Here is a list of the editions and translations we are using.
To view a plain-text schedule of the readings,
without the Internet links, please click here.
This course is taught in many sections, but remains a single course common to all students.
Here are our Common Course Description and Common Procedures and Learning Goals.
Unless otherwise noted, assignments are given by section, book, part, act, sura, or chapter, not page.Fall Semester 2011
Unit One, Journeys
8/31 W Homer Odyssey, 1-4. The Perseus Digital Library, at Tufts University, is an enormous database of materials on Greek culture including text, maps and other images.
9/2 F Homer, Odyssey, 5-8. Mycenean grave goods may correspond to the sort of gifts lavished on Telemachus and Odysseus.
9/5 M Homer, Odyssey, 9-12. The University of Chicago library has helpfully provided a list of sites of interest for classics.
9/7, W Homer, Odyssey, 13-16. If you are interested in the mythological background, a good starting point is this classical myth page put up by the Department of Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Victoria.
9/9, F Homer, Odyssey, 17-20. Plenary Session, Sherwood Gymnasium, Professor Dana Burgess. The Austrian Academy of Sciences maintains a page with fragments of Ancient Greek Music.
9/12, M Homer, Odyssey, 21-24. This site of images from Ancient Greece has good pictures of the citadel at Mycenae.
9/14, W Bhagavad Gita, 1-2. A brief introduction to the Gita with resource links is at Exploring Ancient World Cultures, a helpful site for comparing ancient cultures provided by the University of Evansville.
9/16, F Bhagavad Gita, 3-6. You can listen to the Gita online in Sanskrit (and other languages).
9/19, M Bhagavad Gita, 7-12. Watch a dramatization of part of the Gita from the Indian television adapation of the Mahabharat, the much longer epic of which the Gita is only a part (starts at 5:20).
9/21, W Bhagavad Gita, 13-18. Alternatively, listen to a part of the Gita, in Sanskrit, used as libretto by Philip Glass, for his opera on Gandhi, Satyagraha (audio file at foot of page; other links all broken, alas); more details in the New York Times review.
9/23, F Spiegelman, Maus, I.1-3. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has many resources on the Holocaust, including an encyclopedia and an animated historical map.
9/26 M Spiegelman, Maus, I.4-6. The Jewish Museum in Berlin recently mounted an exhibition on Heroes, Freaks, and Super-Rabbis, in Jewish comic art.
9/28 W Spiegelman, Maus, II.1-2. The American Library Association has put together a website of digital resources for studying comic books and graphic novels.
9/30 F Spiegelman, Maus, II.3-5. In 2008, Art Speigelman gave a long interview on his career in comics.
10/3 M Instructor's choice
Unit Two, Encounters with Divinity
10/5 W The Tanakh, Genesis, 1-11. Alan Humm at the University of Pennsylvania has put up a translation of a Babylonian creation myth.
10/7 F Genesis, 12-22. Rogers Miles of the religion department at Whitman has collected various artists' impressions of the Binding of Isaac.
10/10 M Fall Break
10/12 W The Tanakh, Exodus, 1-15. Nova has done a program on the Exodus and its enduring legacy.
10/14 F Exodus, 16-24, 32-34. The story of Moses and the Exodus was inspiration for several African-American spirituals, as discussed (with music) at Sweet Chariot: The Story of the Spirituals, at the University of Denver's website.
10/17 M Euripides, The Bacchae (entire). Roger Dunkle of the Brooklyn College Core has put together a useful Introduction to Greek Tragedy.
10/19 W Euripides, The Bacchae. For a red-figured vase portrayal of the myth, courtesy of UT Austin, click here. For a review of a recent Scottish production, see the New York Times.
10/21 F New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), New Testament, The Gospel of Luke, 1-9:50. The World Wide Study Bible comes from Calvin College. It contains handy access to several translations with associated religious commentary from an American Protestant tradition.
10/24 M The Gospel of Luke, 9:51-19:27. The Franciscans have provided a virtual pilgramage taking you through Jerusalem and the surrounding areas mentioned in the Gospels.
10/26 W The Gospel of Luke, 19:28-24. The Library of Congress has an on-line exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
10/28 F Ibn Ishaq, the life of Muhammad, bottom of p. 103 to p. 115, excerpt on e-reserve (as Ibn Hisham) AND The Qur'an, 1, 96:1-4, 112, 113, 114, 2:255, and 24:35. Plenary Session, Cordiner Hall. Professor Andrew Rippin, University of Victoria. To look at the Arabic text and listen to sura 1 (various reciters available) go to www.quranexplorer.com. You can find other translations at www.altafsir.com.
10/31 M The Qur'an, 11, 14, 29, 37, and 54. Carl Ernst at the University of North Carolina maintains a Qur'an Study Page.
