The University of texas at dallas

School of Arts & Humanities

 

HUMA 3300:  Reading & Writing Texts                                                                                                          Fall, 2003

       Section 001   Call # 11848                                        Jo  3.906                                                  M & W  12:30 - 1:45

 

 

Professor Gerald Soliday                                                                                                         Office:  Jonsson  4.202

       Hours:  M  2:00-3:00,  M & W  6:00-7:00, and by appointment:                                                       972-883-2760

       E-mail:  soliday@utdallas.edu                                                              Internet:  http://www.utdallas.edu/~soliday

 

Reference Librarian:   Ms. Linda Snow                                                                                  Office:  McDermott 2.512

       Consultation by appointment                                                                                                            972-883-2626

E-mail:  snow@utdallas.edu

 

Teaching Assistant:    Ms. Elizabeth Berrett                                                                              Office:  Jonsson 3.110

       Hours:  W 2:00-3:00 and by appointment                                                                                         972-883-2062

       E-mail:  utdbeth@hotmail.com 

 

 

 

Arts & Humanities 3300                                                                                                  Reading and Writing Texts

 

 

Topic:  The French Revolution

 

 

HUMA 3300 is an introduction to the School of Arts & Humanities at UT Dallas, its organization and programs, and especially its disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives on undergraduate education.  The course acquaints students with a wide variety of the intellectual and artistic interests, methods, and approaches represented in our school.  While this semester's substantive focus is on the French Revolution, the goal is not only to study one of the major events in modern history.  Our chief purpose here is to explore how creative writers and artists, historians, philosophers, as well as literary and art critics have arrived at their various interpretations of the revolution.  The history of the French Revolution serves, in other words, as an introductory case study in different modes of interpretation.

 

At the same time, the course meets our school’s advanced writing requirement, and it emphasizes different types of expository or critical writing as well as the reading and interpretive skills crucial for serious work in the arts and humanities.  Thus the faculty urges students exploring or majoring in the school to take this required course as early as possible, preferably first, in their study programs.

 

 

Course requirements include:  (1) attendance and participation in class discussion of assigned readings (averaging about 100 pages per week) completed prior to our meetings [15%] and (2) five pieces of written work:

 

       (a) an outline                                               [15%]                     due         17 September

       (b) a short bibliography                                [15%]                     due         15 October

       (c) an explication of a text                            [15%]                     due         22 October

       (d) an interpretive essay                               [20%]                     due         12 November

       (e) a comparative essay                               [20%]                     due           1 December

 

Please note that I can not accept writing assignments late, unless very unusual circumstances arise or my permission is sought and granted in advance of the due date.  Note also that you must submit all assignments in order to pass the course.

 

All written work and class discussion for this course is in gender-neutral, nonsexist language and rhetorical constructions.  Such practice is part of a classroom situation according full respect and opportunity to all participants by all others.

 

Written work is submitted in paper or "hard" copy, without cover pages or special folders.  Simply put your name and course identification at the top of the first page and staple the upper left corner.  Papers are always paginated (usually at the bottom and center of each page after the first), double-spaced, and presented in clear 10- to 12-point type.

 

Parenthetical annotation is now strongly recommended, though any form of annotation (foot- or endnotes) and bibliography is acceptable for this course, provided that you use it correctly and consistently.  Probably most appropriate for your work in the arts and humanities are standard guides like the MLA Handbook or the Turabian Manual for Writers.

 

At the same time, Diana Hacker's Rules for Writers (5th ed., 2003) summarizes MLA stylistic conventions, outlines current grammatical practices and mechanical presentation, and offers helpful guidelines for researching and writing papers.  You may find it especially useful for your work in the course this semester.

 

I should also mention that the eleventh edition of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary appeared this summer and now becomes the standard for university work.

 

All required readings as well as some recommended items for the course are on reserve in the McDermott Library.  Paperback books used extensively are also for sale, if you wish to purchase them, both in the University Bookstore and at Off-Campus Books.  In addition, shorter readings marked with an asterisk (*) are available online at my Internet Web site.  They are protected by a password I will give you in class.

 

 

Please note that, although I do not anticipate them, there may be some changes in the following schedule.  If they occur, I will announce them in class and post them on the syllabus at my Web site on the Internet.

 

 

 

 

 

SCHEDULE  OF  CLASS  MEETINGS  &  ASSIGNMENTS

 

 

25 Aug    Introduction to the Course

 

                      Assignments:  Students new to UTD should familiarize themselves with the general organization of the

McDermott Library this first week of the term.  Anyone who has not read William Strunk and E.B. White,

The Elements of Style (4th ed., 1999) should do so immediately.

