Humanities 1171:
Approaching an End in Time

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Woodcut by Albrecht Durer, 1498

Honors Seminar
Fall semester, 1999
Cambridge Community College
Instructor: Steven Beste

                                 Humanities 1171 is an interdisciplinary course that will focus on issues about the new
                                 millennium.   Having said that, I know that much can be included under such a description.
                                 What I want to focus on in this course, is finding a way to answer the question, "What
                                 happens next?" 

                                 The course syllabus, which is only a document of general information, nevertheless
                                 includes our schedule, our goals, and our texts. Most questions about how we will
                                 conduct our course should be answered in the syllabus. What we actually do with our
                                 time together hasn't been recorded yet.

                                 Each week, we will use a discipline or field of study to help us articulate an answer. We
                                 have plenty of resources to help us, including those on the web. Some basic links include:

                                        U of Mn course on the millennium from their Honors program
                                        Visioning The Apocalypse: Western Film and the Millennial Moment
                                        Web site of the Center for Millennial Studies
                                        University of North Carolina site from their religion department on their fall course
                                            The End of Time: Millennium, Mayhem and Morals at Century's End
                                        From the department of religion at Hamilton College, a college in upstate New
                                            York, comes Apocalypse and Millennium: a good site with good links to boot.

                                  In addition, the web has plenty of relevant articles on the subject of the coming
                                  millennium, and some of these will be integrated into our discussions. For example,
                                  a recent article published in the New York Review of Books discusses Stephen Jay
                                  Gould's book Questionning the Millennium (published in 1998), and raises quite a
                                  number of issues we should consider. Here's a link to that article.

                                  Our texts are various.  The following is the required text list, but please note--several
                                  of the texts are available in different forms and if you already possess a copy, do
                                  not feel obligated to buy the bookstore version.  For example, any Bible will do,
                                  and any edition of Shakespeare will suffice as well:

                                     The Books of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation
                                     The Tempest, William Shakespeare
                                     Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
                                     Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett
                                     Selected Poetry, T.S. Eliot
                                     Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
                                     Ishmael, Daniel Quinn
                                     The End of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium,
                                            Damian Thompson
                                    
                                  Additional related material (not assigned):

                                     The Book of Isaiah, various books of the Apocrypha
                                     Dunciad IV, Alexander Pope
                                     Marriage of Heaven and Hell, America, French Revolution, William Blake
                                    Prometheus Unbound, Percy Shelley
                                     "Darkness," Lord Byron
                                     Neuromancer, William Gibson
                                     "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Jonathan Edwards
                                     King Lear, William Shakespeare
                                     White Noise, Don Dellilo
                                     Love in the Ruins, Walker Percy
                                     Apocalypse Pretty Soon: Travels in End Time America, Alex Heard

                                 Films:
                                    Apocalypse Now
                                    The Seventh Seal
                                    2001: A Space Odyssey

                    Our schedule for this semester is outlined in the syllabus. Follow the link and print out
                    a version as you need. This online version of the syllabus will change as our course
                    changes. Please keep up-to-date on any revisions by checking this link often. Note the
                    time stamp at the bottom of the syllabus page to check for the most recent version.

                           © 1999 Steve Beste   
                                                      
                           The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author.
                           The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by Anoka-Ramsey Community College