COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

Students are expected to attend all classes, read all the required readings and be prepared to discuss them when the seminar meets. Class presentations and participation are required. There will be a private -- accessible only to members -- electronic list where all students will be expected to post their weekly assignments. This should encourage electronic discussion and collective learning, as everyone should feel free to give feedback to others, asking questions, making useful suggestions, etc.

GRADES WILL BE BASED ON THE FOLLOWING:

I. Six Biweekly Questions and Answers: 30 percent of the grade.

Every other week you are to turn in (a) a question that you think gets at the heart of one or more of the issues explored in the set of readings assigned for that week, and (b) an "answer" to it (i.e., your thesis statement), in a few sentences (two pages or less). Ask a definite question and provide a definite answer to it double spaced, typed or legibly printed. Place a hard copy of your biweekly question-and-answer in my mail box on Wednesday morning, before noon. Please post the question in the class list. Biweekly papers are due on January 31, Feb. 14 and 28; March 14 and 28; April 11.

II. Final Essay: 45 percent of the grade.

This essay is due on or before the day of the final (Thursday, May 10), whichever is more convenient for you. Please leave it in my box by 1 PM. The essay should reflect your learning in this course, consisting of a presentation of those elements of Marxist theory and methodology you found most useful from the standpoint of your research interests and general intellectual concerns. You can choose to write an abstract theoretical paper or a paper where you identify those elements in marxist thought most pertinent for the study of a given issue (e.g., inequality, globalization and information technologies, gender inequality, etc.). The essay should be double spaced, typed or legibly printed and between 15 and 20 pages at most, excluding footnotes and bibliography. Cite works and provide your list of references in accordance with the ASR reference format.

Early in the semester, you must select a topic and decide the kind of paper you want to write; make an appointment to discuss the paper before March 15.

III. Class participation, weekly email contributions to class discussions, and class presentations: 25 percent of the grade.

Class participation is crucial for the success of the seminar. Seminars where students do not speak out, or only a few students speak and dominate the seminar, become small lecture classes where student intervention is insufficient to justify calling the class a seminar. This seminar is larger than average; consequently, the risk of becoming a small lecture class is substantial. To avoid this result, I have organized class participation, which counts for 30 percent of the grade, as follows:

In addition to asking questions and participating in general discussions, you will give a brief presentation in class on the major theoretical and methodological principles learned in the assigned readings. Your talk should be designed to present NOT a summary of what you have read but the key issues you have identified. What form your presentation takes is up to you and depends on the nature of the materials themselves; i.e., whether they are Marx's original works, or modern Marxist and neo-Marxist writings.

The point of this requirement is to give students the opportunity to share their learning or their questions in a way that demonstrates they have made the effort to master the readings, thus enhancing the learning experience of their classmates. Once students have been assigned to make a presentation, they should take their preparation seriously and consult with the teacher about the approach they plan to take, their organization, specific focus, potential applications to examine a given problem, etc. The organization and scheduling of these presentations will be done after the semester starts.

Every Tuesday, earlier if possible, students must send a message to the class list in which they a) send a brief list of concepts they would like to discuss in class and b) identify the theory they found most compelling and present its main assumption and arguments.
The purpose of this required exercise is to test students' ability to identify the essential points from the reading assignments.
Students must start posting messages in the class list on Tuesday, January 23.
Messages should be, at most, 500 words in length. All students should read these messages, to be prepared to address, in class discussions, the issues raised by their classmates.

GRADING POLICY

I will use blind grading. Students will identify their papers with an ID of their choice and will reveal their name, by email, after the papers have been returned.

Each weekly essay WILL NOT receive an individual grade. I will write comments stating, for example, that you what you wrote needs rethinking, or lacks organization, or that it was well argued; I ask questions, suggest additional readings, ask you to rewrite, etc. When papers are insightful, well written, I write only one word: excellent! When papers are weak in content and organization, they require extensive feedback. I often mark them with an S (=satisfactory), an S+ (well done!) or an S- (you could do better). What matters, when I examine these papers together, is not only whether they deserved S, excellent, or any other overall assessment, but the nature of the comments I wrote and the way you may or may not had used them to improve your work. I end up re-reading all of them again to attain a basis for the grade, especially if I originally wrote few comments. What I look for in these papers is your thinking, your ability to engage with the readings and take a concept or a theoretical insight and push it in a direction that matters to you, either because it is related to your work, or because it simply delights you and forces you to think in new and interesting ways.

