Module LIBA1011: Sources of the Self

Department: Liberal Arts

LIBA1011: Sources of the Self

Prerequisites

• At least a Grade B in an A-level or an equivalent (e.g., IB, Scottish Highers) in at least one subject in the Arts and Humanities.

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To introduce students to a variety of conceptual frameworks for defining and interpreting human selfhood and identity, ranging from antiquity to the present and including the full breadth of disciplinary approaches available within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
• To introduce students to a variety of conceptual frameworks for interpreting historical periodisation and change over time, possibly including but not limited to imperialism, slavery, conversion, divine providence, the revival of antiquity, reform, revolution, industrialisation, nationalism, colonialism, secularisation, and climate change.
• To develop critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts, as well as the interpretation of other cultural artifacts such as visual art and music, with attention to their distinctive forms, as well as their disparate cultural and historical contexts.
• To encourage and support students bringing together methods and materials from different disciplines within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities into coherent interdisciplinary inquiries and conclusions.

Content

• Considers the most basic and immediate scale of relations between self and other: connections between one person and another, including but not limited to emotions, romantic relationships, ethical responsibilities, and the metaphysical connections posited by some philosophical and religious traditions.
• Explores the contested concept of human nature.
• Investigates tensions between autonomy and community, including competing claims about the relative scope of individual human agency, as well as the ethical complications inherent in imposing limits on individual human freedom.

Learning Outcomes

• Students studying this module will show:
• a detailed, multifaceted, and interdisciplinary understanding of the ways in which different cultural traditions, as well as different disciplines with the humanities, have endeavoured over time to discern and articulate the various conceivable internal and external forces that shape us each as individuals into who we are.
• an informed awareness of influential claims about human selfhood and identity as advanced both implicitly through the arts and explicitly through scholarly work in the humanities, noting the reciprocal relation between critical theory and artistic practice.
• an informed awareness of diachronic history in the longue durée as well as synchronic patterns; in this case, continuity and changes in beliefs about selfhood from antiquity to the present, as well as confluence and conflict within more particular historical moments.
• an informed awareness of similarities and differences between multiple cultural traditions, as well as their distinctive internal tensions and development over time, including non-Western as well as Western traditions and the Global South as well as the Global North.

• Students studying this module will show:
• a capacity for interdisciplinary analysis of cultural artifacts as primary sources, drawing on methods and materials from multiple disciplines within the humanities.
• critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts as literature, as argumentation, and as historical evidence, acknowledging the complications introduced in some cases by studying texts in translation.
• critical skills in interpreting non-verbal cultural artifacts such as visual art and music, as well as hybrid cultural phenomena such as theatre, opera, and film which bring together words, images, and/or music.
• critical skills in discerning the relations between form and content in cultural artifacts, noting connections between formal conventions, historical context, and cultural traditions.
• critical skills in working across the traditional boundaries of scholarly disciplines within the Arts and Humanities, combining different approaches to interpretation.

• Students studying this module will show:
• independent research in secondary sources.
• independent thought and judgement, evaluating arguments proposed by others and formulating original arguments in response, both in writing and in conversation.
• written and oral communication skills.
• competence in time-management.
• information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Opening and Closing Lectures: enable students to understand the distinctive nature of the module and to prepare for tutorials and assessment. The opening lecture will introduce the module and explain how to approach the first assessed essay. The closing lecture will look back on the module as a whole and explain how to approach the second assessed essay. The module is co-convened by two co-convenors, normally from two different departments within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. The first co-convenor, whose research specialism is in keeping chronologically with the material covered in Michaelmas, gives an opening lecture introducing the module and explaining how to approach the assessed essay. The second co-convenor, whose research specialism is in keeping chronologically with the material covered in Epiphany, gives a closing lecture looking back on the module as a whole and explaining how to approach the second assessed essay.
• Encounters with Expertise: enable students to acquire subject-specific knowledge of particular works, individuals, and historical moments, as well as exposure to the distinctive methods and internal scholarly debates characteristic of different disciplines within the humanities. These encounters are arranged chronologically over the course of the module, beginning with older primary sources and moving incrementally towards newer, allowing students to discern historical changes over time, as well as continuities. Some encounters may offer a ‘flipped classroom’, in which students complete readings on their own and engage in live interpretation of those readings directed by a member of academic staff during their time in class.
• Seminars: provide an opportunity to develop critical skills in analysis and interpretation, as well as verbal expression, through peer-group discussion led by instructor. Formative Essay: allows students to practise marshalling evidence from primary sources, selecting and engaging with relevant secondary sources, and formulating a coherent, convincing argument in clear, appropriate, grammatically correct written prose.
• Tutorials: offers students granular evaluation of their individual skills at producing a take-home research essay in the humanities and concrete suggestions how to improve these skills in future work both for this module and beyond.
• Summative Essay: tests students’ ability to marshal evidence from primary sources, select and engage with relevant secondary sources, and formulate a coherent, convincing argument about competing claims about human selfhood and identity within the arts and humanities, comparing and contrasting different cultural traditions as well as different historical moments in clear, idiomatic, grammatically correct written prose.
• For their first summative essay, students must engage closely with primary sources covered in at least two different encounters with expertise, chosen from among those encounters offered in Michaelmas.
• For their second summative essay, students must engage closely with primary sources covered in at least two different encounters with expertise, chosen from among those encounters offered in Epiphany.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Students will submit a required formative essay of 1200 words at the end of Michaelmas and receive feedback on that essay within the first two weeks of Epiphany term. This formative assignment will then serve as the starting-point for the summative essays.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University