11/2 W The Qur'an, 2:29-39, 2:117; 4:1; 7:10-36, 7:54, 7:189; 10:4; 20:116-123; 21:16-17; 23:12-14; 27:64; 29:19-20; 32:4; 35 (all); 36:82; 50:38; 51:47-49; 57:4-6; 79:27-33. Brannon Wheeler, at the US Naval Academy, has put together a collection of images of manuscripts of the Qur'an across the centuries.
11/4 F The Qur'an, 2, esp. 149-286. Islam has produced a rich culture, the variety of which is evident at the website for PBS' documentary, Islam, Empire of Faith.
11/7 M Instructor's choice.
Unit Three, Social and Political Encounters
11/9 W Seneca, Selected Letters,, 8, 9, 16, 18, 48, 84, and 90. Seneca is famous for his (rather bloody) tragedies as well, like Medea; we'll be reading Euripides' version later this year.
11/11 F Seneca, "On the Private Life," on e-reserve. Despite his preference for the quiet retired life, Seneca is on Facebook.
11/14 M Marx, Selected Writings, "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts," pp. 54-79. Terminological help can be found at The Marx/Engels Internet Archive's Encyclopedia of Marxism.
11/16 W Marx, Selected Writings,"Theses on Feuerbach," pp. 98-101; "Preface to a Contribution on the Critique of Political Economy," pp. 209-13. Here is the text of an 1879 Chicago Tribune article on an interview with Karl Marx.
11/18 F Marx, Selected Writings, "The Communist Manifesto," pp. 157-76, 185-86. Can one have a light-hearted take on Marx? The makers of the Manifestoon seem to think so!
Thanksgiving Break
11/28 M Gandhi, "The Message of the Gita," on e-reserve; Selected Political Writings, I, pp. 35-37, 41-42, 44-45, 51-57, 69-71, and 75-79. Listen to Gandhi speak in London in 1931.
11/30 W Gandhi, Selected Political Writings, pp. 98-100, 103-07, 121-22, 135-37, and 148-50. For more information on Gandhi, see the website of the Gandhi Book Center.
11/30 W 7-9, Maxey Auditorium: Screening, Pontecorvo, Battle of Algiers.
12/1 R 7-9, Maxey Auditorium: Screening, Pontecorvo, Battle of Algiers.
12/2 F Pontecorvo, Battle of Algiers. For how the film came about, including a few quotes from early reviews, see this Cineaste article (on-campus or Whitman users only; may have to hit back or refresh when first logging in).
12/4 S 7-9, Maxey Auditorium: Screening, Pontecorvo, Battle of Algiers.
12/5 M Pontecorvo, Battle of Algiers. When the film was re-released, Saadi Yacef, the leader of the FLN who appears in the movie, gave this interview.
12/7 W Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail. More on "Project C" in Birmingham, including short video clips of the treatment of the protesters, is at the Eyes on the Prize site from PBS.
12/9 F Instructor's choice.
12/13 T 9-11 Final Exam
Return to the top .
Spring Semester 2012
Unit Four, Truth and Doubt
1/18 W Plato, Symposium pp. 1-39. Here is an essay by John Thorp of the University of Western Ontario on The Social Construction of Homosexuality which considers the Greek context and the modern perspective of Foucault.
1/20 F Plato, Symposium pp. 40-60. Non-academics can make contributions too: here is data processor and Plato student Bernard Suzanne's take on Plato and His Dialogues from the Exploring Ancient World Cultures site.
1/23 M Plato, Symposium pp. 61-77. The idealism presented by Diotima is related to the famous Allegory of the Cave from Plato's Republic, discussed here in notes by Marc Cohen at the University of Washington.
1/25 W Augustine, Confessions, 1-3. From J.J. O'Donnell at Georgetown University, comes a good introduction to Augustine.
1/27 F Augustine, Confessions, 4-6. Here is a brief biography of Augustine from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
1/30 M Augustine, Confessions, 7. Augustine had read not Plato but Plotinus, whose ideas are discussed in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
2/1 W Augustine, Confessions, 8-9. Plenary Session, Cordiner Hall, Professor Teresa Dipasquale. Here is an artistic rendering of Augustine's conversion, by the workshop of Fra Angelico (15th c.) (note: slow-loading; good art comes to those who wait).
2/3 F Augustine, Confessions 10. To get a sense of Augustine's influence on Catholic theology, go to the internet version of the old Catholic Encyclopedia.
2/6 M Shakespeare, Othello, I. Interested in seeing Shakespeare? Go to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where Dan Donohue, Whitman class of 1988, played Iago in 2008 (click here for a preview of the production).
2/8 W Shakespeare, Othello, II-III. Shakespeare has global reach, as MIT's website on Shakespeare in Asia makes clear.
2/10 F Shakespeare, Othello, IV. Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet shows Shakespeare's virtual reach.
2/13 M Shakespeare, Othello, V. Go here for a (somewhat slow-loading) virtual tour of the Globe Theatre. For something quicker, here is an ultra-condensed version of Othello, from Book-A-Minute Classics.
