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Humanities 110

Introduction to the Humanities

Syllabus - Spring 2025

Jump to full schedule - Jump to course logistics

Coming Up

Week 13

Mon 28 Apr

Assignment

  • Ellison, Invisible Man, chapters 17-22 (pp.356-478).

Lecture: 鈥淢辞诲别谤苍颈迟测.鈥
Peter Steinberger

Wed 30 Apr

Assignment

  • Ellison, Invisible Man, chapters 23-epilogue (pp.479-581).  

Lecture: 鈥淩unning and Dodging the Forces of History.鈥
Ann Delehanty

Fri 2 May

Lecture: NO READING OR LECTURE

Final Exam

Tue 13 May

Tuesday, May 13, 9:00 AM 鈥 12:00 PM

Full Schedule

Week 1

Origins and Survivals
Mon 27 Jan

In-Person lecture: 9:00-9:50am in Vollum Lecture Hall

Assignment

  • Information
  • Camilla Townsend, “Introduction,” and “,” in The Fifth Sun; A New History of the Aztecs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 1-12, xi-xii.
  • from The Universal History of the Things of New Spain [La historia general de las cosas de Nueva España], Book 8 = Bernadino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex. General History of the Things of New Spain, vol. 9, eds. Arthur Anderson and Charles Dibble (Santa Fe: University of Utah Press, 2012), 1-5, 41-5, 61-5, with plates 1-17, 66-71, 93-4.

Lecture: 鈥淭he Many Mexicos in Historical Context.鈥
Christian Kroll

Wed 29 Jan

Assignment

  • “,” and  Native Mesoamerican Spirituality: Ancient Myths, Discourses, Stories, Doctrines, Hymns, Poems from the Aztec, Yucatec, Quiche-Maya and Other Sacred Traditions, ed. Miguel León-Portilla (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), 135-44, 220-225.

Lecture: 鈥淢exica (Aztec) Philosophy at the Time of the Conquest.鈥
James Maffie (University of Maryland, guest lecturer)

Fri 31 Jan

Assignment

Lecture: "Tenochtitlan: City of Light, City of Water."
Shivani Sud

Week 2

Mon 3 Feb

Assignment

  • Gallery:  (c. 1530)
  • from the Codex Mendoza, in The Essential Codex Mendoza, ed. Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 19927), folio 2r, and pp.7-9, 118-27.

Lecture: 鈥淲e Walked a Long Time to Get Here; We Have Been Here Forever."
Nathalia King

Wed 5 Feb

Assignment

  • Information
  • Codex Mendoza, ed. Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), selections
    • (= Vol. III, 9-43) and (=Vol. III, 44-45, 82-83, 98-99), blank pages omitted; color images; large file; best viewed on computer, not printed).
    • (=Vol. IV, 7-41) and (=Vol. IV, 42-43, 80-81, 96-97), blank pages omitted.

Lecture: 鈥淩eading Mexica Imperialism through the Codex Mendoza.鈥
David Garrett

Fri 7 Feb

Assignment

  • Information

  • Selections from The Universal History of the Things of New Spain [La historia general de las cosas de Nueva España], Book 12 = We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico, ed. and trans. James Lockhart (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 48-9, 126-163, 301, 306-7.

  •  Bernal Díaz,  [Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España], trans. J. M. Cohen  (London: Penguin, 1963), 284-307.

Lecture: 鈥淭elling the Story of New Spain.鈥
Nigel Nicholson

Week 3

Colonial Hierarchies, Hybridity and Resistance
Mon 10 Feb

In-Person lecture: 9:00-9:50am in Vollum Lecture Hall

Assignment

  • Information
  • Selections from Luis Lasso de la Vega,, eds. Lisa Sousa, Stafford Poole and James Lockhart (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 54-93.
  • Gallery: .

Lecture: 鈥溾楽he is Ours, All Ours鈥: The Virgin of Guadalupe as a Political Symbol.鈥
Jenny Sakai

Wed 12 Feb

Assignment

  • Information
  • Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, “Loa to Narcissus,” in Poems, Protest, and a Dream, 195-239.
  • Diana Taylor, “,” The Drama Review 50 (2006): 67-86.
  • Selection from “,” in Tepoztlan: A Mexican Village (University of Chicago Press: 1973. 224-234. [This text provides a translation of the speech delivered by the actor representing El Tepozteco as part of Tepoztlan's annual fiesta. For a description of the full performance, see Taylor's article and the lecture.]

Lecture: 鈥淒ramas of Conversion: Sor Juana's Loa to the Divine Narcissus and the Reto of Tepoztl谩n.鈥
Simone Waller

Fri 14 Feb

No reading or lecture

February 14 鈥 May 13

Sat 15 Feb

Fifth paper due

Due Saturday, February 15, at 5:00 PM to your conference leader.

