IDS 300: The Happiness Class: Module 7: Authenticity

Response Paper 9 – Advertising Happiness – Due in Class on November 12

Find an example of the use of happiness in contemporary advertising or in political or religious rhetoric; analyze its message in your response paper. Present your findings to the class. If your example has a  visual element to it, please be prepared to project the image on our classroom screen.                           

Response Paper 10 Guest Speaker: Dr. Lara Ault – Due in Class on November 17

Response Paper 11 – “The Death of Ivan Ilych” – Due in Class on November 19

What you write about specifically in regards to this short story is up to you. If you need some help getting started, however, these questions might help:

1. Tolstoy writes: "Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible." What does this statement mean? Is Tolstoy saying that an "ordinary" life is not worth living? What is an  "ordinary" life? What could be an "extraordinary" life?

2. In Module 2, we studied Plato’s Apology wherein Socrates says, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Can you relate this quote to Tolstoy’s short story?

3. What killed Ivan Ilych?

4. What is Ivan’s perception of marriage and family?

Journal Entry 7 – Authenticity and Harmony – Due in Class on December 1