On April 18, you will return all the essays and I will grade them as a whole, looking over comments and marks and assessing your progress.

High grades (A, A+) are not an entitlement: they have to be earned.

There will be no incompletes except in the case of documented serious illness or death in the family.

IMPORTANT:

Please read this syllabus carefully; if you find the course requirements. grading policy or anything else unclear, let me know.

If you have any questions about your performance in the class, about your work or any other course related issue, don't hesitate to make an appointment; that's what office hours are for.

Keep in mind that a low grade or a critical comment does not reflect an asssessment of you, as person; it is an assessment of the work. To teach means to educate. The word education has the Latin root duc that means to lead forth. The role of the teacher is to point the way, to create the conditions for learning and to let students know when their work needs to be improved. I would be failing as a teacher if I were to overlook problems in your work, either in its form or its content.

To rely on secondary sources or simply paraphrase the text is not an adequate way to fulfill this course's requirements.

On January 26 or before, all students are required to send me an email statement ratifying that they understand the course requirements and grading policies.

REQUIRED READINGS

BOOKS

David Harvey, SPACES OF HOPE. University of California Press, 2000.

Georg Lukacs, HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS. The MIT Press, 1972.

Herbert Marcuse, ONE-DIMENSIONAL MAN. Beacon Press, 1991.

Slavoj Zizek, ed. MAPPING IDEOLOGY. Verso, 1994.

ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS

Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," pp. 85-126 in LENIN AND PHILOSOPHY AND OTHER ESSAYS. Monthly Review Press, 2001.

Perry Anderson, "The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci." New Left Review 100, 1976.

Frederick Engels. 1972. From Historical Materialism. Progress Publishers.

Stanley Aronowitz, Retreat to Postmodern Politics. Situations, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2005).

Giovanni Arrighi, "World Income Inequality and the Future of Socialism." New Left Review 189, 1991.

_____________, "Marxist Century, American Century: The Making and Remaking of the World Labour Movement." New Left Review 179, 1990.

Barbara Jeanne Fields, "Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America." New Left Review 181, 1990.

Norman Geras, "Althusser's Marxism: An Account and Assessment." New Left Review 71, 1972.

Martha E. Gimenez, "Population and Capitalism," in LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Vol.IV, No. 4 (Fall, 1977), 5-40.

---------, "The Mode of Reproduction in Transition: A Marxist-Feminist Analysis of the Effects of Reproductive Technologies," GENDER & SOCIETY (September, 1991), 334-350

----------, "For Structure: A Critique of Ontological Individualism," in ALETHIA, October, 1999.

-----------, "Does Ecology Need Marx?" in Organization & Environment, Vol 13, No. 3 (September, 2000), pp. 292-304. Abridged version published in Monthly Review, Vol. 52, No. 8 (January, 2001).

Martha E. Gimenez, "Structuralist Marxism on The Woman Question." Science & Society, Vol. XLII, No. 3 (Fall-Winter): 301-323.

Godelier, Maurice. 1973. "Structure and Contradiction in Capital." in Michael Lane, ed., INTRODUCTION TO STRUCTURALISM. Cape, 1970.

Antonio Gramsci. 1949. From THE PRISON NOTEBOOK.

Russell Jacobi, "The Politics of Subjectivity." New Left Review 79, 1973.

Gareth Stedman Jones, "The Marxism of the Early Lukacs: An Evaluation." New Left Review 70. 1971

___________. "Engels and the Genesis of Marxism." New Left Review 106, 1977.

Andrew Levine, E. Sober, and E.O. Wright, "Marxism and Methodological Individualism." New Left Review 162, 1987.

Georg Lukacs - Interview: "Lukacs on his Life and Work." New Left Review 68. 1971.

