During the academic year of 2009-2010, the Institute will present a thirty-week course, "Nature and Culture," taught by William H. Fredlund, Ph.D., and Bruce Thompson, Ph.D., on Thursday nights. For five thousand years, the poets and philosophers of Western Civilization have asked profound questions about our human existence and its relation to the natural world that surrounds us. Are we human beings separate from nature? Can we change the natural world or does nature control us? Is there such a thing as "natural law?" Who made nature? How old is the natural world? Is nature "beautiful" or are we imposing human values upon a world that does not know "beauty"? These are just some of the many issues we will examine this year on Thursday nights.
Week 1: "Introduction" Thursday October 8, 2009
William Fredlund and Bruce Thompson
During our first class meeting we will discuss the themes of our course, the reading that we have chosen, the works of art that we will enjoy, and the extent and limitations of our study plan.
RECOMMENDED READING
This is the best one-volume, reasonably priced survey of Western attitudes toward nature that is now available. Peter Coates is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Bristol.
Reader review From Amazon:
Readable Synthesis, Fascinating Introduction, March 25, 2006 By Whitney Hampson "radical history nerd" (Indiana, PA) - In Nature: Western Attitudes Since Ancient Times, historian Peter Coates aims to highlight the vast diversity of meanings that various Western cultures have ascribed to their relationships with nature. His book is a synthesis of existing work on historical attitudes and ideas, written for those with little previous knowledge of the subject. The underlying message is one of the fundamental presumptions of the study of thought and culture within the field of environmental history: the way people view nature changes over time. Nature is, in part, an overview of the intellectual history of the Western world since the Greeks. Coates admits to a relatively limited definition of the West, using mostly British and American sources with brief forays into other regions of Europe. The first half of the book is organized by period, starting with ancient Greece and Rome and going on thorough early modernity. The second half, while still chronological, is organized thematically, exploring questions such as gauging the impact of European thought and action on other regions and the intellectual roots of modern-day conceptions of nature. Coates synthesizes a wide variety of secondary sources, utilizing both modern day historical and ecological studies as well as work from earlier disciplines that explored similar questions.ARTISTS LOOK AT NATURE:
William Fredlund.
During the second part of our evening we will look at the ways artists in Western Civilization have looked at nature throughout the centuries.
Week 2: "Lascaux" Thursday October 15, 2009
From Wikipedia: Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the Dordogne département. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be 16,000 years old. They primarily consist of realistic images of large animals, most of which are known from fossil evidence to have lived in the area at the time. In 1979, Lascaux was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list along with other prehistoric sites in the Vézère valley. The cave was discovered on September 12, 1940 by four teenagers, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel, and Simon Coencas, as well as Ravidat's dog, Robot. Public access was made easier after World War II. By 1955, the carbon dioxide produced by 1,200 visitors per day had visibly damaged the paintings. The cave was closed to the public in 1963 in order to preserve the art. After the cave was closed, the paintings were restored to their original state, and are now monitored on a daily basis. Rooms in the cave include The Great Hall of the Bulls, the Lateral Passage, the Shaft of the Dead Man, the Chamber of Engravings, the Painted Gallery, and the Chamber of Felines.
We will discuss this first surviving artistic record of man's ideas about the wonder of animals.
DVD IN CLASS
How Art Made the World, Dr. Nigel Spivey and David Attenborough
Episode Two: "The Day Pictures Were Born" on LascauxAs part of BBC’s agenda to generate public awareness about art history's relevance to contemporary culture, the documentary series "How Art Made the World" is a landmark. Host Dr. Nigel Spivey, a Classical Archaeology professor from Cambridge, asserts, over five episodes, that not only have cultures thrived according to their abilities to communicate visually, but also that, though art, we can historically trace human needs and desires because our minds drive us to create images. Questioning how and why art influences society, Spivey employs art criticism, archaeology, political theory, and anthropology in order to posit theories in each hour-long segment. Episode one, "More Human than Human," traces our obsession with the human body by analyzing the Venus of Willendorf, Egyptian art, and Ancient Greece's preoccupation with athleticism. "The Day Pictures Were Born" discusses the birth of cave painting. "The Art of Persuasion" contextualizes Tony Blair and George Bush's political communication strategies with those in ancient cultures. "To Death and Back" ponders our preoccupation with death. "Once Upon A Time," the highlight in the series, insightfully connects our fascination with feature films to the cultural beginnings of storytelling. Starting with Mesopotamia’s birth of the written tale, the Grecian invention of theater, and the Assyrian invention of pictorial narrative, this episode also stars BBC champion, David Attenborough, discussing the Australian Aborigine's use of art to trigger ancient cultural memories and myths. Potent, smart, and interdisciplinary, this series, filmed mostly on-location for full-effect, really does prove that culture dictates art. --Trinie Dalton
Week 3: "The First Agricultural Revolution" Thurs Oct 22, 2009
Sometime around 10,000 BC in a number of locations on the planet, men who had provided their sustenance through hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants and grasses, discovered the advantages of planting seeds in the ground and harvesting the resulting crops (domestication of plants). This extraordinary transformation of the way humans beings lived on this earth is now called "The First Agricultural Revolution" with the Eighteenth Century witnessing the second great agricultural revolution. This revolution in the way that human beings fed themselves was important not only from the point of view of nutrition, but also because of its implications for the way human beings organized themselves. The societies of the hunter-gatherers were relatively egalitarian, migratory and loosely structured. With the onset of domestication of plants and its ability to provide a consistent return from the earth, new more sedentary societies emerged in which hierarchies and division of labor appeared with the attendant governments, control of surplus, and social stratification. Thus, the agricultural revolution, a change in the way the human being treats nature, also brought about one of the most important changes in the way that human beings organize themselves socially on this earth.
