Honors 202 Syllabus

HONORS 135 Ancient & Medieval History
Fall 2009 Syllabus	Dr. Pavlac Hafey-Marian 307 Tel: (570) 208-5900, ext. 5748 Office Hours: TT 8:30-9:30, W 9:30-12:30 and by appointment

I. Description:

Where did the bulk of our culture come from? This survey of Western Civilization to the Baroque period around 1600 can help answer that question. This course is a survey of the main stages of Western Civilization, with an emphasis on concepts, forces, ideas, events and people that have shaped our western society up to the 17th century. In coordination with other classes on art, literature, philosophy, and theology, this class will emphasize the political, social, and economic constraints and opportunities faced by the founders of Western culture.

II. Purpose:

A. Mission Statement:

This Honors course is part of the Historical Introduction to the Humanities suite of courses.

Civilization courses are designed to explore in some depth the complex dimensions of our world and the cumulative experience of the past, to provide an understanding of how yesterday influences today and the outlook for tomorrow. We study the major developments of Western peoples until the 20th century because most of the problems and institutions of contemporary society have distinguishable roots in the historical past. Moreover, because of the physical and material expansion of the West in the modern period, many of these forms, capitalist industrial manufacturing, the nation-state system, etc., have become global in nature.

We offer this course as part of your general education requirements because it is important for educated citizens to be familiar with the main stages of Western Civilization and recognize it as an expanding force which produced important forms of political, social, and economic organization. You should understand that most of the structures within which we order our lives are products of this evolution. Historians believe that past human behavior can be studied scientifically and that social scientists can improve our understanding of people in the present.

Further, whatever your major or career goals may be, throughout your lives you will be deluged with information, opinion, and interpretations about events which you should be able to evaluate critically. Answering questions and solving problems by critical analysis -- not just memorization of data -- is a basic goal of education. Information is just the raw material in this process and, though rational analysis must be based on factual data, memorizing tidbits of information is not an end in itself. Our real goal is to develop concepts which give order and meaning to the raw material of our recorded past. Doing this requires comprehension beyond minimal factual details of past events. Major emphasis will be on patterns, themes, and concepts against which the factual data must be understood.

We hope that upon successful completion of this course you will have improved your understanding of world civilizations and become a more perceptive judge of the data, opinions, interpretations and explanations continuously offered to you. This process, indeed, should last your whole life, since (paraphrasing the observation of the distinguished professional historian Carl L. Becker from 1931) "Ultimately, every person is their own historian."

B. Objectives for the student:

To be familiar with the main stages of civilization as an expanding force that has produced important forms of political, social, economic and cultural organization which are our common heritage.
To identify major events, persons and ideas that contributed to the development of Western (including American) and non-Western attitudes and institutions.
To develop concepts which give meaning and order to the raw material of our recorded past.
To identify and analyze significant problems and situations as they relate to the continuing issues of contemporary life.

C. Goals for the student:

To improve understanding of the major events which have influenced the modern world.
To be an intelligent consumer and evaluator of information about world events.
To develop a global perspective which recognizes the political, economic and cultural interdependence of all nations.
To understand the influence of the past on contemporary events and problems or, in other words, to develop Historical Mindedness.

D. General Learning Outcomes for the student:

In addition to the more content-related objectives described above, this course has some general liberal-learning goals of developing academic skills. It is expected that successful completion of this course will help you improve your ability:

To manage information, which involves sorting data, ranking data for significance, synthesizing facts, concepts and principles.
To understand and use organizing principles or key concepts against which miscellaneous data can be evaluated.
To differentiate between facts, opinions and inferences.
To frame questions so as to more clearly clarify a problem topic or issue.
To compare and contrast the relative merits of opposing arguments and interpretations, moving between the main points of each position.
To organize your thoughts and communicate them clearly and concisely in written form.
To obtain practice in selecting and presenting information and arguments within a restricted environment, especially the limitations of time in exams.

III. General Requirements

A. Reading:

Pavlac, Brian A. Supremacies and Diversities: A Review of Western Civilization. Wilkes-Barre: Zelbstdrook Press, 2009, PART I (to be purchased in class): S&D:RWC.
Rogers, Perry M., ed. Aspects of Western Civilization: Problems and Sources in History, vol. 1. Sixth ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2008: Aspects.
Machiavelli, Niccol. The Prince. Trans. and ed. Robert M. Adams. Second ed. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992.
Einhard and Notker the Stammerer. Two Lives of Charlemagne. Trans. David Ganz. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 2008.
Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Trans. Robert Graves and rev. J. B. Rives. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 2007.

