Tracie M. Matysik

This research seminar will reflect on questions of political community, secularism, and the sacred in both critical-theoretical and historical literature. Raising questions about the nature of religion and the secular is of considerable political and theoretical urgency for our era, an era marked by evangelical promises of regeneration, redemption, and apocalyptic rebirth. In theoretical circles, the concept of “political theology” has made a triumphant return in the twenty-first century, not only to address explicit theocracies past and present but also to address the transcendent and semi-divine claims of sovereignty in even the most secular-seeming constitutional settings.  Our readings will help us reconsider contemporary currents of thought starting from the perspective of history and critical theory.  In the process, the seminar will aim to clarify key currents of modernity and consider the ways in which the last century may or may not represent a turning point towards the “postsecular.”

Texts:

1. Michel Lowy, Fire Alarm. 

2. Schmitt Political Theology or Georgio Agamben, Homo Sacer

3. Wendy Brown, Regulating Aversion

4. Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety

5. Talal Asad, Formation of the Secular

6. Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism

7. Emile Durkheim, Elementary Forms or Caillois, Man and the Sacred

8. Dominick LaCapra, TBA and Etienne Balibar, TBA

9. Rajeev Bhargava, ed., Secularism and its Critics

10. Craig Calhoun, ed. Rethinking Secularism

11. Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise

12. Hent de Vries and Lawrence Sullivan, eds., Political Theologies:  Public Religions in a Post-Secular World

13. Stefanos Geroulanos, An Atheism that is not Humanist Emerges in French Thought

14. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age

Grading:

• Weekly Analytical Responses:  30%

• Seminar Paper (Review Essay):  40%

• Class Participation:  30%

This course introduces students to themes  and methods  in the study  of European Intellectual History. We will address what it means to read philosophy and social theory  in historical context, understanding close reading  as historical  methodology. In terms  of chronological focus, the course will concentrate on the modern  era broadly understood, roughly  1600-present. We will examine  how reason came to be a dominant and contested category  of philosophical inquiry in the seventeenth century and then follow  its vicissitudes into the twentieth century. Along the way we will witness the embrace  and rejection of what has come to be known  as the "Enlightenment tradition." Readings will be primarily philosophical and socia l ­ theoreticaI.

Readings (subject to change):

Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

Baruch Spinoza, Short Treatise  on God, Man, and His Well-Being

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Friedrich  Nietzsche, On the Birth  of Tragedy

Jurgen Habermas, selections

Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization

Grading:

Short  paper (four  pages): 25°/o

Short  paper (four  pages): 30°/o

Final exam:  35°/o

Participation: 10°/o

Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher of Portuguese descent, has been alternately labeled the instigator of the “radical enlightenment” (Jonathan Israel), the “renegade Jew who gave us modernity” (Rebecca Goldstein), the betrayer of the Jewish tradition (Hermann Cohen), a “savage anomaly” in the western intellectual tradition (Antonio Negri), and the theorist of the one kind of god in which a physicist of the twentieth century might conceivably believe (Albert Einstein).  In his own seventeenth-century Amsterdam context, his writings – and even mere rumor of them – were enough to earn him full excommunication from the Jewish community.  Yet in subsequent centuries those scandalous writings have become a crucial chapter in histories of western philosophy.  G. W. F. Hegel, for instance, would argue that only after Spinoza could one really begin to philosophize properly.  This course will introduce students to the core of Spinoza’s writings that have produced such diverse reactions over the centuries, as well as to exemplary moments in those reactions.  We will examine Spinoza’s refusal of a transcendent god or ideal, as well as of the mind-body dualism so prominent in western thought, understanding along the way the unique intellectual modernity he made possible. Reading

Baruch Spinoza, “Ethics”; “Theological-Political Treatise”; and “Political Treatise,” all in Spinoza: Complete Works, ed. Michael Morgan, trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2002), ISBN: 0872206203.

Genevieve Lloyd, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Spinoza and the Ethics (New York:  Routledge, 1996), ISBN:  0415107822.

