Bard Early College in New Orleans Fall 2011 First-Year Seminar: What Does it Mean to be Human?

The inhuman, the beyond the human, the less than human, is the border that secures the human in its ostensible reality. Judith Butler, Undoing Gender Exploring a course of study in the liberal arts reading deeply and broadly across the social and natural sciences and the humanities compels us to first ask: what are the notions of the human from which these fields draw? Where do these notions originate, and how far do they diverge? Does being human confer certain commonly held responsibilities, rights, or inclinations? How has humanness been constructed socially, culturally, scientifically, politically across history? The course and its readings will cohere around several essential debates on human understanding, commonality, and responsibility. Radiolab, Bambara, and others will structure discussion on the nature and/or nurturing of human identity. Sagan, Baldwin, and others will support discussion on the possibility or impossibility of an essentially human essence. Aristotle, Thatcher, Orwell, and Pascal will ask if that essence can be defined in terms of human rights universal and inalienable freedoms and responsibilities. Yau, Nourbese Philip, Nietzsche, and others will open questions about the relationship between language and human understanding (or misunderstanding). In all cases, these are debates that question what we inherit and what we create in language, culture, and society. Students will learn to read closely and to draw connections among an historically and intellectually broad array of texts. Students and faculty will seek to trace the trajectories of the ideas and arguments represented here to their many points of origin, expanding on this list of texts and developing student research skills. STRUCTURE This seminar will be required of all Bard Early College students as an introduction to the liberal arts. Instructors are encouraged to engage the seminar theme through completely separate texts of their own choosing that are more closely aligned with their disciplinary expertise. Roughly 24 out of 32 class sessions will be devoted to the texts assigned in this syllabus. Regardless of which additional texts instructors choose to teach, all course sections will assign 40-60 pages of reading weekly. All course sections will also gather monthly for a symposium featuring an intellectual, civic, and/or creative figure whose work engages the themes of the seminar. When a living writer is being taught, every effort will be made to bring that writer to speak on his or her work. READINGS SEPTEMBER

What (if anything) is universal about humanity? Carl Sagan: Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record (selections) James Baldwin: A Stranger in the Village Gilgamesh, Books One and Two OCTOBER What (if anything) is our debt to each other? Aristotle: Politics (selections) Margaret Thatcher: interview (Womans Own Magazine October, 1987) George Orwell: Why Socialists Dont Believe in Fun Louis Pascal: Judgment Day NOVEMBER How do we form language and how does language form us? Friedrich Nietzsche: "On Truth and Lie in the Extra-Moral Sense" Binyavanga Wainaina: How to Write About Africa Marlene Nourbese Philip: Discourse on the logic of language John Yau: Between the Forest and its Trees Thomas Babington Macaulay: Minute on Indian Education DECEMBER How do we form culture and how does culture form us? Toni Cade Bambara: The Lesson Radiolab: Secrets of Success Jamaica Kincaid: Girl ASSIGNMENTS Students will complete daily in-class free-writing assignments based on prompts determined by the instructor. 4th week: students will submit a 2-3 page written assignment, as defined by the instructor. 7th week: students will develop one piece of free-writing into a 3-page critical essay. 10th week: students will either A) further develop the previous assignment into a 5-page critical essay involving at least two texts read in class, or B) write a new 3-page critical essay. End-of-term assignment to be determined by instructor. This will be a written piece of at least 7-9 pages; while critical essays are preferred, creative work may be permitted based on the conceptual strength of the assignment proposed by the instructor. Faculty are encouraged to give reading quizzes, require regular reading journals, etc. throughout the semester. Faculty will encourage continued readings and student work beyond the scope of the semester, either through a separate and optional winter term or through course-by-course incentives.