A unique interdisciplinary study and analysis of Western culture from the Renaissance through Posthumanism. The course examines the thought, values, and arts of Western culture, integrating major developments in art, architecture, literature, music, religion, and philosophy. We will begin with an examination of the impact of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation on European culture, followed by a close study of the philosophy, art, and aesthetics of the 17th century. The study and analysis of the Enlightenment, The French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution will follow, paying attention to key philosophical, political, and cultural trends of the 18th century. Close investigation of major political, philosophical, aesthetic, and literary movements of the 19th century will highlight the condition of modernity and its broad cultural and social impact. The course will conclude with the study of the 20th century, its two World Wars, the cold war, and the recent technological revolution.
Lectures
1. The Renaissance as a Paradigm Shift
2. Luther and the Protestant Reformation: Sola Fide and Iconoclasm
3. The Counter-Reformation: Art and Religious Propaganda
4. Gutenberg, the Advent of Science, and the Rise of Capitalism
5. The Enlightenment and the Quantification of the World
6. The Age of Louis XIX: Art, Decadence, and Political Ideology
7. Rococo: Paris, The Salon, and the Seduction of Pleasure
8. Neoclassicism: The Rational Aesthetic
9. Romanticism and the Romantic Movement
10. The Industrial Revolution, Materialism, Historicism and Realism
11. Marx and Marxism(s)
12. Darwin and Darwinism(s)
13. Impressionism: Painting the Modern World
14. Postimpressionism: Abstracting Modernity
15. Nietzsche
16. Freud
17. Modernism 1900-1920
18. Modernism 1920-1940
19. Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Being
20. Existentialism: Action and Responsibility
21. WWII and the Cold War
22. The 1950s: Complacency and Its Discontents
23. The 1960s: Counter-Culture and Revolution
24. Watergate, Neoliberalism, Postmodernism
and the Digital Revolution
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