Summer 2002

Senior Perspective Course

SRP435, ENG 435, PHL 435

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

Core (A) Curriculum Requirement

GENERAL INFORMATION

• Professor: Dr. Fidel Fajardo-Acosta
• Course: SRP/ENG/PHL 435, Call # 6194 (SRP), 1313 (ENG), 3508 (PHL)
• Class Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:00-4:45 PM
• Class Room: Humanities Center (HC) Room 7B
• Course Dates: Summer Term 2: Tuesday, July 16 - Thursday, August 15, 2002
• Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:00-12:50 PM and 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

Patrick Murray, ed., Reflections on Commercial Life: An Anthology of Classic Texts from Plato to the Present (Routledge) ISBN 0-415-91099-4

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

1) Term Project & Presentation (20%)

All students will be required to undertake a term project which may be an original paper or a creative work such as a short story, play, or set of poems (5-10 written pages or equivalent). Also acceptable are substantial and original art works (performance pieces, painting, drawing, music, film/videotape, website, etc.). All creative options must be clearly relevant and related to the class materials. All works must be created during and for the specific purposes of this course. All projects will be graded on the basis of relevance, thoughtfulness, engagement of the class issues, effort, skill and accomplishment in the chosen medium. Students will make a 5-10 minute presentation in class describing and/or performing their projects (see Schedule below). All projects must be approved by the instructor in advance. Students choosing to write a paper must follow the guidelines provided by the instructor. For further information on the writing and grading of essays see Grading Standards and Procedures, and Grading of Essays and Other Written Work.

2) Essays (60% total)

Essays will ask students to read closely, analyze, and comment on a particular passage from one of the texts studied and/or develop a theme/issue related to the readings, lectures, or class discussions. For grading criteria see "Grading of Essays and Other Written Work"). Essays will be approximately 4-6 pages in length. See guidelines provided by the instructor. Topics will be assigned by the instructor for each essay exercise. In-class essays may be added to the regularly scheduled ones.

3) Participation and Other Performance (20%)

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

4) Grading Scale, Attendance, and Other Policies

All aspects of the course will be graded on a 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

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 instructor 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 a student attended only 75% of the total class time, the course grade may not be higher than 75 or C). Notice also that, at the discretion of the instructor, any student missing more than 30% of the total class time may fail the course.

Originality and personal effort are expected in all student work. All students are required to observe the University's guidelines on student conduct as described in Creighton University's Student Handbook and specially in the section "Academic Honesty Policy" (Handbook, p. 156) 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 may also be a component of essay examinations. All reading must be completed BEFORE the day when it is scheduled for discussion.

Tue Jul 16

• Introduction: no reading required

Thu Jul 18

• Reading:
• Rick Gore, "The Dawn of Humans: The First Steps" National Geographic (February 1997), pp. 72-97 (handout)
• Tim D. White, "Once Were Cannibals," Scientific American 265.2(Aug 2001), pp. 58-65 (handout)
• Frederick Engels, "Barbarism and Civilization," selections from The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (handout)
• The Ages of the World (from Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I) (handout)
• Uke Iwago Uo, "Geriguigatugo" (handout)
• Genesis 1-3 (handout)
  

Tue Jul 23

• Reading:
  • Tantalus (handout)
  • King Midas (from Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XI) (handout)
  • Selections from Plato's Republic, Book I (Reflections on Commercial Life, pp. 39-65)
  • Selections from Aristotle's Politics, Book I (Reflections on Commercial Life, pp. 69-77)
    

Thu Jul 25

• Reading:
  • Dante's Inferno Cantos XVII (usury) and XIX (simony) (handout)
  • Ezra Pound's Canto XLV (Usura Canto) (handout)
  • Selections from St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles, Chapters XXX (wealth) and CXXXIII (poverty) and Summa Theologiae, Questions 66 (theft and robbery), 77 (cheating, buying and selling), 78 (usury), and 100 (simony) (Reflections on Commercial Life, pp. 87-115)

Tue Jul 30

• ESSAY DUE (4-6 pages)
• PROJECT PROPOSAL DUE (brief max 1 page description of term project: specify topic, main ideas, materials for reflection, medium) (send as email or submit printed copy)
• FILM SCREENING AND DISCUSSION: Wall Street (1987), dir. Oliver Stone, starring Michael Douglas & Charlie Sheen, 126 min.
  

Thu Aug 01

• Continued discussion of Aquinas, Dante, Pound

Tue Aug 06

• Reading:
  • Thomas More, selections from Utopia (in Reflections on Commercial Life)
  • 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)
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Balthazar's Marvelous Afternoon"(handout)

Thu Aug 08

• Reading:
• Selections from Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ("The Spirit of Capitalism") (Reflections on Commercial Life, pp. 349-364)
• Selections from Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class ("Pecuniary Emulation" and "Conspicuous Consumption") (in Reflections on Commercial Life)
  

Tue Aug 13

• ESSAY DUE (4-6 pages)
• John Updike, "A&P" (handout)
• Selections from Jean Baudrillard's Selected Writings ("Consumer Society") (Reflections on Commercial Life, pp. 447-473)
• Selections from Simone Weil's Oppression and Liberty ("Sketch of Contemporary Social Life") (Reflections on Commercial Life, pp. 383-395).

Thu Aug 15

• PROJECTS DUE
• STUDENT PROJECT PRESENTATIONS

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