The textbooks are intended to provide you with important factual and background information before class and to be used as review and reference works afterwards.

Before class, you will read in the textbook the pages listed on the class schedule. After class, regularly through the semester, you should review your class notes and compare them with the textbook's version of the material. In all your books, but especially in your readings book, you must make notes in the margins or a notebook, underline key statements, highlight important passages, and/or annotate essential details in order to be better prepared for classroom discussion.

The instructor may give quizzes to test your textbook reading and comprehension.

B. Class Participation & Attendance:

Participation and attendance are necessary because lecture and discussion provide the essentials for achieving class goals and objectives. Thus a portion of your grade (about 25%) will depend on your in-class performance and presence. You are required to attend each class, arrive on time, remain attentive, and respond to questions. You are encouraged to ask questions. Lectures may be recorded with the instructor's permission, although the tapes may not be used for any other purpose than study, and must be erased after the exams.

Absences due to college activities, emergency or extended illness may be excused by the appropriate director or dean. Do not come to class if you are ill--your health has first priority. It takes several unexcused absences to significantly lower the class participation portion of your grade. Whether absences are excused or not, you cannot get a higher grade than the percentage of classes attended. After any absence, you are responsible for making up missed work, requesting hand-outs and already returned assignments, or borrowing notes from other students.

A student who arrives at class late, after attendance is taken, must personally request that the absence be turned into a tardy mark. Students who need to leave a class session early, except for medical emergency, should notify the instructor before class begins.

If you miss an exam, contact the instructor as soon as possible. You may take a missed exam only at the discretion of the instructor. The makeup exam may be in the form of an oral exam.

Each student who has a learning disability, physical handicap and/or any other possible impediment to class participation and requirements should schedule an appointment with the instructor within the first two weeks of classes to discuss available accommodations.

If at some point during the semester you must discontinue the course, due to poor performance, illness, or some other cause, be sure to follow proper procedures for withdrawal.

Any and all materials done for this course may become the property of the professor, who may use them for assessment, evaluative, scholarly, or research purposes.

C. Exams:

You will take two exams on the assigned dates in the class schedule, and a final exam as assigned during finals week for a total of three exams. The exams are comprehensive: each exam may cover material since the beginning of the course.

All exams will consist of short answers and longer essays demanding your understanding of the course material through logical presentation of facts and explanation of historical trends. Questions will be drawn from the weekly Question classes on the class schedule, those throughout Aspects and S&D:RWC (from the sample questions are listed at: URL: <http://departments.kings.edu/history/131study1.html> and URL: <www.kings.edu/history/131study2.html>), as well as questions worked out by the students in the week before the exam.

To study for exams you should regularly, at least once a week, review your class notes. You should also compare and contrast these notes with your textbook and with the issues and trends emphasized in the class description, section I. You will turn in your textbooks during exams to be evaluated by the instructor on how well they have been marked up and noted (total of 50 pts.).

D. Academic Honesty (click here for more information).

Be aware of the academic honesty policy concerning cheating and plagiarism, and your moral, ethical and legal obligation only to submit work completed by you yourself. For more information see <Help stop Plagiarism!>.

E. Discussion

For more detail on class discussion, please see the Additional Information on Assignments handout.

F. Written Assignments:

Be sure to conform to the instructor's presentation guidelines(!), and use Turabian/Chicago Manual of Style format (see Corgan Library Study Guide #11) for bibliography and citations.

Deadlines: Meeting due dates are an important aspect of written assignments. Papers should be handed in to the instructor, by you yourself, at the beginning of class, on the dates assigned. The grade of any paper you turn in late will lose at least 10% after the beginning of the first class, 20% after the second, and 35% after the third. No late papers will be accepted after the last day of class.

For more detail on written assignments, please see the Additional Information on Assignments handout.

V. Grading Policy:

You earn your grade through work done for this course. It is your responsibility to understand why you have achieved a certain grade and what steps you can take to maintain or improve your grade. Click here for essential information about evaluation and grading.

