The Individual in Poetry and Prose

Please choose some of the following texts and discuss their views of the self!

A) POEMS:

Li Bai, "Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178453

Muhyiddin Ibn al-Àrabi, "Tigris Song":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/181320

Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, "A Moment of Happiness":

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-moment-of-happiness/

Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, "All through Eternity":

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/all-through-eternity/

Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, "A Stone I Died":

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-stone-i-died/

Hafez, "For Years my Heart Inquired":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/181369

Hafez, "Ode 44":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180838

Kabir, "I Won't Come":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/241234

Kabir, "Plucking your Eyebrows":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/241232

Kabir, "Chewing Slowly":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/241230

Kabir, "His Death in Benares":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/241228

Emily Dickinson, "They Shut Me up in Prose":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182902

Emily Dickinson, "I Dwell in Possibility"

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182904

Mirza Ghalib, "Ghazal":

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ghazal-5/

Khalil Gibran, "A Poet's Voice - 15":

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-poet-s-voice-xv/

Khalil Gibran, "A Tear and a Smile":

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-tear-and-a-smile-3/

Rabindranath Tagore, "Fruit-Gathering 55":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174933

Rabindranath Tagore, "I Asked of Destiny":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/1898

Rabindranath Tagore, "Sing the Song of the Moment":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/1894

T.S. Eliot, "The Four Quartets" (please focus on: "Burnt Norton")

text: https://www2.bc.edu/john-g-boylan/files/fourquartets.pdf

audio recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxquJf-5q_s

or: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga8tQrG4ZSw

Chuang Tzu, "Action and Non-Action":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176256

Vinda Karandikar, "The Wheel":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/180011

Yehuda Amichai, "The Amen Stone":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/237658

Pablo Neruda, "Absence":

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/absence-56/

Maya Angelou, "A Brave and Startling Truth":

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-brave-and-startling-truth/

Maya Angelou, "Alone":

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/alone-6/

Benjamin Zephaniah, "We Refugees":

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/we-refugees/

Taha Muhammad Ali, "Exodus":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/241016

Taha Muhammad Ali, "Meeting at an Airport":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/241018

Bei Dao, "Notes from the City of the Sun"

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180380

Bei Dao, "Moon Festival":

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180400

 B) PROSE: 

Thich Nhat Hanh, "The 14 Mindfulness Trainings":

http://www.browardlotussangha.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/the-fourteen-mindfulness-trainings.pdf    

or: http://www.deepriversangha.org/14_mindfulness_trainings.htm

Dogen, Selected passages:

1) 

http://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/common_html/zuimonki/02-14.html

2)

http://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/common_html/zuimonki/02-26.html

3)

http://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/common_html/zuimonki/02-26.html

Development of the Concept of the Individual in Europe

Literary and Cultural History in Europe Is often Divided in the Following Major Periods:

* Middle Ages
* Renaissance
* Classicism/ Enlightenment
* Romanticism
* Realism
* Modernism
* Post-Modernism

Concepts about the Individual change significantly from one period to the next. Please watch the following short introductions to each period to get an idea:

1) Middle Ages

* intro to social structure in Medieval Europe:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCPp7XWZfHo&playnext=1&list=PLSKWKOZESK1R5ODQ3FDV7MUF8W3_MEKOW

* life in the Middle Ages:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SADKPZkdl3o

* Medieval music:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN2Gug5CGt8

* Medieval art:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g48ZPuJBBO4

*

2) Renaissance

* good general intro:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvZ1JjVv6Q8

* interesting student project:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7XWiGflkQ8

* good intro to Italian Renaissance:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0EuhlwaAwM&list=PL6E275A8AAE6B2EF8&index=4

* good intro to English Renaissance/ Elizabethan Age:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4NJrxu5Xo&list=PL6E275A8AAE6B2EF8&index=6

3) Classicism/ Enlightenment

* good general intro:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0B28_gwj0M

* intro to major English poets of that time:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvvJH2jdHIQ

*

4) Romanticism

* excellent general intro to Romanticism:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV_q45Otdic

* good student project about the period:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAw0M0x3lyA

* some "typical" Romantic images:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JCMnWfnzAk

*

5) Realism (& Naturalism)

* Romanticism and Realism:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq3Fq1Q9R20

* Realism and Naturalism:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcNxjXS5XVA

*

6) Modernism

* very short intro to Modernism

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWGEFYKWnF8

* Modernism (Wiki-intro):

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qycFElivVuk

* Modern art:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz0tJKRfaoA

   or: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KyywpTrjto

*

7) Post-Modernism

* Modernism and Post Modernism:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeeMv8roJdw

* Postmodernism:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6MqeS3zcPY

* Postmodernism -

   part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs5Q0tYlVQc

   part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ9mHGk5Fpo

*

Let us focus on some Romantic Poets and their Innovative Ideas about the Self.
Among the most famous Romantic Poets are: 

