History 178C:

European Intellectual History: 1870 – 1970

 

 

Instructor: Chris Brooks

cbrooks@ucsc.edu

 

 

Course Description:

This course will trace some of the major changes in the history of ideas over the last two hundred years in Europe.  Our approach will be both contextual and exegetical, looking both at the historical circumstances of some of EuropeÕs major thinkers as well as their ideas themselves.  In doing so, we will grapple with what was meant by terms like Òreason,Ó Òprogress,Ó Òhumanism,Ó Òmodernity,Ó Òpostmodernity,Ó and ÒutopianÓ in the thought of major European intellectuals.

 

This course takes a different approach from philosophical or literary critiques of the history of ideas by being above all contextual.  We emphasize the degree to which ideas are embedded in history, and students will be asked to consider context in their writing.

 

While the core of the class covers the period of 1870 to 1970, we will begin with a ÒprequelÓ week on some of the important intellectual antecedents from the early nineteenth century, including Kant and Hegel.

 

Course Requirements:

There will be one fairly short (7 – 8  page) paper and a final exam.  The exam will both ask you to identify and comment on quotes from some of the thinkers we study this term and apply your thoughts in a longer in-class essay.  Each component, the paper and the exam, counts for 50% of the overall grade.  In addition, I will modify grades up or down by half a grade (i.e. a plus or a minus) based on participation during discussions. 

 

Since there is no textbook for this course, attendance at lectures is mandatory.  The purpose of the lectures is to provide an overarching narrative that will tie together the various readings and themes we will explore this term.  While attendance will not be taken, you are responsible for the content of the lectures in the final exam, and you will also have to contextualize the essays using the information from lectures.  WeÕll discuss the texts regularly in class, and participation will affect the final grade as mentioned above.

 

Readings:

Not surprisingly, the texts of the thinkers we will study are at the heart of this class.  The readings can be fairly complex, but they are not overly demanding in terms of length.  It is imperative to keep up with the readings.  The lectures will contextualize the thinkers and focus attention on some of the questions arising from their work, but it is the texts themselves that form the core of the study of intellectual history.

 

All but one of the readings for this course are available from the libraryÕs electronic reserve, or are available for free from online resources (indicated below.)  IÕve used as many electronic sources as possible to mitigate costs.

 

The libraryÕs eres site is:

http://eres.ucsc.edu/eres/default.aspx

 

One essay is assigned in book form:  Jean-Paul SartreÕs Existentialism Is a Humanism, available at the bookstore.

 

Course Schedule and Readings:

 

Week 1: 

1. Tuesday, June 23: Kant and the Legacy of the Enlightenment

Readings: Immanuel Kant, What Is Enlightenment? http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/kant-whatis.html

Immanuel Kant, excerpts from Critique of Pure Reason

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/kant-cpr.html

 

Topics: Review of enlightenment philosophy and social theory.  Relationship between enlightenment thought and enlightenment thinkers on the one hand and absolutist monarchs (especially Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia) on the other.  The life and thought of Immanuel Kant.

 

2. Thursday, June 25: Hegel and the Dream of the End of History

Readings: G.W.F. Hegel, ÒOf The Romantic Form of ArtÓ from Lectures on Aesthetics

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ae/ch03.htm#19

G.W.F. Hegel, The Master – Slave Dialectic

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/

 

Topics: German romanticism and the critique of enlightenment philosophy.  Industrialism and expansion in Europe.  The life and thought of G.W.F. Hegel.  What did Hegel mean by ÒGeistÓ?

 

Week 2:

1. Tuesday, June 30: Marx and the Return to the Material

Readings: Karl Marx, ÒI. Bourgeois and ProletariansÓ and ÒII. Proletarians and CommunistsÓ from The Communist Manifesto

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/index.htm

Karl Marx, The Alienation of Labor from The Philosophical Manuscripts

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MODERN/ALIEN.HTM

 

Topics: A brief history of socialism.  The socialist movement in England and Germany.  The life and thought of Karl Marx, with particular attention to the influence of Hegel and the Young Hegelians.  The major themes and changes in MarxÕs work over his lifetime.

 

2. Thursday, July 2: Nietzsche and Anti-Humanism

Readings: Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense

http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/tls.htm

Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, from Untimely Meditations

http://nietzsche.holtof.com/Nietzsche_untimely_meditations/on_the_use_and_abuse_of_History.htm

 

Topics: The late nineteenth century, imperialism and malaise in Europe.  Nationalism: its radical novelty and different potential value-systems (examples of France and Germany)  The life and thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, his relationship with Wagner, his prolific writing followed by madness and death. 

 

Week 3:

1. Tuesday, July 7: Woolf, Ibsen, and Feminism

Readings: Virginia Woolf, chapters 2 and 3 of A Room of OneÕs Own

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91r/chapter2.html

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91r/chapter3.html

 

Topics: The feminist movement in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Europe.  The issue of womenÕs suffrage.  Notes on the intellectual history of feminism, from Olympe de Gouges and Wollstonecraft to Woolf.  Henrik IbsenÕs critique of bourgeois Europe and its implicit attack on gender roles.  The life and thought of Virginia Woolf.

 

2. Thursday, July 9: Weber, Freud, and Critiques of Modernity

Readings: Max Weber, Science as a Vocation

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/moriyuki/abukuma/weber/lecture/science_frame.html

Sigmund Freud, The Structure of the Unconscious

http://members.tripod.com/anupamm/freudst.html

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and the Weltanschauung

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1918freud-civwelt.html

 

Topics: The unanswerable question: what is ÒmodernityÓ?  Jewish enfranchisement in the states of Europe and the growth of political anti-Semitism.  The life and thought of Sigmund Freud.  Max Weber and the birth of sociology.  WeberÕs Òiron cageÓ and the death of the hope for bildung.

 

Week 4:

1. Tuesday, July 14: Sartre, Beauvoir, and Existentialism

Readings:  Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism.

 

Topics: Europe immolated: the world wars, the Holocaust and the end of Òprogress.Ó  The imperative of choice in the French Resistance.  The lives and thought of Sartre and Beauvoir, with particular emphasis on the history of existentialism from the 1930s through the 1960s.

 

2. Thursday, July 16: LŽvi-Strauss, Barthes, and Structuralism

Readings: Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author:

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/barthes06.htm

Claude LŽvi-Strauss, excerpt from The Structural Study of Myth (eres)

 

Topics: Postwar Europe and the Cold War.  The crisis of Marxist thought and the rise of the New Left.  May of Õ68 as a culmination of radical thought and cultural revolution.  The intellectual history of structuralism in linguistics and anthropology and its rejection of existentialism.  Paradoxes of structuralism: where does it lead?

 

Week 5:

1. Tuesday, July 21: Foucault and Poststructuralism

Michel Foucault, ÒPanopticismÓ from Discipline and Punish (CR)

http://cartome.org/foucault.htm

 

Topics: The ÒfailureÓ of May of Õ68.  The end of the ÒThirty Glorious YearsÓ and the malaise of the 1970s.  The life and thought of Foucault: letÕs try to make sense of him.  Notes on the present.

 

2. Thursday, July 23: Habermas, Gorz, and Future Utopias

 

PAPER DUE

FINAL EXAM