Literature: Reading Cultures

Catalog description

This course will explore the philosophies of several canonical western thinkers, and attempt to historicize them within a framework usually recognized as the Western Tradition. We will engage in close readings of selected texts. We will expand the student’s view of traditionally accepted philosophers to include the concepts and views of people and societies not normally accorded the respect by university traditionalists. Through putting these texts in conversation with one another as the course progresses, an understanding of the thought, ideas and discourses which animate the western mind, as well as the culture and institutions of western society, will be developed.