Go to
Part
2 of the Course Schedule.English 287: Great Books
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pointers on "Using the
Course Schedule".]
Note that not all links will work at the beginning of the course. However, these should be backed up soon. |
22 Aug (M): Introduction to the course.
In class we'll take a look in passing at a couple of pieces you'll want to print out and reflect on repeatedly throughout the semester. They raise in succinct form some issues that central to the goals of the course.
- an excerpt from Immanuel Kant's essay "What Is Enlightenment?"
- Bertolt Brecht's short poem "I hear you don't want to learn"
24 Aug (W): A long, and a short look forward.
- Check out these memos to make sure you really want to stay in the course.
- Read the following pieces as background for understanding the immediate historical context of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, which will be the first work we'll take up.
- In his sophomore year of college, Vonnegut enlisted as an infantryman in World War II. Taken prisoner by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge, in the winter 1944, he was transported to a prison camp in Dresden, the ancient capital of Saxony. Dresden was without military industry, but in spring of 1945 it was targeted by an Allied bombing designed to spread terror in the civilian population of Germany at large. Tens of thousands of people were incinerated in the firestorm that the bombing was planned to unleash. The American prisoners of war, though, had been evacuated to the city's underground slaughterhouses, and so ended up surviving the attack. (The immediate aftermath of the bombing of Dresden is the focal point of Vonnegut's most famous novel, Slaughterhouse Five.) Read what Wikipedia has to say about the bombing of Dresden.
- Japanese cities were also the target of bombing campaigns successful in generating firestorms. (Tokyo in particular had been laid terribly waste.) But on August 6, 1945, the B-26 Enola Gay dropped an atomic fission bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later, the city of Nagasaki was destroyed by a similar bomb. Japan shortly surrendered. The joy of the victors was soon followed by sober reflection on the implications for humanity at large of the age that had thus been entered into. Read what Wikipedia has to say about
- the Manhattan Project and
- the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- [If you want more information on the latter topic, you can find some leads at MSN Search.]
26 Aug (F): In class, we'll see the first part of Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove. (Note that this film appeared a year after Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, which you'll begin reading over the weekend.) But come to class having reflected on the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(1) Check out the anniversary articles from at least one of these mainstream U.S. news weeklies. (Visit the current periodicals section at Hale Library.
- U.S. News and World Report
- Time Magazine (1 August 2005)
- Newsweek
(2) Check out the TIME & Life Photo Essay "after the bomb blast".
(2) Read Amy Goodman and David Goodman, "Hiroshima Cover-up: How the War Department's Timesman Won a Pulitzer." (This story appeared in connection with the 60th anniversary of the bombing.)
Today Cat's Cradle is available at Claflin Books and Copies. Be sure to pick it up and get started with Monday's reading assignment.
29 Aug (M): Come to class having read Chapters 1-35 of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s Cat's Cradle.
After you've done your reading, browse through our Study Guide to Chapters 1-35 of Cat's Cradle. See if there are some questions there that interest you. If you find that you were not asking these on your own as you read the selection, ask yourself what assumptions might have led me to frame them when I was reading it.
In class we'll continue with Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.
31 Aug (W): Come to class having read Chapters 36-66 of Cat's Cradle.
Again, after you've finished the reading, have a look at the Study Guide to Chapters 36-66 of Cats Cradle.
Over the long weekend,
you should
You should also familiarize yourself with the Table of Contents of Robert Fagles translation of Homer's The Odyssey, so that you know what the various features of this edition are that are at your disposal. |
2 Sept (F): Come to class having completed your reading of Cat's Cradle.
5 Sept (M): No class: University/Student Holiday
24 Sept (W): There will be a quiz over Cat's Cradle.
Go to
Part
2 of the Course Schedule.
Suggestions are
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Contents copyright ©
2005 by Lyman A. Baker.
Permission is granted for non-commercial educational use; all other rights reserved.
This page last updated
25 August 2005
.