NEH Enduring Questions Course on Pride, Humility, and the Good Life
FAIN: AQ-50290-10
Elon University (Elon, NC 27244-9423)
Shawn R. Tucker (Project Director: September 2009 to April 2014)
The development of an upper-level seminar with readings in Homer, Lao Tzu, C.S. Lewis, Ralph Ellison, and others.
This Enduring Questions course addresses the difficult and even paradoxical questions about Pride, Humility, and the Good Life. In this course students explore examples of pride and humility in classical and contemporary works from writers like Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Shakespeare, Ralph Ellison, and Arthur Miller. Students use the insights of thinkers like Lao Tzu, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, C.S. Lewis, and Martin Buber to better understand pride and humility in these works. This course's critical examination opens up difficult yet very rewarding questions about what it means to be proud, what it means to be humble, how one can most effectively interact with others, and, finally, what it means to live a good life.
Associated Products
Humor's Humble Persuasion (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Humor's Humble Persuasion
Author: Shawn Tucker
Abstract: Many thinkers, including Descartes, Francis Hutcheson, and Henri Bergson have commented on humor’s corrective function, especially where “small vices” or “mechanical inelasticity” are concerned. Contemporary academics like, Rachelle Berg et. al., describe the therapeutic value of humor in “forming a therapeutic bond, addressing resistance, reframing maladaptive beliefs, and replacing rigid, self-absorbed perspectives” (2009). Frank Lachmann has discussed the valuable place of humor in working with adults suffering from narcissism or self-pathology (2007). These insights can be magnified when we examine the connection between humor and friendship, specifically the way that part of friendship is edifying confrontation. Where there is confrontation, humor can have a unique power to persuade one toward a healthier way of living. An incident in C.S. Lewis’s work The Great Divorce demonstrates this power, while also showing its limitations. Humor cannot guarantee or force a particular outcome; it is a tool of humble persuasion. Finally, part of the value of humor’s humble persuasion is how it honors wonder. For those trapped in self-absorbed perspectives, narcissism, or any form of persistent willful blindness, humor’s delightful invitation to wonder may free those who are trapped thereby.
Date: 07/24/2012
Conference Name: International Congress of Humanities and Social Science Research
Content and Teaching Tools for an Interdisciplinary Humanities Course on Pride, Humility, and the Good Life (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Content and Teaching Tools for an Interdisciplinary Humanities Course on Pride, Humility, and the Good Life
Author: Shawn Tucker
Abstract: In March of 2010, I was notified that I was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant given by the United States’ government. The grant is called an “Enduring Questions” grant. It supports the development of a new course that addresses an “Enduring question.” My course addresses the nature of Pride, Humility, and the Good Life. This presentation offers some of the fruitful results of teaching this course. The presentation is divided into two parts. The first part of the presentation includes a discussion of the content that we have explored in the course. The course draws from classical authors like Homer and Virgil as well as other writers like Lao Tzu, Dante, Ralph Ellison, and Arthur Miller. We also examine works by philosophers like Aristotle, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and Buber. In addition to this discussion of the course’s content, the second part of this presentation will explore some concrete teaching techniques and tools that seem particularly valuable. Those tools include a daily writing assignment called a QCQ, another assignment using Google Forms, a new approach to exams, and a scaffolded research project. These unique, innovative teaching tools made the course content come alive for the students.
Date: 11/15/2011
Conference Name: 4th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation
Death of a Branch Manager: Willy Lowman, Michael Scott, and the Tragicomedy of Narcissism (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Death of a Branch Manager: Willy Lowman, Michael Scott, and the Tragicomedy of Narcissism
Author: Shawn Tucker
Abstract: Both Willy Lowman and Michael Scott exhibit traits associated with secondary narcissism. Both, though in different ways, have difficulty with empathy, problems distinguishing themselves from others, a hypersensitivity to insults, and are vulnerable to shame rather than guilt. Both also exhibit flattery towards those they admire and who affirm them, use people without concern for the costs, brag, and pretend to be more important than they really are. One of the ways that many of these traits come through is in their inability to hear others unless they are saying what they want to hear. This presentation will explore how the structure (and outcome) of Death of a Salesman makes Willy’s narcissism tragic, while Michael’s parallel pathology is structure to seem comic in The Office.
Date: 03/20/2012
Conference Name: Conference of the Humanities Education and Research Association
Teaching Ellison’s Invisible Man as a Cautionary Tale of Pride and Humility (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Teaching Ellison’s Invisible Man as a Cautionary Tale of Pride and Humility
Author: Shawn Tucker
Abstract: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man provides an excellent “cautionary tale” of the potential pitfalls of pride and humility. When the novel is approached, pedagogically, in this manner, what comes to the fore are the various attempts to find some cause or core to which the narrator can submit wholeheartedly. The narrator mentions humility in his graduation speech, and seems committed to the idea of obedient submission to a higher cause. In the course of the novel, every cause to which he tries to submit proves to be flawed, including the college, Mr. Norton, his job at Liberty Paints, and the Brotherhood. He rejects or is forced to reject all of these causes or cores. His attempts at humble submission prove futile and dangerous. In the course of his rejections, his various forms of rebellion could be linked to pride. The clearest example of this comes when he feels compelled to leave the Brotherhood. When he attempts to leave, his lack of submission is branded as arrogance and pride. Another connection between the narrator and pride is the hubris, in the original Greek sense, of his sexual encounter with Sibyl. When the book is presented or taught in this manner, it outlines the dangers inherent in different aspects of pride and humility.
Date: 03/17/2013
Conference Name: Conference of the Humanities Education and Research Association
Pride and Humility: A New Interdisciplinary Analysis (Book)Title: Pride and Humility: A New Interdisciplinary Analysis
Author: Shawn Tucker
Abstract: This interdisciplinary analysis presents an innovative examination of the nature of pride and humility, including all their slippery nuances and points of connection. By combining insights from visual art, literature, philosophy, religious studies, and psychology, this volume adapts a complementary rather than an oppositional approach to examine how pride and humility reinforce and inform one another. This method produces a robust, substantial, and meaningful description of these important concepts. The analysis takes into account key elements of pride and humility, including self-esteem and self-confidence, human interconnectedness, power’s function and limitations, and the role of fear. Shawn R. Tucker explores the many inflections of these terms, inflections that cast them by turns as positive or negative, emboldening or discouraging, and salubrious or vicious depending upon the context and manner in which they are used.
Year: 2016
Primary URL:
http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137599193Publisher: Palgrave
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-1137599193
Copy sent to NEH?: No