 

 

27 Aug    The Four Undergraduate Programs in Arts & Humanities

 

                      Arts & Humanities          Art & Performance

                      Historical Studies           Literary Studies

 

 

HISTORY  OF  THE  REVOLUTION:     PEOPLE, EVENTS, IDEAS, INSTITUTION AND INTERPRETATIONS

 

 

  3 Sep    Some General Interpretations

 

                      Discussion of *Robert Darnton, "What Was Revolutionary about the French Revolution?" The New York Review

of Books (19 Jan 1989): 3-10, and T.C.W. Blanning, The French Revolution: Class War or Culture Clash?

 

                             Recommended:  Gwynne Lewis, The French Revolution: Rethinking the Debate

   William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution

 

 

  8 Sep    Origins:  The French Monarchy in Crisis

 

                      Discussion of Peter McPhee, The French Revolution 1789-1799, Introduction and chs. 1-2, and of *The Old

Regime and the French Revolution, ed. Keith M. Baker (Chicago, 1987), no. 8:  Protests of the Parlement of

Paris (March, 1776)

 

                             Recommended:  P.M. Jones, Reform and Revolution in France:  The Politics of Transition, 1774-1791

   William Doyle, The Origins of the French Revolution (3rd ed.)

 

 

10 Sep    Enlightenment & Revolution:  Alienation of the Intellectuals?

 

                      *Norman Hampson, "The Enlightenment in France," The Enlightenment in National Context, ed. Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich (Cambridge, 1981), 41-53; *Margaret C. Jacob, "The Enlightenment Redefined," Living the Enlightenment (NY and Oxford, 1991), 215-224; *Robert Darnton, "The High Enlightenment and the Low Life of Literature," The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge MA, 1982), 1-40; and *Roger Chartier, "Do Revolutions Have Cultural Origins?" The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution (Durham NC, 1991), 169-192

 

Recommended: The Enlightenment: A Comprehensive Anthology, ed. Peter Gay

                                                            Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment

  Roy Porter, The Enlightenment

 

 

15 Sep    1789-1792: The Common People and the Liberal Revolution

 

                      Discussion of McPhee, chs. 3 and 4

 

                             Recommended:  Timothy Tackett, When the King Took Flight

 

 

17 Sep            Discussion of *Michael Fitzsimmons, "Privilege and the Polity in France, 1786-1791," American Historical

Review  92 (1987): 269-295  [McDermott Reference]

 

First Writing Assignment:  Outline of the Fitzsimmons article

                      Example of an outline:  Stone

 

 

22 Sep    War & Terror:  The Radical Revolution, 1792-94

 

Discussion of McPhee, chs. 5-7, Hugh Gough, The Terror in the French Revolution, and of *The Old Regime

and the French Revolution, ed. Keith M. Baker (Chicago, 1987), no. 42: Robespierre's Report on the Principles

of Public Morality (5 February 1794)

 

 

24 Sep    The Failure of the Liberal Republic:  1794-1799

 

                      Discussion of McPhee, chs. 8 and 9

 

Recommended:  Suzanne Desan, "Reconstituting the Social after the Terror:  Family, Property, and the Law in Popular Politics," Past & Present 164 (1999): 81-121

 

 

29 Sep    The Revolution & Human Rights:  Some Documents

 

Discussion of The French Revolution and Human Rights, ed. and trans. Lynn Hunt

 

 

 1 Oct      First Library Session in McDermott 2.524:  The Reference Collection

 

 

 6 Oct      Women & Feminism in the Revolution

 

Discussion of *Jane Abray, "Feminism in the French Revolution," American Historical Review  80 (1975): 43-62 [McDermott Reference]; *Joan W. Scott, "French Feminists and the Rights of 'Man': Olympe de Gouges's Declarations," History Workshop 28 (1989): 1-21; and *Olwen Hufton, "In Search of Counter-Revolutionary Women," Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution (Toronto, 1992), 91-130

 

                             Recommended:  Dominique Godineau, The Women of Paris and Their French Revolution

 

 

  8 Oct     Second Library Session in McDermott 2.524:   Reference Works and Research Aids for the Arts and Humanities

 

 

 

       INTERPRETATIONS  AND  REPRESENTATIONS  OF  REVOLUTION

 

 

13 Oct     Political & Social Philosophies:  The Revolution Controversy

15 Oct           

 

