Fall 2021

Transformative Ideas

Listed in: First Year Seminar, as FYSE-119

Faculty

Thomas L. Dumm (Section 01)

Description

This course explores a series of ideas from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries that have substantially changed the way people think about humanity in the Western world. Each idea is closely associated with an author. While from year to year the ideas will change, for 2021 we will closely read and write about, Karl Marx and Frederic Engels The Communist Manifesto, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The American Scholar” and “Self-Reliance”, Friedrich Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals, W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, Sigmund Freud’s The Ego and the Id, Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, and Judith Butler’s Precarious Life. Students are also asked to purchase a copy of Strunk and White, The Elements of Style.

Fall semester. Professor Dumm.

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: This seminar will focus on the related skills of close reading, critical thinking, engaged discussion, and descriptive and critical writing. There will be a weekly writing assignment in response to a question posed, a "prompt" -- based on reading materials and in-class discussions. The response should be between 750 to 1,000 words in length. Feedback from the professor in the form of substantive critiques of the weekly essays will encourage the development of writing skills -- grammatical, stylistic, and substantive. Students with documented disabilities who will require accommodations in this course should be in consultation with Accessibility Services and reach out to the faculty member as soon as possible to ensure that accommodations can be made in a timely manner.
FYSE 119 - L/D

Section 01
Tu 11:30 AM - 12:50 PM CLAR 100
Th 11:30 AM - 12:50 PM CLAR 100

This is preliminary information about books for this course. Please contact your instructor or the Academic Coordinator for the department, before attempting to purchase these books.

ISBN Title Publisher Author(s) Comment Book Store Price
On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo Vintage Friedrich Nietzsche ; translated by Walter Kaufmann Amherst Books TBD
The Souls of Black Folk Dover Publications W.E.B. DuBois Amherst Books TBD
Civilization and Its Discontents Oxford University Press Sigmond Freud Amherst Books TBD
Eichmann in Jerusalem : a report on the banality of evil Penguin Hannah Arendt Amherst Books TBD
Precarious life : the powers of mourning and violence Verso Judith Butler Amherst Books TBD
The Elements of Style Harper Collins William Strunk Amherst Books TBD

These books are available locally at Amherst Books.

Offerings

2024-25: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021