Week 4

Mon 17 Feb

Assignment

  • Information
  • Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, “Reply to Sor Filotea,” in Poems, Protest, and a Dream, 1-75. 
  • Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Redondilla 92 (“A Philosophical Satire”); Decimas 130 and 132; Sonnet 161, in Poems, Protest, and a Dream, 148-51, 165, 179. 

Lecture: "On Knowledge and Epistemic Injustice in Sor Juana's Reply"
Ann Delehanty/Meg Scharle

Wed 19 Feb

Assignment

  • Information
  • Magali M. Carrera, “,” Art Journal 57.3 (1998): 36-45. 
  • Gallery: .

Lecture: "Fantasies of Control: Casta Paintings and the Racial Order of New Spain"
Jenny Sakai

Fri 21 Feb

Assignment

Note: The lecturer recommends watching the lecture before beginning the reading.

  • Information
  • Selections from, ed. Gilbert M. Joseph and Timothy J. Henderson (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002):
    • José Maria Morelos, “Sentiments of the Nation” (1813), 189-191.
    • Agustín de Iturbide, “Plan of Iguala” (1821), 192-195.
    • Editors of El Tiempo, “A Conservative Profession of Faith” (1846), 220-225.
    • Mariano Otero, “Considerations Relating to the Political and Social Situation of the Mexican Republic in the Year 1847” (1847), 226-238.   
  • Gallery: Diego Rivera,  (c. 1929-1935).

Lecture: 鈥淭urning Points: Mexico in the Nineteenth Century.鈥
Margot Minardi

Week 5

Envisioning the Modern Nation
Mon 24 Feb

In-Person lecture: 9:00-9:50am in Vollum Lecture Hall

Assignment

  • Information
  • Gallery: Diego Rivera, (c. 1929-1935).
  • Branch, H.N., trans., (American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1917), 1-3, 15-32, 94-113.
  • “” (1911), in John Womack, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), 400-404. 
  • , 1914, 120 seconds (video).

Lecture: 鈥淢odernity and the Mexican Revolution.鈥
David Garrett

Wed 26 Feb

Assignment

  • Information
  • Gallery:
  • “” (1923-1924), in Mexican Muralism: A Critical History, ed. Alejandra Anreus, Leonard Folgarait, and Robin Adèle Greeley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 319-321.

Lecture: 鈥淪tate-Sponsored Art.鈥
Nigel Nicholson

Thu 27 Feb

Movie Screening (Optional Event)

"Los Olvidados"

6:30 PM, Vollum Lecture Hall

Fri 28 Feb

Assignment

  • Information
  • (The Young and the Damned), directed by Luis Buñuel (1950).
  • Cesare Zavattini, “,” Sight and Sound 23.2 (1953): 64-69.
  • Luis Buñuel, “,” in An Unspeakable Betrayal: Selected Writings of Luis Buñuel, trans. Garrett White (Oakland: University of California Press, 1995), 136-141.

Lecture: "Los Olvidados: Space, Violence, Dream"
Marat Grinberg

Week 6

Mon 3 Mar

Assignment

  • Information
  • Jose Emilio Pacheco, Battles in the Desert, trans. Katherine Silver (New York: New Directions, 2021), 9-71 (= 81-117 in the 1987 edition).
  • Gallery: Juan O’Gorman, “.”

Lecture: 鈥淎ll Roads Lead to 鈥楻oma.鈥欌
Libby Drumm

Wed 5 Mar

Assignment

  • Elena Poniatowska, Massacre in Mexico (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), vii-xvii, 3-23, 173-231 (= (text only), and (images only).
  • Elena Poniatowska, (Biblioteca Era, Mexico, D.F. 1971), images only.

Lecture: 鈥淩EPRESENTATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS鈥
Jan Mieszkowski

Fri 7 Mar

Assignment

  • Information
  • Subcomandante Marcos, “Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle” (1996), “Mexico City: We Have Arrived. We Are Here: The EZLN.” (2001), and “The Story of the Questions” (1994), in , ed. Juana Ponce de León (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001), 78-81, 155-162, 413-416.
  • Zapatista Army of National Liberation, “” (June 2005).
  • Zapatista Women’s Revolutionary Law.

