Tu: Introduction and Course Orientation

Readings: N/A

Th: What is "Modern Western Civilization?"

Reading: "Western Civilization:" 1500 to the Present, Statement of Course Goals (CP1)

Tu: Luther and the Authority of the Individual Conscience

Reading: Martin Luther, "Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans" (CP1)

Th: Christians and Heretics, Europeans and Savages

Reading: Jean de Lery, Voyage to the Land of Brazil, pp. 3-14, 56-77

Tu: Legacies of the Colonial Encounter

Reading: Jean de Lery, Voyage to the Land of Brazil, pp. 112-177

Th: Descartes and the Rational Individual

Reading: Descartes, Discourse on Method, excerpts in (CP1)

Tu: Francis Bacon and the "New Science"

Reading: Francis Bacon, selections from New Organon and New Atlantis (CP1)

Th: Toward a Science of Society

Reading: Thomas Hobbes, excerpts from Leviathan (CP1); John Locke, excerpts from Second Treatise on Civil Government (CP1); Adam Smith, from Lectures on Jurisprudence(CP1); Adam Ferguson, from Principles of Moral and Political Science (CP1)

Tu: Rousseau and the State of Nature

Reading: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, "Preface" and "Part I" (CP1)

Th: Science, Society, Progress: Emancipation or Oppression?

Reading: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, "Part II" and "Endnote" (CP1)

Tu: The Atlantic Slave Trade

Reading: Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative, pp. 31-70 (to the end of the paragraph, "...to fire the guns."), 77-79 (to the end of the paragraph, "...and very cheap."), 95-96 (to the end of the paragraph, "...for my deliverance."), and 102-112 (from "Once, for a few days,...). Students are also strongly encouraged to read the chapter summations which begin each chapter, even those that are not included in the required reading. By doing this, you will be able to acquire at least a cursory sense of the narrative as a whole without having to read the entire book.

Th: Equiano and Enlightenment Subjectivity

Reading: Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative, pp. 131-146, 178-193, 220-236. Students are also strongly encouraged to read the chapter summations which begin each chapter, even those that are not included in the required reading. By doing this, you will be able to acquire at least a cursory sense of the narrative as a whole without having to read the entire book.

Tu: 1776: The Shot Heard Round the World

Reading: First Paper Due

Th: 1789: The Origin of Global Revolution

Reading: Tom Paine, "Common Sense;" Sièyes, "What is the Third Estate?" (CP2)

Tu: Instituting Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity

Reading: The U.S. Declaration of Independence; the U.S. Constitution (excerpts); "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen;" Olympe de Gouges, "Declaration of the Rights of Women;" Maximilien Robespierre, "Speech to the National Convention, Feb. 7, 1794" (CP2)

Th: People, Nations, and the Project of Revolutionary Change

Reading: Sheik Al-Jabarti, Chronicle of the French Occupation of Egypt; Giuseppe Mazzini, "Instructions for the Members of Young Italy:" John L. O’Sullivan, "On Manifest Desitiny;" Frederick Jackson Turner, from "The Frontier in American History;" Joseph Brant, "On Indian and White Civilization" (CP2)

Tu: The "Industrial Revolution"

Reading: Adam Smith, from The Wealth of Nations (CP2); Karl Marx, from The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, in Toews ed., The Communist Manifesto, pp. 132-36.

Th: The Rise (and Fall?) of Revolutionary Marxism

Reading: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party,  in Toews ed., The Communist Manifesto, pp. 61-96

Tu: Revolution, War, Imperialism

Reading: Second Paper Due

Th: "The West"and The "New Imperialism"

Reading: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part I, in The Norton Critical Edition of Heart of Darkness, pp. 1-33

Tu: Colonizers and Colonized

Reading: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Parts II & III, in The Norton Critical Edition of Heart of Darkness, pp. 33-76

Th: Decolonization

Reading: Frantz Fanon, excerpts from The Wretched of the Earth (CP2)

Tu: Postcolonialism(s)

Reading: Frantz Fanon, excerpts from The Wretched of the Earth, (CP.); Chinua Achebe, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," in The Norton Critical Edition of Heart of Darkness, pp. 251-262.

Th: The "Western Way" in War

Reading: Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz, pp. 9-41

Tu: The Thirty Years War, 1914-1945

Reading: Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz, pp. 42-108

Th: Holocaust and Genocide

Reading: Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz, pp. 109-173

F: Re-Write of Critical Essay Due

Tu: Modernisms

Reading: Toni Morrison, Beloved,  pp. 1-147

Th: History, Memory and Self

Reading: Toni Morrison, Beloved, pp. 148-275

Sunday, May 4, 2:30 PM: Blade Runner Screening, Anderson Hall 330

Monday, May 5, 7:30 PM: Blade Runner Screening, Anderson Hall 330

Tu: Postmodernity

Required Film: Blade Runner

Th: What is Modern Western Civilization?

Reading: Review Course Materials

W: Final Paper Due