Gilgamesh Case

It is possible, at least to my mind, to define humanities class as the most awareness-raising class, since thanks to its contents, we can be enlightened us very well about the civilizations in the mankind history. In this lecture, we have been informed about psychological theories by Freud, ancient civilizations, epics, including Gilgamesh, Iliad, Oedipus, Antigone and so on. However, to my mind, Plato's Republic was a lot different from other texts, which we read in terms of their contents. From my point of view, if I had an opportunity to choose only one text to teach students from our list for an introductory humanities class, I would choose Plato's Republic, since it is doable to claim that it has similar topics with today's modern world in terms of management of country and it is easy to get students' attentions and interests with unusual examples and so on with the help of Republic.

Republic basically emphasizes the administrations of countries. It gives some significant answers, for instance, how a good leader or good administration must be. That is to say, Republic points out many vital factors, which are still continuing their effectiveness in today's modern world. Due to that reason, in my opinion, students might have more familiar thoughts with the book with respect to other texts. To exemplify, Plato mentions that a man, who wants to be a leader, should be strong, intelligent, forgiving and so on (48). It is likely to claim that these features of an ideal leader are almost exactly same with today's leaders. In other words, students can see around themselves what they read in the book and that is why they may feel more enthusiasm to read and comprehend the text. Besides this, Republic mentions different systems of governments such that democracy, oligarchy, theocracy, tyranny and so on (162). It means, students who want to gain knowledge related to regimes of countries will learn a lot thanks to this lecture and Republic. As an illustration of this, thanks to this book, I gained knowledge of many things. For instance, I had no information about oligarchy, but then with the help of Republic, now, I know pros and cons of oligarchy and I am aware of possible dangers and threats of democracy, tyranny and so on. Furthermore, the language of the Republic is not so tough with respect to other texts like Gilgamesh, Iliad... To my mind, it is easy to be aware of what is explaining in the content for students like me. Consequently, I believe, all factors, which I mentioned above, give an answer to the question why I chose Republic instead of other texts to teach humanity to students.

Republic is also a good resource for instructors to educate students. To my mind, one of the best ways to explain the text is showing movies and documentaries to learners. To exemplify, as I mentioned above, Plato's Republic includes some definitions, which are related with the regimes of governments.