Lecture: 鈥淭he Inconvenience of Revolution: Zapatismo, Cynicism, Dignity, and Memory.鈥
Christian Kroll

Week 7

Propaganda, History and Power
Mon 10 Mar

In-Person lecture: 9:00-9:50am in Vollum Lecture Hall

Assignment

  • Information
  • W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth,” Souls of Black Folk, 189-205.
  • Aida Overton Walker, “,” The Colored American Magazine 9 (1905): 571-5.
  •  W.E.B. Du Bois, three short essays: “Criteria of Negro Art,” Crisis (1926): 290-7; “Negro Art,” Crisis (1921): 55-6; “The Social Origins of American Negro Art,” The Modern Quarterly 3 (1925): 53-6.

Lecture: 鈥溾楾rue Life鈥: Propaganda, Leadership, and the Politics of Black Art.鈥
Mark Burford

Wed 12 Mar

Assignment

  • Information
  • W.E.B. Du Bois, “,” in Black Reconstruction in America (New Brunswick: Transaction, 2013), 635-51.
  • Ida B. Wells, : Lynch Law in All Its Phases, in Southern Horrors and Other Writings: The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892-1900, 2nd ed., ed. Jacqueline Jones Royster (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016), 46-68.

Lecture: "Reconstructing History, Reconstructing Freedom: Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. Du Bois."
Paddy Riley

Fri 14 Mar

Lecture: No Reading or Lecture

Sat 15 Mar

Sixth Paper Due

Due Saturday, March 15, at 5:00 PM to your conference leader.

Week 8

Mon 17 Mar

In-Person panel lecture: 9:00-9:50 a.m. in Vollum Lecture Hall

Assignment

  • Information
  • Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” Chapter 1
  • W.E.B. Du Bois, in Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), vii-viii, 3-4, 29-52.

Lecture: 鈥淭he Veil, Second Sight, and Double Consciousness,鈥 and "Souls of White Folk and the Philosophy of Race"
Nathalia King and Troy Cross

Wed 19 Mar

Assignment

  • Information
  • Booker T. Washington, “,” in The Negro Problem (New York: Pott & Co., 1903).
  • W.E.B. Du Bois, “Coming of John,” Souls of Black Folk, Chapter 13.

Lecture: 鈥淭he Pain, Pleasures, and Possibilities of Learning.鈥
Margot Minardi and Dustin Simpson

Fri 21 Mar

Assignment

  • Information
  • Deacon A. Wilson and Congregation, "" (1926).
  • Marian Anderson, “” (1924).
  • Paul Robeson, “” (1936).
  • Hosea Williams and Selma Marchers, (1965).
  • Moses Hogan Chorale, “” (c. 2000).
  • W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Sorrow Songs,” Souls of Black Folk, Chapter 14.
  • Zora Neale Hurston, “,” in The Sanctified Church (Berkeley, Calif.: Turtle Island, 1983), 79-84.
  • Alain Locke, “,” in The New Negro, ed. Locke (1925; rpt. New York: Touchstone, 1992), 199-213.
  • James Weldon Johnson, “O Black and Unknown Bards,” in The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader, ed. Lewis, 282-283.

Lecture: 鈥淲ho, How and Why Not? Questioning African American Spirituals.鈥
Mark Burford

Sat 22 Mar

Spring Break

March 22 鈥 March 30

Week 9

Collectivity and Identities
Mon 31 Mar

In-Person lecture: 9:00-9:50am in Vollum Lecture Hall

Assignment

  • Information
  • James Weldon Johnson, "," in Survey Graphic 6 (1925): 635-639.
  • Saidiya Hartman, “A Note on Method,” “Mistah Beauty: the Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Woman, Select Scenes from a Film Never Cast by Oscar Micheaux, Harlem, 1920s,” “Revolution in a Minor Key,” “Wayward: A Short Entry on the Possible,” and “The Anarchy of Colored Girls Assembled in a Riotous Manner,” in (New York: Norton, 2019),  xiii-xvi, 192-202, 216-256.

Lecture: 鈥淗arlem, New York: City within a City.鈥
Margot Minardi

Wed 2 Apr

Assignment

  • Information
  • Universal Negro Improvement Association, “” (1920).
  • Marcus Garvey, “Africa for the Africans” and “Liberty Hall Emancipation Day Speech,” in The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader, ed. Lewis, 17-28.