Grading (using the +/- rubric):

• 12- to 15-page paper: 45% (includes evaluation of outline and/or draft)
• Presentation: 20%
• Final Journal: 25% (includes credit for timely submission of quality response papers)
• Participation: 10% (includes attendance and regular and constructive contribution to class discussion)

This course will concentrate on the themes and methodologies necessary to thinking about the history of the planet, roughly 1500-present.  It will not provide a synthetic, chronological overview of everything that has happened on this planet in the last 500 years.  Rather, it will concentrate on the movements of technology, ideas, and persons that have made possible something like a globalized, interconnected – albeit differentiated – world.  Attention will be given to the interplay between universalizing forces and local specificities, to shifting conceptions of the universal and of difference, and to instabilities of boundaries and borders – geographical, political, and conceptual – that result from and regulate the tensions between broadly planetary and locally differentiated developments.  In the course we will devote as much time to the concepts and methodologies of global history as we will to the content of empirical historical developments. 

Grading

Midterm: 25%

Midterm: 25%

Final Exam: 30%

Weekly Quizzes and Participation: 20%

Texts

•Robert Strayer, Ways of the World: A Brief Global History, Vol. 2 (Boston and New York: Bedford/St.Martin’s (2009).

•Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (New York: Dover, 1990).

•Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; or, Gustavus Vassa, theAfrican (New York: Modern Library, 2004).

•Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North, trans. Denys Johnson-Davies (New York: New YorkReview Books, 1969).

•Jonathan Spence, The Question of Hu (New York: Vintage, 1989).

This course introduces students to the writings of Karl Marx as well as to those of his westernintellectual successors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It will treat the nineteenthcenturycontext of industrialization and democratization in Europe in which Marx formulated hissocial, political, and philosophical critique, as well as the theoretical and philosophical legacythat followed through the twentieth century. The course will not focus on Soviet Marxism, butwill examine how western Marxism’s critique of capital evolved in complex relationship to theexistence of Soviet Marxism. We will spend roughly eight weeks reading Marx’s writings, andthen seven weeks reading his western intellectual successors (including writings from RosaLuxemburg, Georg Lukács, Walther Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Antonio Gramsci, Jean-PaulSartre, Louis Althusser, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, and Slavoj Žižek). Students shouldexpect to read significant amounts of philosophy and social theory.

GRADING (using the +/- system)

First paper: 25%

Second paper: 25%

Option II or III: 10- to 12-page paper: 50%

Final Journal: 30%!Class Presentation: 10%

Participation (including attendance and also sustained constructive contribution to classdiscussion): 10%

TEXTS

Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd edition (New York: Norton, 1978).Vincent Barnett, Marx (New York: Routledge, 2009).

Course Description:

This course introduces students to the writings of Karl Marx as well as to those of his western intellectual successors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  It will treat the nineteenth-century context of industrialization and democratization in Europe in which Marx formulated his social, political, and philosophical critique, as well as the theoretical and philosophical legacy that followed through the twentieth century.  The course will not focus on Soviet Marxism, but will examine how western Marxism’s critique of capital evolved in complex relationship to the existence of Soviet Marxism.  We will spend roughly eight weeks reading Marx’s writings, and then seven weeks reading his western intellectual successors (including writings from Rosa Luxemburg, Georg Lukács, Walther Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Antonio Gramsci, Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Althusser, Juliet Mitchell, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, and Slavoj Žižek).  Students should expect to read significant amounts of philosophy and social theory.

Texts (subject to change):

Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd edition (New York: Norton, 1978).

Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, trans. Ben Fowkes (New York: Penguin, 1992).

Roger S. Gottlieb, ed., An Anthology of Western Marxism (New York: Oxford, 1989).