Your final grade will be based on a percentage (above 90%=A, 80-90%=B, etc., with borderline grades earning "+" or "-") of the sum of the assignments. Different assignments will be worth certain point values. The tentative distribution of points is:

75 for the first exam (Oct 13); 100 for the second exam (Nov 12); and 125 for the final exam (finals week);
textbook evaluations (10+15+25);
10 each for any in-class quizzes or brief written assignments (any day);
25 for your Preliminary Outline and Bibliography (Oct 22), and 100 for you major paper (Nov 10);
150 for your class attendance & participation (every day).

For your protection, in case of errors of recording, you should keep copies of all exams and assignments until you have received official notice of your final grade. Any and all materials done for this course may become the property of the professor, who may use them for assessment, evaluative, scholarly, or research purposes. Although the syllabus presents the basic content and requirements of the course the professor reserves the right to change anything (e.g. assignments, and topics, due dates) at his discretion.

VI. Tentative Class Schedule:

date	topic	readings
Sep1	Orientation
Sep3	History	S&D:RWC, Chap. 1 Aspects, Preface
Sep8	Prehistory and Middle Eastern Civilizations	S&D:RWC, Chap. 2, 3 QUESTION: What purpose does government serve?
Sep10		Aspects, Chap. 1, Reign of Sargon; Code of Hammurabi; Building the Pyramids; Ramses the Great; The Ten Commandments;
Sep15	Greeks	S&D:RWC, Chap. 4 Aspects, Chap. 2, Chap. 3, Reforms of Lycurgus; Spartan Discipline; Funeral Oration of Pericles; Spartans at Thermopylae; The Mytilenian Debate; The Melian Dialogue; Chap. 4, The Unenlightened Majority; The First Philippic; "They speak of Nothing But Your Power"; On the Crown; "Carve Out a Kingdom"; Destruction of Persepolis; The Character and Leadership of Alexander; Allegory of the Cave QUESTION: What varieties of government did the Greeks offer?
Sep17		DEBATE: Absolutism is superior to democracy or oligarchy.
Sep22	Early Rome	S&D:RWC, Chap. 5 Aspects, Chap. 5, The Rape of Lucretia; The Growth of Latifundia; The Murder of Tiberius Gracchus; "Vengeance and Excessive Cruelty"; The Wrath of Sulla; Crassus; the Glorious Record of Pompey the Great; A Roman Triumph; Catiline Plots Revolt; "The Enemy is Within"; "The Die is Cast"; "We must trust to the Mercy of the Storm"; Caesar's Reforms; Abuse of Power; The Assassination of Julius Caesar; "A Public Prostitute"; the Murder of Cicero; "The Attraction Was Something Bewitching"; "She Was No Weak-Kneed Woman;" The Powers and Authority of the Emperor; The Transition from Republic to Principate; Res Gestae; "To Spare the Conquered and Crush the Proud" QUESTION: How did Roman regimes change?
Sep24		DEBATE: Absolutism is superior to republicanism.
Sep29	Christianity	S&D:RWC, Chap. 6.1-6.2 Aspects, Chap. 6, The Imperial Cult; Invasion of the Eastern cults; Orgiastic Frenzy; The Baptism of Jesus; The Sermon on the Mount; the Good Samaritan; Instructions to the Twelve Disciples; Peter: The Rock; Suffering, Persecution, and the Son of Man; The final Judgment; Paul's Answers to the Intellectuals; "Neither Jew Nor Greek, Male Nor Female"; The Resurrection; The Persecution under Nero; "The Infection of this Superstition"; Persecution under Diocletian; "A Religion of Lust"; A Christian Defense; First Principles; The City of God; the Confessions; The Petrine Theory; Loyalty to the Pope QUESTION: How did Christians manage to convert Romans?
Oct1		DEBATE: Christianity was harmful to Rome.
Oct6	Later Rome	S&D:RWC, Chap. 6.3 Aspects, Chap. 7, "To Rome"; Imperial Army; Imperial Patronage; Techniques of Roman Control; Submission and Safety; "They make a Desolation and Call it Peace"; The Glory of the City; "Bread and Circuses; A Slave Rebellion; Meditations; "Empire for Sale"; the Germanic Tribes; News of the Attacks; Decline and Christianity Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars QUESTION: How did the Roman Empire collapse in the West?
