Sections offered FALL 2020:
#32356 |
FRITZ LIEBER |
MW 11:30am-12:45pm |
WEB |
CLASS NOTES: COLL Intensive Writing section; COLL (CASE) A&H Breadth of Inquiry credit
Above class meets 100% Online with a combination of Synchronous and Asynchronous instruction. For more information visit https://fall2020.iu.edu/learning-modes/
The idea of personal identity has undergone an interdisciplinary migration and transformation from classical Greece to modern America, with stops in philosophy, psychology, religion, evolutionary biology, art, politics, economics, law, and literature. How has the idea of self evolved? In what ways have the humanities, everyday practices, and human science shaped our conception of self today?
We begin by estimating changes in the landscape of self, comparing Homer’s Odyssey to Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. We then turn to three overviews of the history of self (from anthropology, literature, and philosophy) that set the stage for our examination of readings from the Old and New Testaments, Aristotle, Augustine, Montaigne, Descartes, Defoe, Hume, Wordsworth, Whitman, Thoreau, Darwin, Marx, and Camus. The second half of the semester considers the self in William James, John Dewey, Charles Cooley, Mary Calkins, the paintings of Thomas Eakins, Freud, George H. Mead, behaviorism, Erik Erikson, gay and black power, and humanist psychology. We investigate the online self, selfies, and the second language self. We conclude with Eastern ideas of personal identity.
This is a seminar with two short papers, a final paper, and no exams. We rely on class discussion.