Kris Maulden's Discussion Questions - March 2/3

This week, we'll be discussing Unit 3 of the online reader and the Introduction to Kramnick's Portable Enlightenment Reader. If you're writing the first paper, you'll also have an opportunity at the end to ask questions about your paper or about the Axtell and Kramnick volumes. All of that aside, here are this week's questions:

1. How would you compare William Penn's ideas to those of John Locke and other philosophers you've read in the Kramnick reader? Also, using Kramnick's introduction as a guide, where do you think that Penn would fit into the Enlightenment? Is there anything that disqualifies Penn from being part of the Enlightenment?

2. Both William Penn and Patricia Bonomi point out that English government relied upon a balance between monarchy, aristocracy, and the commoners. Without a titled aristocracy, what changes does Bonomi see in colonial governments? How does this new system of politics affect older orders of patriarchy within the family?

Discussion question for Honors section (and whoever else), March 2-3

Here's a question to guide your "online reader" reading & for discussion on the blog (comment here) and in class:

Were the American colonists justified in exercising their rights of revolution from 1765 to 1776? (They began by resisting and effectively nullifying a particular law, the Stamp Act, and ended by dissolving their ties to Great Britain altogether.) Answer by doing the following: Read this report (by an American colonist) of Parliament's debate on the Stamp Act. Based on the speeches and the general issues, how would you (as a member of Parliament) have voted and why? Was the Stamp Act as unjust as Americans, and the main speaker in the selection, Col. Isaac Barre, claimed? Then read the Declaration of Independence. Measured by your knowledge of the colonial period, how accurate and/or justified are the series of charges the Jefferson makes against the British in the later sections of the document? Do they really add up to the alleged conspiracy to establish "an absolute tyranny over these states"?

Links to test terms, paper questions, outlines

Here are the links for some materials you will be needing in the next week or so:

• Lecture outlines, including my full notes for the France/New England section
• Terms to study for first test
• Paper instructions & topics for Axtell and Kramnick

Terms to study for 1st test

Here are some terms that you should study for the upcoming test. The IDs will be drawn directly from this list, but not all of these are necessarily of equal weight. The terms come from both the reading and the lectures. Ask any questions as comments on this posting.

• Columbian Exchange
• West Africa
  
• smallpox
• Spanish Empire
• Aztecs
• Tenochtitlan
  
• reconquista
• conquistadores
• requerimiento
• berdaches
  
• Papal donation
  
• Cortes, Hernan
  
• joint-stock companies
• patriarchy (European patriarchal family)
• "breaking the will"
  
• Great Chain of Being
• Divine Right of Kings
  
• Filmer, Robert
• Stuarts
  
• sovereignty
  
• Leviathan
• state of nature
  
• "imperium in imperio"
  
• original sin
• New England Primer
• Eastern Woodlands Indian culture
• role of women in native society
• "white Indians"
  
• Iroquois Confederacy
• Powhatan
• Pocahontas
• Smith, Captain John
• werowances
• Jamestown
• Colonial crops: tobacco, rice, indigo
  
• Virginia Company of London
• House of Burgesses
• indentured servants
• 17th-century Virginia society
  
• Wampanoags
• Beloved men
• Indian givers
• vacuum domicilium
• "waste" land
• Pilgrims
• Puritans
• Protestant Reformation: "priesthood of all believers," "sola scriptura"
  
• Winthrop, John
• "city on a hill"
• covenant theology
• Massasoit
• Tisquantum
  
• King Philip's War
• Hutchinson, Anne
• Williams, Roger
• French colonization
• Champlain, Samuel de
• Hurons
• fur trade
• Dutch
• Onontio
• captivity narratives
• Restoration
  
• Dominion of New England
• Bacon's Rebellion
• Leisler's Rebellion
  
• Glorious Revolution
• Salem witchcraft crisis
  
• proprietary colonies
  
• Quakers
• Penn, William
• "holy conversation"
• Enlightenment
• Locke, John: liberalism, tabula rasa, right of revolution, sensationalism, Thoughts on Education
• Great Awakening
• slavery, rise of as southern labor system
  
• colonial assemblies
• Boston Impressment riot

Rick's Additional Office Hours for Exam Week

For those of you who are having test anxiety, questions about identification terms, or a fear of organizing and writing an essay, I will be holding additional office hours this week:

Monday: 3:30-5:00
Wed: 3:30-5:00
Thurs: 3:00-5:00

As mentioned in class, use the blog to ask questions and learn from one another. If these times don't work for you, we can try to set up an appointment. My office is 14 Read Hall - Kris and I are in the basement.

Good luck in your prep!

Paper instructions & topics for Axtell and Kramnick

Write a 5 to 8 page term paper on one of the topics listed below. focusing on one of the supplemental textbooks:

Papers should be double-spaced, with one-inch margins, printed in 12 pt. Times New Roman or a similar proportional font. Since the book you are writing on should be your only source (unless otherwise specified), the basis for your assertions and the sources of your examples and quotations may be cited by simply listing the author and page numbers in parentheses, for example (Rowson, pp. 23-24). If there is a specific document or section within the book, that should be mentioned in the text.