Karl Marx. 1859.From A Contribution to The Critique of Political Economy

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 1848. Bourgeois and Proletarians

Karl Marx. 1867. From Capital Vol. I:
Chapter I COMMODITIES

Joseph McCarney, "The True Realm of Freedom." New Left Review 189, 1991.

Charles W. Mills. 1985-1986. "Marxism and Naturalistic Mystification." Science & society, Vol. XLIL, No. 4, pp. 472-483.

E. San Juan Jr., Marxism and the Race/Class Problematic: D A Re-Articulation

Andrew Sayer, "Theory and Method I: abstraction, structure and cause," amd "Theory and Method II: types of system and their implications," in A. Sayer, METHOD IN SOCIAL SCIENCE: A Realist Approach. London: Hutchinson, 1984.

Sean Sayers, "Moral Values and Progress." New Left Review 204. 1994.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Methodological Individualism

Sebastiano Timpanaro, "Considerations on Materialism." New Left Review 85. 1974.

Erik O. Wright, "Methodological Introduction," pp. 9-29 in Erik O. Wright, CLASS, CRISIS AND THE STATE. London: Verso, 1979.

___________. "Foundations of a neo-Marxist Class Analysis," pp. 4-30 in E. O. Wright ed., Approaches to CLASS ANALYSIS. Cambridge University Press, 2005.

IMPORTANT: All New Left Review articles are available online through Norlin; other articles are available through JSTOR, other online sources or hard copy.

BIOGRAPHY

Werner Blumenberg, KARL MARX. An Illustrated History. Verso, 1998.

David McLellan, KARL MARX, A BIOGRAPHY. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006 (4th edition).

Franz Mehring, KARL MARX. The Story of His Life. Ann Arbor Paperback, 1962.

RECOMMENDED READINGS

Perry Anderson, CONSIDERATIONS ON WESTERN MARXISM. Verso, 1976.

_____________. IN THE TRACKS OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM. Verso, 1983.

Anatole Anton, Milton Fisk, and Nancy Holmstrom, eds., NOT FOR SALE. In Defense of Public Goods. Westview Press, 2000.

Edward J. Ahearn, MARX & MODERN FICTION. Yale University Press, 1989.

Louis Althusser, FOR MARX. Vintage Books, 1970.

___________. READING CAPITAL.

___________. LENIN AND PHILOSOPHY and Other Essays. Monthly Review Press, 2001.

John Berger, WAYS OF SEEING. BBC and Penguin Books, 1972.

Tom Bottomore, ed., Dictionary of MARXIST THOUGHT. Blackwell Publishers, 1991, second revised edition.

Johanna Brenner, WOMEN AND THE POLITICS OF CLASS. Monthly Review Press, 2000.

Alex Callinicos, THE REVENGE OF HISTORY. Marxism and the East European Revolutions. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.

__________, AGAINST POSTMODERNISM. A Marxist Critique. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1989.

Antonio Callari, Stephen Cullenberg, and Carole Biewener, eds., MARXISM IN THE POSTMODERN AGE. Confronting the New World Order. The Guilford Press, 1995.

Christopher Caudwell, STUDIES & FURTHER STUDIES IN A DYING CULTURE. Monthly Review Press, 1971.

G. A. Cohen, KARL MARX'S THEORY OF HISTORY: A Defense. Princeton University Press.

Terry Eagleton, THE ILLUSIONS OF POSTMODERNISM. London: Blackwell, 1996.

____________. MARXISM and Literary Criticism. University of California Press, 1976.

Friedrich Engels, THE ORIGINS OF THE FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE STATE. International Publishers, [1883] 1972.

Ernst Fischer, THE NECESSITY OF ART. Penguin Books, 1964.

John Bellamy Foster, MARX'S ECOLOGY. Monthly Review Press, 2000.

Erich Fromm, MARX'S CONCEPT OF MAN. Continuum, 1996.

