Humanities HAS120 GENERAL INFORMATION, Apuntes de Famosos

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Faculty of Humanities

Humanities

HAS

CONTENTS

• General Information
• Overview: Living in a Human World - Introduction to the Humanities Course Content
  • The Classics
    • The Early Modern Era (Part I)
    • The Early Modern Era (Part II)
    • Modernism
    • Existentialism (Part I)
    • Existentialism (Part II)
    • Postmodernism
    • Popular Culture

Assessment

Tests and assignments There are three assessment opportunities during the semester. The dates for these are available on ClickUP. Test 1 contributes 20% towards your module mark, and Test 2 contributes 15%. The third assessment is an assignment that counts 15%. Together, these make up 50% of your final module mark, while the exam accounts for the outstanding 50%.

Examination The examination will take place at the end of the second semester during the scheduled examination period. A semester mark of at least 40% is needed for examination entrance.

Class Attendance

In accordance with the regulations of the University of Pretoria, class attendance is compulsory. This Faculty requires students to attend at least 80% of the lectures to gain entry into the exam. This implies that absence from more than six of the 28 lectures in this module will disqualify you from writing the exam.

Timetable, Groups and Venues

Lecture slot

Time Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

2 8:30 – 9:20 Grp 4 (Eng) Roos Hall

Grp 3 (Eng) Eng III-

Grp 3 (Eng) Thuto 3- 3 9:30 – 10 : 20 4 10 : 30 – Grp 2 (Afr) 11 : 20 Roos Hall 5 11:30 – 12: 6 12:30 – Grp 1 (Afr) Roos Hall

Grp 2 (Afr) 13 : 20 North Hall 7 13 : 30 – Grp 4 (Eng) Grp 1 (Afr) 14 : 20 Roos Hall Eng III- 6 8 14:30^ – 15: 9 15:30 – 16:

10 16:30 – 17:

Hours/Credits Summary

Lectures, tutorials and practicals (contact time)

Contact time per week (periods)

Preparation per week (periods)

Total time per week (hours)

Number of weeks

Total time per semester (hours) Lectures* 2 3 5 12 60 Tutorials 0 0 0 12 0 Practicals 0 0 0 12 0

Assignments and assessment (non-contact time)

Assessment time (hours)

Preparation time (hours)

Total time per semester (hours) Assignment(s) 1 1.5 2. Class Tests* 0 0 0 Semester test 1

Semester test 2

Examination 2 8 10

Module hours 85

Module credits 8

Note 1: The time allocation in this table represents nominal hours, i.e. some students might require less and others more time to attain the pass requirements.

• Note 2: As class tests are written during lecture periods, the times allocated for class tests are included in the total lecture time.

Humanities.

Focus on texts

To study texts, whether they be works of art, pieces of philosophical or historical writing, or multimedia, is to study the ways in which humans think and live in the world.

In this semester, a wide variety of human experience will be studied through a variety of approaches. The primary focus will be on the analysis of and reflection on texts (a word which, in its broader sense, includes both the written and the visual). Through the process of critical and reflective analysis, much can be understood about:  the ways in which humans make sense of their experience;  the ways in which identities and differences are created;  the influence of language on the ways in which we think;  the influence of cultural and historical contexts on human expressions of experience;  the practice of evaluative (interpretative) textual criticism;  the practice of storytelling to construct ourselves, others and our environments.

The question of canonicity

The canon is usually understood as a body of texts which are regarded as important by the majority of critics and educationalists – that body of texts once referred to by Matthew Arnold as “the best that has been thought and written” during the ages. The canon is a selection of books or artworks often taught at educational institutions. The idea of a canon of important texts has been under constant attack since the 1970s. The notion that there could be such a neutral selection of the “best” that has been thought and written is disputed from various perspectives: the canon is too white, too male, too European, too English, too elitist, etc.

In this module, attention will be given to this very valid criticism of the canon. Consequently, not all the texts included for study in this module can be considered as part of the “Great Tradition”. But it is also important to remember that many of the texts that form part of the canon still exert a major influence on the way we understand the world. The Bible, for instance, does not have the influence that it used to have as a collection of religious texts, but it has a major influence on our everyday language.

