Study Guide Questions

Question 1

What are the Humanities?

Answer 1

Humanities are the study of the various ways people, in all times past and present; and in all places around the world, live out the human experience.

Question 2

Why study the humanities?

Answer 2

By studying the Humanities, we can see how people across time responded to different challenges and events and how people interacted with one another. Studying Humanities allows us to see the connections between past and present and imparts a sense of cultural continuity. Studying the humanities can help us become better citizens and contributors to society

Question 3

What are the major historical periods covered in this course?

Answer 3

The Classical Period, The Renaissance Period, The Neoclassical Period, The Romantic Period, and the Realist Period.

Question 4

What is a theme?

Answer 4

Themes are ideas that can be recognized in one or several literary/artistic works. While each period has its own unique set of themes, there are some themes that overlap in multiple periods

Question 5

What are the major themes from the classical period?

Answer 5

The Classical Period: balance, truth/reason, democracy/republic, polytheism, and humanism

Question 6

Name the major themes of The Renaissance Period

Answer 6

The Renaissance Period: rebirth of classicism, humanism, rationalism, scientific expansion, university system, individualism, self-fashioning

Question 7

Name the major themes of The Neoclassical Period:

Answer 7

The Neoclassical Period: skepticism, rationalism, empiricism, order, deism, classicism

Question 8

Name the major themes of The Romantic Period

Answer 8

The Romantic Period: nationalism, exoticism, revolution, heroism, passion, individualism, and nature

Question 9

Name the major themes of The Realistic Period

Answer 9

The Realistic Period: Darwinism, industrialization, individualism, age of doubt

Question 10

Identify two major universal themes

Answer 10

Love and the hero

Question 11

Describe “love”

Answer 11

The two types of love are eors(erotic love) and agape(platonic love). Love also open the humanities to exploring other distinct forms of love that define our humanity: Love of God, love a family, romantic love, and friendship.

Question 12

Describe “the hero”

Answer 12

1. The hero is an archetype found in virtually every culture and society because the heart of the heroes journey is fundamentally the same everywhere. The hero archetype satisfies a psychological need to see the individual(to see oneself) as capable of stupendous feats(physical, mental, or moral) against seemingly insurmountable and antagonist forces

Question 13

humanism

Answer 13

Humanism: The study of creative an intellectual contributions of all human cultures

Question 14

Myth

Answer 14

Myth: traditional stories of people or culture that serve to explain some natural phenomenon, the origin of humanity, or customs/religious rights

Question 15

Beauty

Answer 15

Beauty: the qualities that give pleasure to the senses.

Question 16

aesthetic experience

Answer 16

Aesthetic Experience: an experience of beauty that inspires a feeling of pleasure which is its own justification

Question 17

archetype

Answer 17

Archetype: A real current symbol or term in literature, art, or mythology. The original models by which we comprehend human experience

Question 18

Identify the disciplines in the humanities

Answer 18

Music, Cinema, the Visual Arts, Literature, Theater, Dance, Architecture, and Philosophy

Question 19

Describe music in the humanities

Answer 19

Music is an artistic form of auditory expression that incorporates instruments or human voices in a structured and continuous manner

Question 20

Describe cinema in the humanities

Answer 20

Cinema is an artistic medium that uses the motion picture as a vehicle for storytelling and other creative expression

Question 21

Describe visual arts in the humanities

Answer 21

The Visual Arts entail creation of primarily visual works, (which can be two/three dimensional). These include painting, illustrations, photography, printmaking, and sculpture

Question 22

Describe literature in the humanities

Answer 22

Literature is an art form of written word. It refers to an individual literary work or collectively to the creative writing of a people, nation, or culture. Major forms of literature include poetry, novels, plays and short stories

Question 23

Describe theater in the humanities

Answer 23

Theater is a storytelling art. It is often combines speech, music, gesture, dance, stagecraft, and spectacle to preform a drama or musical before a live audience

Question 24

Describe dance in the humanities

Answer 24

Dance is an art form involving a sequence of rhythmic movements or steps usually performed to music. Historically dance has often served ritualistic as well as entertainment purposes

Question 25

Describe architecture in the humanities

Answer 25

Architecture is the science and art of designing buildings and other structures and is concerned with the aesthetic effect of structures in their surrounding environment

Question 26

Describe philosophy in the humanities

Answer 26

Philosophy is the systematic investigation of fundamental questions concerning such matters as existence, reality, consciousness, knowledge, truth, and justice. The main branches of philosophy are metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, logic, and philosophy of the mind.

