Honors Humanities

Intellectual Traditions: The Experience of Being - Human Experience Through Story Telling (HON 2100)

Human beings have told stories for millennia. This interdisciplinary course focuses on stories in the broadest sense. We will explore primary materials and examine how a variety of individuals, from different times and places have articulated their human experience. Importantly, this exploration through reading, research, writing and creating will enable students to articulate their own story.

Pre-Requisite(s): Acceptance into the Honors Program, or Program Approval

Semesters Taught: Fall and Spring

This course investigates what it means to be human and what our stories tell us and others about our human experience. Students will engage with stories and perspectives of multiple individuals who have lived around the globe in various times and cultures and have experienced diverse life situations and experiences. Students will explore these stories through expressive mediums including literature, art, music, film, and ritual. The structure of this class is more of an ongoing conversation among students about things they read, see and listen to. Students will be expected to engage in a good amount of reading, research, and writing.

3.000 Credit hours

3.000 Lecture hours

This course fulfills the HU requirement for General Education

The humanities are the branches of learning that are concerned with the human experience. These experiences are manifest through literature, art, drama, music, philosophy, religion, political science, etc. They seek to make sense of human experience, relationships, and the events in the world around us. All of these strands of thinking are inextricably linked which is why an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the humanities is beneficial, if not necessary.

This interdisciplinary nature lends itself to the possibility of finding a multitude of complementary answers proposed to humankind’s fundamental and perennial questions. The main questions this course will address are: How does one tell their story? What does that story say about their identity and what does it tell us about ourselves and our culture? How do other cultures address this?

Creative Final Project, Reflection, and ePortfolio:

There will be no written final in this class. Instead, you will present your semester-long project. Since Humanities involves the study of humans, and this class is focused on telling the human experience through story, I want you to find a meaningful and creative way to tell someone’s story. You can pick any individual you would like, but you should be intentional about incorporating and synthesizing the themes and concepts from class and demonstrating critical thinking. You will present your project to the class on the last day of class. Presentations should be 5-7 minutes in length and you should be able to answer one or two questions from your classmates. To receive full credit for this assignment it must be posted on your ePortfolio along with the accompanying reflection.

ePortfolio:

By the end of the semester your ePortfolio should have the following items posted to your HON 2100 page:

Photo Research Essay
Final Project (in some format-- for example if you did a painting you could upload a photo of what you made for your project)
Explanation sheet of the story behind your project as well as your sources (if you haven't been able to share these in your original project)
Final Reflection (please include the prompt you choose on your ePortfolio and put your reflection below that)

Reflection:

The following prompt should guide you as you write your reflection:

Why did you choose the person you did? Why did you choose the medium you did? What did you learn by telling their story and creating this final project? (Be specific with respect to your work on the assignment and topics/skills/concepts you learned in the course). How did you specifically relate this person's story back to themes or ideas from class? Talk about the aims and strategies that led to the completion of your assignment. How did your thinking about it evolve over time? Be specific. What still needs work? How does this class relate or connect to other courses you are currently taking or have already taken at SLCC? (Please point to specific experiences while working on the assignment).

Project Reflection

I chose to focus my final project on Mario Savio (the leader of the Berkeley student protests during the 70's and is credited as having started the Free Speech Movement) because I’d been learning about him throughout the semester while doing my research on student protests. I felt he was someone who encapsulated a lot of the concepts we covered this semester. Savio embodied the intellectual that Chomsky described; he was someone willing to question higher authority and fight for his rights regardless of the risks. And, his resistance paid off! Things came full circle when the steps to Spraul Hall, the very steps he was arrested upon for civil disobedience, were dedicated to him a year after he died.

Savio’s life fits incredibly well with the themes of this course. In a book review of a biography about Savio written by Robert Cohen, Bettina Aptheker wrote, “Mario's eloquence, his belief in goodness and redemption, his personal horror at the suffering he saw in pictures of the Holocaust from his post-World War II childhood, and that he witnessed in the Mississippi in the 1960s, Vietnam in the 1970s, Nicaragua in the 1980s, and Latino/Chicano immigrant communities in California in the 1990s, shaped his life.” Each of these pivotal moments in Savio’s life were discussed in class at one point or another from the Vietnam war to immigration and refugees.

I decided to portray Savio’s legacy by creating a protest picket sign composed of authentic protest posters from Berkeley students during the 60’s and 70’s. I was taken away by the psychedelic, bright and bold designs that I couldn’t pick just one. I ended up collaging several together, along with a few pictures of Savio, and adding a combination of oil pastel, paint and alcohol based markers on top to make a more saturated result. I feel like adding my own touches with the various art supplies made a huge difference because and really made the key features pop. I had a ton of fun learning more about the art scene behind those iconic designs and their process of creation.

Sources

Aptheker, Bettina. “FREEDOM’S ORATOR: MARIO SAVIO AND THE RADICAL LEGACY OF THE 1960s.” Tikkun (Duke University Press), vol. 25, no. 1, Jan. 2010, pp. 62–63. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lkh&AN=47582061&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

“Library Home.” Open Collections, open.library.ubc.ca/collections/berkpost. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

Margulius, Dave. “Berkeley Protest Posters of the 1960s and 70s.” Dave Margulius On Climate, 12 Aug. 2023, davemargulius.com/berkeley-protest-posters-1968-to-73/.

Person, and Redazione. “Il Discorso Di Mario Savio a Berkeley, Nel 1964.” Il Post, Il Post, 5 Oct. 2014, www.ilpost.it/2014/10/05/mario-savio/.

[Unknown], and Carson-Morris. “[Money Talks: Boycott War Profiteers] and [Psychedelic Calendar].” P. [Unknown] ; [San Fransisco] : Images Inc., 1973. Original Format: University of British Columbia. Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. Berkeley Poster Collection. Web. 5 Dec. 2024. <https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/berkpost/items/1.0001618>. Berkeley 1968-1973 Poster Collection.

[Unknown]. “[Don’t Be a Silent Part of the War Machine].” P. N.p., 1973. Original Format: University of British Columbia. Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. Berkeley Poster Collection. Web. 5 Dec. 2024. <https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/berkpost/items/1.0001335>. Berkeley 1968-1973 Poster Collection.

[Unknown]. “[Peace Now].” P. N.p., 1973. Original Format: University of British Columbia. Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. Berkeley Poster Collection. Web. 5 Dec. 2024. <https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/berkpost/items/1.0001246>. Berkeley 1968-1973 Poster Collection.

[Unknown]. “[Unite].” P. N.p., 1973. Original Format: University of British Columbia. Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. Berkeley Poster Collection. Web. 5 Dec. 2024. <https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/berkpost/items/1.0001422>. Berkeley 1968-1973 Poster Collection.

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