Course Description
This course is an overview of modern thought. We will read a few decisive texts in the Western tradition – texts that opened up new ways of thought and helped shape the modern world. Along the way we will trace the emergence and transformation of some of the basic terms in which we think. The immediate aim of the course is double: to deepen our understanding of the traditions that we inherited, but also to rethink or refine that heritage. The ultimate aim of the course is to prepare ourselves to confront basic questions (ethical, political, social, economic, religious, scientific, technological) that face us today. For the sake of coherence we will focus broadly on the themes of modernity and tradition.
The word ‘modern’ means ‘of the moment’ or ‘right now’ (modo); it is commonly opposed to ‘ancient’ or ‘traditional’. European thinkers began to use the word in the 15th and 16th centuries, as it became apparent that their world was different from the ancient world. This sense of difference led to a crisis in the authority of tradition; inherited ways of thinking and acting no longer seemed appropriate or adequate for the new realities. For 500 years modern thinkers have dealt with this crisis in various ways: some have tried to break with tradition and invent new forms of thought and action; some have tried to clear away the distortions of tradition and to recover the original forms of thought and practice implicit in the tradition’s founding texts; some have sought to transform traditional forms of thought and practice in light of the new realities of the modern world. We will have to attend to the ways in which each text we read tries to break with, recover, or transform the tradition.
The CCI course is meant not only to impart knowledge but also to develop the abilities one needs to be a responsible citizen, a successful professional and a thoughtful person: the ability to read and listen, to speak and write, to think clearly and critically, and to engage in dialogue and debate. Hence the emphasis on careful reading, thoughtful writing, and active participation in class discussions.
A selection of books will be used by your instructor, though this selection will vary, depending on the instructor. Check with your instructor as to which titles you will need to acquire and the purchase the exact editions that will be used in the course.
HUM 112 instructors will select four of the following six clusters:
Nature, Culture, and Otherness
Kafka, Metamorphosis
de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women
Shakespeare, Tempest
Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah
The nature-culture binary, with its corresponding notions of otherness, constitutes a key component of modern thought. In considering the assigned texts students explore shifting views of the natural world beside the technologically-advanced, reflecting on what is considered natural or artificial, human or non-human, and why. Special attention is given not only to the value judgments associated with particular labels but to the ethical implications of those judgments.
The Modern Self: Public and Private Identities
Shakespeare, The Tragedies
Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals
Cervantes, Don Quixote
Correctly or not, modernity has often been credited with a “discovery of the individual” in social frameworks earlier characterized by strong horizontal and vertical links. This unit explores notions of the “self” and the individual in selected readings and documents. These may explore autobiography and narratives of the self, rhetorical self-presentation and self-fashioning, and/or constructions of identity in a wider historical context.
Reason and Science: Modernity and its Discontents
Descartes, Discourse, Meditations
Shelley, Frankenstein
Rousseau, Discourses
Bacon, Novum Organum
Montaigne, Essays
A signature aspect of modernity is the prominent rise of science. Examining this theme students explore questions of the rise of a scientific culture, including its methods, the oppositions it historically imposes, and current promises of this world view. This selection of texts considers concerns regarding the pressing importance of nature, human responsibility, and the dangers of both unbridled pursuit of objective knowledge and the creation of a world that is alienating to its creators.
Power, Authority, and Justice in the Modern World
Machiavelli, The Prince
More, Utopia
Hobbes, Leviathan
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
Rousseau, The Social Contract and other political writings
Marx, Communist Manifesto
Modernity is often associated with the rise of state sovereignty, as well as new social and cultural organizations called for by a series of historical developments. Students study the implication of these changes for the modern subject, the exercise of power, and the emergence of the idea of a social contract. They explore the nature of power and the role of reason in determining the moral foundation of justice, and seek critical perspectives on power and authority, nationalism, and peace and conflict.
Modern Literature, Culture, and Aesthetics
Woolf, To the Lighthouse
Beckett, Waiting for Godot
Baudelaire, Flowers of Evil
Boccaccio, The Decameron
From the middle of the nineteenth century, the development of such new media as photography and film, and the rise of scientific theories that threatened to make the very notion of common sense obsolete. Spurred by these challenge, writers and artists pioneered new ways of exploring the workings of the mind, the nature of time, and new models of social organization. In reading poetry and prose by such experimental modernists, students consider how the questions these texts pose still challenge us today.
Additional Readings
In addition to the primary texts listed above, you may also from time to time be assigned additional short texts, articles, or excerpts. These texts may have been assembled for you by your instructor and made available via Moodle. In most cases, you will be required to print and bring these readings to class.