Cultural literacy

Against this background it becomes clear that exposure to at least some of these influential texts will also improve “cultural literacy”. Literacy depends on knowledge of the specific information that is taken for granted in our public discourse (Hirsch, 2002: xii). Successful communication depends on understanding a text’s literal meanings as well as its implied meanings. These implied meanings can only be constructed out of specific knowledge shared between writer and reader. Communication depends on implications that remain unsaid and that must be shared between the writer and reader if the

communication is to proceed effectively. Communication thus depends on shared background knowledge, what Hirsch (2002:xvi) calls “cultural literacy”: A shared cultural knowledge makes understanding possible. Although this shared knowledge expands and changes due to historical and technological change, 80 percent of literate culture has been in use for more than a century.

The canon – however contested – has contributed to the emergence of that “shared cultural knowledge” so important for effective communication. Exposure to at least some of these texts and their contexts will improve “cultural literacy”.

Identity and difference: Narrating ourselves, others and the world

Drawing the lens wider, storytelling is not limited to forms of art but is something we do all the time in our

everyday existence. Stories, or narratives, are how we make sense of ourselves, others and the world. We form

our identities through narratives that tell who “we” are, and therefore who “I” am. These positions are always

COURSE CONTENT

Week 1 (16 – 20 July) Introduction to the Humanities (+ UP3D Week 1) Prof. Willie Burger (Dept. of Afrikaans)

Fiction, Fictional Worlds and our understanding of the world: an Introduction to

Narrativity

One of the most important ways in which we make sense of our world is by narrating stories. Narration is the way in which events are structured in time (some even think we can only understand time as a result of narration) and in which they are linked causally.

Stories are all around us. We tell stories about past events (and call them hi stories ) in order to make sense of our current situation. We tell stories about events happening in the world and call them news stories of the day. We listen to journalists who bring the latest news in the form of stories or we read the background to events in the form of stories. Economists tell stories to explain the current gold price. We tell our life stories to explain to others (and ourselves) who we are.

In this introduction the focus is on the ways in which narratives enable us to select and compose events in ways that enable us to make experiences understandable, in ways that help us to make sense. After a short overview of narratives (specifically muthos or emplotment) we will give attention to the implications of the changing ways in which we narrate and understand ourselves and our world.

To further explore how we make sense of the world around us, questions of identity, difference and discrimination are addressed in the online section of the course. You can access this section, called Doing Difference Differently (UP3D), on ClickUP. It runs from Week 1 – Week 8, ending with an assessment in which you have the opportunity to use storytelling to reflect on yourself in relation to others. Follow the online instructions carefully to get the most out of the section.

Topics for discussion

 Narration and Plot  Chronology and Causality  Kinds of plots: o Euphoric / dysphoric; internal / external o Plot and tension o Plot and emotion  Worlds and plots  Fictional literature: Changing plots and changing understanding

Reading: Herman, David. 2009. Basic Elements of Narrative. London: Wiley Blackwell. (pp.1-22). Kearney, Richard. 2002_. On Stories_. London: Routledge. (pp.3-14).

Weeks 2 and 3 (23 July – 3 August) The Classics (+ UP3D Weeks 2 and 3) Mr Georg Nöffke (Dept. of English)

The Epic

Overview

Two of the earliest epic poems known to us today – and the earliest in Greek – are the Iliad and the Odyssey. In these lectures, we will take a closer look at the older of these two poems, the Iliad. Our discussion will start with a quick explanation of what we mean by the term “epic”. We will then consider how and when the poem originated (specifically who the author was, and whether the poem was first written down or composed orally) to situate it in its socio-historic context. After briefly sketching the main plot of the poem, we will examine some of the main themes that the poem addresses (keeping in mind that the poem was written from a specific point of view and in a specific context). These themes include questions about what it means to be human, what it means to have emotion, etc. We will also discuss and, in some cases, contrast with today the values that we can identify in the poem. Finally, we will trace some of the influences that the poem had on literature from ancient times to the present day. For now, let’s just say that there are many! Throughout these lectures, I hope that we’ll discover some valuable points of comparison between the human experience expressed in the Iliad and our point of view today.

Prescribed reading Selections from http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Ilhome.htm. (The relevant sections will be announced on ClickUP.)

Topics for discussion

 What is epic poetry?  How do we “know” what we know about the past?  How did the Iliad come into being?  Discuss the socio-historic background against which the Iliad takes place. How does this background differ from the time in which the Iliad was written (down)?  Discuss the main plot of the Iliad – and explain why it has so many “digressions.”  What was the aim of the Iliad?  What is a “hero”? (The Iliad presents one view. How would/could we define a hero today?)

universe. No longer could anything be taken for granted; all was subject to reason.

