scribespark: Humanities & Film

Humanities II (Modern)

Jae Jerkins — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 22:43:28 GMT

MODULE I – The Rebirth (1454-1603)

Sec 1 • Defining the Modern

1.1 Modus & Modo: The Method & the Way
1.2 Optimism & the Promise of Progress
1.3 Reason, Secularism, & the Individual
1.4 Mapping the Modern: 4 Ages in 15 Weeks

Read: Jervis, Exploring the Modern
Art: Duccio's Madonna & Dürer's Self-Portrait
Listen: Hildegard's chant & Josquin's polyphony

Sec 2 • Renaissance & the Printing Press

2.1 Rebirth: The Medici, Humanism, & the Dignity of Man
2.2 Genius: Leonardo, Michelangelo, & Raphael
2.3 1454: Gutenberg & the First Information Age
2.4 Machiavelli: Politics without Heaven

Culture & Values chs. 12–13
Read: Machiavelli, The Prince (sel.)
Art: Botticelli, Birth of Venus & Raphael, School of Athens
Listen: Josquin, Ave Maria… Virgo serena

Sec 3 • Reformation & the New Heavens

3.1 Luther & the Fracturing of Christendom
3.2 Trent & the Counter-Reformation
3.3 1543: Copernicus & the De-Centered Cosmos
3.4 Elizabeth & Shakespeare: Halmet’s Modern Mind

Culture & Values ch. 14
Read: Luther, Reformation Writings (sel.)
Read²: Shakespeare, Hamlet (sel.)
Art: Dürer's prints; Holbein, The Ambassadors
Listen: Dowland, “Come Again” & Luther, “Ein feste Burg”

MODULE II – Early Modern Philosophy (1604-1775)

Sec 4 • Baroque & the New Science

4.1 Splendor & Shadow: Bernini, Caravaggio, & Rome
4.2 The Dutch Golden Age: Rembrandt, Vermeer, & the Market
4.3 1633: Galileo & the New Science on Trial
4.4 Newton’s Clockwork: The Mechanical Cosmos

Culture & Values ch. 15
Read: Galileo, Starry Messenger (sel.)
Art: Caravaggio, The Calling of St. Matthew & Bernini, Ecstasy of St. Teresa
Art²: Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson & Vermeer, The Astronomer
Listen: Bach & Handel

Sec 5 • Leviathan: The State & Social Contract

5.1 Hobbes after the Civil War
5.2 Locke: Property, Toleration, & the Blank Slate
5.3 Versailles: Absolutism as Theatre
5.4 Rousseau & the General Will

Culture & Values ch. 15 (cont.)
Read: Hobbes, Leviathan (sel.), & Locke, Second Treatise (sel.)
Art: the Leviathan frontispiece & Rigaud, Louis XIV
Listen: Lully at the Sun King's court & Purcell

Sec 6 • The Enlightenment & Its Shadows

6.1 Sapere Aude: Philosophes, Salons, & the Encyclopédie
6.2 Candide: Voltaire Against Optimism
6.3 First Nations: The Americas & Enlightenment's Others
6.4 The Classical Style: Mozart, Haydn, & the Age of Elegance

Culture & Values chs. 16 & 19
Read: Voltaire, Candide (sel.); Kant, "What Is Enlightenment?";
Read²: Waters, American Indian Thought (sel.); Stannard, American Holocaust (sel.)
Art: Fragonard, The Swing; the Templo Mayor & the codices
Listen: Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro (sel.)

MODULE III – Nationalism & Industry (1776-1913)

Sec 7 • The Age of Revolutions

7.1 1776: Common Sense & the Rights of Man
7.2 1789: Paris, the Terror, & the Marseillaise
7.3 Athens on the Potomac: Neoclassicism & the New Republics
7.4 Goya & Napoleon: The Birth of Nationalism

Culture & Values chs. 19-20
Read: Paine, Common Sense (sel.); Hutchinson & Smith, Nationalism (sel.)
Art: David, Oath of the Horatii & Death of Marat; Goya, The Third of May 1808
Listen: “La Marseillaise” & Beethoven, Eroica (and the torn dedication)

Sec 8 • Romanticism & Modern Science

8.1 Sturm und Drang: Goethe & the Sorrows of the Self
8.2 The Sublime: Friedrich, Turner, & Beethoven
8.3 Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus
8.4 Questioning Progress: Romanticism Against the Machine

Culture & Values ch. 20
Read: Shelley, Frankenstein (novel #1) & Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (sel.)
Art: Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog & Turner's storms; Fuseli, The Nightmare
Listen: Schubert, Erlkönig; Beethoven’s No. 5; Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique

Sec 9 • Industry & Empire

9.1 The Machine Age: Coal, Rail, & the Crystal Palace
9.2 Metropolis: Picturing the Industrial City
9.3 Europeans Seize the World: Africa & the Colonizer's Model
9.4 Uncle Tom's Cabin: Abolition & the Sentimental Weapon

Culture & Values chs. 17-18, 20
Read: Mudimbe, The Idea of Africa (sel.) & Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (sel.)
Read²: Dickens, Hard Times (rec.)
Art: the Crystal Palace; Turner, The Slave Ship; the camera goes to the colonies
Listen: spirituals — “Go Down Moses”
Screen (first film): Metropolis

Sec 10 • Marx & the Age of Oil

10.1 1848: The Manifesto & the Specter of Revolution
10.2 Alienation: The Self on the Assembly Line
10.3 The Prize: Rockefeller & the Age of Oil
10.4 Realism: Courbet, Daumier, & Painting the Poor

Culture & Values chs. 20-21
Read: Marx, The Communist Manifesto (sel.); Yergin, The Prize (sel.)
Read²: Economides, The Color of Oil (sel.); Huxley, Brave New World (sel. — "Our Ford")
Art: Courbet, The Stone Breakers & Daumier, Third-Class Carriage;
Art²: Millet, The Gleaners & Menzel, The Iron Rolling Mill
Listen: Joplin's ragtime — music for a mass age
Screen (brief selection): Modern Times

Sec 11 • Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, & the Fin de Siècle

11.1 The Present Age: Kierkegaard Against the Crowd
11.2 Zarathustra: Nietzsche & the Death of God
11.3 The Painted Moment: Impressionism & Its Rebels
11.4 The Nervous Age: Darwin, Freud, & Mahler's Hammer

Culture & Values ch. 21
Read: Kierkegaard, The Present Age (sel.); Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (sel.)
Art: Monet, Impression, Sunrise; Van Gogh, The Starry Night
Art²: Cézanne & Hokusai & Japonisme
Listen: Debussy, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
Listen²: Mahler, Symphony No. 6 in A Minor (1906) and its hammer blows!

MODULE IV – The End of Modernity (1914-1960s)

Sec 12 • The World at War

12.1 1914: Machine Guns, Mustard Gas, & All Quiet
12.2 The Modernist Rupture: Dada, Duchamp, & The Rite
12.3 The Grapes of Wrath: Depression & the New Deal
12.4 Night: The Holocaust & the Break in Civilization

Culture & Values ch. 22
Read: Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (sel.) & Wiesel, Night (sel.)
Read²: Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (sel.) & Freud, Civilization & Its Discontents (sel.)
Art: Otto Dix's war prints; Duchamp, Fountain; Dalí;
Art²: Lange, Migrant Mother; Picasso, Guernica
Listen: Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring; Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5 in D Minor
Screen (sel.): All Quiet on the Western Front (1930); Night and Fog

Sec 13 • Aftermath: The Bomb & the Absurd

13.1 By the Bomb's Early Light: Hiroshima & the Atomic Imagination
13.2 Existentialism: Sartre, Beauvoir, & Freedom After Auschwitz
13.3 The Stranger: Camus & the Colonial Absurd
13.4 New York Steals Modern Art: Pollock, Rothko, & Bebop

Culture & Values ch. 23
Read: Camus, The Stranger (novel #2) & Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light (sel.)
Read²: Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism (sel.) & Beauvoir, The Second Sex (sel.)
Art: Pollock's drips & Rothko's fields
Listen: Parker's bebop; Cage, 4′33″

Sec 14 • The Culture Industry & the Cold War

14.1 Manipulation: Adorno & the Culture Industry
14.2 One-Dimensional Man: Marcuse, Madison Avenue, & Suburbia
14.3 Strange Fruit to Selma: Civil Rights & the Counterculture
14.4 Dr. Strangelove: The Binary World

Culture & Values ch. 23
Read: Adorno & Horkheimer, The Culture Industry (sel.) & Marcuse, 1-Dem. Man (sel.)
Read²: Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture (sel.) & MLK, Ltr from Birmingham Jail
Art: Warhol's soup cans, Lichtenstein’s pop art, & Levittown through the lens
Listen: Holiday, Strange Fruit, Bob Dylan, & Hendrix's Star-Spangled Banner
Screen (sel.): Dr. Strangelove