Grading:

12- to 15-page paper:     50%

Final Journal:            20%

Class Presentation:        20%

Class Participation:        10%

Spinoza and Modernity

EUS 347, HIS 362G, JS 364, PHL 354, RS 357

Course Description:

Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher of Portuguese descent, has been alternately labeled the instigator of the “radical enlightenment” (Jonathan Israel), the “renegade Jew who gave us modernity” (Rebecca Goldstein), the betrayer of the Jewish tradition (Hermann Cohen), a “savage anomaly” in the western intellectual tradition (Antonio Negri), and the theorist of the one kind of god in which a physicist of the twentieth century might conceivably believe (Albert Einstein).  In his own seventeenth-century Amsterdam context, his writings – and even mere rumor of them – were enough to earn him full excommunication from the Jewish community.  Yet in subsequent centuries those scandalous writings have become a crucial chapter in histories of western philosophy.  G. W. F. Hegel, for instance, would argue that only after Spinoza could one really begin to philosophize properly.  This course will introduce students to the core of Spinoza’s writings that have produced such diverse reactions over the centuries, as well as to exemplary moments in those reactions.  We will examine Spinoza’s refusal of a transcendent god or ideal, as well as of the mind-body dualism so prominent in western thought, understanding along the way the unique intellectual modernity he made possible.     

Texts (subject to change)

•Baruch Spinoza, The Essential Spinoza: Ethics and Related Writings, trans. Samuel Shirley, ed. 

    Michael L. Morgan (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006), ISBN:  0872208036.

•Baruch Spinoza, The Theological-Political Treatise, trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis: 

    Hackett Publishing, 2001), ISBN:  0872206076.

•Genevieve Lloyd, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Spinoza and the Ethics (New York: 

    Routledge, 1996), ISBN:  0415107822.

•Warren Montag and Ted Stolze, eds., The New Spinoza (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota 

    Press, 2008), ISBN:  0816625417.

Grading:

12- to 15-page paper:     50%

Final Journal:            20%

Class Presentation:        20%

Class Participation:        10%

This course introduces students to social theorists whose work has shaped the field of historical inquiry. The readings will pay particular attention to the construction and organization of knowledge, the functions of ideology, and the production of the knowing subject. The first half of the course will follow developments in Marxism and sociology, looking at their contributions to issues of ideology and value formation; the second half of the course will trace a different set of challenges that poststructuralism has posed to the certainty of historical claims. In the end, we will be able to ask if and how a language of ideology – or perhaps of discourse or practice – remains useful to the scholar interested in pursuing questions about the past.

Grading

Class Participation (including discussion and weekly response papers): 35%

Short Paper (5-6 pp.) and presentation #1: 30%

Short Paper (5-6 pp.) and presentation #2: 30%

Texts

Readings (subject to change):

G. W. F. Hegel, “Introduction” to The Philosophy of History.

Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader.

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

Benjamin, Adorno, and Habermas, selections.

Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks.

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities.

Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (excerpts).

Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe.

Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals.

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish.

Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. 1.

Ann Laura Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire.

Jacques Derrida, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” and other selections.

Hayden White and Dominick LaCapra, selections.

Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha, selections.

History 350L, EUS 347
Marx and Nietzsche: Perspectives on the Nineteenth Century
Spring 2010
Unique Numbers: 36220, 39655
Meeting in Garrison 1.134, T, TH 11:00-12:15

Professor: Tracie Matysik
Office: Garrison 3.402
Office Hours: TH 1:00-3:00
Office Phone: 475-7251
Email: matysik@mail.utexas.edu

This course introduces students to the writings of two of the most critical writers of the European nineteenth century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche.  As a course in intellectual history, it will ask how the arguments of extreme writers such as Marx and Nietzsche relate to their historical contexts, e.g. political events and socio-economic developments.  As well, however, we will ask how and why the ideas of these two thinkers transcended their specific nineteenth-century contexts to be highly influential in the twentieth century.  We will thus conclude each section of the course by reading writings from intellectual descendants of these two thinkers.  The majority of the course will be spent reading and discussing the writings of Marx and Nietzsche.  Students should thus be prepared to do significant reading in philosophy and social theory. 

COURSE EXPECTATIONS
Reading: Students are expected to complete and to be prepared to discuss the assigned readings as indicated in the Course Schedule and prior to each class session.  Assigned books are available at the University Co-Op.  In addition, select readings will be available on E-Reserves (Password: His350L).