This is not a research paper. The idea here is not to pack in as much information as you can, but instead to present a thoughtful and clearly-written analysis. The best essays will thoroughly answer the question and make a clear, well-defined argument, supporting the author's point of view with specific factual or textual evidence. For your information, rely on the book you are analyzing and other materials used in this course (textbooks, lectures, and online readings). You may use sections of the course books that were not assigned to the whole class, but you MAY NOT bring in any outside secondary works without permission of Prof. Pasley or one of the TAs.

Papers focusing on the Axtell (Indians) or Kramnick (Enlightenment) books are due in your section meeting the week of March 16-17.

Topics focusing on James Axtell, ed., The Indian Peoples of Eastern America: A Documentary History of the Sexes

• The questions I previously posted
• Discussion question #3 from this posting by Kris
  
• Check back for more options soon

Topics focusing on Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Portable Enlightenment Reader (New York: Penguin, 1995)

• Describe and analyze the essential elements of Enlightenment thought on one or two of the the following topics:
• the nature of truth
• the role of women in society
• the political rights of women
• crime (and punishment)
• slavery
• Africans
• American Indians
  
• war
• progress
• history
• art
• mind
• the existence of God
• organized religion
• the human mind
• human nature
  
• the scientific method
• morality
• manners
  
• role of the state in the economy
• luxury goods and other form of consumption
  
• the natural world

You will almost certainly need to read well beyond the sections of the book that were assigned to the whole class. Email Professor Pasley if you have another idea for a specific aspect of Enlightenment thought to write about.

• Click here to see the topics posted earlier
  
• Check back for more options later
  

Honors section question for Feb. 16 (and paper questions)

Here a couple of questions we can talk about that will also be paper questions on "The Portable Enlightenment Reader":

• Based on your reading, what are the 2, 3, or 4 most important central ideas, themes, or values found in Enlightenment thought? One way to think about this is, what adjectives would you use to describe the Enlightenment?
  
• Since the end of the 18th century, a number of times and places have seen backlashes against the Enlightenment. The period from the 1960s to the present has seen one of the most intense of these backlashes. To what extent are the ideas and values of the Enlightenment reflected in modern American culture, and to what extent (and where) do you see Enlightenment patterns of thought being revised, contradicted, or reversed in modern culture?
• Construct your own critique of the Enlightenment, drawing on the "Portable Enlightenment Reader" and other course materials. [Hint: The "Reader" contains a number of selections the criticize aspects of the Enlightenment, including several from the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau that differ sharply from the views of his fellow philosophes].
  

Kris Maulden's Questions - Feb. 16/17

This week, we'll be discussing Locke's essays on p. 185-187 and p. 395-404. I'll also leave time for questions about the midterm next week, so if you have anything you want to discuss be ready to ask about it. Without further ado, here are my questions:

1. Last week we discussed how the ideas of Thomas Hobbes pertained to early Virginia. This week, how do you think Locke's theory is reflected in other colonies?

2. While Locke sees the world much differently than did Filmer and Hobbes, are there ways in which Locke's essays endorse or preserve the older patriarchal orders? Can you illustrate the ways that Locke continues patriarchy by giving examples, either from the colonies or from current events?

REMINDER FOR THE MIDTERM: Bring a blank bluebook to class on the day of the exam. You will not receive an exam until I receive a bluebook from you.

A Quick Comment on the Readings for this Week (discussion questions to come)

As mentioned by Professor Pasley, you certainly might get bogged down in some of the readings from the Enlightenment Reader. For this week's discussions remember to read as much as you can (in addition to Ch. 4 in the Nash text) but pay particular attention to the Locke readings in ch. 2, 3, and 4 - we will definitely discuss "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" and "Some thoughts Concerning Education." And since we are so concerned with Locke, also read Voltaire, Hume, and Rousseau in chapter 4. Finally, don't forget about our own Ben Franklin in ch. 2.

Students posting questions: feel free to post anytime before class; this stuff is deep, so please ask questions.

Feeling much better after my quail hunt with Dick Cheney thank you,
Rick

Reading update: "Portable Enlightenment Reader" excerpts

We are not quite there yet, but here are the excerpts from Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Portable Enlightenment Reader, that you should plan to read in the next assignment. Note that this assignment includes some sections of Part IV that were mistakenly left out of the syllabus.

• Introduction
• Part I: selections by Kant, Condorcet
• Part II: selections by Bacon, Newton, Voltaire, Condorcet, Priestley, Franklin
• Part III: selections by Locke, Shaftesbury, Newton
• Part IV: Mind and Ideas --selections by Descartes, Locke, Voltaire, Hume
• Part IV: Education and Childhood -- selections by Locke, Rousseau & Priestley
• Part V: Politics and the State -- selection by John Locke (I forgot this one earlier)
  

If you bog down in this material, the selections from Locke are by far the most important.