Lecture: "Harlem in the World: Race, Diaspora, and Black Internationalism"
Kritish Rajbhandari

Fri 4 Apr

Assignment

  • Information
  • Sterling Brown, "Our Literary Audience"
  • Selections from The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader, ed.Lewis
    • Countee Cullen, “Yet Do I Marvel” and “Heritage,” 244-247
    • Claude McKay, “If We Must Die,” “The White House,” and “The Harlem Dancer,” 290-291, 296
    • Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “The Weary Blues,” “Red Silk Stockings,” “Goodbye, Christ,” “Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria,” 257-267
    • Sterling Brown, “Southern Road,” “Odyssey of Big Boy,” and “Ma Rainey,” 227-232
    • James Weldon Johnson, “Creation,” 286-288
    • Gwendolyn Bennet, “Hatred,” 223
    • Helene Johnson (all the poems), 276-278

Lecture: 鈥淗arlem Renaissance Poetry.鈥
Dustin Simpson

Week 10

Mon 7 Apr

Assignment

  • Information
  • in Negro Periodicals in the United States (Westport, CT: Negro Universities Press, 1970). Focus on the following sections: Richard Bruce Nugent, “Smoke, Lilies And Jade, A Novel, Part I”; Zora Neale Hurston, “Sweat.”

Lecture: 鈥淔laming Youth.鈥
Jay Dickson

Wed 9 Apr

Assignment

  • Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, chapters 1-3 (pp.1-25).
  • Zora Neale Hurston, “,” in I Love Myself When I Am Laughing...And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader, ed. Alice Walker (Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, 1979), 169-173. 
  • Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” in The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader, ed. Lewis, 91–95.
  • George S. Schuyler, “The Negro-Art Hokum,” in The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader, ed. Lewis, 96–99.

Lecture: "Defiant Appeals: Schuyler, Hughes, and Hurston"
Dustin Simpson

Fri 11 Apr

Assignment

  • Information
  • Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, chapters 4-13 (pp.26-128).
  • “Audio files of , read by Ruby Dee.”

Lecture: 鈥淗ungry Listening.鈥
Libby Drumm

Week 11

Mon 14 Apr

In-Person lecture: 9:00-9:50am in Vollum Lecture Hall

Assignment

  • Information
  • Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, chapters 14-20 (pp.129-193).

Lecture: 鈥淔rom Mules to Men: Animals in Their Eyes were Watching God.鈥
Kritish Rajbhandari

Wed 16 Apr

Assignment

  • Information
  • Jacob Lawrence, (1940-1941), Phillips Collection. [Browse the, including the titles; titles are visible if you hover the mouse over an image. Then, explore the full series of 60 panels, panel by panel, starting with. You can advance to the next panel by clicking the down arrow below “panel 1” at the upper right.]
  • Gallery:.

Lecture: 鈥淢oving the Color Line: Jacob Lawrence鈥檚 鈥楳igration Series.鈥欌
Nathalia King

Fri 18 Apr

Assignment

  • Information
  • Listening guide
  • . The song list is visible if you click on “Hovda Blues.”
    • W.C. Handy, “St. Louis Blues.”
    • Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, “St. Louis Blues.”
    • Ida Cox, “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues.”
    • Ida Cox, “Graveyard Dream Blues.”
    • Ma Rainey, “Runaway Blues.”
    • Blind Willie Johnson, “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground.”
    • Blind Willie Johnson, Willie B. Richardson, “The Soul of a Man.”
    • Skip James, “Devil Got My Woman.”
    • Count Basie, “Boogie Woogie Blues.”
    • Sister Rosetta Tharpe, “Strange Things Happening Every Day.”
    • Chuck Berry, “Roll Over Beethoven."
    • Duke Ellington, "Happy Go Lucky Local." 
  •  Langston Hughes, “The Weary Blues,” “Jazzonia,” and “The Blues I'm Playing,” in The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader, ed. Lewis, 260-1, 619-627.

Lecture: 鈥淭he Many-Sided Blues.鈥
Paul Hovda

Sat 19 Apr

Seventh paper due

Due Saturday, April 19, at 5:00 PM to your conference leader.

Week 12

Visibility and Invisibility
Mon 21 Apr

In-Person lecture: 9:00-9:50am in Vollum Lecture Hall

Assignment

  • Information
  • Ellison, Invisible Man, prologue, chapters 1-4 (pp.1-108).

Lecture: 鈥淢aster Meter: The Poetics of Ralph Ellison.鈥
Peter Miller

Wed 23 Apr

Assignment

  • Ellison, Invisible Man, chapters 5-10 (pp.109-230).

Lecture: "Thinker-Tinker: The Black Technological Self in Ralph Ellison鈥檚 Invisible Man?"
Kritish Rajbhandari

Fri 25 Apr

Assignment

  • Ellison, Invisible Man, chapters 11-16 (pp.231-355).

Lecture: "Stepping Inside of Time"
Nigel Nicholson

Week 13

Mon 28 Apr

Assignment

  • Ellison, Invisible Man, chapters 17-22 (pp.356-478).

