Humanities Western Culture

After reading Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Oedipus Tyrannus by Sophocles, and Medea by Euripides, we will read Thomas More’s Utopia and Nicollo Machiavelli’s The Prince. Both have prompted arresting controversies. Another eye-opening work by Bartholome Las Casas was translated as The Tears of the Indians by John Phillips in 1656. These texts are attached. Next, we will read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Hamlet. Both plays, like Oedipus and Medea, are very controversial, and as such, they offer openings for interesting research. The 2,000-word research paper can enlighten or illuminate any of the works on the syllabus, but mere plot summaries or rambling “explorations” or theme studies are forbidden. I have attached a “Sample Structure” for the research paper. The research paper must incorporate a brief review of at least eight scholarly articles, and each onemust be at least ten-pages long. Remember, any use of AI to assist you in composing papers for my class is strictly forbidden. Such essays will receive grades of “F” and zero points. Assume that your reader has already read the work you’ve chosen. Be sure to cite all of your sources. For the second essay, each student will be asked to compose a research paper intended to interpret or illuminate one of the works on the syllabus. Reliance on commercial Internet sites is strongly discouraged, and students are required to read and cite a minimum of eight scholarly articles by seven different scholars; each scholarly article or book chapter must be at least ten or fifteen pages long. (Full-text articles are readily available on JSTOR; the instructor will provide research assistance during office hours.) Papers that are shorter than the assigned length will be penalized. This second essay should be at le ast six to eight pages long2,000 words of textnot counting the title-page, notes or works cited. After a brief, but detailed review of previous scholarship, the student should offer a plausible original interpretationnot a plot summaryof the work theyve chosen. For every sentence quoted or paraphrased from another scholar, the student should compose at least three sentences of your own. (There is no maximum length: as long as the essays are not padded, students can take as much space as they need.) Each essay must contain a brief introductory review of previous scholarship and each student must offer an independent thesis supported by argument and evidence. Please note, inadequate research and plagiarism will both be penalized severely. The sources of any borrowed ideas or phrases must be clearly, u n am b ig u o u sly acknowledged. Quotations and paraphrases should be framed: they should be initiated by an announcement of the author and concluded by a citation of the source. Essays should be neat, typed, double-spaced, and easily legible with one inch margins. They should be either typed, ink-jetted or laser printed in 14 point Times Roman. (Parenthetical citation is permitted for the first essay, but proper footnotes in 10 pt or 12 pt type are required for citations in the second essay.) For the second assignment, students are not allowed to use parenthetical citations; instead, footnotes should be formatted according to either the MLA footnote style (Appendix B in the MLA Handbook) or in Chicago style. Remember, the use of AI is strictly forbidden, and AI-assisted papers will receive zeroes. Please note, I check papers for AI usage. In addition, anyone caught documenting an essay with fake citations risks failing the entire course for that offense alone, and I will never write them a letter of recommendation.