Spring 2008
Great Books 495.002
The Story of the Soul
MWF 12:00-12:50 Groover 112

Mary Ann Drake, Ph. D.
Phone: Office (301-5616) Home (477-4399) e-mail drake_ma@mercer.edu
Home Page: http://faculty.mercer.edu/drake_ma/
Office Hours:
Calendar of Events                  Policies and Grades                    Link to Blackboard          

COURSE DESCRIPTION: In my ascribed discipline, Psychology, there seems to be no room for a soul. What happened to the soul? Ancient Greeks had one. Our concept of a soul and its presence has altered over the centuries. How do these altered perceptions frame our moral conscience and the way we live our lives? We will read a variety of texts, beginning with the ancient Greeks and ending with current authors. We may find some answers, or we may not. Yet the journey should deepen our thinking and our awareness of what Francis Collins calls a moral law. How do concepts such as soul or moral law relate to God? To science? To ourselves? We will practice communicating among ourselves, as representatives of the broader culture, who hold views often thought to be incompatible and the cause for hatred and misunderstanding.

We will do a lot of listening, deep listening. We will avoid what William James cautioned against: “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."

TEXTS:  

Plato, Plato’s Phaedo ISBN:0-941051-69-2
Plato, The Republic ISBN: 0-465-03857-3
Epicurus, Letters and Sayings of Epicurus ISBN:0-7607-6328-3
Aristotle, On the Soul ISBN: 1-888009-17-9
Aquinas, excerpts
Shakespeare, Hamlet ISBN:0-451-52128-5
Descartes, Discourse on Methods ISBN: 0-14-044699-0
William James, excerpts from The Varieties of Religious Experience, and Psychology
Freud, The Ego and the Id ISBN:0-393-00142-3
Freud, excerpts from Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Jung, The Undiscovered Self ISBN: 0-691-0-1894-4
Jung, Memories and Dreams ISBN: 0-679-72395-1
Angelou, I Shall Not Be Moved ISBN: 0-553-3548-2
Collins, The Language of God ISBN: 978-0-7432-8639-8

PREREQUISITES: Successful completion of GBK 203 or the permission of the professor.

UPON SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF THIS COURSE STUDENTS WILL BE ABLE TO:

1.                   Regularly participate in thoughtful discussion with others about the reading assignments
               and the issues surrounding this course.
2.                   Write thoughtful, clear, insightful, organized, and grammatically correct papers.                  
3.                   Demonstrate the ability to think critically about issues raised in the texts, which means
               being able to:
                   Ask and answer critical questions at appropriate times,
                   React courteously and critically to texts and other’s arguments,
                           Judge the quality of texts and others’arguments,                                                           
                         Formulate your own substantiated arguments,
                          Locate underlying values and assumptions,
                         Recognize fallacies in reasoning,
                              Identify issues and conclusions,
                       Discriminate tested beliefs from assertions and opinions,
                          And avoid jumping to conclusions.

CLASS REQUIREMENTS:

 Attendance: Attendance is critically important since what you say and what your classmates say is part of the "text" for the course. More than three absences will affect your grade as follows: a reduction from A to B+ for the fourth absence, from B+ to B for the fifth, etc. If your grade is a C in the course, absences four and five will reduce the grade to a D. Eight or more absences automatically means you fail the course. Attendance includes lectures, films, and other required outside activities.

Participation:  Once in class, your participation is essential. As we struggle with difficult questions, we need as much input as possible from everyone. Your class participation will be noted for each class period and graded as follows:

0-               Absent, not conscious, doing something else, or no text
2-3             Some involvement, but mostly unengaged
4-5             Present, but uninformed
6-7             Participates, but not consistently in meaningful ways
8                Participates in meaningful ways
9-10          Advances class discussion and we all benefit from your
                 comments.     

I have set up the discussion board in Blackboard. Please feel free to use this medium for particularly sensitive issues, for topics we did not exhaust in class, for insights not brought up in class, and for your own pleasure and enlightenment.

Leading Class Discussion: Students, working in pairs, will be responsible for leading class discussion at least twice during the course of the semester.  I will circulate a sign-up sheet on the first day of class.  You will be graded on your ability to devise an interesting and relevant opening question, to direct conversation in meaningful ways, and to keep the discussion focused.   

Papers: There will be three required essays for the course, and one final project. The essays are to be four to five pages in length.

Some advice about papers:

·    Proofread your essays and final paper carefully

·    Keep a personal hard copy in case of loss or error

·    Never permit a person to borrow your document. Save your document to disk  and protect your disks.

·    Using the same material, even if you wrote it, for multiple assignments violates academic honesty.

I do not accept papers electronically!