Discussion of Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy, ed. Marilyn Butler, introduction and selections 2 (Price), 3 (Burke), 6 and 7 (Wollstonecraft), 9 (Priestley), 13 and 14 (Paine)

 

                             Recommended as well: 11 and 12 (Young), 17 (Horsley), 18 (Watson), 21 (More), and 29   (The Antijacobin)

                                                                          Carol Blum, Rousseau and the Republic of Virtue: The Language of Politics in the French

         Revolution

 

 

15 Oct     Second Writing Assignment: Bibliography Due

 

 

20 Oct     The Rhetoric of Revolution

 

                      Discussion of Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution, 1-51

 

 

22 Oct     Third Writing Assignment:  An Explication of Burke's Text  [Example]

 

Artistic Revolution:  Neoclassicism  &  Jacques-Louis David

 

                      Slide lecture with handout on David's career

 

 

27 Oct     Politics & High Art:  David as Jacobin Painter

 

Discussion of Jacques-Louis David's "Marat," ed. William Vaughn and Helen Weston (Cambridge, 2000),

Introduction and chs. 1-3  (If you have time, read also ch. 5.)

 

 

29 Oct     Art & Revolution:  The Imagery of Radicalism

 

                      Discussion of Hunt, 52-119

 

                             Recommended:  Joshua Taylor, Learning to Look: A Handbook for the Visual Arts  (2nd ed.)

   Hannah Mitchell, "Art and the French Revolution," History Workshop 5 (1978): 123-145

 

 

  3 Nov     Drama & Theater:  Georg Büchner's Revolution

  5 Nov

 

Discussion of Georg Büchner, Danton's Death (1835), trans. Victor Price, whose introduction you should also

read

 

                             Recommended:  John Hardman, Robespierre (Profiles in Power series)

 

 

10 Nov     History & Film:  Andrzej Wajda's Revolution

12 Nov

 

                      Viewing and discussion of Andrzej Wajda's Danton (1982)

               Read *Janina Falkowska, The Political Films of Andrzej Wajda (Providence and Oxford, 1996), 181-187,

for a schema of the film’s twenty-three sequences.

 

                             Recommended:  James Monaco, How to Read a Film, esp. chs. 1, 3, 4, and 5

                             *Mieczyslaw Szporer, “Andrzej Wajda’s Reign of Terror: Danton’s Polish Ambiance,” Film Quarterly 37.2 (1983):

27-33

 

 

12 Nov     Fourth Writing Assignment:  An Interpretive Essay on Büchner's Danton

 

 

17 Nov     Historical Biography:  Hampson's Revolutionary Leader

19 Nov    

 

                      Discussion of *Norman Hampson, Danton  [ Intro  1-3  4-6  7-8  9-10 ]

and continued discussion of Wajda's film

 

 

19 Nov     Second viewing of the Wajda film (for those who wish to see it again) at 4:00 p.m.  in  Jo 3.534   (130 minutes)

 

 

24 Nov     Music of the Revolution

 

                      Recordings  &  informal lecture on music during the revolution

 

Recommended:  J. A. Leith, "Music as an Ideological Weapon in the French Revolution," Canadian Historical

Association Annual Report 1966 (Ottawa, 1967): 126-140, and Laura Mason, "Ça ira and the Birth of the

Revolutionary Song," History Workshop 28 (1989): 22-38

 

 

 

  1 Dec    Afterthoughts  &  Course Evaluation

 

Final Writing Assignment:  Comparative Essay.     Unfortunately, I can not accept late papers.  Please attach a stamped self-addressed envelope, if you wish me to return the proposal with comments as well as your marks for the course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS

School of Arts & Humanities

 

HUMA 3300:  Reading & Writing Texts                                                                                                                 Fall, 2003

Topic:  The French Revolution                                                                                                                       Gerald Soliday

 

 

 

First  Writing  Assignment                                                                                                            Due   17 September

 

 

An Analytical Outline

 

 

       Your first writing assignment this term is an outline of Michael Fitzsimmons's "Privilege and the Polity in France, 1786-1791."  In no more than three single-spaced (or six double-spaced) typed pages, your outline should capture the major arguments Fitzsimmons makes in the article and also indicate some of the supporting positions or evidence he presents.