RECOMMENDED READING
There are two major works in this field each with its own advantages.
"Displaying a breathtaking mastery of a vast array of evidence, presented objectively and accurately, Graeme Barker has performed a great service in putting together this global overview of one of archaeology's great questions."
Paul G. Bahn, Times Literary Supplement"Ideally suited to undergraduates and readers from other disciplines seeking an introduction to this key topic."
British Archaeology
Week 4: "The Mediterranean World" Thursday October 29, 2009
Lecture: Bruce Thompson
An introduction to the role of the Mediterranean in Western Civilization and especially in the relationship between the emerging world of Greek civilization and the sea.
RECOMMENDED READING
DVD IN CLASS
"The First Eden: The Mediterranean World and Man" by David Attenborough
Week 5: "Homer and the Odyssey" Thursday November 5, 2009
An introduction to the world of Homer
The city-states of the Ionian coast
Miletus, Smyrna, Ephesus
The poem and the writerYou will want to visit the Homer page in Great MInds on this website.
HomerREQUIRED READING
Week 6: "Homer and the Odyssey" Thursday November 12, 2009
The world of Homer
The city-states of the Ionian coast
Miletus, Smyrna, Ephesus
The poem and the writerYou will want to visit the Homer page in Great MInds on this website.
HomerREQUIRED READING
Week 7: "Homer and the Odyssey" Thursday November 19, 2009
The world of Homer
The city-states of the Ionian coast
Miletus, Smyrna, Ephesus
The poem and the writerYou will want to visit the Homer page in Great MInds on this website.
HomerREQUIRED READING
Thanksgiving Vacation. No meeting week of Nov 22-27.
Thanksgiving week.
Students have stated they prefer having the week off.
Many are traveling for the holidays.
So no classes during Thanksgiving Week.
See you on Dec 3, 2009.
Week 8: "Nature, Science and the Greeks" Thursday December 3, 2009
The birth of science in Greece
Miletus and the Milesian school of philosophers
Thales of Miletus: "The first philosopher"
Nature with the Gods taken out.
From Lloyd: "Despite the achievements of the Near Eastern peoples in the fields of medicine, mathematics, and astronomy, it is still reasonable to argue that Thales was the first philosopher-scientist. We must now consider what this claim involves and how far it is justified. First it should not be supposed that what the Milesians achieved was a fully articulated system of inquiry including a definite methodology. . . .They had no conception of a scientific method as such. . . . Nevertheless there are two important characteristics that do distinguish the speculations of the Milesian philosophers from those of earlier thinkers whether Greek or non-Greek. First there is what we may describe as the discovery of nature, and second the practice of rational criticism and debate." (p. 8, Norton paperback edition)RECOMMENDED READING
Week 9: "Lucretius" Thursday December 10, 2009
Rome and Lucretius
Rome in the mid-century, c. 50 BC.
Caesar, Cicero and Lucretius
From Wikipedia: Titus Lucretius Carus (ca. 99 BC- ca. 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the epic philosophical poem on Epicureanism De rerum natura, translated into English as On the Nature of Things or "On the Nature of the Universe". Very little is known about Lucretius's life; the only certain fact is that he was either a friend or a client of Gaius Memmius, to whom he dedicated De Rerum Natura. Another piece of information is found in a letter Cicero wrote to his brother Quintus in February 54 BC. Cicero writes: "The poems of Lucretius are as you write: they exhibit many flashes of genius, and yet show great mastership." Apparently, by February 54 BC both Cicero and his brother had read De Rerum Natura. However, internal evidence from the poem suggests that it was published without a final revision, possibly due to its author's untimely death. If this is true, Lucretius must have been dead by February 54 BC.REQUIRED READING:
Week 10: "Virgil" Thursday December 17, 2009
Introduction to Virgil
Virgil the farmer from Mantova
Virgil and "The Georgics"
Virgil and AugustusYou will want to visit the Virgil page at Great Minds on this website:
Virgil
REQUIRED READING:
Christmas Vacation - Dec 21, 2009 to Jan 4, 2010
Christmas Vacation.
No class:
Dec 24 (Thurs), and Dec 31 (Thurs).
Winter Quarter begins Thursday January 7, 2010.
