Readings

Tuesday, April 4

: (no reading, ﬁrst class). (Lecture on YouTube.)

Thursday, April 6

: No class due to the ﬁrst day of Passover.

Monday, April 10

: 3:20–4:55pm, via Zoom only. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), Dissertation Concerning the Nature of True Virtue (published posthumously, 1765), selections. (Lecture on YouTube.)

Tuesday, April 11

: Via Zoom only. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), the Declaration of Independence; Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), “Short Review of the Declaration” (1776); Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806) (and Thomas Jefferson), Copy of a Letter from Benjamin Banneker to the Secretary of State, with his Answer (1792); William Apess (1798–1839), short selection from Indian Nulliﬁcation (1835); Harriet Martineau (1802–1878), short selection from Society in America (1837); Margaret Fuller (1810–1850), “The Fourth of July” (1845). (Lecture on YouTube.)

Thursday, April 13

: No class, due to the eighth day of Passover.

Monday, April 17

: 3:20–4:55pm, via Zoom only. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), “The American Scholar” (1837). (Lecture on YouTube.)

Tuesday, April 18

: Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), “Civil Disobedience” (1849). (Lecture on YouTube.)

Thursday, April 20

: Thoreau, Walden (1854), “Economy,” pp. 1–7 (through “on that basis”), 10–13 (from “If I should attempt” to “of the earth”), 47–52 (from “But all this is very” through “like the cypress”); “Solitude” pp. 84–8 (from “There is commonly” through “friends sometimes”); “Visitors,” pp. 93–100 (from “As for men” through “that race”); “The Village,” pp. 108–12; “Baker Farm,” pp. 130–36; “Brute Neighbors,” pp. 148–50 (from “I was witness” through “Fugitive-Slave Bill”); “Conclusion,” pp. 206–16. (Lecture on YouTube.)

Tuesday, April 25

: Josiah Royce (1855–1916), Philosophy of Loyalty (1910), ch. 2. (Lecture on YouTube.)

Thursday, April 27

: Royce, Philosophy of Loyalty, ch.’s 3–5 (selections). (Lecture on YouTube.)

Tuesday, May 2

: Jane Addams (1860–1935), Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), ch. 1 and selections from ch.’s 2, 5, and 7. First writing assignment due. (Lecture on YouTube.)

Thursday, May 4

: Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912), “Anarchism” (1901); “Anarchism and American Traditions” (1908/9); “The Dominant Idea” (1910). (Lecture on YouTube.)

Tuesday, May 9

: W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963), “The Conservation of Races” (1897); from The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (1903): “The Forethought”; “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”; “Of the Wings of Atalanta”; “Of the Faith of the Fathers”; “Of the Sorrow Songs”. (Lecture on YouTube.)

Thursday, May 11

: Du Bois, from Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil (1920): “Credo”; “The Souls of White Folk”; “The Riddle of the Sphinx”; “Of the Ruling of Men”; “Beauty and Death”. (Lecture on YouTube.)

Tuesday, May 16

: John Dewey (1859–1952), Individualism, Old and New (1930), ch. 1–5 (pp. 5–49). (Lecture on YouTube.)

Thursday, May 18

: Dewey, Individualism, Old and New, ch.’s 6–8 (pp. 50–93). (Lecture on YouTube.)

Tuesday, May 23

: George Grant (1918–1988), Lament for a Nation: the Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (1965), ch.’s 3–5 (pp. 26–66). For background, you may want to look at the Wikipedia article on John Diefenbaker, especially this section and this section. (Lecture on YouTube.)

Thursday, May 25

: Via Zoom only (due to the ﬁrst day of Shavuot). Grant, Lament for a Nation, ch.’s 6–7, and Afterword (by Sheila Grant) (pp. 67–99). (Lecture on YouTube.)

Tuesday, May 30

: V.F. Cordova (1935–2002), How It Is: The Native American Philosophy of V.F. Cordova, “Bridges” (pp. 11–45), “Windows on Academics” and “Windows on Native American Philosophy” (pp. 49–60); “They Have a Different Idea about That …” (pp. 69–75); “Becoming Human” (pp. 165–70). Second writing assignment due. (Lecture on YouTube.)

Thursday, June 1

: Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975–), Between the World and Me (2015), beginning of part I (pp. 1–39, through “Perhaps we should return to Mecca”). (Lecture on YouTube.)

Tuesday, June 6

: Coates, Between the World and Me, end of part I and beginning of part II (pp. 39–114, through “We were right”). (Lecture on YouTube.)

Thursday, June 8

: Coates, Between the World and Me, end of part II and part III (pp. 114–152). (Lecture on YouTube.)

Wednesday, June 14

: Final paper due.