Lecture: 鈥淢辞诲别谤苍颈迟测.鈥
Peter Steinberger

Wed 30 Apr

Assignment

  • Ellison, Invisible Man, chapters 23-epilogue (pp.479-581).  

Lecture: 鈥淩unning and Dodging the Forces of History.鈥
Ann Delehanty

Fri 2 May

Lecture: NO READING OR LECTURE

Final Exam

Tue 13 May

Tuesday, May 13, 9:00 AM 鈥 12:00 PM

Course Logistics

REQUIRED TEXTS

  • Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Poems, Protest, and a Dream: Selected Writings, trans. Margaret Sayers Peden (New York: Penguin Books, 1997).
  • W.E.B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Note: parts of this book are in the public domain, and are accessible via Project Gutenberg.
  • Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (New York: Vintage International, 1995).
  • Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006).
  • David Levering Lewis, ed., The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader (New York: Penguin, 1995).
  • Jose Emilio Pacheco, Battles in the Desert, trans. Katherine Silver (New York: New Directions, 2021)

Additional assigned texts are available on e-reserves accessible via links embedded in the syllabus below. You will need your Reed username and password to access these texts. Please bring a copy of the day’s reading assignment to class each day. The library has on reserve a limited number of the required books.

​​LECTURES
On most Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays of the semester, a lecture is assigned. On the Mondays, a lot of these are in-person (weeks 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12), and for these lectures we will meet in Vollum Lecture Hall at 9:00 am. Please be on time; the moments when we all gather together as a unified class are important. In-person lecture days are flagged on the syllabus. The other lectures will be posted so they can be accessed online; you can review these when it is most convenient to do so, but, obviously, do so before your conference meeting. Some of these lectures have been reused from last year, but, of course, only when still relevant. Lectures are regularly updated.

CONFERENCE ASSIGNMENTS
Humanities 110 is a yearlong course, and students are expected to remain in the same conference throughout the year. In cases of absolutely unresolvable schedule conflicts, students may petition for a change of conference time. Petitions (in the form of an email) should be addressed to Nathalia King, including an explanation of the conflict and why it cannot be resolved. Students granted a change of conference time will be assigned to new sections based on available slots and the student’s schedule; requests to move into a particular conference generally cannot be honored.

PAPERS AND WRITING ASSIGNMENTS
Three course-wide papers will be assigned in the fall semester, due at the times designated on the syllabus. Individual conference leaders may assign additional writing. If the due date for an assignment conflicts with a religious holiday or obligation that you wish to observe, please consult with your conference leader. Over the course of the semester, students are also required to submit at least three conference discussion questions, in writing, to their conference leader. Due dates for these questions are determined by individual conference leaders.

DISABILITY ACCOMMODATIONS
If you have a documented disability requiring accommodations, please contact Disability Support Services. Notifications of accommodations on exams, papers, other writing assignments, or conferences should be directed to your conference leader. Notifications of accommodations regarding lectures can be directed to the chair of the course, Nigel Nicholson. You are advised to consult with your conference leader about how your accommodations might apply to specific assignments or circumstances in this course. 

RESOURCES FOR SUPPORT
Your conference leader is your first line of support for any questions you have about the course. Please also be sure to explore the Hum 110 website for additional information. The Course Resources entries provide brief introductions to upcoming readings and suggestions for how to approach them. The Writing in Hum 110 page provides tips on the writing process. 

The Writing Center is a particularly valuable resource for Hum 110 students working on papers. You can get help with all stages of the writing process from peer tutors at the Writing Center. Links to the Writing Center session are posted on the Drop-in hours for the Writing Center this semester are posted here. Extra hours in weeks when papers are due are also offered. In addition, students are eligible for one free hour of Hum. tutoring every week. For additional information about support resources available to you on the Reed campus, please see Student Life’s Key Support Resources for Students. If you have questions that aren’t answered here, please consult your conference leader or email Hum110@reed.edu.

General questions for semester

  • How is humanity defined? How are these definitions implicated in different social orders and movements?
  • How do forced encounters of colonial Mexico and the African diaspora produce new, hybrid identities and cultures? What continuities and differences are there in these formations?
  • How do colonized and formerly enslaved peoples retain their cultural heritage and communal identities when under pressure to assimilate or to adopt a dominant culture? What new cultural forms are created from these contacts and adaptations?
  • What kinds of questions and conflicts arise from forced encounters between hybrid cultures? How have various thinkers and practitioners across time responded to these questions?
  • How do the different narrative mediums (e.g. maps, architectural assemblages, catalogs, encyclopedias, novels, films, sonnets, murals, salon paintings, etc.) facilitate or promote particular understandings of their world?
  • How and why do artworks gain authority? What is or should be their relation to politics?