Fall 2009

HIS 332G • EUR INTEL HIST,ENLGHT-NIETZS-W

Course Description

This course introduces students to the major intellectual currents and thinkers of the long nineteenth century. We will begin with the Enlightenment, and move on to look at the challenges nineteenth century thinkers posed to the limits of reason. As a course in intellectual history, it will at once concentrate on close reading of works by major thinkers, while also asking how intellectual trends relate to their historical contexts.

Grading Policy

First short paper: 30% Second short paper: 35% Final exam: 35%

Texts

Immanuel Kant, KANT: POLITICAL WRITINGs G. W. F. Hegel, Introduction to THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY Mary Shelley, FRANKENSTEIN: OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS or Friedrich Schleiermacher, ON RELIGION (excerpts) Gustave Flaubert, MADAME BOVARY Fyodor Dostoevsky, NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND Robert Tucker, ed., THE MARX-ENGELS READER (excerpts) Émile Durkheim, SUICIDE (excerpts) J. S. Mill and Jeremy Bentham, UTILITARIANISM Alexis de Tocqueville, THE OLD REGIME AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION Friedrich Nietzsche, THE GAY SCIENCE (excerpts)

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