Books for purchase at the University Co-Op include:
* Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd edition (New York: Norton, 1978).
* Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx, 4th edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).
* Friedrich Engels, Condition of the Working Class in England (New York: Oxford, 1999).
* Rüdiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography (New York: Norton, 2003).
* Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1967).
* Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, trans. Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1998).
* Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1974).
* Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Adrian del Caro, ed. Robert Pippin (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 

Weekly Response Papers and Final Journal:  These 1- to 2-page papers (and no more than two pages!) are due before each class session. Students should write a minimum of eight response papers, four of which should be written before spring break, and two of which must be written before the end of Week 4. The papers will not be individually graded throughout the semester, but rather will be marked on a ?system.

At the end of the semester, students should compile these papers – along with two additional entries – and submit them in sum as a class journal.  For the sake of the journal, these papers should be revised both for clarity and content.  The final journal will serve the role of a final exam, and thus is the means through which students can demonstrate their knowledge of the material from the course.  A grade will be given solely to the final journal.   One of the additional two entries should be an introduction to the journal as a whole. 

These papers are intended to help you to think about the weekly readings, and to foster discussion.  They should not be summaries of the readings, but rather should pose an analytic question intended for class discussion.  One strategy I recommend is to choose a passage from the text and to explicate it –discuss what is going on in the passage itself, and why it is a particularly relevant passage for the reading as a whole.  We will then use these papers to guide our discussion of the readings.  Please be prepared to present your paper to the class, and to discuss other students’ papers both in terms of content and form. In this fashion, the class will work together to develop skills in thinking about and posing critical questions to texts through clear and concise writing. From time to time, I will circulate (anonymous) examples of these response papers for discussion of writing style and content.  To qualify towards the fulfillment of this requirement, these papers must be ready for submission at the beginning of the class session on the day that we are to discuss the relevant reading.  Because these reading-response papers are intended to aid in class discussion, I will not be able to accept late submissions.

Note: Students are responsible for writing a response paper for any missed session, regardless whether the absence is excused or unexcused.  Response papers written for a missed session may be included in the final journal as part of or in addition to the ten entries.  

Essays:  Each student will be expected to write two 5- to 6-page papers, both of which will be preceded by a substantial outline and rough draft.  The schedule for these papers is indicated in the Course Schedule below.  Topics will be of your own choosing. 
Option II: You may opt to write just one longer (10- to 12-page) paper that would be due May 6, 2010. This is a good option if there is a topic you want to explore in more detail.  If you choose this option, you must decide early and follow the alternate schedule as indicated in the Course Schedule. 

Participation: Regular attendance and participation in class discussions is required.  Absences will be excused only for documented family and medical emergency (doctor’s note, obituary, etc.), or religious holiday.  One unexcused absence will be overlooked.  Each subsequent unexcused absence will result in a half-grade deduction to the participation grade.  No student attending less than twenty sessions without documented excuse will pass the class.

Ideally each participant comes to class as if prepared to lead discussion.  At a minimum, each participant should come to every class session prepared to pose at least one analytical question for the purposes of class discussion.  Questions can be based on response papers.

RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS:  Absences for religious holidays are excused.  I would be grateful, however, if you would alert me in advance in these cases.

ACCOMMODATIONS:
Students who need special accommodations should notify me at the beginning of the semester (or as soon as possible), and such accommodations will be made.  Students with such requests should secure a letter from the Services for Students with Disabilities Office.  To ensure that the most appropriate accommodations can be provided, students should contact the SSD Office at 471-6259 or 471-4641 TTY.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY:
Academic integrity will be taken very seriously in this course.  Students who violate University rules on scholastic dishonesty are subject to disciplinary penalties, including the possibility of failure in the course and/or dismissal from the University.  For an overview of University policy regarding scholastic dishonesty, see the website of Student Judicial Services: http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/

GRADING:

• First  paper (includes evaluation of outline and/or draft): 30%
• Second  paper (includes evaluation of outline and/or draft): 30%
• Option II: 10- to 12-page paper (includes evaluation of outline and/or draft): 60%
• Final Journal: 30%
• Participation (includes evaluation of reading-response papers and their presentation, as well as attendance and participation in discussion): 10%