Sec 15 • The Postmodern Critique

15.1 The Postmodern Condition: Lyotard & the End of Grand Narratives
15.2 Simulacra: Baudrillard, Warhol, & Hyperreality
15.3 The 21st Century & Its Discontents
15.4 Do Androids Dream?: Blade Runner, AI, & the Inhuman

Culture & Values ch. 23
Read: Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition (sel.) & The Inhuman (sel.)
Read²: Baudrillard, Sim & Simul. (sel.) & Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (sel.)
Art: Venturi & Gehry — architecture after modernism
Art²: Nam June Paik's screens & the machine-made image (2020s)
Listen: Glass & Reich's minimalism; Kraftwerk, Computer World; sampling as pastiche
Screen (film #2): Blade Runner

Humanities I & II

Jae Jerkins — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 21:57:27 GMT

ANCIENT HUMANITIES

as taught at Tyler Junior College

MODULE I – Early Civilizations

Sec 1 • In the Beginning

1.1 What is Civilization?
1.2 A Revolution in Food
1.3 The Bronze & Iron Ages

Sec 2 • Ancient Mesopotamia

2.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
2.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
2.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

Sec 3 • Ancient Egypt

3.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
3.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
3.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

Sec 4 • Ancient India

4.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
4.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
4.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

Sec 5 • Ancient China

5.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
5.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
5.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

MODULE II – The Greco-Roman Traditions

Sec 6 • Early Greece

6.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
6.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
6.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

Sec 7 • Hellenistic Greece

7.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
7.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
7.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

Sec 8 • The Romans

8.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
8.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
8.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

MODULE III – The Abrahamic Traditions

Sec 9 • Ancient Israel

9.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
9.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
9.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

Sec 10 • Early Christendom

10.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
10.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
10.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

Sec 11 • Early Islam

11.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
11.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
11.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

MODULE IV – The Rise of Europe

Sec 12 • The Holy Roman Empire

12.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
12.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
12.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

Sec 13 • The High Middle Ages

13.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
13.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
13.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

Sec 14 • The Late Middle Ages

14.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
14.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
14.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

Sec 15 • The Renaissance

15.1 Intro • Context • Timeline
15.2 Politics • Religion • Wisdom
15.3 Texts • Arts • Contributions

MODERN HUMANITIES

as taught at Florida State University

MODULE I – The Rebirth (1454-1603)

Sec 1 • Defining the Modern

1.1 Modus & Modo: The Method & the Way
1.2 Optimism & the Promise of Progress
1.3 Reason, Secularism, & the Individual
1.4 Mapping the Modern: 4 Ages in 15 Weeks

Read: Jervis, Exploring the Modern
Art: Duccio’s Madonna & Dürer’s Self-Portrait
Listen: Hildegard’s chant & Josquin’s polyphony

Sec 2 • Renaissance & the Printing Press

2.1 Rebirth: The Medici, Humanism, & the Dignity of Man
2.2 Genius: Leonardo, Michelangelo, & Raphael
2.3 1454: Gutenberg & the First Information Age
2.4 Machiavelli: Politics without Heaven

Culture & Values chs. 12–13
Read: Machiavelli, The Prince (sel.)
Art: Botticelli, Birth of Venus & Raphael, School of Athens
Listen: Josquin, Ave Maria… Virgo serena

Sec 3 • Reformation & the New Heavens

3.1 Luther & the Fracturing of Christendom
3.2 Trent & the Counter-Reformation
3.3 1543: Copernicus & the De-Centered Cosmos
3.4 Elizabeth & Shakespeare: Halmet’s Modern Mind

Culture & Values ch. 14
Read: Luther, Reformation Writings (sel.)
Read²: Shakespeare, Hamlet (sel.)
Art: Dürer’s prints; Holbein, The Ambassadors
Listen: Dowland, “Come Again” & Luther, “Ein feste Burg”

MODULE II – Early Modern Philosophy (1604-1775)

Sec 4 • Baroque & the New Science

Sec 5 • Leviathan: The State & Social Contract

5.1 Hobbes after the Civil War
5.2 Locke: Property, Toleration, & the Blank Slate
5.3 Versailles: Absolutism as Theatre
5.4 Rousseau & the General Will

Sec 6 • The Enlightenment & Its Shadows

6.1 Sapere Aude: Philosophes, Salons, & the Encyclopédie
6.2 Candide: Voltaire Against Optimism
6.3 First Nations: The Americas & Enlightenment’s Others
6.4 The Classical Style: Mozart, Haydn, & the Age of Elegance

Culture & Values chs. 16 & 19
Read: Voltaire, Candide (sel.); Kant, “What Is Enlightenment?”;
Read²: Waters, American Indian Thought (sel.); Stannard, American Holocaust (sel.)
Art: Fragonard, The Swing; the Templo Mayor & the codices
Listen: Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro (sel.)

