GREAT BOOKS 202.001
Winter 1999

MTuThF 1-2 in 3406 Mason Hall

Robert D. Wallin   Lecturer in Classical Studies and Great Books, and
		           Director of LS&A Academic Information & Publications
		           G411 Mason Hall
		           764-6860
		           rdwallin@umich.edu  

Office hours:  Monday 11-12, Thursday 2-3, and by appointment 

READING
	In addition to completing the reading assignments on the “Schedule of Classes” handout, you are expected to read the introductions and any explanatory notes in our texts.  No other outside reading is assigned or recommended.  Instead, when you have time, read the books a second and a third time.  Really make them your own possessions, a part of you. In an interview a few years ago, the novelist Saul Bellow observed that if we are truly to understand literature, we ne   ed what he calls a “trained sensibility.”  How do we develop such a sensibility?  It is, said Bellow, impossible, “unless you take certain masterpieces into yourself; as if you were swallowing a communion wafer.  If masterpieces don’t have a decisive part in your existence, all you have is a show of culture.  It has no reality.”  I urge you to subscribe to this classical ideal.    

PAPERS/WRITING REQUIREMENT
	Four papers will be required:  three essays of 2-3 pages (500-750 words) each, due on February 1 and 26 and March18; and one essay of 4 pages (1000 words) due on April 9.  These essays are to represent your own best thinking and writing. Plagiarism will be dealt with severely.  

EXAMS
	Two Midterm Hour Exams:
		Tuesday, February 9
		Friday, March 26
	Final Exam – Wednesday, April 28, 1:30-3:30 p.m.

The dates of the Midterm Exams are subject to be changed at the instructor’s discretion.  Any such change will be announced in class sufficiently in advance.  All three exams will be given in our regular classroom, 3406 Mason Hall.  Please bring a bluebook in which to write each exam.  

COURSE GRADE  
	The exams will count for 50% of the grade (two midterms equal 25% and final equals 25%); the papers, averaged proportionately to their length, will count for 40%; class attendance and participation will count for 10%.