Great Books Minor

 

Great Books Minor

English 
Advisor: Michael J. Neth

The Great Books interdisciplinary minor is designed to offer students the opportunity to broaden their undergraduate education and supplement their own major field by studying the most important and influential texts in a number of different disciplines. Students will be presented with the ways in which some of the most significant books ever written shaped, altered, and influenced the formation of human civilization.

The Great Books minor requires a minimum of 18 hours of courses, with the provision that no more than 6 hours may be taken in a single department. The program advisor may approve the substitution of courses under some circumstances.

Interdisciplinary Minors

Interdisciplinary minors require the student to complete a minimum of 15 to 21 hours from a list of specific courses. Unless otherwise noted, a student may take no more than 6 hours of courses from a single department until he or she surpasses the required minimum number of hours necessary for completing the minor. Exceptions to this rule may be found within the discussions of several of the minors. In most cases, a student is also limited to just 3 hours of credit toward the minor in the same department or discipline in which he or she is taking a major. Students must fulfill all departmental prerequisites for any course within an interdisciplinary minor. In some cases, advisors may approve course substitutions within these program requirements.

Required Course (3 hours)

 

  • PHIL 4600 - Philosophy of History

    3 credit hours

    Nature of historical knowledge and problems of historical inquiry; meaning and value of history; reality of the past; historical determinism and human freedom.

Electives (15 hours)

 

  • ANTH 3710 - Topics in Anthropology  1 to 6 credit hours  

    ANTH 3710 - Topics in Anthropology

    1 to 6 credit hours

    An in-depth study of a special topic which is significant in current anthropological literature.

  • ENGL 3110 - English Literature: The Medieval Period

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. A reading of selected works from Old English literature, especially Beowulf, and Middle English literature, with emphasis on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and medieval drama.

  • ENGL 3120 - English Literature: The Sixteenth Century

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Readings in the major authors (More, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne) and genres (prose fiction, romance, epic, sonnet, lyric). Effects of cultural, political, and religious influences on the literature.

  • ENGL 3130 - English Literature: The Seventeenth Century

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Readings in the major authors (Bacon, Jonson, Donne, Herbert, Herrick, Marvell, Crashaw, Vaughan, Milton) and genres (essay, epic, lyric, sermon). Effects of cultural, political, and religious influences on the literature.

  • ENGL 3160 - English Drama: 1475-1642 (excluding Shakespeare)

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000- level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Plays written by Shakespeare's predecessors, contemporaries, and immediate successors.

  • ENGL 3210 - English Literature: Restoration and Eighteenth Century

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Emphasizing writings which reflected or influenced historical and literary developments 1660-1800.

  • ENGL 3220 - English Literature: 1790-1850

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. A definition of English Romanticism and a study of works--mainly poems--by Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.

  • ENGL 3230 - English Literature: The Victorian Period

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. The literature of England, 1830-1900. Emphasis on poetry and the novel.

  • ENGL 3310 - Nineteenth-Century American Literature

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Survey of American literature from Washington Irving to Henry James. Concentration on Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, Pragmatism. Selected novels.

  • ENGL 3320 - Twentieth-Century American Literature

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Survey of American literature from Theodore Dreiser to the present. Concentration on major authors. Selected novels.

  • ENGL 3330 - Southern Literature

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Early and modern Southern writers. Emphasis on the period 1920-present.

  • ENGL 3340 - African American Literature

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Defines and traces the development and transformations of the African American literary tradition. Emphasis on analysis of historical, literary, philosophical, and cultural contexts.

  • ENGL 3400 - European Literature to 1400

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Selections from Greek and Roman literature and Dante; emphasis on epic, drama, mythology; comparison of values commended by our literary ancestors.

  • ENGL 3420 - European Literature: 1400-1800

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Survey of continental literature (in translation) of the Renaissance, Neoclassical, and Enlightenment periods. Emphasis on Rabelais, Cervantes, Moliere, and Voltaire.

  • ENGL 3430 - Modern European Literature

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Survey of continental literature (in translation) from 1800 to the present, including Goethe, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Ibsen, and Mann.

  • ENGL 3440 - The Bible as Literature

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Origin and nature of the Bible; cultural and historical backgrounds, influence on English language and literature; history of texts and canon; major religious and philosophical concepts and literary features.

  • ENGL 3725 - Nineteenth-Century Women Writers

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Examines works by British and American writers in the context of a female literary tradition. Writers studied may include Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Emily Dickinson.

  • ENGL 3730 - Twentieth-Century Women Writers

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Literature of major women writers of the period. Divided by genre and primarily includes the fiction, poetry, and drama of British and American women.

