Essay Prompts
1. The Subjectivity of Truth
In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf states “Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this
truth and decide whether any part of it is worth keeping.”  This suggestion of the subjectivity of truth recalls earlier writers and artists who previously challenged
a traditional understanding of truth in moral terms.  Discuss three writers or artists who explored these questions.  How did they articulate their positions?  In what
ways are their ideas similar? In what ways are their ideas unique or distinct? What tensions are embedded within their undermining of the idea of “truth”?  Do they
offer any resolution in their writing?
Three writers:1. Heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad.Use YouTube summary video.2. H. Montgomery Hyde, “The Trials of Oscar Wilde”,Chapter 3 (The First Trial) excerpthttps://books.google.com/books?id=OQNRN8EJoAIC&pg=PA384&lpg=PA384&dq=h.
%20montgomery%20hyde,%20%E2%80%9Cthe%20trials%20of%20oscar%20wilde%E2%80%9D%20the%20first
%20trial&source=bl&ots=frWINhdjPZ&sig=WS3EWrXp39dhVZi3kkGwK3dLQYQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHy4X9vP3VAhUBEmMKHXHWBPEQ6AEITzAG#v=snippet&q=the%20first%20trial&f=falseor James Abbott McNeill Whistler, “Mr. Whistler’s ‘Ten O’ Clock”http://www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk/miscellany/tenoclock/
3. Claude Monet: sunrise??? Not sure
Cuz I am not sure about the number 3, whether is about truth or not. So please choose one artist from the part of the syllabus (what we learned, you can’t choose any
writer or artist beyond the class materials):
October 11th – Empire and Its Discontents John Ruskin, “Imperial Duty” Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” and “Recessional” Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Chinua Achebe, “An Image of Africa” (in the Norton Critical edition of Heart of Darkness) October 18th – Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and the Limits of Aestheticism James Abbott McNeill Whistler, “Mr. Whistler’s ‘Ten O’ Clock” H. Montgomery Hyde, “The
Trials of Oscar Wilde”, Chapter 3 (The First Trial) excerpt Oscar Wilde, “De Profundis” excerpt.Art: Selected paintings by Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, James McNeill Whistler, and Paul Cezanne Music: Claude Debussy, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun October 24 (Tuesday) Dean’s Lecture: Hillbilly Elegy: A Culture in Crisis in Smothers Theatre October 25th – The Legacies of Freud Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis (readers’ theatre selections) Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, Chapters 1-3 Sigmund Freud,
Civilization and Its Discontents excerpt.t Art: Edward Munch, The Scream; selected paintings by Vanessa Bell, Paul Gauguin, and Wassily Kandinsky; Music: Igor Stravinsky, “Sacrificial Dance” from The Rite of
Spring
You could choose any of them, please let me know which artist or writer you choose, and I could upload the related documents to you, cuz I can’t upload all of them,
it’s too much