Books I Have Read
Reich, John J., and Cunningham, Lawrence. “Culture and Values. Volume 2.” Belmont, Calif., Wadsworth; Andover, 2013.
One important textbook that we read in this class is the Culture and Values by Lawrence Cunningham and John J, Reich. This textbook truly has everything we need and inform almost everything from top to bottom. For example, a chapter about Renaissance introduces not only the art, but also the historical and political background from that era. Overall, all I want to express is that this is a very well comprehensively composed book.
Wayne A. Rebhorn's translation to Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince was absolutely on point. Every lesson within this book was formed with logic by Machiavelli, which expresses his angle of how to be a untouched ruler pretty much without morality and by any means necessary, which he thinks these actions are forgivable with a good outcome. Some people think that he really believed in this kind of philosophy, and some others think that he's explain these concepts with a sense of ridicule towards the reign of tyrants. Overall, Machiavelli's concepts are persuasive, yet very dangerous.
Next we have Hamlet, which is one of the most famous works by William Shakespeare, a great contribution to the Western literature. Hamlet is a play consisting of five acts functioning as plot structures like most of the plays in history. Although Hamlet can be read as a book, but I would recommend watching it on screen, because I believe it contains way more essences through the expression of the actors and the atmosphere of environment.
Lastly, we have The Marriage of Figaro composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is a comic opera consisting of four acts instead of five unlike Hamlet, and just like Hamlet, I also recommend the experience of viewing or listening to this amazing work rather than just reading it, because this play is in the form of opera, and music is the important part of opera. Personally, I'm a person fascinated by music, especially singing, so this piece of work actually brings me memory to the Baroque music collection.
My Semester
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| Painting of the Temple of Athena Nike, by Werner Carl-Friedrich, 1877. |
Thinking back to my first week in this Humanities class. My first thought about this class was good because how this class began very clean and everything is nicely introduced, especially thinking about the Roman and Greek lores which I'm always deeply fascinated by. I had a simple goal in the beginning of this class, which is to learn more about Western history and its relationship to Christianity. I think the core of Humanities are legacy of us, the beauty that we have left on this earth and the way we preserve them. In addition, considering my goal was simple, so I'm pretty satisfied by the outcome.
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| The Colosseum in a engraving, by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, 1757. |
One thing that I'm most interested about the class is how everything is somewhat related to the Christianity, which is something I'm interested with, it is also a shame to me that this class didn't cover the history during Medival, which I think the history about Jerusalem is pretty important as well, and I'll be happy to learn more. One thing that I learned in this class is how Italy opened the path to Renaissance, and the art expression started to flourish, espiecally cities like Florence, Venice, and Rome. One thing that I already know about is the Age of Discovery that further expanded into the world we know as today where Eastern and Western societies are learning from each other and exchanging inspirations.
World History The Age of Discovery in 5 Minutes - Youtube - by 歴史 Animation Channel
Works Cited
Augustin, Pierre, and Bernard Sahlins. The Marriage of Figaro. Chicago, I.R. Dee, 1994.
Niccolò Machiavelli, and Wayne A. Rebhorn. The Prince : A Revised Translation, Backgrounds, Interpretations. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2020.
Reich, John J., and Cunningham, Lawrence. “Culture and Values. Volume 2.” Belmont, Calif., Wadsworth; Andover, 2013.
Shakespeare, William, et al. Cliffscomplete Shakespeare’s Hamlet : Complete Text, Commentary, Glossary. Foster City, Calif., Idg Books, 2000.
Wikipedia Contributors. “Temple of Athena Nike.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Sept. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Athena_Nike. Accessed 19 May 2021.
Wikipedia Contributors. “Colosseum.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum. Accessed 19 May 2021.
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