Andrew Gamble, David Marsh and Tony Tant, MARXISM AND SOCIAL SCIENCE. University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Book Review: "(Mis-) Reading, (re-) Reading Marx"

Rosemary Hennessy, MATERIALIST FEMINISM AND THE POLITICS OF DISCOURSE. Routledge, 1993.

___________. and Chrys Ingraham, eds., MATERIALIST FEMINISM. A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives. Routledge, 1997.

Max Horkheimer, CRITICAL THEORY. Selected Essays. The Seabury Press, 1972. Berel Lang and Forrest Williams, MARXISM & ART. David McKay Co. Inc., 1972.

Georg Lukacs. REALISM IN OUR TIME. Literature and the Class Struggle. Harper Torchbooks, 1964.

___________. LENIN. A Study on the Unity of His Thought. The MIT Press, 1971.

___________. MARXISM AND HUMAN LIBERATION. Dell Publishing Co., 1971.

Robert W. McChesney, Ellen Meiksins Wood and John Bellamy Foster, eds., CAPITALISM AND THE INFORMATION AGE. The Political Economy of the Global Communication Revolution. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998.

Herbert, Marcuse, FIVE LECTURES. Beacon Press, 1970.

___________. REASON AND REVOLUTION. Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory. Beacon Press, 1960.

___________. AN ESSAY ON LIBERATION. Beacon Press, 1969.

___________. NEGATIONS. Essays in Critical Theory. Beacon Press, 1969.

___________. STUDIES IN CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Beacon Press, 1972.

___________. HEIDEGGERIAN MARXISM. (Richard Wolin and John Abromeit, eds.). University of Nebraska Press, 2005.

Karl Marx, GRUNDRISSE. Penguin, 1973.

David McLellan, MARXISM AFTER MARX. Palgrave Macmillan, 4th edition, forthcoming April 2007

Istvan Meszaros, BEYOND CAPITAL. Monthly Review Press, 1995.

______________, MARX'S THEORY OF ALIENATION. Harper Torchbooks, 1970.

Ronaldo Munck, MARX@2000. Late marxist perspectives. Zed Books, 2000.

Reimut Reiche, SEXUALITY AND CLASS STRUGGLE. Praeger Publishers, 1970.

Andrew Sayer, "Theory and Method I: abstraction, structure and cause," amd "Theory and Method II: types of system and their implications," in A. Sayer, METHOD IN SOCIAL SCIENCE: A Realist Approach. London: Hutchinson, 1984.

Derek Sayer, THE VIOLENCE OF ABSTRACTION. The Analytical Foundations of Historical Materialism. Basil Blackwell, 1987.

Sean Sayers, REALITY AND REASON. Dialectic and the Theory of Knowledge. Basil Blackwell, 1985.

Lawrence H. Simon, ed., KARL MARX: Selected Writings. Hackett Publishing Co., Inc. 1994.

John F. Sitton, MODERN MARXIAN THEORY. Class Formation and Social Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism. State University of New York Press, 1996.

Alfred Sohn Rethel, INTELLECTUAL AND MANUAL LABOR. A Critique of Epistemology. Humanities Press, Inc., 1978.

G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN THE ANCIENT GREEK WORLD. Cornell University Press, 1981.

Lise Vogel, MARXISM AND THE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN. Toward a Unitary Theory. Rutgers University Press, 1983.

Immanuel Wallerstein, UNTHINKING SOCIAL SCIENCE. The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms. Polity Press, 1991.

Jutta Weldes, "Marxism and Methodological Individualism: A Critique." Theory and Society. Vol 18, 1998, pp. 353-386.

Richard Wolin, THE SEDUCTION OF UNREASON. The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism. Princeton University Press, 2004.

Ellen Meiksins Wood, THE RETREAT FROM CLASS: A New "True" Socialism. Verso, 1986.

_______________. "Rational Choice Marxism: Is the Game Worth the Candle?" New Left Review 177, 1989.

Erik O. Wright, E. Sober, and Andrew Levine, RECONSTRUCTING MARXISM. Verso, 1992.

