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Humanities 401: Introduction to Humanities--Marriage
David Richman
Paul Creative Arts Center Room M-317
(603) 8862-2218
Humanities 401 takes as its subject this summer: Marriage - the most intimate of relations, the most public of institutions. Why and whom do we marry? Who is allowed to marry, and who is not? To what extent does marriage decrease and fetter our humanity? To what extent does marriage make us most fully and richly human? What are our obligations toward those we marry, and what may we reasonably expect of our chosen partners? And are those partners in fact freely chosen? We will be examining these and related questions through a handful of the thousands of works produced through the ages on this most vexed of subjects.
Why is this course useful, entertaining, and enlightening?
You will read, watch, and listen to some of the most entertaining and controversial works produced in the never-ending struggle with this complex subject. You will read works of history, philosophy, fiction and drama. You will also read and listen to legal arguments about why people may and may not marry the persons they choose.
Everyone at some point contemplates marriage. Not all of us marry, but all of us at one time or another think seriously about marriage. The decision whether and whom to marry is among the most important of life's decisions. Taking this course will acquaint you with how many people in many ages of history have succeeded or failed in marriage. The course satisfies the Discovery requirement in the Humanities.
What will you read: Course readings include the following: (I may, or may not, add readings.)
Most of these readings can be found on Blackboard.
"8" (play WRITTEN BY DUSTIN LANCE BLACK AND directed by Rob Reiner in 2012 about the "Proposition 8" trial in California) On Blackboard. At this writing, the play is also available in its entirety on YouTube.
Oral arguments in the same sex marriage cases coming before the Supreme Court, if these are available.
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court: Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health (2003, on Bb)
Oral arguments in Loving v. VIRGINIA (audio, 1967, on Bb)
Excerpt from Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation, by Nancy Cott. On BB.
Excerpts from Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History (2005) (on Bb)
Euripides, Medea (431 B.C.E.)(required text, must be purchased in the Robinson Jeffers translation).
Abigail and John Adams (1744-1818 and 1735-1826, respectively). My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams (2010 edition) (Required text, must be purchawsed.)
Excerpt from Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) on Bb)
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814 Required text, must be purchased.
Henrik Ibsen, "A Doll's House" (1879) (on Bb)
Excerpt from Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (2006) (on Bb)
Excerpt from Liza Mundy, The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love and Family (2012) (on Bb)
How will the course be taught and graded?
The course will be taught entirely online during the first summer session. There will be twenty online lectures, each lasting from sixty to ninety minutes. Each lecture will be associated with a certain date and a certain reading. Before summer classes start, I'll post a time-table listing lectures, dates and readings. For example:
May 24, Lecture 1, 8, the play.
Your assignments:
1. Read the assigned workbefore you watch and listen to the lecture. Read the work carefully. Be sure you understand and think about the work.
2. Watch and listen to the lecture in its entirety.
3. MOST IMPORTANT SINGLE ASSIGNMENT: You must write at least a paragraph of response to each class session. This response must be emailed to all the course's users. Use the email facility on Blackboard. The response may consist of comments, questions, or both. I will respond to questions in future class sessions. Each email is due, at latest, forty-eight hours after that class session has been posted on Blackboard. For example, your response to the class of May 24 is due by midnight on May 26.
Your responses to each class will be judged as either adequate, inadequate, or superior. Adequate responses will receive a check in my gradebook. Superior responses will receive a plus. If you fail to respond to a class, or if your response is inadequate, you will receive a minus in my gradebook.
AN ADEQUATE RESPONSE IS COGENT, COHERENT, AND PERTINENT TO THE READING AND THE LECTURE. AN ADEQUATE RESPONSE DEMONSTRATES THAT YOU HAVE DONE AND THOUGHT ABOUT THE READING, AND HAVE WATCHED, LISTENED TO, AND THOUGHT ABOUT THE ONLINE CLASS SESSION.
If all your responses are adequate, you will receive a B as your class participation grade. That grade will rise by one gradation for each three pluses.
A "PLUS" IS DIFFICULT TO ATTAIN. A "PLUS" RESPONSE IS MORE DETAILED, MORE DEEPLY THOUGHTFUL, AND GIVES INSIGHTS AT WHICH YOU HAVE ARRIVED ON YOUR OWN. A "PLUS" RESPONSE WILL GO BEYOND THE LECTURE--AND WILL SUGGEST QUESTIONS THAT YOU WISH PROBED IN FUTURE LECTURES.
For example, if you have seventeen checks and three pluses, your class participation grade will become B plus.
Your grade will drop by one gradation for each minus. Three minuses will result in failure of the course. A minus results if you fail to send a response to a given class session. A minus response also results if you do not demonstrate that you have read and thought about the assigned reading; and that you have watched, listened to, and thought about the class session. If, for example, you watch five or ten minutes of a ninety-minute class session, chances are very good that you will produce an inadequate response.
I won't give you individual feedback on each of your responses. At any time, you may email me to ask me how you are doing on these responses.
4. (Depending on the size of the class) two short papers--two to three pages; each paper dealing with a specific topic raised by the course that interests you enough to want to write about it. If I give this assignment, I will discuss these papers in greater detail during the class sessions. If the class is quite large, I will dispense with the papers.
Grading breakdown: Class participation (email posts) 65%;Combined papers: 35%;
If I dispense with papers, the grade will be entirely based on your responses to the class sessions.
Address all questions to David Richman
