History 257:  Computing Applications in History and the Humanities

Spring 2002

Laura H Barringer   lhbarrin@mtholyoke.edu

Elizabeth R Ballou   erballou@mtholyoke.edu

Devon D Hill   ddhill@mtholyoke.edu

Kristen A Ripley   karipley@mtholyoke.edu

Books for purchase at the Odyssey

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Norton Critical Edition pb)

Roger Shattuck, Forbidden Knowledge (Harcourt Brace pb)

Course Packet available at the History Department (309 Skinner)

Readings designated by (CP 1) and (CP 2) are in the course packets.  There will be a charge for the packets and other course handouts to cover the cost of duplication and copyright fees.

Course Requirements:

1.       Attendance at all classes, labs/team meetings, and required films

2.       Teamwork and collaboration

3.       Informed participation in discussions

4.       Oral presentations in class

5.       Homework exercises to learn and practice building multimedia web pages

6.       A web based multimedia history project, part of which will be presented orally at the end of the semester.

Evaluations:

1. Self evaluation
2. Peer evaluation by one’s team members
3. Instructor evaluation

Final Grade:

1. Self and peer evaluation  10 %
2. Team performance  30 %
3. Individual performance  60 %

Mary Shelley’s Cultural Heritage

I: From Prometheus to the Seventeenth Century

Jan. 29

Introduction

Jan. 31

Shattuck, Forbidden Knowledge, Foreword and chap. 1: Prometheus

Feb. 5

Shattuck, Forbidden Knowledge, chap. 2: Milton

Feb. 7

Haynes, From Faust to Strangelove, chap. 2 “Bacon’s New Scientists” 4 “Newton: A Scientist for God” (CP 1)

Feb. 12

Web work

Feb. 14

Carolyn Merchant, “The Domination of Nature” (CP 1)

Shelley, Frankenstein, vol. 1, pp. 7-34.

Feb. 19

John Locke, Essay on Human Understanding (1690) and Some Thoughts on Education (1693) (CPI)

Optional:

 Merchant “The Mechanical Order” (CP 1)

II. The Enlightenment: New Views of Nature, Human Nature, and Gender

Feb. 21

Rousseau, from his correspondence with Malesherbes (1762) on Nature; selections from Julie (1761)and Emile (1762) (CP 1)

Feb. 26

Film: The Wild Child, directed by François Truffaut (1970)

Feb. 28

Shelley, Frankenstein, Vol. 2, chaps. 3-7, the creature describes his education.

Mar. 5

Rousseau, selections from Book V of The Reveries of a Solitary Walker (ca. 1774-76)(CP 1)

Charleton, New Views of the Natural in France, chap. 2 “Pastoral Landscapes” (CP 1)

Mar. 7

Charleton, chap. 3 “Wild Sublimity” (CP 1)

William Wordsworth,selection from Preludes, Book VI: Cambridge and the Alps, 184-87 (CP 1)

Optional:

Thomas, Man and the Natural World, chap. VI “Human Dilemma” pp. 242-302 (CP 1)

Mar. 12

Web work: images of the Alps

Mar. 14

Mary Poovey, The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer, chap.1, “The Proper Lady” (CP 1)

Web assignment and reports: find other evidence in the novel pertinent to family and gender by searching the on-line version of the work.

BREAK

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1797-1851)

III. The Cultural and Political Context: Radicals, Romantics, and Revolutionaries

Mar. 25

Web workshop: finding and assessing information on the web

Mar. 30

E.P. Thompson, “Mary Wollstonecraft,” from Making History. Writings on History and Culture New York: The New Press, 1994) (CP 2)

Web assignment and reports: get reliable information on Thomas Paine, Joseph Priestly, William Godwin, and the London Corresponding Society on the Web

Apr. 2

Introduction to Romanticism (Norton Anthology of English Literature) pp. 1-22; intro. to Wordsworth, 87-90 (CP 1)

Wordsworth, “Above Tintern Abbey” (1798) (CP 1)

Optional:

Wordsworth, “Childhood,” “I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud,” and “Love of Nature Leading to Love of Man” (CP 1)

Apr. 4

Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journals: selected entries as follows:
a)1800—all for May and June 1; 3 September, 24 November
b)1801—26 December;
c)1802—31 January; 15 April, 29 -30 April; 8 June

Apr. 9

Web assignment and reports: get reliable information on the French Revolution, Edmund Burke and his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Man.

IV. Frankenstein: The Book and Its Readers (1817-1994)

Apr. 11

No Class: Shelley, Frankenstein¸ Vol. 1

Apr. 16

Shelley, Frankenstein¸ Vol. 2; Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Mont Blanc,” and “The Sea of Ice” pp. 175-180 in the Norton Critical Edition.

Apr. 18

Shelley, Frankenstein¸ Vol. 3

Apr. 23

Nineteenth-Century Responses to Frankenstein, pp. 185-205 in the Norton Critical Edition

Apr. 25

Mary Poovey, “My Hideous Progeny’: The Lady and the Monster” (CP 1)

Optional:

Roslynn: Representations of the Scientists in Western Literature, chapt. 7 “Frankenstein and the Monster” (CP 2)

Stephen Shapin, “’A Scholar and a Gentlemen’: The Problematic Identity of the Scientific Practitioner in Early Modern England,” History of Science 29 (1991): 279-327 (Library Reserve)

Apr. 30

Film: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein directed by Kenneth Branagh (1994)

May 2

Web work and presentations

May 7

Web work and presentations