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