SCHEDULED READINGS

Week I - Jan. 19 and Week 2 - Jan. 26

Karl Marx. 1859. From A Contribution to The Critique of Political Economy

Charles W. Mills. 1985-1986. "Marxism and Naturalistic Mystification." Science & society, Vol. XLIL, No. 4, pp. 472-483.
Harvey, Ch. 1, "The Difference a Generation Makes."

Optional readings:
Sebastiano Timpanaro, "Considerations on Materialism." New Left Review 85. 1974.
Gareth Stedman Jones, "Engels and the Genesis of Marxism." New Left Review 106, 1977.

Week III - Feb. 2 and Week IV - Feb. 9

Gareth Stedman Jones, "The Marxism of the Early Lukacs: An Evaluation." New Left Review 70. 1971
Georg Lukacs - Interview: "Lukacs on his Life and Work." New Left Review 68. 1971.
Georg Lukacs, From HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS:

K. Marx, COMMODITIES, chapter I of Capital, Vol. I

Week V - Feb. 16

Herbert Marcuse, ONE-DIMENSIONAL MAN

Sean Sayers, "Moral Values and Progress." New Left Review 204. 1994.

Karl Marx, The German Ideology
Read ONLY the following sections:
The Illusions of the German Ideology; Ideology in General. German Ideology in Particular; First Premises of the Materialist Method; Social Being and Social Consciousness; History: Fundamental Conditions
The Illusion of the Epoch
Read ONLY section on Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas.

Week VI - Feb. 23 and Week VII - Mar. 2

Slavoj Zizek, "The Spectre of Ideology"
Seyla Benhabib, "The Critique Of Instrumental Reason." (in S.Z.)
Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." (in S.Z.)
Maurice Godelier, "Structure and Contradiction in Capital."
Martha E. Gimenez, "Structuralist Marxism on The Woman Question." Science & Society, Vol. XLII, No. 3 (Fall-Winter): 301-323.

Optional readings:
Norman Geras, "Althusser's Marxism: An Account and Assessment." New Left Review 71, 1972.
Russell Jacobi, "The Politics of Subjectivity." New Left Review 79, 1973.

Week VIII - Week IX Mar. 9- 16

From S.Z.:
Michel Pecheux, "The Mechanism of Ideological (Mis)Recognition."
Abercrombie, Hill and Turner, "Determinacy and Indeterminacy in the Theory of Ideology."
Goran Therborn, "The New Questions of Subjectivity."
Terry Eagleton,"Ideology and its Vicissitudes in Western Marxism."
Michelle Barrett, "Ideology, Politics, Hegemony: From Gramsci to Laclau and Mouffe."(in S.Z.)

Week X- Mar. 23

Perry Anderson, "The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci." New Left Review 100, 1976.
Antonio Gramsci. 1949. From THE PRISON NOTEBOOK:
The Intellectuals
On Education

Week XI - Mar. 30

SPRING BREAK

Week XII - Apr. 6

Methodological Individualism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Andrew Levine, E. Sober, and E.O. Wright, "Marxism and Methodological Individualism." New Left Review 162, 1987.

M. E. Gimenez, "For Structure: A Critique of Ontological Individualism," in ALETHIA, October, 1999.
Erik O. Wright, "Foundations of a neo-Marxist Class Analysis," pp. 4-30 in E. O. Wright ed., Approaches to CLASS ANALYSIS. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Erik O. Wright, "Class Analysis, History and Emancipation." New Left Review 202,1993.

Week XIII - April 13

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 1848. Bourgeois and Proletarians

MANIFESTOON

Giovanni Arrighi, "Marxist Century, American Century: The Making and Remaking of the World Labour Movement." New Left Review 179, 1990.
Giovanni Arrighi, "World Income Inequality and the Future of Socialism." New Left Review 189, 1991.

Harvey, Part I: Uneven Geographical Developments
Harvey, Part II: On Bodies and Political Persons in Global Space

Week XIV - April 20

E. San Juan Jr., Marxism and the Race/Class Problematic: A Re-Articulation
Valerie Scatamburlo D'Anniballe and Peter McLaren, "Class Dismissed: Historical Materialism and the 'Politics of Difference'."
Frederic Jameson, "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism." New Left Review 146, 1984.
Slavoj Zizek, "Multiculturalism or, the Cultural Logic of Multinational Capitalism." New Left Review 225, 1997.