Question 27

What are five broad functions of art?

Answer 27

Art provides aesthetic pleasure.
Art offers political and social commentary.
Art can assist in physical and emotional healing.
Art can create historical artifacts from a specific time or place.
Art can be used to enable commerce in advertising products and services.

Question 28

What is art?

Answer 28

Different cultures often have different aesthetic values and different definitions of art.

Question 29

How is humanism apparent in Eastern cultures?

Answer 29

Humanism is apparent in Eastern cultures through Confucianism and Buddhism.

Question 30

What is consilience?

Answer 30

Consilience: The linking together of principles across different academic subjects, such as the science and humanities

Question 31

Why is consilience significant in higher education?

Answer 31

Consilience significant in higher education because consilience is the synthesis of knowledge from different specialized fields of human endeavor.

Question 32

How can studying the humanities help you in your future career path?

Answer 32

The history of human progress is a moral drama and a story that, in the telling, brings forth the great autobiography of humankind. It has been said that if the great conqueror and student of the philosopher Aristotle, Alexander the Great, could have only had a few more thousand volumes of the knowledge of those who came after him, he might have held on to the entire world for a bit longer than he did. Teachers have at their core a desire to know more, to learn more, and to apply what they’ve learned to the great body of knowledge history unfolds. They desire to do more than add information to the ever-growing information superhighway. Instead, they are committed to the holistic application of wisdom, which inevitably leads to the betterment of culture and kind.

Question 33

Identify the major themes of the classical period?

Answer 33

Balance, truth/reason, democracy/republic, polytheism, and humanism

Question 34

In the Classical period, explain the importance of balance

Answer 34

The achievement of putting into harmony different compositional elements that are in dynamic tension with one another.
Classical philosophers based their teachings of virtue and justice on mathematics and relied heavily on balance. Classical architects used symmetry to balance temples and buildings. Classical artists used the Canon, a set of ratios that was thought to capture the proportions in the human body, to create perfect proportionality in the human figure.

Question 35

In the Classical period, explain the importance of Truth/Reason

Answer 35

The accurate and genuine reality of the world; that which is indisputably factual.
In Classicism, truth was not something revealed to mankind by the gods but was instead discovered by humans themselves through reason.

Question 36

In the Classical period, explain the importance of polytheism

Answer 36

A belief or religion based on more than one god.

Both Greek and Roman cultures were polytheistic and for the most part worshiped the same gods

Question 37

In the Classical period, explain the importance of Democracy/ Republic

Answer 37

Closely-related forms of government in which the people rule themselves.
During the Classical Period, two forms of government in which the people rule themselves were initiated. In a democracy the people directly rule themselves. In a republic people vote for representatives within a government.

Question 38

In the Classical period, explain the importance of Humanism

Answer 38

The study of the creative and intellectual contributions of all human cultures.
In ancient philosophy, “the human” was at the center of every endeavor including mythology - stories about the gods conform to a human sense of right and wrong.Continue
BalanceDemocracy/RepublicHumanismPolytheismTruth/Reason

Question 39

Describe the main characteristics of Classical Religion

Answer 39

Classical Religion was polytheistic, based on the belief in many gods

Question 40

Describe the main characteristics of Classical Philosophy

Answer 40

all of these philosophers made inquiries into the physical nature of the world, without relying on cultural mythologies to explain it. This lead to The Socratic Method

Question 41

Describe the main characteristics of Classical Poetry

Answer 41

Classical poets addressed themes of heroism, reason, love, and fate.

Question 42

Describe the main characteristics of Classical Theater

Answer 42

The development of classical theater structure laid the foundations for theater as we know it today.
Works addressed such period themes such as humanism, truth, balance, and the essence of life.

Question 43

Describe the main characteristics of Classical Art and Architecture

Answer 43

Classical Art and Architecture serve to promote religion, present beauty, and glorify Athenian society. It also focused on themes of power, military victory, and heroism. 

Question 44

Describe the main characteristics of Classical Music

Answer 44

The key feature of music in the classical era was focusing on achieving balance