Individualism

Another view of the "great Individual"is given in the Andy Warhol show at AGO in Toronto. David Cronenberg's taped commentary is a model of how to think about Art.
Warhol gives us individuals ehibiting their moment of celebrity-with the shadow of death hovering over them

Individualism

One way to think of this course is as a study in obsessions in western thought because "individualism" "reason" etc. Have come to have this character. Obsessions are sometimes strange. I am told there was a band called "rage against the machine" (contra industrialism) a name that seemed strange when you consider that their electronic instruments were examples of the machines they were raging against
In another vein the great film director David Lean has given us a number of films on the pathos of the great individual. "Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Lawrence of Arabia" are films about heroic individuals who overreached themselves(a theme in Greek Tragedy) Dr. Zhivago is about an individual truing to survive as an individual in time of revolution"

Marxism

Tony Judt's article in the most recent New York Review of Books is a fine account of one of the seminal books on Marxism, Main Currents in Marxism"by Lesez Kolakowski, the Polish philosopher. It is more than another death of Marxism article , it is an attempt to discover those strengths that made Marxism so attractive to many of the finest minds of the twentieth century. It end by warning that world economic conditions make the return of Marxism a possibility.
The book itself is too detailed for review in an undergraduate class, but Judt's article is ideal

Marxism

Tony Judt's article in the most recent New York Review of Books is a fine account of one of the seminal books on Marxism, "Main Currents in Marxism"by Lesez Kolakowski, the Polish philosopher. It is more than another death of Marxism article , it is an attempt to discover those strengths that made Marxism so attractive to many of the finest minds of the twentieth century. It end by warning that world economic conditions make the return of Marxism a possibility.
The book itself is too detailed for review in an undergraduate class, but Judt's article is ideal

Multimedia

I have two items that you might want to consider for your essays. The first is for anyone doing Calvin It is an LP of "The Pilgrim's Progress- a vivid and once popular account of the Christian life, The second, very relevant for anyone doing Hayek, or Dewey, is a set of DVD's called"the Commanding Heights, on the controversy between Keynes and Hayek over the policies that cause and that avert economic disaster,
These both can be reviewed as audios or videos,

Commonplace

A commonplace book is a reading diary. Sometimes it consisted of comments and responses to the book the author of the diary was reading and sometimes it consisted of direct quotes. Terry Teachout's blog on the Arts About Last Night discusses plays, novels and music, (he writes for several magazines)but has a popular section of quotes called "Almanac) I've already posted one quote-about universities- Here is another set from Michael Dirda's "Book by Book"-notes on reading and life-itself a kind of Common place book (Michael Dirda has been a reviewer for the Washington Post for two decades)

Every day one should at least hear one little song,read one good poem, see one fine painting and-if at all possible-speak a few sensible words.p.2 Goethe(The last one is the hardest(L.G)

If a thing is worth doing,it is worth doing badly p.26 G.K Chesterton

Genuine Criticism will never seek to prove but to point out.p.100 E.Curtiss

Caress the details,the divine details... what colour was the bottle containing the arsenic with which Madame Bovary poisoned herself.p132 Vladimir Nabokov

Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before,but in saying exactly what you think yourself (p.131) Leslie Stephen

My favorite
I have never worked in a coal mine or a uranium mine,or in a herring trawler;but I know from experience that working in a bank from 9:15 to 3:20,and once in four weeks the whole of Saturday, with two weeks holiday a year,was a rest cure compared to teaching in a school.(p.9) T.S. Eliot

Industrialism

Rennee Dubos "The goat has probably contributed even more than modern bulldozers to the destruction of land and the creation of deserts" Another take on environmentalism
The goat and teh elephant have done as much damages as we have. What would Al Gore Say?

Aquinas

Here is a fine specimen of Aquinas use of the "disputatio" as a style of exposition. Note the various stages(1) His position (2) Range of propositions that oppose him (3) his arguments againsg his opponents. Notice also the bland lucidity of his style. The problem of "just war"is,of course , still with us and Aquinas' views are still the starting point.