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20th Century European Cultural History From Freud to Foucault: Modernism in Context(s)
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Winter 2008 Monday, Wednesday, Friday 11:30-12:20 Thursday sections 11:30 and 12:30 Teaching assistant: John C. Foster jcf2@u.washington.edu Professor John E. Toews Smith 312A 543-9855 Office Hours: Monday: 4-5, Wednesday: 2:30-3:30, and by appointment
Readings
Course Description The development of European thought and culture from the 1890s to the 1990s as expressed in the fine arts, literature, philosophy and social theory. The emphasis in the discussions and lectures will be on developments in central and western European and will focus on the fate of Modernism from its inception in the period before World War I, through its transformations during the traumatic events of the period 1914-1945 and the divisions of the Cold War, and finally its transmutation into postmodernism after 1968. Analysis of significant intellectual "couples" like Auguste Rodin/Camille Claudel, Simone de Beauvoir/Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger/Hannah Arendt will highlight the importance of gender perspectives in 20th Century European Intellectual History. Other individual figures studied in depth include Sigmund Freud, Max Weber, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Walter Benjamin, Claude Levi-Strauss, Michel Foucault and Juergen Habermas.
Student learning goals Develop an understanding of the historical trajectory of Modernism in West European. Grasp the problematic nature of gendered perspectives in European thought and literature Learn to connect contemporaneous developments in the visual arts, music literature, philosophy, social theory and psychology. Approach a critical historical understanding of many of the cultural assumptions that frame our understanding of the present Research the origins and contexts of intellectual products through short weekly research assignments Write an extended analytical/historical paper on the relations between texts and contexts
Required Readings and Visual Materials are available on the Course website.
Required Readings will also be available in hardcopy in a Course Reader that can be purchased at Rams Copy on the Ave
Two books have been ordered into the University Bookstore (both are easily available in cheap used versions on Amazon) Sigmund Freud: Dora: Analaysis of a Case of Hysteria Carl Schorske: Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture
A number of books have been placed on Course Reserve in Odegaard: They appear in the Syllabus as “ Suggested” readings There is no adequate up-to-date background textbook that might provide a general survey of 20th thought or provide historical-contextual background for some of the figures that we will be covering. However there are some older general surveys that provide partial coverage for different segments of the course. H. Stuart Hughes: Consciousness and Society: The Reorientation of European Social Thought 1890-1930; The Obstructed Path:French Social Thought in the Years of Desperation 1930-1960; The Sea Change: The Migration oif Social Thought 1930-1965 Roland Stromberg: European Intellectual History Since 1789, 6th edition. Chapters 5ff are relevant to this course. J.W.Burrow: The Crisis of European Thought, 1848-1914. Hayden White and Wilson Coates: The Ordeal of Liberal Humanism: An Intellectual History of Western Europe, Part II, pp. 251-469
I have also placed a general history survey of 20th Century Europe on Reserve: James Wilkinson and H. Stuart Hughes: Contemporary Europe, 9th edition (1998)
Class assignments and grading:
Short weekly reports on research assignments discussed in Sections (40%)
Midterm (15%)and Final (15%) quizzes on the material in the lectures
Term Paper (about 10 pp. in length) (30%). Topics to be negotiated with instructors in the week after midterms.
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