 

       Good advice on the preparation of outlines is found in a book all students in arts and humanities should get to know:  Norman F. Cantor & R. I. Schneider, How to Study History (Arlington Heights, IL, 1967), 208-209.  While you need not follow all the formal devices of traditional outlines, you should observe a few guidelines.  First, as Cantor and Schneider emphasize, the outline should present the author's arguments in clear, coherent fashion and should not merely list keywords to jog the reader's memory of them.  Complete sentences are generally preferable, though you need not always use them.  Then, second, as you relate arguments to one another in the outline, do observe the old convention that use of any subdivision implies that there are two or more such units, never just one.  In general, employ parallel construction with subdivisions.

 

       Think of the outline as something you could take from your files in six months to find a cogent presentation of Fitzsimmons's (not necessarily your own) views.  In that "skeleton guide," as Cantor calls it, you should emphasize arguments not facts and present them in clear, logically related form.

 

 

 

 

Second Writing Assignment                                                                                                             Due   15 October

 

 

Bibliography

 

 

       For this second assignment, you should decide on an issue, theme, or question concerning the French Revolution that could be explored in a paper of some fifteen pages, one that you could write over a semester while you are also taking a couple other courses as well.  While you will not be carrying out your proposed project, make it a reasonably focused and practicable one.  Write a paragraph identifying the topic and indicating why you find it of interest or importance.

 

       The core of the assignment lies not in the proposal itself but in the bibliography of some twelve to fifteen items you assemble for it.  Divide your list into primary sources and secondary works, with emphasis on materials available in the metropolitan Dallas area.  Use proper bibliographical form and also indicate both the library in which each item may be found as well as its call number.  Do not "pad" the bibliography.  If you think an item is likely to raise doubts in the instructor's mind about its relevance to your topic, indicate briefly why you think it helpful.  In a sense, then, you are providing an annotated bibliography, though your comments concern the location and relevance rather than a substantive evaluation of the titles listed.

 

       Chances are that finding primary sources will present the greatest difficulty, and I assume that you will include only a couple or three, though more are welcome.  Items translated from French are acceptable for your purposes here, of course, and you are also encouraged to consider nonverbal sources.  Most of your list will be secondary works, however, and you should include both books and articles.

 

 

 

 

Third  Writing  Assignment                                                                                                               Due  22 October

 

 

Explication of a Text

 

 

       As item three in her collection on the "revolution controversy" in England during the decade or so after 1789, Marilyn Butler has presented excerpts from Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France.  This document provides the text for your third writing assignment, a three- to four-page explication of the classic conservative rejection of the revolution.

 

       Your goals are to identify Burke's major arguments and to explain how they unfold idea by idea in his treatise.  Even in this abridged version, the text itself is too long for the word-by-word scrutiny you might normally encounter in the explication of a short poem or prose passage.  So, as in an analytical outline, you have to sort out different assertions, assess their relative importance, observe their interconnections, and then focus your attention on clarifying their substance.  Once again, as in your previous assignment, you are asked not so much to agree with or dispute the author's positions as to identify and clarify them for your readers.

 

       Write a short essay, then, that summarizes and elucidates Burke's condemnation of the reform movement in England and the revolution in France.  Although some paraphrasing may be necessary, make your explication an idea-by-idea commentary on the text.  It should demonstrate your ability to penetrate Burke's thought, to indicate just how he organized and developed his views, and thus to capture the general meaning and tone he conveyed in his Reflections.

 

 

 

 

Fourth Writing Assignment                                                                                                               Due   12 November

 

 

Interpretive Essay

 

 

In an essay between five and seven pages in length, discuss Georg Büchner's play, Danton's Death, as a commentary on revolutionary politics both in 1794 and in general.  While this paper is not an explication and should not proceed seriatim through the "arguments" of the drama, do anchor your interpretation in the text itself or in primary evidence quoted in the editor's introduction.

 

 

 

 

 

Final Writing Assignment                                                                                                                   Due   1 December

 

 

Comparative Essay

 

 

       Over the past few weeks you have examined three interpretations of Danton's character and role in the French Revolution:  Georg Büchner's drama, Andrzej Wajda's film, and Norman Hampson's historical biography.  In an essay of some ten to twelve pages in length, compare and contrast the treatment of Danton and, by extension, the view of revolutionary politics in these three works.  From your understanding of the texts themselves, what general goals and what artistic or scholarly considerations seem to inform the interpretations?  In what ways might political ideology, the interpreter's time and locale, or the interpretive medium (drama, film, historical research) have influenced these depictions of Danton and the revolution?

 

 

       The paper is due in class on Monday, 1 December.  Unfortunately, I cannot accept late papers.  Please attach a stamped self-addressed envelope, in which I may return the essay with comments as well as your marks for the course.