II. Catalogue Description: An exploration through lecture and discussion of humanistic values, questions and themes in the literature and philosophy of the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
III. Purpose:
1. To examine specific human themes from a variety of perspectives;
2. To improve students' ability to read, analyze, and compare literary and philosophical works and
to discuss and write about the questions they suggest;
3. To introduce students to significant literary and philosophical works and the historical and cultural
traditions from which they emerged.

IV. To Receive Credit, Students Should Be Able to:
1. Identify some important issues in western thought in the twentieth century;
2. Understand and compare the diverse positions expressed in the works read in the course;
3. Communicate that understanding effectively.

V. Course Outline: The course readings are divided into four parts:
1. Self
2. The Individual and Society
3. Certainty and Doubt
4. Moral Choice

VI. Instructional Activities: Class activities include discussion of readings and background lectures.

VII. Field, Clinical, and/or Laboratory Experiences: Films and forums are provided. Students are encouraged to use the world and the Internet as their laboratory as well.

VIII. Resources: Students may use computer labs to surf the Interned and to type their papers. Students are encouraged to communicate with the professor via e-mail about their papers and attendance.

IX. Grading Procedures: There will be 2 exams, both essay and objective, plus 2 typed papers, at least 750 words, on interpretive, analytic, or comparative topics. Essays not on the assigned topics or works will not be graded.
Extra papers, including major overhauls of poor essays, may be handed in for extra credit. All essays must be revised. Satisfactory minor revisions will get a check, more extensive revisions a check plus or double plus. Each paper and exam will be counted equally. This unit is 75% of the grade.
Quizzes and optional extra-credit assignments, such as written evidence of attendance at previously approved university and community events, count a total of 10%. Each quiz and piece of written evidence will count 10 points towards the 10%. Alternatives to missed quizzes may be handed in provided the absences are excused and the professor approves.
The final exam, both essay and objective, counts 15%.
Essay grades are based on style, content, organization, spelling and grammatical accuracy, handling of any appropriate research material, as well as promptness. Papers late without excuse will be marked down one step of a grade (e.g., A to A-, B+, etc.) for each class period after the due date.)
A=90-100, B=80-89, C=70-79 D=60-69, E=0-59
Students must complete all the work to receive a passing grade in the course.

X. Attendance Policy: Regular class attendance is vital to academic success.
The official Humanities absence policy will be enforced. The course grade will be lowered one-third of a letter grade for each unexcused absence over three. To avoid the grade penalty, students must offer plausible excuses, preferably authorized written ones, whenever they miss classes.

XI. Academic Honesty Policy: Students are responsible for following the College of Humanistic Studies policy on academic integrity.
"Cheating, plagiarism (submitting another person's material as one's own or doing work for another person which will receive academic credit) are all impermissible. This includes the use of unauthorized copying of examinations, assignments, reports or term papers, or the presentation of acknowledged material as if it were the students' own work. Disciplinary action may be taken beyond the academic discipline administered by the faculty member who teaches the course in which the cheating took place." Students are also responsible for the more detailed policy statement posted on classroom bulletin boards.

XII. Texts and References:
HUM 212 Philosophy Reader
Rubenstein, Roberta, and Charles R. Larson, eds. Worlds of Fiction 2nd edition (WF)
Ibsen, Henrik, A Doll's House
Kelly, Joseph, ed. The Seagull Reader: Poems (SR)
Stevenson, Robert Louis, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Tan, Amy The Joy Luck Club

XIII. Prerequisites: English 101, 102, IDC 101, 102 or the equivalents

XIV. STATEMENT OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY: Murray State University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, marital status, age, or disability in employment, admission, or the provision of services, educational programs and activities, and provides, upon request, reasonable accommodation including auxiliary aids and services necessary to afford individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate in all programs and activities. For information regarding nondiscrimination policies contact the Office of Equal Opportunity, 270-809-3155.

PART ONE: THE SELF

How do we learn who we are or who we want to be? Stories in this part dramatize moments when characters learn or test their values. In these readings, we will move from examples of decisive (if not always deliberate) characters to those who, for reasons we will explore, cannot quite decide the course their lives should take.

W Jan 17 Introduction to the course and major themes

F Jan 19 Updike, "A & P" (WF); Housman, "Terrence, This Is Stupid Stuff" (SR)

M Jan 22 Jewett, "A White Heron" (WF); Bishop, "The Fish"; Wright, "A Blessing" (SR)

W Jan 24 Mason, "Shiloh" (WF); E. B. Browning, "How Do I Love Thee?" (SR)

F Jan 26 Silko, "Yellow Woman" (WF)

M Jan 29 Buzzati, "The Falling Girl" (WF)

W Jan 31 Joyce, "Eveline" (WF); Plath, "Daddy" (SR)

F Feb 2 Min, "The One Who Goes Farthest Away" (WF); Lee, "The Gift" (SR)

M Feb 5 Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

W Feb 7 Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

F Feb 9 Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; ESSAY 1

PART TWO: THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY
The readings in this part focus on the tension between the individual and the social environment. Faulkner’s story "A Rose for Emily" dramatizes numerous issues, such as gender, class, sexuality, race, power, love, and alienation, emphasized by other readings. The selections are arranged to allow for progression from an examination of the outcast to representations of an indifferent community and then to various individuals’ reactions to the community, which may vary due to racial and cultural differences, sexual orientation, and gender, among other factors.

