About this course: This course examines how the idea of "the modern" develops at the end of the 18th century in European philosophy and literature, and how being modern (or progressive, or hip) became one of the crucial criteria for understanding and evaluating cultural change. Are we still in modernity, or have we moved beyond the modern to the postmodern?
Created by: Wesleyan University
Taught by: Michael S. Roth
| Commitment | 3-5 hours/week |
| Language | English |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Course Pages
2 readings
WEEK 2
Intensity and the Ordinary: Sex, Death, Aggression and Guilt
With a focus on Civilization and its Discontents, we examine how Freud’s theories tried to expose profound instincts as they appeared in daily life.
4 videos, 1 reading
WEEK 3
Intensity and the Ordinary: Art, Loss, Forgiveness
A reading of Virginia Woolf’s modernist novel To the Lighthouse shows how giving up the search for the “really real” can liberate one to attend to the everyday.
4 videos, 1 reading
Graded: First Writing Assignment
WEEK 4
The Postmodern Everyday
We go back to Ralph Waldo Emerson and forward to Ludwig Wittgenstein to consider how forms of life and language games need to foundation to be compelling.
4 videos, 1 reading
Graded: Second Writing Assignment
WEEK 5
From Critical Theory to Postmodernism
Through a consideration of Max Horkheimer & Theodor Adorno along with Michel Foucault, we confront the philosophical effort to escape from totality in order to understand the politics of control.
4 videos, 1 reading
Graded: Third Writing Assignment
WEEK 6
Paintings II
A very brief consideration of how artists are responding to the loss of foundations to produce work that redefines art.
2 videos
WEEK 7
Postmodern Identities
We examine short pieces by Judith Butler and Slavjo Zizek to understand how identities get formed (and performed) in a world without foundations.
4 videos, 1 reading
Graded: Fourth Writing Assignment
WEEK 8
Late-term Review
Review of all the thinkers we have studied in Parts I and II of the class, along with some complementary material.
4 videos
WEEK 9
Postmodern Pragmatisms
After postmodern playfulness, or alongside it, we see the resurgence of the pragmatic impulse to return philosophy to real human problems.
3 videos, 1 reading
Graded: Fifth Writing Assignment
Extra (Optional) Writing Assignment
1 item
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Ratings and Reviews
I quite appreciate the teaching of American philosophers, like Emerson or Rorty.
Fantastic course
I loved this course!
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Great stuff, great teacher!