| Instructor: Dr. Carmen
Dell'Aversano |
Overview
The ability to interpret data in a reliable and original way is a crucial component of expertise in any scholarly or professional field. This module will make students familiar with some of the most important ideas in the history of hermeneutics, or the science of interpretation. We will examine some celebrated instances of how the interpretive process operates in such fields as history, law, psychology, science, medicine, computer science, and literature, and we will learn to appreciate how and why interpretations of the same thing can vary so much. Students will be presented with a wide variety of texts and will learn how to read them with close attention to their respective genres and cultural backgrounds. Students will also learn how to use texts to generate their own theses, how to identify, interpret, and use evidence, and how to argue points rigorously for an educated audience.
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Course Syllabus
|
UNIT 1
|
| Week 1 |
| Jan 3/4 |
Oliver Sacks "The President's Speech" and preliminary
issues.
Handout 1: Preparation for Week 1, Class 1. |
| Jan 6/7 |
Due in class: selection of two texts from the reading packet for Unit
1 with reasons for choice; three analytical questions with excerpts from
texts and discussion of the relationship between the excerpts and the questions.
Three are discussed in class; the others in conferences.
Handout 2: Preparation for Week 1, Class 2.
Worksheet: Elements of the Essay. |
| Week 2 |
| Jan 10/11 |
Draft of Essay 1 due in class. Instructions
on Cover Letter.
Workshop on introductions using introductions to various texts from Unit
2.
Workshop on transitions using Sacks's "The President's Speech". |
| Jan 13/14 |
Class workshop on two drafts; the rest are discussed in conferences.
"Reader's Worksheet" |
| Week 3 |
| (Jan 17-23) |
Conferences. "Instructions for Conference
Week 1". |
| Jan 20/21 |
Freud: Question time |
|
UNIT 2
|
| Week 4 |
| Jan 24/25 |
Final revision of Essay 1 due in class.
Jung: Question time |
| Jan 27/28 |
Profiles of Freud and Jung's theories constructed collaboratively
in class.
Handout 3. |
| Week 5 |
| Jan 31/Feb 1 |
Theory and practice in the interpretation of dreams.
Handout 4: Preparation for Monday 31/Tuesday 1st
Interpretive variability in historical reconstruction: Browning and Goldhagen.
Discussion opener: Browning and Goldhagen examine the same body of evidence
but come to very different conclusions. Why and how?
Handout 5. |
| Feb 3/4 |
How to compare meaningfully two very different texts; Arendt
and Milgram.
Handout 6: Preparation for Thursday 3 Feb/ Friday
4 Feb. |
| Week 6 |
| Feb 7/8 |
How to advance beyond a simplistic understanding of agreement
and disagreement to compare complex theories meaningfully: Arendt, Milgram
and Bauman.
Discussion: What is a good analytical question and how it is possible to
advance from a bad question to a good one?
Handout 7: Preparation for 1st Class Meeting |
| Feb 10/11 |
Two students bring to class short samples of nonfiction writing they
admire and discuss their merits.
Two pre-drafts are discussed.
Handout 8: Preparation for Week 3, Unit 2
|
| Week 7 |
| Feb 14/15 |
Class discussion ( Important Handout
for Unit 2 ):
Did any parts of any of the readings for this unit make a particularly deep
impression on you emotionally or intellectually (for example, by making
you change your mind about some important issue, or by opening up to you
an entirely new field of enquiry or mode of thought, or by extending, even
temporarily, your capacity for feeling and empathy)? If the answer is yes,
please select a couple of short passages that were particularly effective
on you as a reader, and try to understand, and to explain to your fellow
students, how they made their impact.
Did any parts of any of the readings for this unit strike you as particularly
boring or uninteresting, stupid or biassed? If the answer is yes, please
select a couple of short passages where these faults are, in your opinion,
particularly evident, and demonstrate them to your fellow students. |
| Feb 17/18 |
Two drafts are discussed in class. |
| Week 8 |
| Feb 20/27 |
Recess |
| Week 9 |
(Feb 28-
Mar 5) |
Conferences |
|
