Mount Holyoke College
History 301 Ms.
Straw
Fall 2000 302
Skinner
Office hours: cstraw@mtholyoke.edu
Please call
or email for an appt. 413.536.8984
MARTYRDOM AS SOCIAL PROTEST:
RESISTANCE, SUBMISSION AND HONOR
"You
who are in such suffering now, what will you do when you are thrown to the
beasts, which you despised when you refused to sacrifice [to Roman
gods]?" And Felicitas replied, “Now
it is I who suffers what I suffer; but then there will be another in me,
who will suffer for me, because I also am about to suffer for Him."
From The
Passion of the Holy Martyrs Felicitas and Perpetua
"Is it
true that self-sacrifice is the only thing that gives meaning to death? To this question the warrior is obliged to
reply `yes,' while knowing full well that his suicide mission has no
meaning."
Lieutenant
Nagatsuka, a kamikaze pilot
*
* *
For course description, see accompanying
"Questions to Ponder."
This is a Capstone Course, meaning it
challenges you to apply all the skills you have learned as historians thus
far. The course specifies that we have
cross-cultural comparisons, and use interdisciplinary methods. Finally, we must come to appreciate how this
issue is relevant to our present era.
We shall be examining many examples of martyrdom in western cultures,
and compare them with Japanese culture.
Our approach utilizes anthropology and psychoanalytic theory as well as
history to help us understand the problem of martyrdom from many perspectives. We will end the course with a consideration
of various modern martyrs.
COURSE
REQUIREMENTS
1. Active preparation of the sources, and
active participation in class discussion.
The quality as well as the quantity of your remarks matter. (!!!) Come
to class with at least four points and/or questions you wish to make to the
class about the reading material. This
is a significant percentage of your grade.
2. Two oral reports (about 8-10 minutes
long). One report will be a chapter
from The Nobility of Failure, in most cases. The second should ideally relate to your seminar topic. For class, write a critique of your article,
or chapter (about 3 pages, single spaced).
Get your copies made in the History Department before class to
distribute to us. Recommended: practice your presentation with a roommate
to make certain your points are clear;
time your presentation.
3. One final paper about ten to twelve pages in
length. This paper is to be a synthetic
work in which you apply what you have learned in the course in interpreting
your primary document(s), or topic. You
have two options. You may center your
paper on a primary document, or documents touched on in the course and do a
deeper analysis and interpretation of the problem. Or, you may choose to investigate an example of modern
martyrdom. This option will require
more research, particularly in modern newspapers and the few books that may
exist on your subject. Your paper
should be about ten to twelve pages in length. ROUGH DRAFTS MUST BE TURNED IN
BY WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22nd. THE FINAL DRAFT IS DUE THE LAST DAY OF
FINALS, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21ST at 12:00 p.m.
4. Attendance of a lecture, “Recapturing the
Past in Late Antiquity” by Glen Bowersock (Institute for Advanced Studies,
Princeton) on Thursday, 19 October 4:15.
Place to be announced.
BOOKS
AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE AT THE COLLEGE BOOKSTORE
Homer, The
Iliad (Penguin).
Plato, The
Last Days of Socrates (Penguin).
Sophocles, The
Theban Plays (Penguin).
Stories from
Livy, ed. by Roger Nichols (Cambridge).
Ambrose, On
Virginity (Toronto: Peregrina Publishing).
Ivan Morris,
The Nobility of Failure (Noonday).
Yamamoto
Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, tr. William Scott
Wilson(Kodansha International, n.d.).
Shusaku
Endo, Silence (Taplinger).
For purchase
through the History Department:
Course
Packet
Ruth
Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (Houghton Mifflin).
ON RESERVE
IN THE LIBRARY
Sacrificing
the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom, ed. Margaret Cormack (forthcoming Oxford
University Press).
SCHEDULE OF
CLASS MEETINGS
1. Monday, 11 September: Introduction
Begin reading Ruth Benedict, The
Chrysanthemum and the Sword, L. Takeo Doi’s article, “Amae: A Key Concept for Understanding Japanese
Personality Structure,” (packet) and Endo's novel, Silence. We will make comparisons between Japanese
culture and Western culture throughout the course and these works give you a
basic overview of Japanese culture. You
should definitely have these sources finished by 27 November.
2. Monday, 18 September: Western Codes of Honor; Altruistic Death
Reading:
Homer, The Iliad. At minimum, read chapters 1, 6, 9,
16-24. If possible, read the whole
book. Your course packet contains a
handy outline of The Iliad, and
topical notes flagging specific passages of interest.
Report(s): Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950), Chapter 3, "Play
and Contest as Civilizing Functions," 46-75; "Play and War,"
89-104.
Chapter I of The Nobility of Failure.
3. Monday, 25 September: Honor and Gender
Readings:
Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonnus and
Antigone
Julian Pitt-Rivers, The Fate of
Shechem: of the Politics of Sex. Essays
in the Anthropology of the Mediterranean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), ch.
