Seminar in the Humanities: Modernity and Postmodernism

Honors 0021 - 1 credit hour
Michael Giazzoni
University of Pittsburgh Honors College
Dean Alec Stewart

Course Description:This course is an exploration of the contemporary humanities through cultural criticism, philosophy, and art. This class does not assume any prior knowledge. HONORS 0021 is useful for students contemplating graduate study in the humanities, for those interested in learning the vocabulary and culture of this field, and for those with an avocational interest in developing a critical toolbox to more fully experience contemporary culture and art. Topics include what it means to study in the humanities, the vocabulary that is used in this field, and exposure to some of the major thinkers revered by today’s humanities scholars. 12 students.

Texts:
Cahoone, Lawrence, ed. From Modernism to Postmodernism. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003 and handouts.

(All readings are in From Modernism to Postmodernism unless otherwise noted.)

Syllabus

Date Topic

Week 1

Class introduction
Lawrence Cahoone, “Introduction”: 1-13

 

Philosophy
THEMES: Truth, Reality, and Knowledge

Week 2

 

 

 

Week 3

Modern and Proto-Postmodern examples

  • René Descartes, from Meditations on First Philosophy: 19-26
  • [Optional reading: Hume, from A Treatise on Human Nature: 27-31]
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense,” “The Madman,” “How the ‘True World Finally Became a Fable,” and The Dionysian World: 109-117

Postmodern examples

  • Jean-François Lyotard, from The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge: only 259-260 (1st section of essay)
  • Michel Foucault, from “Truth & Power”: only 252-253
  • Richard Rorty, “Solidarity or Objectivity?”: 447-456
 

Science and Philosophy of Science

Week 4

 


Week 5

Modern

  • Charles Darwin, from The Origin of Species: 88-95
  • Max Weber, from “Science as a Vocation”: 127-131

Early Postmodern and Postmodern examples

  • Thomas Kuhn, from “The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions”: 200-208
  • [Optional readings: Sandra Harding, from “From Feminist Empiricism to Feminist Standpoint Epistemologies: 342-353; Susan Bordo, “The Cartesian Masculinization of Thought and the Seventeenth-Century Flight from the Feminine” 354-369]
  • Paul Feyerabend handout: “Anything Goes”
 

Language

Week 6

Modern and Postmodern examples

  • Ferdinand De Saussure, from Course in General Linguistics: 122-126
  • Handouts: Jacques Derrida’s “Letter to a Japanese Friend” and others
  • [Optional reading: Jacques Derrida, “Difference,” 225-240]
 

Theater
THEMES: Sexuality and Feminism

Week 7

 


Week 8

Modern examples

  • Sigmund Freud, from Civilization and its Discontents: 144-148
  • Tennessee Williams, “Night of the Iguana”

Postmodern examples

  • Luce Irigaray, “The Sex Which is Not One”: 254-258
  • [Optional reading: Judith Butler, “Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of ‘Postmodernism,’” 390-401]
  • Caryl Churchill, “Cloud Nine”
 

Visual Art

Week 9

Modern and Postmodern examples

  • Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism”: 118-121
  • Hal Foster, “Subversive Signs”: 310-318
  • Handout from Janson’s “History of Art,”
  • See Courseweb External Links for examples of Marcel Duchamp, Jenny Holzer, and Barbara Kruger.
 

Architecture

Week 10

Modernist and Postmodern examples

  • Le Corbusier, from Towards a New Architecture: 132-138
  • Robert Venturi, from Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture: 403-409
  • Charles Jencks, from “The Death of Modern Architecture” and from What is Post-Modernism?: 457-463
  • Handout from Janson’s “History of Art”
  • See Courseweb External Links for examples of Le Corbusier and Frank Gehry
 

Film
 THEMES: Economics and Representation of Culture

Week 11

 


Week 12

Modern and Postmodern examples

  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Bourgeois and Proletarians”: 75-81
  • Film: Vittorio De Sica: “The Bicycle Thief” (watch in class)
  • Frederic Jameson, from “The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”: 564-574
  • Friday Night Movie: Oliver Stone: “Natural Born Killers”

Discuss films and readings
 

Literature
THEMES: Writing and Reading and Writing

Week 13

 


Week 14

Modern examples

  • Roland Barthes handout, excerpt from S/Z
  • Ernest Hemingway: “A Very Short Story” and T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”

Postmodern examples

  • Jean Baudrillard handout: “The Map Precedes the Territory”
  • [Further, optional reading: Baudrillard, from Symbolic Exchange and Death, 421-434]
  • Jorge Luis Borges: “The Library of Babel,” “On Exactitude in Science,” and “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”
Week 15 Wrap-up; summary

Grading:
Grading for this course is Satisfactory/No Credit (“pass/fail”). Successful completion of the course requires the following:

  • attending and participating in all classes (maximum two absences)
  • posting a discussion question/observation to our Courseweb site each week before class, as well as reading others’ postings and being prepared to discuss them
  • functioning as co-facilitator for one week, contextualizing the readings for the class and helping to facilitate discussion