Lecture (LEC)

• Topic:
• Above section meets with CMLT-C 529

Foundations of the Modern World: The Eighteenth Century This course examines some of the core narrations and concepts through which the eighteenth century redefined the position and the experience of man in the world. After the dominance of theological metaphysics ended, universal concepts needed a new fundament. The course will also serve as an introduction to major authors and problems of this period. How did representation come to define what it means to know something about the world? How could aesthetics ennoble perception and validate an experience considered marginal? How can the contribution of each of the five senses to knowledge be determined? Why should pity be considered a virtue? How did the idea of education define what it means to lead a human life? How did theater become such a prominent scene where education took place? And why was life increasingly seen as defined by sensibility? These are some of the questions we will discuss in nuanced readings and discussions. The course will explore these questions in close readings of major texts of the German, French and English traditions and develop the structural tensions underlying the shifts at the foundation of the modern world. The course will be taught in English - students of Germanic Studies are kindly asked to read the novels in the German original. Participation in class discussions, as well as three essays of 6-10 pages - the first two on assigned topics - are the basis for the grade. The last essay should be a project outline that will be presented and discussed in class. Selected readings in German and English: Richardson, Pamela Goethe, Die Leiden des jungen Werther Goethe, Wilhelm Meister Defoe, Robinson Crusoe Diderot, Le Neveu de Rameau Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft Lessing, Laokoon Voltaire, Candide Provided on canvas or though links: D¿Alembert, Introduction into the Encyclopédie Descartes, Meditationes (excerpts) Diderot Rêve d¿Alembert, Lettre sur les Aveugles Herder, Plastik, Über den Ursprung der Sprache (excerpts) Hume, On the Standard of Taste Leibniz, Théodicée (excerpts) Lessing, Hamburgische Dramaturgie (excerpts) Rousseau, Lettre à d¿Alembert sur les spectacles, excerpts from different writings Schiller, Über die Ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen (excerpts) Shaftesbury, A letter on Enthusiasm