"The New World" -- let the rants begin

One of member of the class said something along the lines of "You so owe us extra credit for that" as we exited the theater last night. I would have to agree. I did not expect a Colin Farrell historical epic (anybody see Alexander?) to be good, exactly, but I also did not expect the longest 135 minutes of my life, which is only a slight exaggeration. All I can say is, we should count our lucky stars that New World director Terrence Malick cut the film down by 15 minutes or so before its wide U.S. release, and doubtless way more than that earlier. Apparently he shot more than a million feet of yawn-inducing film for this.

At any rate, come and get your extra credit by posting your thoughts on the film here, as comments on this message.

I will state my own views just briefly so as to give you guys plenty of space.

• Given the obvious care Malick took to provide realistic sights and sounds -- the movie was actually shot in Virginia, largely without artificial light -- I was shocked at how closely it followed the most extreme and mindlessly patriotic versions of the romantic mythology about Captain John Smith and the Indian "princess" Pocahontas. Here we have America as the virginal young Indian maiden swooning for her manly (but kind and sensitive) Englishman -- actually 2 of them -- and then giving birth to a new land of hybrid vigor and natural liberty for you and me. Pocahontas/Rebecca dies of disease on her trip to England and her people are defeated and demoralized, but the movie insists on a happy ending, with her young son Thomas Rolfe shown scampering into a future of blue skies and amber waves of grain (and tobacco!)
• Probably Malick's worst cinematic crime was taking one of American history's greatest characters, the grinning con-man/adventurer (and tough soldier) John Smith, and turning him into the moping, dewy-eyed lump we see in the movie.
  

• Ditto for the Indian leaders Powhatan and Opechanacanough, a wily, ruthless empire-builder on one hand and Virginia's worst nightmare on the other, the man whose 1622 rebellion killed the Virginia Company.

Valerie Dixon already posted a comment in the announcement thread below, but let's put the rest of them here.

What if the Pope had donated the New World to someone else?

Danielle Winston asked what I thought was good question, that everyone might profit from, in one of the section threads below:

"What would be different/same if the pope had not given Spain the New World? What if the pope gave the New World to England or France or even a country in Africa (to think way outside the box)?"

Honors section discussion question (for Feb. 9)

Based on our recent readings, where would you have preferred to live, in an Eastern Woodlands Indian village or a colonial settlement? Which of the colonial settlements would you have chosen: Virginia, New England, New Spain, or New France? Think about this from the perspective of various social, ethnic, and religious groups, in addition to your own perspective as modern American man or woman.

"Bringing the Pain"....Rick's Discussion Questions for Week 4 (now featuring students)

Just a reminder to read Chapter 3 in the text and both selections from the online reader. We will discus the immediate and long term aspects of colonization.

Students posting questions for the week: Post your questions as comments to my blog; be sure to include your name.

1. Which theme from the two readings resonates most with modern notions of American national identity: the love of independence and an individualistic and personal liberty or the covenant idea of divine purpose, communal obligation, hard work, and prosperity.

2. Do we spend too much time emphasizing the linear importance of Massachusetts or Virginia in the development of American idealism? Are there examples from the other colonies that actually make better representations for these ideas of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

3. What was the role of rebellion in creating the American colonies in the 17th Century? How did these impact the colonies in the 18th Century?

If your questions are similar to mine, post them anyway. They're probably clearer than mine.

Kris Maulden's Questions - Feb. 9/10

The questions cover this week's readings, chapter 3 of the textbook as well as Winthrop's "Modell of Christian Charity" and T.H. Breen's article "Looking Out for Number One."

1. How do you think Breen's portrayal of early Virginia society confirms or disproves the political theories of Filmer and Hobbes?

2. In your opinion, why did differences evolve between early Virginia and early Massachusetts (especially as shown in the online readings)? In addition, what similarities and differences do you see among those two colonies and others - such as Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York - described in the textbook?

A Field Trip to "The New World" on Tue, Feb. 7

The New World, 2/7/06 @ 3:55 Hollywood Theatres

Don't you miss the days of field trips and outdoor school? Sure you do. To help fill this void, everyone is invited to view the new historical epic The New World. Described as "the best epic love story since Titanic" (and hopefully void of annoying, jewelry-clutching, senile old women) this film fits exceptionally well into the themes of our readings and lectures - we hope.

It is showing at Hollywood theatre on Stadium; it starts @ 3:55, so we'll get there a little early. Everyone is welcome to come, watch, and then blog their lives away. We are not buying your tickets, so please bring at least $6 for the ticket and $10 for a small soda. Professor Pasley, Kris, and I should be there- I'll be pulling for Christian Bale's John Rolfe and Kris for Collin Farrell's John Smith, we don't know who wins out in this crazy love triangle.

See you then,
Rick