Europe:Age of Reason/Sentiment

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This team-taught interdisciplinary seminar course is designed for first-year students interested in the opportunity for deeper study of particular themes and periods. Our main focus will be on careful reading of texts, active class discussion, and close attention to writing. Our main focus will be the cultural and historical developments of Europe, and to some degree of other parts of the world affected by Europe, in the eighteenth century, the era of the Enlightenment. In particular, we will consider the ways in which the political, scientific, economic, social, and religious developments of the period interacted with cultural and intellectual developments and expressions. Specific themes may include the relationship between religion and the state; the emergence of concepts of nationhood, citizenship, and representative government; the workings of the first truly global and consumer economy; and debates about the significance of race and gender. Throughout the eighteenth century, European thinkers, writers, and artists increasingly thought of themselves as “modern,” and at the same time also confronted cultural differences shaped by nation, class, race, religion, gender, and other factors. We will always try to highlight the interrelationships between historical and cultural developments, stressing especially the ways in which literature, music, drama, and the visual arts both responded and contributed to historical changes.