The Long Eighteenth Century

Catalog description

The aim of this anchor course is to acquaint students with the literary, philosophical, and cultural complexity of the "long eighteenth century," roughly 1648-1806. Often associated with the enlightenment and the revolutions it inspired, the eighteenth century is a prolonged period in which institutions of power and knowledge come under pressure and are reconfigured. Old institutions are submitted to the critique of reason, while new institutions of governance, sociability, gender, race and class create new spaces for cultural production. Students will analyze representative works in context and in combination with current scholarship.