FALL
2007 HONORS COURSES
HONR 268E Gods, Demons, and Mythology
in the Ancient Near East and Egypt
Tuesday/Thursday, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Dr. Mark Cohen, Lecturer in University Honors and Jewish Studies
The main objective of this course is to provide students
with an opportunity to analyze and appreciate how our earliest recorded
societies struggled with religious, philosophical, and social concepts
fundamental to the functioning of all ancient and modern societies.
Students will read and evaluate primary source material (albeit in translation):
mythological and religious texts of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Hittites,
Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians.
Students should benefit from this opportunity to become
familiar with literature which had a direct, major effect upon subsequent
cultures in India, northern Africa, the Near East, and classical Europe;
discuss and appreciate social and religious concepts fundamental to
all societies; obtain or improve skills necessary for reading and evaluating
primary source material.
The class will consist of assigned readings, organized
according to four major aspects of society's relationship to the world:
the origin of the universe; the creation of humanity; the basis for
agricultural seasons; and the divine origin of human institutions. Students
will be expected to prepare a short paper each week, based on an assigned
theme directly related to their analysis of the assigned readings. The
papers will then be presented the following week, with the reactions
of fellow classmates to the ideas presented. In addition, two extended
written assignments will compare two of the four above-listed areas
of investigation with the responses of other past or present cultures
to the same human concerns.
For the final examination, the student will be presented
with an ancient mythological work not previously read for class. The
student will use the analytical approaches developed in class to analyze
and discuss the significance of the myth.
Reading List:
G.S. Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures
B.R. Foster, From Distant Days: Myths, Tales, and Poetry of Ancient
Mesopotamia
S.N. Kramer, Mythologies of the Ancient World
Packet of material prepared by the instructor which will include Hittite,
Canaanite, and Egyptian myths in translation unavailable in anthologies
CORE–Humanities [HO]
