What is Enlightenment?

What is the Enlightenment? And why does it matter today? This First-Year Seminar introduces students to a crucial historical epoch that reinterpreted the past – with searing critiques of certain European philosophical and religious traditions – and became a flashpoint for the future, causing debates and controversies well into the 20th century – and beyond. Drawing on a range of approaches and disciplines, we will examine the social and cultural foundations of Enlightenment thought in Europe and throughout the non-European world, including segments on the origins of anthropology, Orientalism, critiques of imperialism and slavery, encyclopedism and the rise of print, as well as science, music, art, literature, and philosophy.