Fall 2006

History of Ideas/Prof. Harvey

 

 

 

When:              TUESDAY DECEMBER 12, 12:30-3:15 (will not take more than an hour or so)

 

Where:             OUR CLASSROOM

 

Who:               EVERYONE WHO IS NOT WRITING THE TAKE-HOME ESSAY EXAM

What:              EVERYTHING COVERED IN THE COURSE, EXCEPT FOR THE FILMS AND MUSIC

 

Type of Questions:

 

--Similar to the practice Midterm: short answer, objective knowledge questions, but not low-level fact. I’m seeking to see whether you’ve dutifully done the reading during the semester, and that you understand the basic concepts.  If you have, you shouldn’t need to study beyond perhaps reading thru my review sheets quickly.  Just depending on the review sheets, if you have not done the reading, will definitely not suffice, however!

 

Preparing:

 

--Read what you have not read.

--Read the review sheets, which have been collected near the top of the online syllabus in a grid.

 

Grades:

 

--Grades will be semi-curved, which means I do not have an absolute preset sense of what percent of correct answers you need for an A, B, etc.  However, in the past, generally: if you miss more than a third you’d be in the low B zone, more than one half in the D zone, and only a third in the F+ zone.

 

 

 

 

--Turn it in, single-spaced hardcopy, the time/day of the in-class final.  I would prefer that you come to the class, so that you can verify number of days missed, number of response papers turned in, etc., should there be some confusion.

 

--You must ALSO submit it as a single-spaced attachment via WebCT email.

 

--You will not get feedback.  Do NOT email asking how you did; wait until the official posting of grades, and if you have a question about your class grade or grade on the exam, visit me early in the Spring, when I will be happy to review your Final take-home essay with you.

 

--If you do not submit the essay, you must be in class to take the in-class essay.

 

--You get to choose which question to respond to (see below) in an essay between two and four pages SINGLE-SPACED.  A tight, neatly/profoundly written two page single-spaced page essay will have just as much chance as succeeding as a longer, padded one.  DO NOT PAD—this is absolutely the worst strategy (next to plagiarism).

 

--You should have several brief quotes from our texts to show that your points are anchored in specific texts, not just a product of your abstract memory of our texts.  Do not, however, use up too much space quoting.

 

--Effective organization, a decent style and clean grammar/punctuation, and lots and lots of thoughtfulness are expected.   

 

--About organization: generally speaking, it is best to discuss each author/text in turn (1^st 5^th devote to Locke, 2^nd 5^th devoted to Equiano, 3^rd 5^th devoted to Wordsworth, etc.), with comparative loop-backs (e.g., “unlike Equiano, Wordsworth does not define himself in terms of economics; he instead is searching for…").  However, you also need to show you have synthesized our readings/the issues … five separate mini-essays on five authors, strung together, will not be highly rewarded.

 

--About content: the essay should have a focus (see the questions below) and should not meander.  However, if you have something very insightful to say about an author, consider including it even if such stretches the question/focus a bit.  I want to see you’ve seen deeply into the authors/issues AND that you can make your insights cohere, but don’t overly sacrifice one to the other.

 

--You can discuss with your classmates possibilities, approaches, or suitability of this argument or that argument.  You may draw upon my handout/review sheets. But ultimately the essay must be yours—mimicry of classmates or the professor will be very obvious, and most definitely will not get rewarded!  

 

--Choose one of these three questions:

 

a) Western culture, from the time of the Renaissance, could be said to have increasingly worked towards the development and protection of individuality or liberty broadly conceived (think of, for instance, the “possessive selfhood” notion or Romantic interiority).  Discuss, using at least four of our main writers.  If appropriate, you can briefly reference additional authors or texts.

 

b)  The course is called: “History of Ideas: From the Age of Enlightenment to the Age of Anxiety”. Explore, using four or five of our main authors/texts, how we get from “Enlightenment” to “Anxiety”.   If appropriate, you can briefly reference additional authors or texts.

 

c) Take three or four of our main writers that seem, on the surface, to be fairly dissimilar and show an important continuity or shared concern/issue of your devising.  An example:  many of our writers touch on metaphysical possibilities or seem indifferent to or ignore metaphysical possibilities.