 39-65, response paper required)
  • Selections from Aristotle's Politics, Book I (Murray Anthology, pp. 69-77, response paper required)

Wednesday July 18 (meet 9:15-10:45)

• Reading and Writing:
• Dante's Inferno Cantos XVII (usury) and XIX (simony) (handout, response paper required)
• Ezra Pound's Canto XLV (Usura Canto) (handout, response paper required)
• Selections from Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, Questions 78 (usury) and 100 (simony) (Murray Anthology, pp. 87-89, 102-115)

Thursday July 19 (meet 8:00-11:00)

• View film before class: It's a Wonderful Life (1947), dir. Frank Capra (Reinert Alumni Library Media #3352), 132 min. (response paper required)
  

Tuesday July 24 (meet 8:00-11:00)

• Reading:
  • Charles Dickens, Hard Times

Thursday July 26 (meet 8:00-11:00)

• Reading and Writing:
• Charles Dickens, Hard Times
• TERM PAPER DRAFT DUE
• Film Screening (in class): Modern Times (1936), dir. Charlie Chaplin (Reinert Alumni Library Media #3321), 87 min.
  

Tuesday July 31 (meet 8:00-11:00)

• Reading and Writing:
  • Selections from Cervantes's Don Quixote ("The Merchants of Toledo," from Part I, Ch. 4, and "The Adventure of the Windmills," from Part I, Ch. 8) (handout)
    
  • Selections from Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ("The Spirit of Capitalism") (Murray Anthology, pp. 349-364)

Thursday August 2 (meet 8:00-11:00)

• Reading:
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Balthazar's Marvelous Afternoon"(handout)
• Fidel Fajardo-Acosta, "Art, Economics, Religion, and Society: A Vision of Redemption in Gabriel García Márquez's 'La Tarde Prodigiosa de Baltazar'" (handout)
• View film before class: The Grapes of Wrath (1940), dir. John Ford, (Reinert Alumni Library Media #3346), 128 min.

Tuesday August 7 (meet 8:00-11:00)

• Reading:
  • John Updike, "A&P" (handout)
  • Selections from Jean Baudrillard's Selected Writings ("Consumer Society") (Murray Anthology, pp. 447-473)

Thursday August 9 (meet 8:00-11:00)

• Reading and Writing:
• Selections from Simone Weil's Oppression and Liberty ("Sketch of Contemporary Social Life") (Murray Anthology, pp. 383-395)
• Selections from Georges Bataille's The Accursed Share ("Theory of 'Potlatch'") (Murray Anthology, pp. 373-381)
• TERM PAPER DUE (turn in both first and final drafts)
• View film before class: Death of a Salesman, dir. Volker Schlondorff, (Reinert Alumni Library Media #3309), 136 min.
  

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