M Feb 12 Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily" (WF)

W Feb 14 Browning, "My Last Duchess"; Keats, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"; Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"; Millay, "Love Is Not All"; Olds, "Sex Without Love"; Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium" (SR); Review

F Feb 16 EXAM 1

M Feb 19
Conrad, "Amy Foster" (WF); Erdrich, "Captivity"; Erdrich , "Indian Boarding School" (SR)

W Feb 21 Allende, "And of Clay Are We Created" (WF); Auden, "Musée des Beaux Arts"; Frost, "Mending Wall"; Blake, "The Chimney Sweep" (SR)

F Feb 23 Allende, "And of Clay Are We Created" (WF); Auden, "Musée des Beaux Arts"; Frost, "Mending Wall" (SR)

M Feb 26 Walker, "Everyday Use" (WF); Blake, "The Chimney Sweep" (SR)Hughes, "Theme for English B"; Dove, "The House Slave"; Dove "Daystar"; Brooks, "We Real Cool" (SR)

W Feb 28 Grahn, "Boys at the Rodeo"; McCann, "My Mother's Clothes" (WF)

F Mar 2 Glaspell, "A Jury of Her Peers" (WF); Grades Due

M Mar 5 Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper" (WP)

W Mar 7 Ibsen, A Doll's House

F Mar 9 Ibsen, A Doll's House

PART THREE: CERTAINTY AND DOUBT
This part explores one of the central answers and issues of our time—the quest for certainty. Through philosophical arguments as well as fiction and poetry, writers explore the nature of humans’.

M Mar 12 Benedict, "Ethics Are Relative" (Philosophy Text); Ngugi we Thiong'o, "A Meeting in the Dark" (WF): Arnold, "Dover Beach"; Yeats, "The Second Coming" (SR)

W Mar 14 Erdrich, "Love Medicine" (WF); Blake, "The Lamb"; Blake, "The Tyger" (SR)

F Mar 16 Rosa, "The Proof" (WF); Hopkins, "God’s Grandeur"; Hopkins, "The Windhover,"; Ransom, "Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter": Hardy, "Hap"; Hardy, "Channel Firing" (SR)

SPRING BREAK
M Mar 26 O'Connor, Flannery, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" (WF); Cummings, "Buffalo Bill’s defunct"; Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"; Stevens, "Anecdote of the Jar" (SR)

W Mar 28 Tan, "Half and Half" (WF); Lee, "Visions and Interpretations," Housman, "To an Athlete Dying Young"; Dickinson, Poem #465, "I Heard a Fly Buzz"; Dickinson, Poem #712, "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" (SR)); Review

F Mar 30 EXAM 2

M Apr 2 Oates, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (WF); Yeats, "Leda and the Swan"; Olds, "One Girl" (SREXAM 2

W Apr 4 Naryan, "A Horse and Two Goats" (WF)

F Apr 6 Mahfouz, "Half a Day" (WF); Shelley, "Ozymandias"; Wordsworth, "The World Is Too Much with Us"; Williams, "Spring and All" (SR)

M Apr 9 Mill, "Freedom Is Democracy and Free Speech" (PR);Kasaipwalova, "Betel Nut Juice Is Bad Magic for Airplanes" (WF)

PART FOUR: MORAL CHOICE
In this part we explore some of the ways in which philosophy and literature confront the problem of good and evil. As we consider several ethical philosophies and literary dramatizations of moral dilemmas, we are able to look more closely at our own concepts of morality.

W Apr 11 Tan, The Joy Luck Club

F Apr 13 The Joy Luck Club; ESSAY 2 DUE

M Apr 16 O’Brien, "The Things They Carried" (WF); Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est"; Komunyakaa, "We Never Know"; Jarrell, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" (SR)

W Apr 18 LeGuin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (PR)

F Apr 20 Jackson, "The Lottery" (WF)

M Apr 23 Camus, "The Guest" (WF)

W Apr 25 Kant, "Duty Is Prior to Happiness" (PR); Hurston, “The Gilded Six-Bits” (WF)

F Apr 27 Zaman, "The Daily Woman"; Hemingway, "Hills Like White Elephants" (WF); Brooks, "the mother" (SR)

M Apr 30 Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado" (WF); Kanafani, "A Hand in the Grave"; Kumin, "Woodchucks" (SR)

W May 2 Lessing, "The Old Chief Mshlanga" (WF)

F May 4 Mphahlele, "Mrs. Plum M" (WF)