Who are we?  Where do we come from?  Why do we think the way we do?

This course answers those questions by focussing on the foundations of Western culture which are found in the ancient world.  The Greeks, the Romans, the Hebrews, and the Christians all created cultural traditions, and left behind magnificent bodies of literature.  Today aspects of each of these traditions are alive and functioning in our everyday lives.  They help to make us who we are.  They give answers to fundamental questions of human existence, such as “What is the purpose of life?”  “What is the best way to live?”  “What do I owe to my neighbour?” These answers sometimes conflict with each other.  The four traditions oppose one another in important ways.  This gives us, and our culture, the opportunity to choose what seems best to us.

Each tradition has a mythology.  We will discuss the relation between mythologies and religion, and compare the montheism of the Jewish and Christian religions with the polytheism of Greece and Rome.  In examining these religions, we will make an effort to imagine what it is like to be a believer in each of them.  We will also, at times, take the anthropologist’s perspective on religion and culture, and look at them from the outside, as non-believers.

Much of Western Literature assumes that the reader is familiar with certain details of classical and Biblical literature.  Stephen Dedalus is the protagonist of a famous Irish novel, but his last name is Greek, and the story of how Dedalus escaped from the labyrinth of the Minotaur (by learning to fly) is central to the theme of the book. This course will provide you with background informaion which will enrich your reading in the future.

We will spend more than half of our class time together in discussion.  This will allow each student to contribute his or her understanding of the text, and to work out, through negotiation,  what we feel the meaning of the story is.  This kind of reader-response discussion can be a powerful method for generating self-knowledge. 

Each student will write one short and one long essay, and a final exam.  There will be quizzes on the material read, and each student will be required to do one class presentation.

Classes will be in the Massey Library, room 306, on Tuesday at 1100 hours, Wednesday at 1000 hours, and on Friday at 1340 hours (Arts Group 1).