Welcome to the Spring Semester!

This is the official blog for our class, General Humanities II, which despite its generic title is actually a class that...

a. studies history and culture through significant works of literature

b. makes connections between the modern world and previous times/cultures that influenced our way of life

c. helps us identify with people who lived long ago, making them live once again

d. questions the idea of history being something of the past; history, in literature and the arts, is always present, and we create it even as we experience it through books, paintings, music, etc.  

In this course, we will read 6 representative works from a long span of time: the Enlightenment through the 20th century.  While we can't chart every culture or every significant period, these works will uncover specific people, ideas, and movements that shaped the modern world, and that we continue to be inspired by.  From Little Red Riding Hood to Tarzan of the Apes, the past continues to haunt us even when we forget where it came from.  The purpose of this class is to go back in time and understand where some of our deepest held beliefs and cultural myths originated,  and whether or not these works still merit their designation as 'classics'.  To me, teaching this class is always an exciting proposition, since I never use the same works twice (there's so much to choose from, after all), and even familiar works can led to new, unexpected pathways.  Hopefully you will be willing to play along and read, ask questions, and make new discoveries on your own.  

I will post all your daily responses on this blog site, as well as assignments and other important announcements.  Be sure to buy the following books, since they will form the core of our class discussions, papers, and exams.  You can find them all in the ECU bookstore, or on-line at Amazon, etc.  Please note that buying the specific editions of some works will be useful to you, since you might not find all the right poems or stories in another edition.  [note: don't worry about the posts below this one--they are from last Spring's classes, though feel free to browse through them to see what kind of work you might expect]  

Required Texts:

• Voltaire, Candide (Dover or other)
• English Romantic Poetry, an Anthology (Dover)
• Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm, Fairy Tales (Puffin Classics)
• Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida (Penguin Classics)
• Burroughs, Tarzan (Penguin Classics or other)
• Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis (Pantheon)