  • ENGL 4110 - Chaucer: Canterbury Tales

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. An intensive study of The Canterbury Tales and the background out of which they were written.

  • ENGL 4130 - Shakespeare: The Sixteenth-Century Plays

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Focuses on the first half of Shakespeare's career. Works considered both as products of their author's time and as enduring cultural artifacts. Special attention given to Shakespeare's development as a dramatist and to his depiction of character, theme, and imagery.

  • ENGL 4140 - Shakespeare: The Seventeenth-Century Plays

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisites: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Focuses on the second half of Shakespeare's career. The works will be considered both as products of their author's time and as enduring cultural artifacts. Special attention will be given to Shakespeare's development as a dramatist and to his depiction of character, theme, and imagery.

  • ENGL 4180 - Milton  3 credit hours  

    ENGL 4180 - Milton

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. An intensive study of Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, "Lycidas," Areopagitica, and the minor poetry.

  • ENGL 4230 - Selected British Writers after the Restoration

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Focuses on the work of at most three authors in a cultural and literary context. Specific authors will vary. May be repeated for up to six credits.

  • ENGL 4240 - Modern British Literature

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Poetry, fiction, and nonfiction written in Britain from approximately 1910 to 1939. Representative works of major British writers in the context of contemporary social and literary history.

  • ENGL 4310 - The American Renaissance

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. American Romanticism in the selected writings of Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville.

  • ENGL 4410 - Literary Criticism

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Critical theories: Classical, Neoclassical, Romantic, and Modern. Practical criticism: the technical analysis of poetry and prose.

  • ENGL 4425 - Backgrounds of Modern Literature

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Readings in the intellectual history of modern literature. Selected literary figures, major aesthetic movements, and pivotal ideas of modern Western culture, including Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre. Course divided by themes representing disciplines or modes of thought.

  • ENGL 4470 - Modern Drama  3 credit hours  

    ENGL 4470 - Modern Drama

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better; junior standing. World drama from 1880 to the present.

  • ENGL 4780 - Topics in War and Culture

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. An inquiry into war or related conflict through the study of literature, film, and/or popular culture. Topic will vary by term.

  • ENGL 4930 - Studies in the Novel

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Completion of 1000- and 2000-level English requirements with a grade of C- or better. Studies in the novel, with topics varying from semester to semester. May focus on the historical development and theory of the novel, or a particular period, author, form, theme, etc.

  • HUM 2610 - World Literatures  3 credit hours  

    HUM 2610 - World Literatures

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisites: ENGL 1010 and ENGL 1020. Representative works of French, German, and Hispanic authors in English translation. No foreign-language proficiency required. Carries General Education credit.

  • HIST 3020 - Topics in American History

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisites: Six hours of HIST 2010, HIST 2020, HIST 2030, HIST 2040, or HIST 2050. A detailed analysis of a topic pertinent to U.S. history. Topics vary from year to year. May be taken more than once for credit with different topic.

  • HIST 3090 - Topics in European History

    1 to 3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Three hours of HIST 1010, HIST 1020, HIST 1110, or HIST 1120. A detailed examination of a topic pertinent to European history. May be taken more than once for credit with different topic.

  • HIST 4410 - Classical History

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Three hours of HIST 1010, HIST 1020, HIST 1110, or HIST 1120. Ancient Greece and Rome, from about 2,000 B.C. to A.D. 476, emphasizing the classical historians, Greek and Roman culture.

  • PHIL 3200 - Asian Thought  3 credit hours  

    PHIL 3200 - Asian Thought

    3 credit hours

    The origins, development, essence, and implications of leading philosophical-religious traditions originating in Asia.

  • PHIL 4010 - History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: PHIL 1030 or permission of instructor. The development of philosophical thought from Thales to Occam. Offered fall only.

  • PHIL 4050 - Nineteenth-Century Philosophy

    3 credit hours

    Emphasis on movements such as German idealism, the rise of the philosophy of the social sciences, historical materialism, utilitarianism, and early critiques of modernism.

  • PHIL 4200 - Existentialism  3 credit hours  

    PHIL 4200 - Existentialism

    3 credit hours

    The nature, significance, and application of the teachings of several outstanding existential thinkers.

  • PHIL 4300 - American Philosophy

    3 credit hours

    Development of American thought with emphasis on naturalism, idealism, and pragmatism.

  • PHIL 4350 - Philosophy of Language

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: PHIL 2110 recommended. Introduces students to the most influential analyses of meaning, reference, and truth of early twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy; explores how the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein transforms canonical accounts of language; considers the role of metaphor in human communication and understanding.

  • PHIL 4400 - Analytic Philosophy

    3 credit hours

    Examines twentieth-century analytic movement including logical atomism, logical positivism, indeterminacy semantics, ordinary language philosophy.