Oct8		DEBATE: The barbarians offered better government than Rome.
Oct13	First EXAM
Oct20	Early Middle Ages	S&D:RWC, Chap. 7.1-7.3 Aspects, Chap. 8 The Secret History of Justinian and Theodora; The Nika Riot; Heresy: The Threat of Arianism; The Nicene Creed: Iconoclasm and Orthodoxy; Beowulf; Charlemagne; The Missi Dominici: Education and the Scriptures; 1066; Annals of Xanten; Siege of Paris; Legal Rules for Military Service; Liege Homage; Restraint of Feudal Violence; Ordeal of Hot Iron Einhard and Notker, Lives of Charlemagne QUESTION: How did the West manage to survive?
Oct 22		DEBATE: Faith is more important than politics.
Oct 27	High Middle Ages	S&D:RWC, Chap. 7.4-7.6 Aspects, Chap. 9, Launching the Crusades; The Fall of Jerusalem; Protection of Allah; The Franks; The Excommunication of Emperor Henry IV; "Go to Canossa!"; Oath at Canossa; A Martyrdom in Glass; The Sun and the Moon; Innocent Gains; "The Rights of Englishmen"; Innocent Protects His Realm; The Rule of Saint Benedict; Political Theory: The Responsibilities of Kingship; Chivalric Ideals QUESTION: How did forces of Church and State relate?
Oct29		DEBATE: The Church needed to be supreme in the West.
Nov3	Late Middle Ages	S&D:RWC, Chap. 7.7 Aspects, Chap. 10, Clericis Laicos, Unam Sanctam, The Argument Against Papal Supremacy; On the Abuses of Avignon; "The Wolf is Carrying Away Your Sheep"; The Great Schism; The Council of Pisa; The Council of Constance; "Luxury Demands Gratifications"; The Wealth of the Church; The Plague in France; "God's Hand Was Unstrung"; QUESTION: How did medieval institutions begin to fail?
Nov5		DEBATE: The Black Death helped Europe develop.
Nov10		Paper Due
Nov12	Second Exam	Second Exam
Nov17	Renaissance	S&D:RWC, Chap. 8.1-8.2 Aspects, Chap. 11 The Rule of Cosimo d'Medici; "This Will be Your Final Destruction"; Precepts of Power; Book of the Courtier; Utopia; On Cannibals; Machiavelli, The Prince QUESTION: How did the West rediscover classical antiquity?
Nov19		DEBATE: Greco-Roman culture was a distraction.
Nov24	The Reformation	S&D:RWC, Chap. 8.3 Aspects, Chap. 12, "The Cheat of Pardons and Indulgences"; Instructions for the Sale of Indulgences; "How many Sins Are Committed"; Salvation Through Faith Alone; The Ninety-five Theses; Address to the Christian Nobility; On Christian Liberty; "Here I Stand"; The Edict of Worms; Condemnation of the Peasant Revolt; On the Necessity of Reforming the Church; Ordinances for the Regulation of Churches; "The Wretched Condition of the Christian State"; "They Should Be Drowned Without Mercy"; The Supremacy Act; The Act of Succession; Good Queen Mary; Bloody Mary; The Enforcement of the Elizabethan Settlement; The Closing Oration at Trent; The Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre; The Edict of Nantes QUESTION: How did the Western Latin Church fracture? DEBATE: Christianitys divisions helped the West.
Dec1	Age of Discovery and Colonization	S&D:RWC, Chap. 8.5 Aspects, Chap. 13, The Spanish Conquest of Mexico; The Aztec Encounter; Montezuma "We shall Obey..."; Human Sacrifice; The Destruction of Tenochtitlan; "We Could No Longer Endure the Stench..."; The Devastation of Smallpox; The Extraction of Mercury; The Silver Mines of Potosi; The Barbarians of the New World; The Black Legend QUESTION: How did the Europeans engage the rest of the world?
Dec3		DEBATE: The Americas would have done better without Europeans.
Dec8	The End of the Religious Wars and the begin of the Balance of Power	S&D:RWC, Chap. 8.4 QUESTION: What is the difference between medieval and modern?
Dec10	last class	DEBATE: Power politics helped European states develop.
tba	FINAL EXAM