Due Date: Wednesday, February 4 (by midnight)
Assignment: In this, as in subsequent blog entries, we ask for your critical reflection on the themes discussed in lecture and in your readings. If you have strong personal reactions, critiques, or praise to offer one or more the texts in question (or if you want to argue against a point made in lecture) please do follow your interests. Each week, however, we will be offering a suggested prompt that you may also choose to address.
Grading Rationale: You will not be graded on length, per se (though you should aim for at least two substantial paragraphs). Rather, we are looking for an engaged and critical response to the course materials. Be bold, smart, and opinionated, and you should do very well.
Suggested Prompt:
These past two weeks we have been learning about the European encounter of the New World, accounts of which were formative for the seminal works of many European philosophers of the time. We have also begun to see how European world views shaped the ways in which the peoples of Native America were understood and treated. How did these accounts figure in the project of colonization at that time, how Europeans saw themselves at home and in the world, and/or the imagination and foundation of America? In other courses (the Core, perhaps), you have likely read the works of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among others. How were these texts presented in your other courses, and how does that reading differ, if at all, from the one offered in our course?
Important Note: To ensure that you receive credit, please include your first and last names at the end of your blog entry.
Happy blogging!
