9:30 a.m. – 10:50 a.m. in Humanities Gateway (HG) 2310

A.J. Van Sant || ajvansan@uci.edu ||

Office: 144KH

Office Hours: TBA

Class Mailing List: 23392-W16@classes.uci.edu

Course Website: http://faculty.humanities.uci.edu/avansant/teaching/E102B-thinking-self-w2016

Course description: What is the self?  A simple yet very difficult question.  The “self” can be defined as “a permanent subject of successive and varying states of consciousness.” On the other hand, we speak of “a former self” or say we feel like “our old selves,” as if the self varies from one time to another. In this course we will read 2 fictions that centralize the representation of a self—Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, 1719 and Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, 1741. We will also examine illustrations of these fictions to ask what kind of self is delineated in them.  In addition, we will consider some philosophical treatments of our question by Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus), Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and David Hume. (In addition to the two novels, an Augustine text has been ordered for the course; the rest of the philosophical mateiral will be available in selections from the web).

Students will write one very short paper and one slightly longer paper and take a final.  Students will also write informally to discover their own thinking and to participate in the questions of the course. And students should expect to write a draft of the second paper (to be read by a peer).