Hum/En 22
Inequality
Spring 2021
Prof. Kristine Haugen (haugen@caltech.edu)
This class is
edited and revised from past years in that there are no live (Zoom) meetings,
no midterm or final papers or exams, and about half the usual amount of reading
each week. Like other Caltech classes,
it will be held on Canvas. (This page is
only for your information before Canvas opens for spring term.)
To let us
get into some depth with our longer readings, we’ll be spending two weeks on
Svetlana Alexievich’s oral history of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, ‘Voices
from Chernobyl’ (1997, English translation 2005) and three weeks on Plato’s ancient
Greek dialogue called ‘The Republic,’ on inequality and the best form of
government (4th century B.C.E.). I’ve
found that freshmen have responded with great interest to Alexievich’s book,
and upperclass students in my Classical Mythology course have done a terrific and
thoughtful job with another dialogue of Plato’s. So these major selections have been pretty
extensively road-tested for you.
I think
there’s no problem with focusing heavily on texts that don’t come from our own
time and culture, because the purpose of this class as I’ve designed it is to explore
very fundamental ideas and issues about inequality. Thousands of comparisons with the here and
now can be made, but those are for *you and your classmates* to draw in your
homeworks and your online discussion posts.
Your activity during the class each week will be: a 1- to 2-page written homework that answers
a specific question; five substantive posts to our Canvas discussion forum; and
an ungraded quiz that lets me find out in a more structured way what you think
about our readings.
During a few
weeks, we’ll also do briefer individual readings. One will be an essay about algorithmic
surveillance and inequality today; another will deal with Caltech’s historical
involvement with the eugenics movement in the early 20th century. Lastly, to get some insight about the potential
motivations of this country’s founders, we’ll read Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Essay
on the Origin of Inequality” (1755).
The one
requirement of the class that hasn’t changed from normal years is that every
student needs to have *paper copies of our exact editions* of our course
books. Recent research has revealed that
our memory and comprehension suffer significantly when we read anything long
onscreen; even I have trouble staying oriented and keeping track if I’m trying
to use a screen to read something substantial, like a book for my research or one
of my classes. So there are only three books you’re
required to buy (link), and they’re all available in used copies, but
this is non-negotiable. Unfortunately, I
find it pretty easy to tell from a written homework whether a student is only
able to process one page at a time or whether the student has a good grasp of
the entire book.
Again, the
class is totally asynchronous. The due
date for all of your participation for the week will be 11:59 p.m. on
Thursdays, and to give you some flexibility for scheduling work, the
*following* week’s reading and activity will also be posted that Thursday morning,
to be due in 8 days.
I’ll also
announce weekly office hours once the term starts, which are open for you to join
my meeting on Zoom without making an appointment.
Please get
in touch with me if you have any other questions about the course, and if I think
the answer would be interesting to others, I’ll update this page. Good luck choosing your classes!