Optional readings:

Martha E. Gimenez, Marxism and Class, Gender and Race: Rethinking the Trilogy. Race, Gender & Class, Vol. 8, No. 2, 20001.
Barbara Jeanne Fields, "Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America." New Left Review 181, 1990.

Week XV - Apr. 27 REVIEW

Week XVI - May. 4 REVIEW

USEFUL INFORMATION:

Disability Policy

If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit to me a letter from Disability Services (DS) early in the semester so that your needs may be addressed. DS determines accommodations based on documented disabilities (303-492-8671, Willard 322, www.colorado.edu/sacs/disabilityservices)

Religious Holidays Policy

Campus policy regarding religious observances requires that faculty make every effort to reasonably and fairly deal with all students who, because of religious obligations, have conflicts with scheduled exams, assignments or required attendance. In this class, a class missed to observe a religious holiday will not be counted as an absence. If you have to miss an exam because of a religious holiday, please notify me two weeks in advance, so that we identify an alternative date for fulfilling that course requirement. See full details at http://www.colorado.edu/policies/fac_relig.html

Appropriate Classroom Behavior Policy

Students and faculty each have responsibility for maintaining an appropriate learning environment. Students who fail to adhere to such behavioral standards may be subject to discipline. Faculty have the professional responsibility to treat all students with understanding, dignity and respect, to guide classroom discussion and to set reasonable limits on the manner in which they and their bstudents express opinions. Professional courtesy and sensitivity are especially important with respect to individuals and topics dealing with differences of race, culture, religion, politics, sexual orientation, gender variance, and nationalities. Class rosters are provided to the instructor with the student's legal name. I will gladly honor your request to address you by an alternate name or gender pronoun. Please advise me of this preference early in the semester so that I may make appropriate changes to my records. See polices at http://www.colorado.edu/policies/classbehavior.html and at http://www.colorado.edu/studentaffairs/judicialaffairs/code.html#student_code

Academic Integrity Policy

All students of the University of Colorado at Boulder are responsible for knowing and adhering to the academic integrity policy of this institution. Violations of this policy may include: cheating, plagiarism, aid of academic dishonesty, fabrication, lying, bribery, and threatening behavior. All incidents of academic misconduct shall be reported to the Honor Code Council (honor@colorado.edu; 303-725-2273). Students who are found to be in violation of the academic integrity policy will be subject to both academic sanctions from the faculty member and non-academic sanctions (including but not limited to university probation, suspension, or expulsion). Other information on the Honor Code can be found at http://www.colorado.edu/policies/honor.html and at http://www.colorado.edu/academics/honorcode/

Plagiarism Policy

"Plagiarism (Portrayal of another's work or ideas as one's own), Cheating (Using unauthorized notes or study aids, allowing another party to do one's work/exam and turning in that work/exam as one's own; submitting the same or similar papers in more than one course without permission from the course instructors)" and other forms of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Please see additional information about academic dishonesty in http://www.colorado.edu/academics/honorcode/Code1.html and learn about the new Student Honor Code System in http://www.colorado.edu/academics/honorcode/Home.html

Sexual Harassment Policy

The University of Colorado at Boulder policy on Discrimination and Harassment (http://www.colorado.edu/policies/discrimination.html, the University of Colorado policy on Sexual Harassment and the University of Colorado policy on Amorous Relationships applies to all students, staff and faculty. Any student, staff or faculty member who believes s/he has been the subject of discrimination or harassment based upon race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status should contact the Office of Discrimination and Harassment (ODH) at 303-492-2127 or the Office of Judicial Affairs at 303-492-5550. Information about the ODH and the campus resources available to assist individuals regarding discrimination or harassment can be obtained at http://www.colorado.edu/odh CELL PHONES AND PAGERS MUST BE TURNED OFF BEFORE ENTERING THE CLASSROOM REQUIRED READINGS