COURSE SCHEDULE (subject to very minor changes):

Week 1:
January 19:  Introductory Session
January 21:  Hegel, 20-49 (on E-Reserves)
                   Berlin, 1-45

Week 2:
January 26:  Tucker, 66-81
                   Berlin, 47-116
January 28:  Tucker, 81-101

Week 3:
February 2:   Engels, Conditions of the Working Class in England, 15-86
February 4:   Tucker, 473-500

Week 4:
February 9:  Tucker 302-329
                   Berlin, 117-131
February 11: Tucker, 329-361
                   Berlin, 132-193

Week 5:
February 16:  Bernstein and Luxemburg (both on e-reserves)(but subject to change)
February 18:  Lukacs (on e-reserves)

Week 6:
February 23:  Sartre and Mitchell (both on e-reserves)
February 25:  Introductory Paragraphs and Outlines Due
                     Option II:  Submit a one-page synopsis of paper with one very clear thesis statement
                    that articulates the problematic to be explored.  Schedule conferences. In-class Peer Review

 March 1:  Paper Drafts Due by 5:00 p.m. (Electronic submission for small-group discussion on Tuesday)
                OPTION II: Submit a bibliography of primary and secondary sources; participate
                in review of shorter papers

Week 7:
March 2:   Class Discussion of Paper Drafts
March 4:   Gramsci (e-reserves)
               Excerpt from Marx’s Revenge (E-reserves)

Week 8:
March 9:    Safranski, pp. 19-58
                 Schopenhauer, excerpt from World as Will and Representation (e-reserves)
March 11:  Final Papers Due!
                Safranski, 59-107
                Wagner, Lecture and Video

Week 9: SPRING BREAK – NO CLASS!!!
Recommended Reading: Safranski, 108-222

Week 10:
March 23:  Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 31-109
March 25:  Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 109-144

Week 11:
March 30:  Nietzsche, The Gay Science, book 4, pp. 223-275
                 Safranski, 223-275
April 1:      Flexibility day

Week 12:
April 6:   Nietzsche, The Gay Science, book 5, pp. 279-348
             Safranski, 276-303
April 8:  Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality, book 1, pp. 1-33

Week 13:
April 13:   Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality, book 2, pp. 35-66
April 15:   Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality, book 3, pp. 67-118

Week 14:
April 20:   Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, books 1-2
               Safranski, 304-350
April 22:   Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, books 3-4
Option II:  Full Paper Drafts Due

Week 15:
April 27:  Foucault, Nietzsche, Genealogy, History (E-Reserves)
April 29:   Introduction and Paper Outlines Due
               In-class Peer Review

Week 16:
May 4:  Kelly Oliver, Derrida, excerpts (e-reserves)
May 6:  ALL FINAL PAPERS DUE

FINAL JOURNALS ARE DUE ON THE DAY THAT A FINAL EXAM WOULD BE
SCHEDULED – CONTINGENT ON REGISTRAR’S SCHEDULE

Suggested Supplementary Readings:
Shlomo Avineri, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx
Harold Mah, The Origins of Ideology
David McLellan, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought
David McLellan, Marxism after Marx: An Introduction
Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality
Perry Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism
Francis Wheen, Karl Marx: A Life
Frederic Jameson, Marxism and Form
Michele Barrett, Women’s Oppression Today: The Marxist/Feminist Encounter
Juliet Mitchell, Woman’s Estate
Anthony Brewer, Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey
Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Empire
John Toews, Hegelianism: The Path Toward Dialectical Humanism, 1805-1841

Tracy Strong, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration
Andrew Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature
Ernst Behler, Confrontations: Derrida, Heidegger, Nietzsche
Steven Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany
Kelly Oliver and Marilyn Pearsall, Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche
Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist
Allan Megill, Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida
Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy
Arthur Danto, Nietzsche as Philosopher
Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus
Luce Irigaray, Marine Lover
Babette Babich, Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Science
Christian Emden, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of History

Topics in European History.