MODULE III – Nationalism & Industry (1776-1913)

Sec 7 • The Age of Revolutions

7.1 1776: Common Sense & the Rights of Man
7.2 1789: Paris, the Terror, & the Marseillaise
7.3 Athens on the Potomac: Neoclassicism & the New Republics
7.4 Goya & Napoleon: The Birth of Nationalism

Sec 8 • Romanticism & Modern Science

Culture & Values ch. 20
Read: Shelley, Frankenstein (novel #1) & Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (sel.)
Art: Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog & Turner’s storms; Fuseli, The Nightmare
Listen: Schubert, Erlkönig; Beethoven’s No. 5; Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique

Sec 9 • Industry & Empire

9.1 The Machine Age: Coal, Rail, & the Crystal Palace
9.2 Metropolis: Picturing the Industrial City
9.3 Europeans Seize the World: Africa & the Colonizer’s Model
9.4 Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Abolition & the Sentimental Weapon

Sec 10 • Marx & the Age of Oil

10.1 1848: The Manifesto & the Specter of Revolution
10.2 Alienation: The Self on the Assembly Line
10.3 The Prize: Rockefeller & the Age of Oil
10.4 Realism: Courbet, Daumier, & Painting the Poor

Culture & Values chs. 20-21
Read: Marx, The Communist Manifesto (sel.); Yergin, The Prize (sel.)
Read²: Economides, The Color of Oil (sel.); Huxley, Brave New World (sel. — “Our Ford”)
Art: Courbet, The Stone Breakers & Daumier, Third-Class Carriage;
Art²: Millet, The Gleaners & Menzel, The Iron Rolling Mill
Listen: Joplin’s ragtime — music for a mass age
Screen (brief selection): Modern Times

Sec 11 • Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, & the Fin de Siècle

Culture & Values ch. 21
Read: Kierkegaard, The Present Age (sel.); Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (sel.)
Art: Monet, Impression, Sunrise; Van Gogh, The Starry Night
Art²: Cézanne & Hokusai & Japonisme
Listen: Debussy, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Listen²: Mahler, Symphony No. 6 in A Minor (1906) and its hammer blows!

MODULE IV – The End of Modernity (1914-1960s)

Sec 12 • The World at War

Culture & Values ch. 22
Read: Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (sel.) & Wiesel, Night (sel.)
Read²: Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (sel.) & Freud, Civilization & Its Discontents (sel.)
Art: Otto Dix’s war prints; Duchamp, Fountain; Dalí;
Art²: Lange, Migrant Mother; Picasso, Guernica
Listen: Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring; Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5 in D Minor
Screen (sel.): All Quiet on the Western Front (1930); Night and Fog

Sec 13 • Aftermath: The Bomb & the Absurd

13.1 By the Bomb’s Early Light: Hiroshima & the Atomic Imagination
13.2 Existentialism: Sartre, Beauvoir, & Freedom After Auschwitz
13.3 The Stranger: Camus & the Colonial Absurd
13.4 New York Steals Modern Art: Pollock, Rothko, & Bebop

Culture & Values ch. 23
Read: Camus, The Stranger (novel #2) & Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light (sel.)
Read²: Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism (sel.) & Beauvoir, The Second Sex (sel.)
Art: Pollock’s drips & Rothko’s fields
Listen: Parker’s bebop; Cage, 4′33″

Sec 14 • The Culture Industry & the Cold War

Culture & Values ch. 23
Read: Adorno & Horkheimer, The Culture Industry (sel.) & Marcuse, 1-Dem. Man (sel.)
Read²: Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture (sel.) & MLK, Ltr from Birmingham Jail
Art: Warhol’s soup cans, Lichtenstein’s pop art, & Levittown through the lens
Listen: Holiday, Strange Fruit, Bob Dylan, & Hendrix’s Star-Spangled Banner
Screen (sel.): Dr. Strangelove

Sec 15 • The Postmodern Critique

Culture & Values ch. 23
Read: Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition (sel.) & The Inhuman (sel.)
Read²: Baudrillard, Sim & Simul. (sel.) & Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (sel.)
Art: Venturi & Gehry — architecture after modernism
Art²: Nam June Paik’s screens & the machine-made image (2020s)
Listen: Glass & Reich’s minimalism; Kraftwerk, Computer World; sampling as pastiche
Screen (film #2): Blade Runner