Literature Humanities

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Lit Hum books

Sing, Muse. Literature Humanities is popularly known as Lit Hum. "Hum" rhymes with "bum", not "Hume". Officially, it's called Masterpieces of Western Literature and Philosophy.

The course is a central part of the Core Curriculum and is taken by all Columbia College first years. The first semester covers mainly Greek literature, with some Bible-stuff at the end. The second semester starts with Virgil and ends with Virginia Woolf. For your convenience, we have prepared a "lite" guide to the course. That said, you probably won't get most of it until you've actually done the reading.

Syllabus

Although the Lit Hum syllabus is among the most ironclad in all the Core Curriculum, parts are subject to change and modification due to instructor discretion, grad student strikes, and other unforseen circumstances. In Fall 2006, for example, the standard first semester syllabus, normally all Greek and Biblical texts, was altered to include a modern play by Vaclav Havel, who was on campus at the time as artist in residence. Still, modifications are often minor - a different Greek play substituted for the Medea, an additional Shakespeare play, another Homeric poem, etc. Such changes can mean that one becomes lost when your friend from another section begins discussing an anomalous inclusion, like The Baccahe, but the majority of the curriculum is fairly standard. A greater schism may open with a much older alumnus of the College, who might remember a time when Milton, Voltaire, and/or Goethe appeared on the syllabus. The following reflects the syllabus as used in the 2003-2004 academic year.

First semester

Second Semester

History

Although the experience of receiving one's first free Iliad from Columbia alumni and meeting one's freshman classmates in the first Lit Hum class is considered one of the central experiences of an education at Columbia College, Lit Hum historically played poor cousin to its Core Curriculum counterpart in philosophy and politics, Contemporary Civilization. While the latter course began under its current name as early as 1919, Lit Hum developed out of a series of later course concepts.

The first was John Erskine's General Honors course, created in 1921. This was the first expression of that educator's philosophy that students should engage in reading the "Great Books" of Western Civilization. This course was later co-taught by Mortimer Adler and Mark Van Doren. Van Doren went on to create General Honors' successor, Humanities A, which he himself taught for 17 years. Adler would go on to become a popularizer of the Great Books movement. During the 1930s, another class, the Colloquium on Important Books, co-taught by Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling, would embrace the Great Books philosophy and help shape modern Lit Hum.

"Lite" study guide

First semester

  • Achilles is a whiny momma's boy
  • Odysseus has crazy sex appeal
  • Herodotus likes to think he's a real historian. Makes stuff up
  • Thucydidies likes to think he's a real historian. Makes "quotes" up
  • Oedipus loved his Mother
  • Clytemnestra is a stone cold bitch
  • Medea is a psycho femi-nazi
  • The greeks had sex with little boys. Socrates makes stuff up
  • The old testament God is schizophrenic
  • It blows to be Job

Second semester

  • The Aeneid is an epic poem, most of it plagiarism, by Virgil. Remember Aeneas the Trojan from back in September? Probably not. He travels to Italy and fights a battle, thus founding Rome. It's two for the price of one; you get an Iliad and an Odyssey. Sadly, however, Aeneas is the pussiest hero in all of literature.
  • Babies are evil!
  • Which circle of hell will your i-banker and lawyer parents go to?
  • Ten people had an orgy in the countryside.
  • Find out all about my medieval eating and shitting schedule.
  • Time for some Shakespeare. In King Lear a dozen characters get seriously fucked up when the King stupidly decides to retire. Lesson: work till you drop. In Hamlet you discover that the protagonist is deep down just a poor emo kid.
  • Don Quixote's fucked up too.
  • A woman's place is in marriage (and in the kitchen - make me a sammich, Barnard girl!). Don't elope.
  • Murderer!
  • Time passes. There's a window. More time passes. There's a painting. More time passes. Welcome to the boring world of modernist garbage.

See also

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