May be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

Course Description:

This course aims to introduce students to the most significant philosophical, social-theoretical, literary, and artistic currents in Europe in the "long nineteenth century."  After looking briefly at the Enlightenment, it will follow the
trials and tribulations of nineteenth-century thinkers as they sought to come to terms with intellectual secularization.  In particular, it will examine the impact of secularization on conceptions of the self and social order.  As a course in intellectual history, it will ask how intellectual trends relate to their historical contexts, e.g. political events and socio-economic developments.  Students should complete the course with an historically informed understanding of major nineteenth-century intellectual movements: romanticism, conservatism, liberalism, utilitarianism, Marxism and socialism, aestheticism, nihilism, and positivism.                                  

Course Expectations:  

Reading: Each week there will be a substantial primary source reading. Individual books are available for purchase at the University Co-op.  They are also on reserve at PCL Reserves.  Readings that are not available for purchase at the Co-op will be available on E-Reserves.

The individual books to be bought at the University Co-op are:
*G.W.F. Hegel, Reason in History, trans. R. Hartman (New York:  Macmillan, 1953).
*Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (New York: Penguin, 1985).
*Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: Norton, 1978).
*John Stuart Mill, The Basic Writings of John Stuart Mill, ed. J. B. Schneewind (New
York: Modern Library, 2002).
*Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (New York: Vintage, 1974).
Recommended:
*Joan Neuberger, Europe and the Making of Modernity (New York:  Oxford University Press,
2005).

Participation:  Regular attendance and participation in class discussions is required. Absences will be excused only for documented family and medical emergency (doctor's note, obituary, etc.), or religious holiday.  One unexcused absence will be overlooked.  Each subsequent unexcused absence will result in a half-grade deduction to the participation grade.  No student attending less than twenty sessions without documented excuse will pass the class.

Assignments

Essays:  Each student will be expected to write two 6-page papers, both of which will be preceded by a substantial outline and elements of a rough draft.  The schedule for these papers is indicated in the Course Schedule below.  Topics will be of your own choosing. Option II: You may opt to write just one longer (12-page) paper that would be due Nov. 24.  This is a good option if there is a topic you want to explore in more detail.  If you choose this option, you must decide early and follow the alternate schedule as indicated in the Course Schedule.

8 Weekly Response Papers and Final Journal of 14 Response Papers:  These 1- to 2-page papers (and no more than two pages!) are due at the beginning of each class session. Students should write a minimum of eight papers, four of which must be written before October 6.   They will not be individually graded throughout the semester, but rather will be marked on a ?system, but their revision and inclusion in the final journal will
be graded.  To qualify towards the fulfillment of this requirement, these papers must be ready for submission at the beginning of the class session on the day that we are to discuss the relevant reading.  Because these reading-response papers are intended to aid in class discussion, I will not be able to accept late submissions.

At the end of the semester, students should compile these papers and submit them with an additional seven entries as a class journal.  Students are welcome to revise the papers in the course of the semester.  A grade will be given to the final journal.  Both original and revised versions of response papers should be included in the journal. A Note on Writing Format:  All writing assignments should be double-spaced and printed in 12-point font with one-inch margins.  They should be well-written, spell-checked, and proofread for grammar and content.  Papers that do not satisfy these expectations may be returned and considered not eligible for completion of the requirement. Grading (on a +/- scale)

First Essay: 30%
Second Essay: 30%
Journal: 30% (includes timely submission of quality response papers)
Class Participation: 10%

Religious Holidays:
Special accommodations can be made if a student must miss class due to a religious holiday.  Please notify me as soon as possible and, in accordance with university policy, no later than two weeks prior to the relevant holiday and anticipated absence.

Accommodations: The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request appropriate academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities.  For more information, contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 471-6259, 471-6441 TTY.

A Note on Classroom Etiquette:
   * Please display basic respect for classmates' questions, opinions, and arguments.  Especially in large classes, good discussion is dependent upon a general atmosphere of openness, tolerance, and respect.   
* Please turn off all cell phones before coming into the classroom, and make an effort to avoid other distracting behavior (talking to one another during lecture, arriving late, leaving early, etc.).
   * Laptop computers are allowed solely for the purpose of note-taking.  Any violation of this policy by one student will result in the loss of the privilege to use computers for all students.