2/15 W Galileo, Letter to Grand Duchess Christina. The Galileo Project has a site full of images and information on Galileo and his times.
2/17 F Instructor's choice
2/20 M President's Day
2/22 W Descartes, Discourse on Method, 1-3. This site at St. Andrews has some background on Descartes and his work in math and physics.
2/24 F Descartes, Discourse on Method, 4. Here are some notes about Descartes and the Legacy of Mind/Body Dualism, from Bryn Mawr.
2/27 M Descartes, Discourse on Method, 5-6. Descartes is in some ways otherwordly.
2/27 M Screening, Rashomon, 7-9 P.M., Maxey Auditorium.
2/28 T Screening, Rashomon, 7-9 P.M., Maxey Auditorium.
2/29 W Kurosawa, Rashomon. PBS has featured Kurosawa in its Great Performances.
2/29 W Lecture on Rashomon, 7:30 P.M., Cordiner by Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, Associate Professor of East Asian Studies, New York University, the author of Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Culture and currently teaching at Waseda University in Tokyo.
3/1 R Screening, Rashomon, 7-9 P.M., CORDINER.
3/2 F Rashomon. The short stories from which the film was adapted, "In a Grove" and "Rashomon," were written by Akutagawa Ryunosuke.
3/4 S Screening, Rashomon, 4-6 P.M., Maxey Auditorium.
3/5 M Rashomon. Rashomon's long-reaching influence on film and television is evident still today.
3/7 W Frayn, Copenhagen, I. The National Arts Centre of Canada has put together a primer on quantum mechanics and the history of the atomic bomb for playgoers.
3/9 F Frayn, Copenhagen, II. For more information on Frayn and his play, including an interview, check out PBS' Copenhagen page.
Spring Break
Unit Five, Identity and Difference
3/26 M Euripides, "The Trojan Women" (entire). An outstanding academic site on the web for material on women in the Ancient World is Diotima, Materials for the Study of Women and Gender in the Ancient World.
3/28 W Euripides, "The Trojan Women". Tom Hines of Whitman's own theater department has put together the impressive Ancient Theatre Archive, a "virtual reality tour" of many Greek and Roman theatres.
3/30 F Paul, Romans, 1-8 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). For a collection of websites and articles on the New Testament, including the Gospels and Paul, see the New Testament Gateway.
4/2 M Paul, Romans, 9-end. PBS allows you to follow in Paul's footsteps around the Mediterranean.
4/4 W The Broken Spears, 1-5. One of the manuscipts Portilla draws on for his edition is the Codex Florentine.
4/6 F The Broken Spears, 6-10. For images of Aztec life, culture, and art, go to Latinamericanstudies.org.
4/9 M The Broken Spears, 11-15. Here's what Cortes wrote to Emperor Charles V describing Temixtitlan (Mexico City).
4/11 W Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Poems, Protest, and A Dream, "Loa" to "The Divine Narcissus," pp. 195-239. Dartmouth College's Department of Spanish and Portuguese has put together a detailed Sor Juana Project; most of the material is in Spanish but the "Chronology" is in English. Another timeline in English can be found at OSU.
4/13 F Sor Juana, "Response to the Most Illustrious Poetess Sor Filotea," pp. 1-75. More information, in Spanish, is at the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes.
4/16 M Instructor's choice.
4/18 W Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part I. Plenary Session, Cordiner Hall, Professor David Schmitz. The Conrad society has put together a good overview of student resources for Conrad and his novel.
4/20 F Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part II. Need to find a passage or quotation quickly? The Victorian Literary Studies archive has put together a Hyper-Concordance for Conrad's works (useful for finding quotations half-remembered!).
4/23 M Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part III. The Nigerian poet and novelist Chinua Achebe was highly critical of Conrad's portrayal of Africa in his article, "An Image of Africa."
4/25 W Morrison, Beloved, I to the end of the carnival. Check out the Kentucky Underground Railroad site for some historical background (courtesy of Kentucky Educational Television).
4/27 F Morrison, Beloved, I from Beloved's appearance to her dress in the water. Here is a page from "Voice of the Shuttle" (a website woven by Alan Liu of the English Department at UC Santa Barbara) on minority voices in [American] literature.
4/30 M Morrison, Beloved, to the end of I. Here is the text of "My Bondage and My Freedom" by Frederick Douglass.
5/2 W Morrison, Beloved, II. The Library of Congress has an on-line "resource guide for the study of black history and culture" at this site entitled "The African-American Mosaic".
5/4 F Morrison, Beloved, III. "Bartleby" has the text of W.E.B. DuBois' The Souls of Black Folk.
5/7, M Instructor's choice. From John Churchill, Secretary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, comes an essay on liberal education and its enduring relevance to democratic society.
5/15 T 2-4 Final Exam
Return to the top.
Click below for reading lists from past years:
This document was last updated February 1, 2012. This page is currently maintained by Claire Valente; send any comments or suggestions to me.
