HON171-2013 HON171-The Human Event (Fall 2013)

This course is part one of a two-part introduction to the humanistic and social thought out of which the modern university emerged and to which its traditions of critical and historical inquiry remain indebted. The course covers the period from the beginnings of civilization up through the emergence of Christianity and Islam in the shadow (and then ruins) of the Roman Empire in the “Axial Age.” We will seek to develop our skills as historical interpreters of the “shared world” of the Oikumene, a term covering the ancient Mediterranean and Mesopotamian regions, and we will work to understand the twin legacies of Athens and Jerusalem—of reason and monotheism—on the greater patterns of defining right, power, and conscience. Addressing the rise of the Renaissance and its Humanism, this course also considers the development of Western conceptions of law and religion, citizenship and the state, art and science against the background of changing structures of social, economic, and technological power. Our weekly readings in primary texts will help us cultivate our sensitivity to ideas and modes of expression remote from our own, and they will challenge us to understand the inner logic and historical inheritance alive within our modes of reasoning and analysis.