Academic Integrity:
Academic integrity will be taken very seriously in this course.  Students who violate University rules on scholastic dishonesty are subject to disciplinary penalties, including the possibility of failure of the assignment, failure in the course, and/or dismissal from the University.  For an overview of University policy regarding scholastic dishonesty, see the website of Student Judicial Services.

COURSE SCHEDULE:

Unit 1: INTRODUCTION AND ENLIGHTENMENT?

Week 1, August 26: Introduction
           W: Introduction to Course, Discussion of Syllabus
  
Week 2, Aug. 1-Sept. 3:
   Reading:     M: Kant, "An Answer to the Question: 'What is Enlightenment?'" (on E-  Reserves)
           W: Kant, "Universal History" (excerpts on E-Reserves)

Week 3, Sept. 7-9:
   Reading:    M: Bentham (on E-Reserves)
           W: Wordsworth ("Preface" and "Tinturn Abbey") (on E-Reserves)

          UNIT 2: ROMANTICISM AND DIALECTICS

Week 4,  September 14-16:
   Reading:    M: Schleiermacher (on E-Reserves)
           W: Hegel, Reason in History, 10-49

Week 5, Sept. 21-23:
   Reading:    M: Hegel, Reason in History, 49-67
           W: Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, 41-82

Week 6, Sept. 28-30:    
    Reading:    M: Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, 83-108
           W: Peer Review -- in-class (thesis paragraphs and outlines)
          Option II: Paper Topic and Bibliography due, one-paragraph justification of the topic (i.e., what do you want to learn, etc.)

              UNIT 3: SOCIALISM,  MATERIALISM, SCIENCE

Week 7, October 5-7:   Radical Politics, Radical Drama
           M: Flexibility Day
           W:  PAPERS DUE
           Saint-Simon (on e-Reserves)

Week 8, October 12-14:
           M: August Comte
           W:  Woyzeck

Week 9, October 19-21:
   Reading:      M: Marx, in Marx-Engels Reader, 67-93
           W: Marx in  Marx-Engels Reader, 294-329
           Option II: Introduction and Complete Outlines Due

Week 10, October 26-28:
   Reading:    M: Darwin (E-Reserves)
           W: Spencer (E-Reserves)

Week 11, November 2-4:
   Reading:    M: Mill, On Liberty, pp. 1-15; The Subjection of Women, pp. 123-173
           W: Culture Shock

  UNIT 4: ART AND CRITICISM

Week 12, November 9-11
   Reading:    M: Schopenhauer Excerpt (on E-Reserves); Wagner (viewing)
           W:  Rough Drafts Due, Options I and II, in-class peer review

  Week 13, November 16-18:
   Reading:    M: Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book 4
           W: Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book 5

Week 14, November 23-25:
   M: PAPERS DUE
   Reading:    M: Lou Andreas-Salomé (on E-Reserves)
                 Helene Stöcker (on E-Reserves)
                 Nelly Melin (on E-Reserves)
           W:  Selections from the Universal Races Congress (on E-Reserves)

Week 15, November 30-December 2:
   Reading:    M: flexibility day (maybe we could read Freud or Durkheim, students choose!)
   Discussion:    W: Nineteenth Century: A Century of the Nation or a Century of Cosmopolitanism?

RECOMMENDED READING:

Nineteenth-Century Surveys:
   Roland Stromberg, European Intellectual History Since 1789
   Joan Neuberger, Europe and the Making of Modernity, 1815-1914
   Peter Gay, Schnitzler's Century
   J. W. Burrow, The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848-1914

Histories of the Self:
   Jerrold Seigel, The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe since the Seventeenth Century
   Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
   Raymond Martin and John Barese, The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self: An Intellectual History of Personal Identity
   Donald Kelley, The Descent of Ideas: The History of Intellectual History
   Dominick LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History