  • PHIL 4450 - Marx and Marxism  3 credit hours  

    PHIL 4450 - Marx and Marxism

    3 credit hours

    An examination of the development of Marxist philosophy up to and including the present.

  • PHIL 4600 - Philosophy of History  3 credit hours  
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    PHIL 4600 - Philosophy of History

    3 credit hours

    Nature of historical knowledge and problems of historical inquiry; meaning and value of history; reality of the past; historical determinism and human freedom.

  • PS 4230 - Classical Political Theory

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: PS 1005, PS 1010, or PHIL 1030. Western political theory from the ancient Greeks through the medieval Christians. Includes Sophocles, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, stoicism, skepticism, Lucretius, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas More.

  • PS 4700 - American Political Thought

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: PS 1005, PS 1010, PHIL 1030, or permission of instructor. Major thinkers and movements in American political thought from colonial times to the twentieth century with special emphasis on the thoughts of the framers of the American Constitution and their contemporaries.

  • PS 4920 - Modern Political Theory

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: PS 1010, PS 1005, or PHIL 1030 or permission of instructor. Western political theory from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. Includes Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, J.S. Mill, Marx and Engels, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, facism, existentialism, Strauss, Arendt, and contemporary thought.

  • PSY 4490 - Operant Conditioning

    3 credit hours

    Philosophy of B.F. Skinner's behaviorism explored in his writings and those of his followers and critics. Current applications of behaviorism in all areas of psychology (child, marriage and family, animal conditioning, mental health, addictions, etc.) also examined.

  • RS 3010 - The Bible: Its Origin and Content

    3 credit hours

    Studies the historical development of biblical and extra-biblical texts with an emphasis on cultivating the skills of critical textual analysis, an understanding of reception history, and the emergence of diverse canons and interpretive approaches across different communities, both Jewish and Christian.

  • RS 4020 - Jesus of Nazareth  3 credit hours  

    RS 4020 - Jesus of Nazareth

    3 credit hours

    Surveys the diverse portraits of Jesus reflected in the socio-culture interface of the first century CE, early Christian literature, the modern scholarly quest for the historical Jesus, and in light of recent discussions, movements, films, and books

  • SOC 4150 - Topics in Sociology

    3 credit hours

    An in-depth study of a special topic which is significant in current sociological literature.

  • THEA 4800 - Theatre History I: Greek Period to Restoration

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Junior or senior standing or permission of instructor. The development of drama and the theatre; critical study of representative plays of the period.

  • THEA 4810 - Theatre History II: Restoration to Present

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Junior or senior standing or permission of instructor. The development of drama and the theatre; critical study of representative plays of the period.

  • UH - Depending on whether the subject calls for close examination of important texts, some upper-division Honors courses may be designated as Great Books courses. Examples of Honors courses participating in the minor include “Legends of King Arthur” and “Great Books of the Middle Ages.”

Non-College of Liberal Arts Courses

 

  • JOUR 3650 - Free Expression, Mass Media, and the American Public  3 credit hours  
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    JOUR 3650 - Free Expression, Mass Media, and the American Public

    3 credit hours

    (Same as EMC 3650/RIM 3650.) A general introduction to the issues surrounding free expression and its relationship to mass media in contemporary America. Comprehensive analysis of the history, philosophies, cases, and controls associated with freedom of expression.

  • RIM 3650 - Free Expression, Mass Media, and the American Public  3 credit hours  
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    RIM 3650 - Free Expression, Mass Media, and the American Public

    3 credit hours

    (Same as JOUR 3650/EMC 3650.) A general introduction to the issues surrounding free expression and its relationship to mass media in contemporary America. A comprehensive analysis of the history, philosophies, cases, and controls associated with freedom of expression.

  • EMC 3650 - Free Expression, Mass Media, and the American Public

    3 credit hours

    (Same as JOUR 3650/RIM 3650.)

    A general introduction to the issues surrounding free expression and its relationship to mass media in contemporary America. A comprehensive analysis of the history, philosophies, cases, and controls associated with freedom of expression.

  • JOUR 4800 - Seminar in Media Issues

    3 credit hours

    Prerequisite: Junior standing. Examination and critical evaluation of issues relevant to the operation and functions of mass media, including their relationships to each other and to government, advertisers, consumers, and other publics. May be repeated up to 6 credits.

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Mailing Address:
Department of English
Middle Tennessee State University
Box 70
1301 East Main Street
Murfreesboro, TN 37132

Main Office: Peck Hall 302

Chair: Dr. Stephen Severn

Email: stephen.severn@mtsu.edu

Telephone: (615) 898-2648