University of Central Florida
HUM 4933 & REL 4910
Humanities & Religious Studies Senior Research Seminar
| University of Central Florida
HUM 4933 & REL 4910 Humanities & Religious Studies Senior Research Seminar |
Instructor: Bruce Janz | Term: Spring 2008 |
Time: Mondays 6-8:50 | Room: Comm 210 (Communications Building) |
Phone: 407-823-2273 | Credits: 3 |
Course Page & Resource Page: http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~janzb/courses/ | Section: 0001 Course Number: HUM: 17347; REL: 17355 |
Office Hours: Click here | Office: Department of Philosophy, Psychology Building225 |
Email: janzb@mail.ucf.edu | |
This is the capstone seminar for the Humanities and Religious Studies majors. It is a capstone course, which means that it serves as a culmination of the undergraduate program. It is a seminar, which means that it will be participatory. Students will be expected to lead discussions on texts and topics in the course. We will be using a central theme, that of globalization, to consider the ways in which the humanities and religious studies can be used to understand and work within central issues of our time. | |
CLASS FORMAT: The students in this course will be divided into subgroups, and as much as possible humanities and religious studies students will be in separate groups. Seminar presentations will be made in the subgroup; work-in-progress presentations will be made to the entire class. Part of each class will involve students working in their seminar groups, and part will be together as a full class. The intention is for students to discuss the material in the groups and then bring it to the full class for further discussion.
PARTICIPATION (5%, Assessed at the end of the term): Seminars cannot work without attendance, advance preparation of the participants, and engagement during the class. This grade will be a combination of these factors. NOTE: Missing more than two classes is not recommended, and I will reserve the right to drop a student’s final grade if that student has missed more than two classes. Remember, missing one class is the same as missing an entire week of the term. This supercedes what is in the Fine Print (see below).
SEMINAR PRESENTATION (18% (presentation) + 7% (responses), Due in different weeks, depending on the sign-up schedule): Each student is responsible for leading one discussion during the term. The schedule will be determined early in the term. This presentation will involve summarizing and clarifying the week’s assigned readings for the class, and coming up with discussion questions that can lead the seminar group, and contribute to the entire class. Students will be expected to go past the paper or papers that were assigned, to look at other scholarly work that will help to contextualize, understand, or critique the material in question. Please see “How to Lead a Seminar” on the courses page for more information on this.
Other students in the seminar groups will provide written responses on the seminar, and you will have to turn in your notes as well. Those responses will consist of both an assessment of the presentation style and comprehensiveness itself, and also a response to the positions in the week’s readings. There will be forms available for this. The 7% grade is based on the total number of responses in each subgroup over the term.
PROSPECTUS with BIBLIOGRAPHY (15%, Due: Feb. 18): A prospectus is a summary of what you intend to research and write about. It should be ~500 words, and needs to include a bibliography of at least 10 scholarly sources (the word count of the bibliography is not part of the 500 words). It will be important to identify and generate a good question in the humanities or religious studies (that is, tell the difference between a question belonging to these disciplines and other kinds of questions), and give a clear idea on how you are going to address the question. For more on prospecti, see “How to Write a Prospectus” on the courses page. The bibliography will need to identify appropriate research venues to gain critical scholarly information about the chosen topic.
WORK-IN-PROGRESS PRESENTATION: (10% (presentation) + 5% (turning in responses), due in the last few classes of the term) There is a presentation of your paper, before you hand in a final draft (scheduled toward the end of the course). This will give you a chance to discuss your work, take students’ comments into account and produce a better paper. The final version of the paper will be due one week after you do your presentation. While a student is presenting, the rest of the class will be filling out comment forms. 5% of the course grade will be based on filling out forms for at least 2/3 of the presentations with meaningful comments.
TERM PAPER (25%, final version due one week after the Work-in-Progress Presentation): This is a traditional academic thesis defence paper. The paper will be graded on your ability to identify an interesting and challenging humanities or religious studies question, state and defend a thesis, use scholarly sources, as well as your ability to work with interdisciplinary sources, theories, and analytic or critical approaches. The paper must be linked to your annotated bibliography (that is, on the same topic). All topics must be cleared in advance. We will discuss topics and format in class. Students will receive the comments in time to use them to improve their work. The paper should be ~2500 words.
FINAL EXAM: 15% of the grade will be based on the final exam. The exam is scheduled for 7-9:50 p.m. on Monday, April 28, 2008 in the usual class room. This will be a take-home final.
Grade Distribution: I will record the assignment grades based on the percentage of the course grade during the term (that is, the final exam will be recorded as a grade out of 30, although it may be marked out of another number). The letter grade will be calculated only at the end of the course, based on full course grade. The distribution will be as follows:
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There will be readings from the reading package and the website for each week (apart from presentation weeks). The reading schedule and more details on the weeks’ topics are available online.
Jan. 7: Introduction to course, to globalization & related concepts
Jan. 14: History of the Global I: Renaissance, Enlightenment
Jan. 21: No Class – MLK Day
Jan. 28: History of the Global II: Liberalism, Capitalism, Marxism
Feb. 4: Tradition & Modernism
Feb. 11: Fukuyama and the End of History
Feb. 18: Huntington and the Clash of Civilizations
Feb. 25: The Global and the Local
March 3: The Global, Ethics, and Environment
March 10: No Class – Midterm Break
March 17: The Global & Religion I
March 24: The Global & Religion II
March 31: The Global & the Arts
April 7: Presentations
April 14: Presentations
April 21: Presentations & the End of the Course