Introduction to Humanities II

First a reminder to everyone that can come to some or all of the events for the 9th Undergraduate Philosophy Conference here is the web site for the events. Next I briefly mentioned a new (2012) biography of Robert Oppenheimer by Ray Monk. Apart from some very interesting aspects of it (I am only up to around page 80 so far) what surprised me was how short the chapter of this big book was dedicated to his college days. A short chapter really. Yet his life was so much more - and took up so much more book. So I thought I would use that to remind everyone that is in the middle of slogging through their undergraduate years that while this time might seem long to you now, but in the big picture of your whole life it will be short. It certainly seems that way to me too. And it was so long ago! Impressionism was our theory to think about today and it was the second time we looked at this, so many of the points I would make seemed already made. But we used it to explore some other things including Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Iphigenia. The quiz question today was if the community required you to sacrifice one of your children for the good of the state would you do it?