No one expressed this in clearer terms than the philosopher Immanuel Kant. His essay, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” encouraged its readers to free themselves from a self-imposed “immaturity” and to use reason to the betterment of society.

Prescribed reading Immanuel Kant. (1784) ‘An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?’. Excerpt in Vincent Potter. (Ed.) (1993). ‘Readings in Epistemology from Aquinas, Bacon, Galileo, Descrates, Berkeley, Hume, Kant’. New York: Fordham University Press, pp.221-227. (Available on ClickUP)

http://www.historyguide.org/earlymod/lecture12c.html The History Guide: Lecturers on Early Modern European History Lecture 12: The Scientific Revolution, 1642-

Recommended Reading Gribbin, John. 2005. The Fellowship: The Story of a Revolution. New York: Penguin books. (Selected pages on ClickUP).

Russell, Bertrand. [1946] 1996. The History of Western Philosophy. London: Routledge. (Selected pages on ClickUP).

Topics for discussion  Name and discuss some of the positive aspects of the intellectual milieu of the Middle Ages.  Discuss the major factors that had an inhibiting effect on intellectual development during the Middle Ages.  What classical ideals did the Renaissance reappropriate?  Define and discuss Humanism.  Name and discuss two characteristics of the Enlightenment that had an impact on the use of reason.  What was the scientific revolution of the 18th^ century?  What was the impact on modern science of the “experimental turn” in natural philosophy?

Week 5 (13 – 17 August) The Early Modern Era (Part II) (+ UP3D Week 5) Mr Georg Nöffke

The “disenchantment of the world” and the novel as form – Don Quixote

Overview The first part of Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote was published in 1605. The second part was only published in 1615. This work is often considered to be the first novel.

Some of you might have an idea about Don Quixote as the mad knight who attacked windmills under the impression that they were Giants he had to destroy. But the novel is much more than merely a few tales about a madman who thought of himself as a brave knight bound by the laws of chivalry in a time when the idea of a Medieval knight had already given way to a more modern world.

Don Quixote’s quest as a knight whose head is filled with ideas from medieval books on chivalry reflects to some extent an awareness of a passing era. But more importantly, Cervantes created a new form in which to express this awareness of a disenchantment of the world – the novel as a “modern” form of expression.

The rise of the novel as a “modern” form of art is associated with a particular form of humour that stands in contrast to the serious and didactic literature of the Middle Ages. Octavio Paz once remarked: “There is no humour in Homer or Virgil; Ariosto seems to foreshadow it, but not until Cervantes does humour take shape…. Humour is the great invention of the modern spirit.” This particular humour is described by Milan Kundera in the following way: “Thus humour is not laughter, not mockery, not satire, but a particular species of the comic, which, Paz says (and this is the key to understanding humour's essence), ‘renders ambiguous everything it touches’” (1995: 5-6). This kind of humour leads to a new kind of writing that is often ambiguous and that avoids moralizing.

Prescribed Reading Cervantes, M. [ c. 1615] 2005. Don Quixote. Trans. Grossman, Edith. London: Vintage.  “Prologue” (6 pages)  Book 1, Chapters 1 and 2 (9 pages)  Book 1, Chapter 18 and 19 (15 pages)  Book 2, Chapter 74 (6 pages) (Available on ClickUP)

Topics for discussion  The disenchantment of the world – a world without chivalry and the artist left to his own devices.  Cervantes and the novel as form of expression.  The “invention” of character: compare and contrast Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.  How does the long prologue about the impossibility of a prologue suggest an awareness of the changed role of art and the artist?  Discuss the conversations between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza as “an area of free play, where thoughts are set for us, the readers, to ponder”.  Discuss the role of humour in Don Quixote.

TEST WEEK 1: 18 – 25 AUGUST

[HAS 120 Semester Test 1 date to be announced.]

Topics for discussion  Death of a Salesman as an expressionistic presentation of the personal tragedy of one man, Willy Loman. We are presented not with a chronological exposition of the main character’s life but with his experience, so that memory, fantasy and present experience are all blended on the stage. What binds the play together is not a logical sequence of time, but what Willy experiences.  Death of a Salesman as one of the clearest examples of Miller’s social criticism. Miller depicts Willy Loman as the product and victim of the false values of a consumerist, superficial modern American society, and also as a conduit of these values to the next generation.  The controversial issue of whether Death of a Salesman is a modern tragedy or not.  What are the values that Arthur Miller describes American society as adhering to?  What does he suggest are the sources for these values?  Where does he suggest the blame lies for Willy Loman’s tragedy?  What role does the notion of the American dream play in the events described?  What is the difference between Biff’s struggle in the play and his father’s struggle?  Is Willy Loman a tragic hero?  In what way is the play an expression of the modernist impulse?

