300-400 level courses are on special topics and are more advanced. They often presuppose some basic knowledge in the field and should be more difficult courses than courses at the 1-199 levels. The department is trying to insure that some 400 level courses, although substantially more difficult, are also small in size; they thus may be suitable for graduate students.
HIST 343 European Intellectual History, 1770 - 1870
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
This course will examine major political, philosophical, and cultural issues during the period, beginning with the Enlightenment and its legacies and concluding with Nietzsche's dismissal of the entire Enlightenment project. Along the way we will consider the impact of the French Revolution, the birth of ideologies, Romanticism, the utopian tradition, philosophical idealism and its critics, Liberalism, Marx and socialist alternatives, and the challenge of Darwinism. The course is text-based, and readings are from primary ources only. Authors include Kant, Goethe, and Condorcet at the beginning of the course; Burke, Maistre, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, and Mill; and end with Darwin, Spencer, and Nietzsche. Topics in art, music, and literature will also be considered.
Course Syllabus (PDF)