1: "The Anthropology of
Honour," 1-17.
Report: Jan Bremmer, “Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece,” Harvard
Journal of Classical Philology 87 (1983): 299-320.
Chapter II of The Nobility of Failure.
4. Monday, 2 October: Death for a Principle
Reading: Plato, The Apology and Crito
Report(s): R. G. Frey, "Did Socrates Commit Suicide?" Philosophy
53 (1979):106-8; Gregory Vlastos, "Socrates on Political Obedience and
Disobedience," Yale Review 63 (1974):517-534.
Chapter III of The Nobility of
Failure
**************OCTOBER
9 – MIDSEMESTER BREAK***********
5. Monday, 16 October: The Politics of Desperation
Euripides, Iphegenia at Aulis
From Martin S. Bergmann, In the
Shadow of Moloch, The sacrifice of children and its impact on Western
religions (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1992); Prelude and Chapter I:
The Psychology of Sacrifice, 1-49 (in packet).
Movie:
Iphegenia by Michael Cacoyannis.
6. Monday,
23 October: Roman Honor and Proto-martyrs
Readings:
Stories from Livy
Section on Roman honor and
the gladiator, packet, pp. 39-59.
Report(s): Miriam Griffin, "Philosophy, Cato and Roman Suicide," Greece
and Rome 33 (1986):64-77; 192-202; Henry Wheatland Litchfield, "National
Exempla Virtutis in Roman Literature," Harvard Studies in Classical
Philology 25 (1914):1-74.
Chapter IV of The Nobility of Failure
PBS Video: The True Story of the Roman Arena
7. Monday, 30 October: Stoic philosophy and voluntary death
Readings:
Epictetus, The Enchiridion
Seneca, Letter 24 and 70;
Epictetus selections from Discourses (packet)
Report(s): Anton J. L. van Hooff, From Autothanasia to Suicide: Self-killing in Classical Antiquity (London
and New York: Routledge, 1990), Chapter
3, "Causae Moriendi," 79-130, and 6, "Philosophers and
Theologians," 179-188.
Chapter V of The Nobility of Failure
8. Monday, 6
November: Jewish Traditions
Readings:
Genesis 22; Abraham's sacrifice (or
binding) of Isaac;
4 Maccabees
Selections from Josephus, The Jewish
Wars
Boyarin and Barton, “Killing the Kids”
(all are in the packet)
Report(s): from Bergmann, In the
Shadow of Moloch, Chapter 4: The Significance
of the Sacrifice of the Firstborn for the Formation of the Jewish Religion,
91-115; or Chapter 5: "From the
Sacrifice of Isaac to the Sacrifice of Christ."
Chapter VI of The Nobility of Failure.
10. Monday, 13 November: Christian Martyrs
Readings:
Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom
The Passion of the Holy Martyrs
Perpetua and Felicitas (both in packet)
Reports: Edmund Leach, "The Logic of Sacrifice," in Anthropological
approaches to the Old Testament, ed. Bernhard Lang, Issues in Religion and
Theology 8 (Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1985).
Chapter VII of The Nobility of
Failure.
11. Monday, 20 November: Virgins and Martyrdom; The changing meaning
of martyrdom
[Review your
sources. Note how many martyrs have been virgins.]
Readings:
Ambrose of Milan, On Virginity
From packet:
Jerome, Selections from Letters
and Against Jovinian
Augustine, On Lucretia from The City
of God, bk 1.
Augustine, Epistle 166 to Jerome
(Why Herod’s victim’s are martyrs)
Report: Jerome’s Letter 22 to Eustochium on Virginity and Patricia
Cox Miller, “The Blazing Body: Ascetic
Desire in Jerome’s Letter to Eustochium,” in the Journal of Early Christian
Studies 1 (1993):21-45.
Chapter VIII of The Nobility of
Failure.
12. Monday, 27 November: The Japanese code of
Honor and attitude toward death
Hagakure
[Benedict should be read by now.]
Reports: John Blacking, "Towards an Anthropology of the Body,"
1-25; Andrew Strathern, "Why is Shame on the Skin," 99-110, in The
Anthropology of the Body, ed. by John Blacking (London: Academic Press, 1977).
Chapter IX of The Nobility of Failure.
13. Monday, 4 December: Death for the Emperor
Reading:
Chapter X of The Nobility of Failure,
"The Kamikaze Fighters"
[Endo should be read by now.]
Report(s): L. Takeo Doi, The Anatomy of
Dependence, 1-64; Yoshida Mitsuru, Requiem for Battleship Yamato, tr.
Richard H. Minear (Seattle: University
of Washington Press, 1985).
14. Monday, 11 December: Presentation of Projects.
Prepare a two-to-three page synopsis of
your project. Have it copied for the
class in the History Department. Come
prepared to talk about your projects to the class.
FINAL PAPERS
ARE DUE DECEMBER 21, 12:00 P.M. (under the door of my office)