Week 8 (10 – 14 September) Existentialism (Part I) (+ UP3D Week 8) Mr Georg Nöffke

NB: The due date for the UP3D biographical story is Friday, 14 September.

Existentialism: meaninglessness and the choice for meaning

Overview The literary and philosophical movement known as Existentialism came into being after World War II (though some of its key concepts were anticipated by earlier philosophers like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche). For the second time in less than four decades, the Western world had suffered the senseless violence and anguish of international warfare. Philosophically, this senselessness was met not by a

system that explained these recent horrors, but by one which admitted the meaninglessness of existence.

One of Existentialism’s central tenets, posited by Jean-Paul Sartre, is that “existence precedes essence”. Sartre, like many of his coevals, thought human existence to possess no inherent value or meaning; the only meaning possible is that which is forged by the individual and his/her society. On the one hand, this has an obviously negative implication: humanity, without any given or predetermined significance, has no purpose upon entering the world. On the other hand, such a philosophical outlook encourages humankind to create its own meaning, and therefore to accept responsibility for its actions. Thus, the individual who recognises this responsibility endeavours to engage with his/her community and to act in

such a manner as to give meaning to his/her existence.

Prescribed reading Max Weber, “Science as a Vocation”, in From Max Weber. Essays in sociology. HH Gerth & CW Mills (eds.), London: Routledge, 1991, pp. 129-156 (read only pp. 134-156) (Available on ClickUP)

Recommended reading Albert Camus, “Absurd freedom and the myth of Sisyphus”, in Philosophy and the human condition , Beauchamp, T.L, Blackstone, W.T. & Feinberg, J (eds.). Englewood Cliffs (NJ): Prentice Hall, 1980. (selections) (Available on ClickUP)

Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and humanism. Philip Mairet (trans.), London: Methuen, 1968. (selections) (Available on ClickUP)

Topics for discussion  Positive implications of Existentialism vs. negative implications of Existentialism.  “Rationalisation” and disenchantment.  “Polytheism”.  The meaning of a courageous choice for meaning.

Week 9 (17 – 21 September) Existentialism (Part II) Mr Georg Nöffke

Existentialism in literature: the short stories of Jan Rabie

Overview Existentialism had a profound effect on the work of the Sestigers, the literary movement that was responsible for considerable innovation in Afrikaans literature in the 1960s. Sestiger writer Jan Rabie lived in Paris from 1948 to 1955 where he was inspired by the work of French existentialists Albert

Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Rabie’s literary debut, Een-en-twintig (1956), captures some of the ideas associated with the intellectual climate in France after the Second World War.

Short stories in Een-en-twintig such as “I made you” and “Die man met die swaar been” (“The man with the heavy leg”) focus on human beings in a world that reveals itself as absurd and meaningless. The deranged engineer in “I made you” creates a robot that is programmed to provide him with answers to existential issues regarding life, love and death. Modern technology is expected to produce canned answers that will cast light on the purpose of existence. In “Die man met die swaar been”, engagement (an important concept in the philosophy of Albert Camus that would inform the work of the Sestigers) becomes a double-edged sword in the lives of human beings who revolt against the apparent absurdity of an irrational world and the apathy that it tends to provoke. In Jan Rabie’s work, existentialist

Art, design and the myths of our visual landscapes

Overview We all have an idea about art, and about its place in history and in society, but how did that come about? Sarah Thornton, a sociologist and art historian, wrote a very insightful and entertaining book in which she introduces us to the people and the institutions that not only make art, but also make art become art. She called it Seven Days in the Art World, and identified the following six roles for the people working in that world: artist, dealer, curator, critic, collector, and auction-house expert. Her book was published before the economic crisis of 2008 and yet, she sticks to her argument that art is more popular than ever before. She explains:

First, we are more educated than ever before, and we’ve developed appetites for more culturally complex goods. (The percentage of U.S. and U.K. populations with university degrees has increased dramatically over the past twenty years.) Ideally, art is thought-provoking in a way that requires an active, enjoyable effort. As certain sectors of the cultural landscape seem to “dumb down,” so a sizable viewing audience is attracted to a domain that attempts to challenge tired, conventional ways. Second, although we are better educated, we read less. Our culture is now thoroughly televisualized or YouTubed. Although some lament this “secondary orality,” others might point to an increase in visual literacy and, with it, more widespread intellectual pleasure in the life of the eye. Third, in an increasingly global world, art crosses borders. It can be a lingua franca and a shard interest in a way that cultural forms anchored to words cannot.

