Time Schedule:
Leroy F Searle
ENGL 205
Seattle Campus
Examines ideas of method and imagination in a variety of texts, in literature, philosophy, and science. Particularly concerned with intellectual backgrounds and methods of inquiry that have shaped modern Western literature. Offered: jointly with CHID 205.
Class description
This course is offered as both an English and Comparative History of Ideas course. It offers a rigorous introduction to intellectual history by examining the rich relations between method and imagination, by treating Western intellectual history as overwhelmingly motivated by the idea of inquiry. Selections include literary, philosophical and scientific texts. The reading for the course is demanding, but coherent: each text provides a basis for better understanding the next. Selections include works by Plato, Aristotle, Giordano Bruno, Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, Descartes, Kant, Coleridge, C. S. Peirce, Thomas Kuhn and William Faulkner. The course meets daily; one meeting each week will be in smaller sections to go over reading and writing assignments. There is a take-home mid-term examination, a number of short papers, and a final paper.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