1) William Blake
2) William Wordsworth
3) Samuel Taylor Coleridge
4) John Keats
5) Percy B. Shelley
6) George Gordon, Lord Byron

Please read the following poems:

1) William Blake

* "London":
   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172929
* "Auguries of Innocence":
   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172906
*

2) William Wordsworth

* "Tintern Abbey":

   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174796

   -> see some images of Tintern Abbey:

       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYPFkjrkdno&feature=fvsr

* "Intimations of Immortality":

   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174805

* "To a Skylark":

   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174830

* "Resolution and Independence":

   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174814

*

3) Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

* "The Eolian Harp":
   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/183957
* "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner":
   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173253
* "Kubla Khan:
   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173247
*

4) John Keats

* "To Autum:
   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173749
* "Ode to a Nightingale":
   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173744
* "Ode on a Grecian Urn":
   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173742
*

5) Percy B. Shelley

* "To a Skylark":
   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174413
* "Ozymandias":
   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175903
*

6) Lord Byron

* "She Walks in Beauty":
   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173100
* "Love and Death":
   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179288
*

... and comment of the following questions:

1) What are some of the important values expressed or implied in these poems?

2) What do these values imply about the poets' concept of self?

3) Please compare these ideas about the self with ideas of the previous periods (Enlightenment, Renaissance) as well as with the following periods (Realism & Modernism).

4) Then compare our/your own current view of the self with each of these eras: which ideas about the self - and the universe - do we/you still subscribe to and which ones have we dropped? Why do you think is this so?

Please feel free to come up with your own ideas about the development of ideas about self in the Western World.
If you have some knowledge about Eastern Approaches to the Self please compare these ideas now to those developed in the West!

Essays about the Self

Please comment on the following three essays and the views of the individual expressed in them:

1) Mirandola, "Oration on the Dignity of Man"
2) Fausto-Sterling, "The Five Sexes"
3) Olsen, "Tell Me a Riddle"

Think in particular on which aspects of the individual each writer focuses on and try to understand this focus in the context of the writer's time, culture, and value-system.

Plato's Dialogues

Plato is one of the great thinkers of Western civilization. What does he have in common with great thinkers from the East? Please take some time to think about what Plato has to offer us today and comment in particular on the values discussed in "Euthyphro," "Apology," and "Crito" as well as on the form (dialogues).

The Epic of Gilgamesh

This is one of the oldest literary works - and we still read it and find it interesting today. Please think about what makes good literature timeless - and comment on the main questions and themes raised in Gilgamesh.

What Words Cannot Express - Elie Wiesel's Night

Elie Wiesel was 15 when he witnessed the horror of the Holocaust. Although he has repeatedly stated himself that that experience cannot be expressed in words, he has spent the past 60 years of his life trying to communicate it. Night - originally composed as a more than 800-page-long manuscript written in Jiddish and first released as a 250-page-long  memoir under the title Un di Velt Hot Geshvign ('And the World Remained Silent') - was first published in 1958 in French as  La Nuit - was Elie Wiesel's first work about this topic.

Please read Night - or listen to the audiobook (link below) - and watch the following interviews, in which Elie Wiesel talks about the Holocaust and how it has changed his life.


Free Audiobook of Elie Wiesel's Night (19 parts):
part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyl4OYxD-3E
-> please follow the prompts for the other parts!

Text of Elie Wiesel's Night available at:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/night/id498300631?mt=11

Elie Wiesel in One on One (2 parts):
part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qguRarhTc-E
part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4TlAWuSGM8&feature=relmfu

Oprah and Elie Wiesel in Ausschwitz (6 parts):
part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qguRarhTc-E
part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUEEYa0pvgU
part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoRfhm48b-0
part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXP2L3MG7gs
part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6hyhxUWb1k&bpctr=1352286873
part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-xm6nUbeXQ&feature=relmfu

Background reading:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/holo.html

Please also check out the Elie Wiesel Foundation of Humanity: http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/

The Individual & the Environment

Dear All,

Please look at the following short clips and websites/texts and let the rest of us know what you think of them - and how you are planning to integrate your new knowledge into your daily life.

Thank you,

gudrun

Here the links:

1) The Story of Stuff Project

a) The Story of Stuff:http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-stuff/or:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8

b) The Story of Change:http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-change/

c) The Story of Electronics:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_7i6T_H78&feature=relmfu

d) The Story of Bottled Water:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se12y9hSOM0&feature=relmfu

The Story of Stuff Project Website:http://www.storyofstuff.org/

2) Climate Change

a) NBC News: Was Sandy a Warning:http://video.msnbc.msn.com/msnbc/49643488/#49643488

b) Bill McKibben: Global Warming's Terrifying New Math:http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719

c) Al Gore Warns on Latest Climate Trends (Talk - 2009):http://www.ted.com/talks/al_gore_warns_on_latest_climate_trends.html