ProfessorAliceBehnegarStokes South 247, ext. 2-1923
HONR1201-1204: WESTERN CULTURAL TRADITION V-VIII
1500 CE - 1900 CE: Modernity
FRAMEWORK
The four centuries of thought and action to which we devote the Sophomore Honors Seminar bring us to “modernity” – but what exactly is “modernity”?
If we step back and look at the big picture of this period, we see a familiar but still extraordinary transformation. In 1500 CE the communities of Europe are hierarchical, traditional, communitarian, agrarian, unscientific, Catholic, intolerant, superstitious; their language is the language of inequality, duty, virtue, devotion, God, and the soul (its sins and its salvation); they like the pagans before them experience the world as inspirited and full of the immaterial, the unseen, the supernatural. By 1900 CE the American and French revolutions are a century old and a very different language – of freedom and rights and self-preservation – and outlook – egalitarian, individualistic, materialist-scientific, skeptical, this-worldly – are on the march throughout Europe and its colonies. Ahundred years later industrialized liberal democracy has crushed all political and economic alternatives in the West, while virtually no corner of the globe remains untouched by the modern western ideas of equality and individual rights or by modern scientific materialism and the technology it spawns.
How on earth did this happen? What are the pieces of this puzzle and how do they fit together? What does it mean for us, that is, what does it mean to be “modern”? What is the good and what is the bad of it; what is true and what is false? We cannot do justice to these questions in the limited time we have, but we will explore at least some key moments, following especially the back-and-forth between the advocates of the modern project and the critics.
READINGSand ASSIGNMENTS
Your task in this class is to try to grasp and explore the central questions and arguments in each text and the major themes of modernity, and to bring the texts into debate with each other. In your papers you will be asked to write clearly and formulate structured, cogent analyses, and in class you will be asked to discuss difficult questions in a rigorous but respectful way. Presence and participation (regular and thoughtful contributions that advance our conversations about texts and themes) are crucial to the success of the seminar and constitute an essential part of the work of this course for each student – and note, it is work that cannot be made up.
In short, whether preparing for class or writing a paper or reflection, you need to read, re-read, and think! What’s the point or the argument of the text? What’s puzzling, unclear, problematic, interesting, illuminating, shocking? What needs to be unpacked and worked through?
Two notes: No electronic devices are permitted in class, and I take Academic Integrity seriously.
BEHNEGAR--HONR120102: WESTERN CULTURAL TRADITION V-VIII
1500 CE - 1900 CE: Modernity
SOME POSSIBLE TEXTS (NB assignments may also include movies, music, art, live performances)
This list is representative of what I have assigned or thought about assigning in the past; it is not comprehensive (I might choose other works of these or others among the great thinkers), and I certainly would never assign all of these works in one year!
Fall – Rebellion: Modern Doubts, Hopes, Visions,Arguments
Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)Things Fall Apart
Machiavelli (1469-1527)The Prince
Thomas More (1478-1535)Utopia
Luther (1483-1546) “The Freedom of a Christian”
Calvin (1509-1564)selections from Institutes of the Christian Religion
Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)Spiritual Exercises
Montaigne (1533-1592)selections from The Essays
Cervantes (1547-1616Don Quixote
Shakespeare (1564-1616)Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, The Tempest, Henry IV parts I & II, Henry V, Richard III, As You Like It, Measure for Measure
Bacon (1561-1626)The New Atlantis
Hobbes (1588-1679)selections from Leviathan
Descartes (1596-1650)Discourse on Method, Meditations
Locke (1632-1704)Second Treatise, Letter Concerning Toleration
Rousseau (1712-1778)Social Contract
Madison, Hamilton, JayFederalist 10, 51
Spring – The Problem of the Modern Soul
John Milton (1608-1674)Paradise Lost
Pascal (1623-1662)selections from the Pensées
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)Gulliver’s Travels
Rousseau (1712-1778)Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, Discourse on Inequality,
selections from Emile
Kant (1724-1804)The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Perpetual Peace
Austen(1775-1817)Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park
Stendhal (1783-1842)The Red and the Black
Tocqueville (1805-1859)selections from Democracy in America
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)Lyceum Address, Temperance Address
Kierkegaard (1813-1855)Fear and Trembling
Melville (1819-1891)Benito Cereno
Dostoevsky (1821-1881)The Demons, Brothers Karamazov, Notes from Underground,
The Idiot, Winter Notes on Summer Impressions
Tolstoy(1828-1910)Anna Karenina, War and Peace
Mark Twain (1835-1910)Huckleberry Finn, Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court
Henry James (1843-1916)The Turn of the Screw
Nietzsche (1844-1900)The Use and Abuse of History, Genealogy of Morals