CVSP 204 Final, Spring 2002

CIVILIZATION SEQUENC 204 FINAL EXAMINATION Time: 2 & half hour June 2002 Prof. M. Amyuni Choose two out of the following topics and write two clear essays keeping close to your subjects and the texts we have read: I On Aggression and Violence Discuss these features in Man, History and Civilization as developed in some of the works we have read by Freud, Malraux, Beckett, Edward Said, Mahfouz and Salih. On Alienation Alienation according to Erich Fromm is originally feeling cut off idols of various forms: gods, state, church, family, possessions etc... Man transforms himself into a thing and instead of feeling a creative person; he feels the object of those idols to which he has transferred his power. Select a few authors and characters from C.S. 204 in both the West and the Arab World and study the reasons for feeling alienated and an outsider. Proceed clearly and rationally for you may want to insert your examples in specific time and place and within socio-economico- political factors. On Twentieth Century Western Man/Woman and __ Eastern Man/Woman As C.S. 204 students you’re properly equipped to study Civilization and_its Discontents, Man’s Fate and Orientalism as reflections of the stages of civilization that their respective authors had reached at the time their works were produced. 2) Study some aspects, some issues that show Freud, Malraux and Edward Said first as recipients of a rich Western tradition, and second as breaking new grounds in many ways, as mirroring new attitudes, new beliefs, new types of relationships (political, religious, professional, emotional etc...etc... Then study some of the elements chosen above; within our Arabic unit; do these elements have any relevance to the worlds of Mahfouz and Tayeb Salih? Could you find parallels and contrasts between part (a) & (b). The eminent critic Lucien Goldman writes: Man can be authentic only in so far as he conceives himself or feels himself as part of a developing whole and situates himself in a historical or trans-individual dimension. 1. Study the various aspects of this passage. 2. Throw light on these aspects through situations we have encountered in our texts in both the West and the Arab World. 3. Then you'll be able to discuss what it means to be authentic. 4. What significance could be given to “authenticity”, and “the inner life” and “a developing whole”, in a general crisis of values? 5. Don’t be afraid to take a stand personally and to react sincerely to the material you are considering. The Second Sex To emancipate Woman is to refuse to confine her to the Telations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue none the less to exist for him also: mutually recognizing each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other. The reciprocity of their relations will not do away with the miracles — desire, possession, love, dream, adventure — worked by the division of human beings into two separate categories; and the words that move us — giving, conquering, uniting — will not lose their meaning. On the contrary when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, then the “division” of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.” Discuss it in relation to Simone de Beauvoir, and 2 to 3 other authors we have met. Take a personal stand in your conclusion. NOTE: KEEP CLOSE TO THE TEXTS. VARY YOUR CHOICE OF TEXTS. TAKE A PERSONAL STAND IN YOUR CONCLUSION. GOOD LUCK!