SUMMER TERM: 2000

Professor: Stephen Ross Levitt

HUMN 2010

BAHAMAS SUMMER II

Fifty per cent: Short Identify Questions: One Hour

a. The Declaration of Independence

b. The Communist Manifesto

c. The Proclamation of Emancipation

d. Plessy v. Ferguson : Segregation - Jim Crow Laws

e. The Platform of the Nazi Party and the Nuremberg Laws

f. The Bahamian Constitution

g. Brown v. Board of Education

i. Emancipation Act 1833

PART II

50 Per Cent

The  essays below concern the individual and his/her  ability  to

survive in and resist against a hostile society.

Take Home: Complete One Essay- This essay is to be three or  four

pages long and submitted on the final day of class.

1.  Consider  how  Celie  in  the  film,  "The  Color   Purple,"

struggles  against the hostile environment of the Old  South  and �

the oppression of her husband.

Compare and contrast this with the struggles of Solomon Perel  as �

portrayed  in the film, Europa, Europa. How does  young  Solomon �

resist and ultimately survive the Holocaust?

Are  there  similarities between these two characters  and  their �

struggles?

2.  Consider  some  of  the provisions of two  or  three  of  the

following  legal documents:

a. the German Constitution of 1949

b. the Bahamas Constitution

c. the American Constitution.

d. the Declaration of Independence

Consider as well the case, Brown v. Board of Education.

How  can law be employed to liberate the individual  and  protect

his/her rights in a democratic society?

3.  Peter  d'Errico  writes that "the law  is  terror  put  into

words."

How  can  law  and  the legal system be  used  as  a  vehicle  of

oppression?

Consider  this  statement  in  light of  some  of  the  following

documents:

a. Plessy v. Fegusson

b. Slave Codes

c. The Platform of the Nazi Party and the Nuremberg Laws

d. other documents which we have discussed in class

4. Consider how Celie in the film, "The Color Purple," struggles

against  the  hostile  environment  of  the  Old  South  and  the

oppression of her husband.

Compare and contrast this with the struggles of Viktor Frankl  as

portrayed  in  the  book, Man's Search  for  Meaning.  How  does

Frankl resist and ultimately survive the Holocaust?

Are  there  similarities between these two characters  and  their

struggles?

5  Consider how Miss Jane Pittman in the film, The  Autobiography

of  Miss Jane Pittman, struggles against the racist  environment of the Old South.

Compare and contrast this with the struggles of Viktor Frankl  as portrayed  in  the  book,

Man's Search  for  Meaning.  How  does Frankl resist and ultimately survive the Holocaust?

Are  there  similarities between these two characters  and  their struggles?

6.  Consider  the  process of dehumanization  of  African  slaves carried out by plantation owners.

Compare  this  to  the process of dehumanization  of  inmates  by concentration camp guards.

Are there similarities in these two processes?

How do repressive regimes attempt to break the human spirit?

7. Discuss the White Rose resistance movement.

8. Discuss Viktor Frankl's "case for a tragic optimism."

How can the individual find meaning in his/her existence despite

the transitoriness of life, suffering, and disappointments?

9. What is logotherapy?

Why  does  Victor Frankl say that "man's search  for  meaning  is

the primary motivation in his life?"