The Human Project, 5th Edition

The Human Project is an issues-based reader, designed to introduce students to the humanities and social sciences. The text attempts to grapple with some of the difficult problems that confront everyone, from questions of our basic human nature, to social change, to politics, to technology, and to arts and culture.

Students are challenged to grapple with issues that don't have easy answers, to develop the higher level thinking skills that such complex questions require, and to acquire a tolerance for the fundamental ambiguities that many of life's basic problems engender.

* - indicates new reading

& - indicates new reading written specifically for this text

 

Introduction

* It’s Open. Who Cares? David McFarlane

One More Time: Our Ongoing Dialogue with Popular Music, Ian Baird

Serious The Human Project 5e — Table of Contents

 

UNIT 1

Introduction

* Unpleasantness in Vermont, Antonio Damasio

From Biology to Biography: A Brief History of the Self, Wendy O’Brien

* What Will My Future Self Think of Me?, Mark Kingwell

* Darwin’s God, Robin Marantz Henig

The Skin We’re In, Tim Adams

Am I Free or Determined?, Melanie Chaparian

 

UNIT 2

Introduction

The Economics of Social Change, George Bragues

* What the Internet is doing to Our Brains

* Sweet Smiles, Hard Labour

* Marriage: Then and Now

Marriage is Made in Hell, Laura Kipnis

* Identity Crisis

Can We All Just Get Along?, Greg Narbey

Diversity versus Solidarity — the Progressive Dilemma of 21^st Century Politics, Bhikhu Parekh

 

UNIT 3

Introduction

Politics in the Life of the Individual, Morton Ritts

Soul Force versus Physical Force, Morton Ritts

By Any Means Necessary to Bring About Freedom, Malcolm X

Non-Violent Resistance, Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi

Jihad vs. McWorld, Benjamin Barber

* America and the World: The Twin Towers as Metaphor, Immanuel Wallerstein

* The Perils of Obedience, Stanley Milgram

&* Never Again? The Problem of Genocide in the 21^st Century, Chris Irwin

 

UNIT 4

Introduction

Making Sense of the Universe, Suzanne Senay

Can Science Be Ethical?, Freeman Dyson

Is Humanity Suicidal? Edward O. Wilson

* On Global Warming: How to Calculate and Live within our Carbon Budget, Tim Flannery

&* Science and Religion: A Complicated History, Mark Cauchi

 

UNIT 5

Pleasure: The Role of the Arts, Clive Cockerton

&* Looking for Beauty, Clive Cockerton

&* Murderers: An Introduction, Mary Ellen Kappler

* Murderers, Leonard Michaels

* Let Me Make This Perfectly Clear, Gwendolyn MacEwan

* The Back Seat of My Mother’s Car, Julia Copus

* Reflections on Julia Copus’ “The Back Seat of My Mother’s Car”, Richard Sanger

This Be the Verse, Philip Larkin

I Go Back to May 1937, Sharon Olds

The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently, Thomas Lux

* O Me! O Life!, Walt Whitman