Humanities 102-D: The Roots Of Western Worldviews – Oral Presentation Topics

Humanities 102-D: The Roots of Western Worldviews – Oral Presentation Topics

Part 1: The Classical Age

Week 3 Discuss the formulation of an “immortality ideology,” i.e., a clearly defined picture of life after death, in ancient Egypt. Establish the nature of this ideology among the ancient Egyptians. How is it similar or different to the most popular immortality ideologies of today?

Week 4 Focus on technology and its impact on ancient Mesopotamia. How did the onset of the Iron Age influence the course of history in Mesopotamia? Consider major technological breakthroughs in the 20th and 21st centuries: are there any similarities between events in ancient Mesopotamia and what’s happening in the world today? Does Mesopotamian history teach us anything about where we might be headed?

Week 5 Apply the word holism to a brief discussion of ancient India and ancient China. What’s the connection between ancient holistic practices and the “holistic” medicine, meditation, and other eastern concepts that are currently popular?

Week 6 In Greek plays, violent action never takes place on stage. Why do you think the Greeks avoided displaying violence? What did they achieve by this? What, by contrast, is the function and purpose of contemporary violence in television and film? Apply the concept of tragedy to both forms of drama (the ancient and the contemporary). Which is more ‘tragic,’ in the traditional sense of the word?

Week 7 What features in the female nude did Greek sculptors find attractive? Can you draw any associations between the form of the nude and the roles women might have played in society? Can you make a similar connection between images of nude (or mostly nude) women from today and the role they are commonly thought to play in society?

Week 8 Cicero wrote, “When the stress of circumstances demands it, we must gird on the sword and prefer death to slavery and disgrace.” What image does it present of Roman society at large? Do you share this point of view? Is it one that influenced history? What does it have to do with the practice of imperialism in ancient Rome and in the present day?

Week 9 What features of classical Chinese society may be called “practical” and “materialistic”? What features might be called “mystical” and “intuitive”? Give specific examples. Does our society have similar characteristics? To what extent? Explain. Presentation Topics, continued

Part 2: The Middle Ages

Week 10 Buddhism asserts that “desire causes pain.” Do you agree? How might Jesus have responded to this central tenet of Buddhism? How is the idea that desire causes pain relevant to contemporary Western societies?

Week 11 Compare the Early Christian church with the Buddhist stupa. What differences and similarities do you detect in function and in form? What do they tell us about similarities/differences in values and beliefs between the two religions?

Week 12 How did Islam come to create a global culture? Consider religious expansion, technology, economic factors, and so on.

Week 13 Compare the life of a serf with that of a lord in the Early Middle Ages. What are the similarities and differences between the social-economic classes of Medieval times and those of today?

Week 14 Consider Dante’s Divine Comedy. Fiero’s commentary and Figures 12.5-12.6 will help to understand the elaborate structure of guilt and punishment. How does this hierarchy compare with our own contemporary justice system? If you were to design a ‘Hell,’ would you arrange the crimes and punishments in the same order as Dante?

Week 15 Research the technique of producing a painted and gilded altarpiece. In what ways was the medieval artist also a craftsperson? What does this technique, and the skill and effort required to employ it, say about the Medieval worldview in Europe?

Week 16 In your view, how does the Western student benefit from learning about the cultural life of India, China and Japan? Humanities 102 Facilitation of Class Discussion (Oral Presentation) GRADING CRITERIA

Are you ON TOPIC? 5 marks

Do you demonstrate an UNDERSTANDING of the topic? 10 marks

Do you present the information related to your topic CLEARLY? 15 marks

Are your answers to the topic questions THOUGHTFUL 20 marks and WELL-CONSIDERED? Do you EXPLAIN your opinions THOROUGHLY?

Did you perform OUTSIDE RESEARCH? 10 marks  Quality of research 5 marks  Quantity of research 5 marks

How well do you RESPOND to questions asked, and comments 15 marks made, by the teacher and other members of the class?

Quality of DISCUSSION QUESTIONS and/or CLASS ACTIVITY 20 marks  Are they relevant? 5 marks  Do they help us to better understand 10 marks the subject matter?  Are they interesting? 5 marks

Do you seem PREPARED? 5 marks

Total 100