HON-150
Philosophy of the Sublime: the Awesome This course is a historical introduction to the concept of the sublime, or the ' awesome '. The sublime, a feeling of great exhilaration, excitement, or awe, is a positive aesthetic experience in response to a vast or powerful object, or one that appears vast or powerful. Traditional examples of sublime objects, or things that evoke the feeling, are waterfalls, icebergs, raging storms, deep ravines, mountains( Rockies, Alps, Himalayas), and perhaps some works of art( land art, film, poetry, fiction). As " disinterested," the experience of the sublime is not to be identified with fear; as an intense feeling or " affect "( emotion), the sublime is to be distinguished from wonder and curiosity. Can the sublime be evoked by art and nature alike, or only one of these? How is it distinguished from beauty? How is it connected to, and different from, the ' moral feeling '? What causes it from a psychological or scientific point of view? We will examine the theory of the sublime from its roots in Longinus ' s rhetorical theory, through the British and German traditions, concluding with the perspective of contemporary thinkers( Lyotard, Danto) and neuroscience. Students will read and respond to canonical ' sublime ' texts( fiction, poetry), react to works of art( photos, film, etc.) associated with the sublime, and engage with texts from history of philosophy and rhetoric. The course will thus offer an opportunity to study basic ideas of logic( argumentation), rhetoric, and the relation between them. It may be taken for English or Philosophy credit. It may be used to fulfill a General Education requirement or an Honors Program requirement under " Rhetoric " or " Dialectic." 3.00
HON-151 Dangerous Books This course exposes students to a " dangerous " canon of works that have been regarded at various points in history as being prohibited, radically transformative, and / or subversive. Students will analyze these texts according to their philosophical content and historical context and assess their enduring impact on society. It may be taken for History or Philosophy credit. It may be used to fulfill a General Education requirement or an Honors Program requirement under " Rhetoric " or Dialectic." 3.00
HON-152 History, Memory, & Forgetting This course seeks to facilitate students ' critical thinking about history as constructions of the past. In the United States and throughout the world, debates and sometimes violent campaigns have focused on official narratives and commemorative depictions about the past that function to sustain existing norms of status and power. Who contributes to making these choices? Whose voice, and thus perspective, remains muted? How does this affect what stories about the past get told and how they get told? Why do these questions and the manner they get resolved matter? This course addresses a rich body of literature about collective memory, an emerging literature on cultural forgetting, and case studies relating to various current topics. 3.00
HON-153 Philosophy of Humor This course examines the basic theories of humor, including incongruity, superiority, and release theory. It covers the main proponents of these theories, from the German rationalists like Wollf and Kant, to the British empiricists like Hutcheson, to more and recent theories by Bergson and Freud and contemporary cognitive science. Students will examine the critical role humor plays in society and related issues in ethics and political philosophy; the nature of humor in general; and the relationship between humor and other human activities that make use of a unique relationship to language, ambiguities, or paradox, such as poetry, song, and philosophy. The course will connect to larger issues in the humanities such as the nature of language, temporality, truth, the mind, and representation as well as ethics and political philosophy. This course may be used to fulfill a general education requirement in English or philosophy or an Honors Program requirement under " Rhetoric " or " Dialectic." 3.00
HON-200 Latin Foundations It may be used to fulfill a General Education requirement or an Honors Program requirement under " Grammar." 3.00