Clearly, art does not stay in the Art World. Art is photographed, copied, reproduced, printed, tweeted, adapted, parodied and incorporated into all kinds of practices. It informs and inhabits the world of images in all kinds of ways. The image world surrounding us, our visual landscapes, did not emerge in an altogether haphazard way. Much of it is designed. This brings us to our second discussion point. Rebecca Houze, Professor of Art and Design History at Northern Illinois University, has recently published the book New mythologies in design and culture: Reading signs and symbols in the visual landscape. In the introduction, she explains:

As we move through the day we continuously navigate the built environment. In doing so, we encounter many images and objects, which are both strange and familiar. They are part of a shared language, a visual vocabulary of the collective imagination. Our clothing, the spaces we inhabit, the tools we use for work and for leisure, our vehicles of transportation, and even the food we eat, are all designed, but the individual experience of this visual landscape is idiosyncratic and often accidental. Though clothing, cars or kitchens may have been designed with particular uses in mind, their meanings shift from one context to another.

Although it focuses strongly on everyday experiences in the United States, this book may be very useful to assist us in understanding what we see around us every day. This is because, on the one hand, so much of what Houze observes about her everyday life in the United States overlaps with what we see in the movies, on television screens, internet and other media. But on the other hand, the analytical skills which Houze applies to her own environment also come in handy when trying to making sense of the ways we are situated in our part of the world, and how we choose to position ourselves within it.

With reference to Houze’s, we shall set ourselves the following three goals:  We shall familiarise ourselves with some useful vocabulary (tools and skills) to assess visual landscapes. Prominent amongst the concepts is Roland Barthes’ use of ‘myth’ to explain the way

the ‘reality’ we live in everyday, that which we often consider as ‘natural’ or ‘common sense’, had come about over time. As Houze explains: “It is important, indeed urgent, that we continue to peel away the layers of signification, locating myth in historical context. Unless we do so, we cannot understand what motivates us to long for that perfect pair of athletic shoes, what compels us to buy one electronic device rather than another, or what causes us to insist that our children play with wooden blocks instead of video games.”  Thereafter, we shall explore one of Rebecca Houze’s chapters in which she traces the history of a number of American icons and logos.  Lastly, we shall trace the ways such visual mythologies have been migrating to other visual landscapes, not least of all our own in southern Africa. We shall ask how applicable, intertwined and comparable they are to our own historical trajectories. To what extent can valid parallels be drawn and how, where the possibilities for comparison end, can new meaning making processes begin?

Prescribed reading Houze, Rebecca. 2016. ‘Introduction’ and ‘I is for Indian. Learning to read’. In: New mythologies in design and culture. Reading signs and symbols in the visual landscape. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 1-5; 79-107 (25 pages text, the remainder contains images and references). Tornton, Sarah. 2007. Reality art show. The national obsession with the Turner Prize, The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/19/reality-art-show Thornton, Sarah. 2009. Seven days in the art world. New York, W.W. Norton, pp. 261-266.

Recommended reading Assmann, Aleida. 2011. Introduction to cultural studies. Topics, concepts, issues. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, pp.12-28, 33-38, 43-46, 75-84. Freschi, Frederico. 2011. Self and other: Irma Stern’s portrait of the cellist Vera Poppe, Art South Africa 10(2), pp. 26-29. Godby, Michael. 2014. ‘To do the Cape’: Samuel Daniell’s representation of African peoples during the first British occupation of the Cape. Journal of Historical Geography 43, pp. 28-38. Joranova, Ludmilla. 2012. The look of the past. Visual and material evidence in historical practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 15-34. Mudimbe, Valentin. 1994. The invention of Africa. Oxford: James Currey.

Topics for discussion:  How did Thornton’s introduction to the Art World affect your understanding of art?  Can you think of any particular challenges to actors and institutions in the South African art world?  Would you invest in art (or rather, the Art World), and if so, how?  Why is it necessary to understand the way our visual landscapes had come about?  What can we learn from stereotypes in visual icons?  How does the history of American mythologizing of ethnicity compare to mythologizing processes in South Africa?  Where and how do we fit into the visual world of consumption and how we are set up (or do we set ourselves up) for consumption?