I got through a substantial portion of my original study program for last fall, but not nearly all of it. I was not able to keep up at the level I had set for myself and it was beginning to hinder other more important priorities. So I have been working on lowering my expectations for how much I can get done. I am motivated to do much more, but unrealistic motivations end up producing frustration.
It was a mistake to attempt to cover in one go all of the material that would constitute a one semester course. Actually it was not one semester course, but three semester courses. My new plan is to schedule mini courses, focusing on just one subject rather than several courses at once, and limiting the time to one month of study plus one week of writing about what I have studied. Then I will go on to the next mini course subject. This continues to be a trial and error approach.
My two overall academic interests are the craft of writing and the history of ideas, or whatever we now call a history of culture. My first mini course is a way to kick off the study of the history of ideas discipline by studying Isaiah Berlin. I plan to read certain of his essays and listen to some of the many lectures by and about him available online. I want to limit this to a first part introduction to his writings and do additional follow up mini courses on him later.
The outline of the curriculum is as follows:
Lectures: by and about Berlin
Texts:
From The Proper Study of Mankind Anthology
The Counter-Enlightenment 26
The Hedgehog and the Fox 63
The Apotheosis of the Romantic Will 28
Total pages: 133
Isaiah Berlin: An Interpretation of His Thought by John N. Gray, 240 pages
Read first half of book.
65 pages a week
Week 1: The Pursuit of the Ideal, The Counter Enlightenment, The Apotheosis of the Romantic Will
March 1-5
Week 2: The Hedgehog and the Fox
March 8-12
Week 3: An Interpretation of His Thought, 1-60
March 15-19
Week 4: An Interpretation of His Thought, 61-120
March 22-26
Week 5: Writing a Paper
April 5-9
