Humanities 220

Modern European Humanities

Fall 2012 Syllabus

Texts for this course

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre (Oxford World's Classics)
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe (Penguin)
Kant, Immanuel. Basic Writings (Modern Library)
Koerner, Joseph Leo. Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape, 2nd Ed. (Reaktion)
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Marx-Engels Reader (Norton)
Popkin, Jeremy D. A Short History of the French Revolution, 5th Ed. (Prentice-Hall)
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Political Writings (Norton)
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein (Broadview)
Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class (Vintage)
Voltaire. Candide (Bedford)
Wollstonecraft, Mary. Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Penguin)
Wordsworth, William. Selected Poems (Penguin)

Schedule

Week 1 (Aug 27)

Reading: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, pp. 5-108, 122-37, 154-79, 219-24, 238-41

Lecture: M: "Beginning the Conversations"/ Jay Dickson

I. THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Week 2 (Sep 3)

LABOR DAY: MONDAY (NO LECTURE)
Voltaire, Candide

W: "Candide vs. Everything"/ Hugh Hochman

Week 3 (Sep 10)

Diderot on Art, The Salon of 1765 and Notes on Painting, ed. and trans. John Goodman (selections, e-reserves)
Gallery of images by Greuze and Fragonard to accompany "Denis Diderot on Art"
Diderot, Encyclopédie, selected articles and plates (e-reserves)
Diderot, Selections, The Encyclopedia (e-reserves)
Diderot, "The encyclopedia" (e-reserves)

M: "Diderot's Encyclopedia" / Luc Monnin
W: "Greuze and Fragonard" / William Diebold

Week 4 (Sep 17)

Adam Smith, The Essential Adam Smith, selections (e-reserves)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Political Writings, "Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men" and "On Social Contract or Principles of Political Rights," Book I (all), Book II (chapters 1-6),
Book III (chapter 15), Book IV (chapters 1, 2, 7-9)
Jean Jacques Rousseau,"Letter to Geneva" (e-reserves)

M: "Economics and Sentiment" / Maureen Harkin
W: "Loving Me: Rousseau and the Promise of Republicanism" / Benjamin Lazier

Week 5 (Sept 24)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, cont.
Immanuel Kant, Basic Writings (selections by instructor)

W: "Autonomy and its Discontents" / Jan Mieszkowski

II. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Week 6 (Oct 1)

Immanuel Kant, cont.
Jeremy D. Popkin, A Short History of the French Revolution, 5th ed., chapters 1-2
The Abbé Sieyès, "What is the Third Estate?" (e-reserves)
The Revolutionary Calendar (e-reserves)
Readings on the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen," in The French Revolution and Human Rights, ed. Lynn Hunt (e-reserves)

W: "The Promethean Moment: Politics and Society" / Edward Segel

Week 7 (Oct 8)

Jeremy D. Popkin, A Short History of the French Revolution, 5th ed., chapters 3-5
Edmund Burke, selections (e-reserves)
Gallery of images: "David"
Erica Rand, "Depoliticizing Women: Female Agency, the French Revolution, and the Art of Boucher and David" (e-reserves)
Mary Vidal, "David Among the Moderns: Art, Science, and the Lavoisiers" (e-reserves)

M: "Edmund Burke and the Terror" / Max Whyte
W: "Jacques-Louis David and the Revolution" / William Diebold

***FALL BREAK***

III. ROMANTICISM

Week 8 (Oct 22)

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, author's introduction, chapters 1-3, 9
William Wordsworth, Selected Poems (selections by instructor)
Raymond Williams, "The Romantic Artist" (e-reserves)

M: "Posing the Woman Question" / Jay Dickson
W: "Poeticizing History in Wordsworth" / Hugh Hochman

Week 9 (Oct 29)

John Barrell, The Dark Side of the Landscape, "John Constable" (e-reserves; also study this image gallery)
Joseph Leo Koerner, Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape, chapters 1, 3, 6, 9, 10, and 12 (also study this image gallery)

M: "Constable and the Meaning of Landscape" / William Diebold
W: "Friedrich and the Meaning of Landscape" / William Diebold

Week 10 (Nov 5)

E. T. A. Hoffman, "The Sandman" (e-reserves)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

M: "What is Romanticism?" / Jan Mieszkowski
W: "The Gothic Novel and the Sublime" / Maureen Harkin

IV. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Week 11 (Nov 12)

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, cont.
E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, pp. 9-13, 189-212, 314-374, 711-746.

W: "The Promethean Moment: Technology and Industry" / Edward Segel

Week 12 (Nov19)

Karl Marx, Marx-Engels Reader (selections by instructor)

M: "Marx in His Time and Ours" / Benjamin Lazier

***THANKSGIVING***

Week 13 (Nov 26)

Karl Marx, Marx-Engels Reader (selections by instructor)
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

M: "How to be a Radical" / Jan Mieszkowski

Week 14 (Dec 3)

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (cont.)

M: "A Person of Interest" / Jay Dickson