Secularization and Modernity                                                                      Prof. Thomas Pfau

                 Interdisciplinary Readings, 1750-1914                                                                                                          Spring 2010

SYLLABUS

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(For full citations of texts referenced on this syllabus, go to General Bibliography)

Wednesday, 1/13	INTRODUCTION: VARIETIES OF THE “SECULAR” – Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy, 105-25 and David Martin, from On Secularization, 123-40.
Friday, 1/15	INTRODUCTION: VERSIONS OF “MODERNITY” – Louis Dupré, Passage to Modernity, 65-92 and Charles Taylor, from Modern Social Imaginaries, 3­-22 & 49­-67.
Monday, 1/18	David Hume, from Treatise of Human Nature (1739-­1740)
Wednesday, 1/20	Hume, continued
Friday, 1/22	Discussion: Hume and Modern Skepticism
Monday, 1/25	G. E. Lessing, Nathan the Wise (1779) & “Of the Power and Spirit.”
Wednesday, 1/27	Lessing, continued & Jacob Katz, from Out of the Ghetto (1998)
Friday, 1/29	Discussion: Toleration and Enlightenment Secularity
Monday, 2/01	Moses Mendelssohn, from Jerusalem: on Religious Power and Judaism (1783)
Wednesday, 2/03	Mendelssohn, continued & Michael A. Meyers, from German-­Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 3 (1998)
Friday, 2/05	Discussion: Mendelssohn and the Paradoxes of Jewish Enlightenment
Monday, 2/08	Mendelssohn & Meyers, continued
Wednesday, 2/10	Johann W. von Goethe, from Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1796), Book 6 & Charles Taylor, from Sources of the Self, 368-81.
Friday, 2/12	Discussion: Femininity, Sentiment, and the Limits of Religious Inwardness
Monday, 2/15	Jane Austen, from Mansfield Park (1814)
Wednesday, 2/17	Austen, continued & Colin Jager, from The Book of God: Secularization & Design in the Romantic Era (2006)
Friday, 2/19	Discussion: The modern novel and the secular imagination
Monday, 2/22	Auguste Comte, “Introduction to the Positive Philosophy” (1825/26)
Wednesday, 2/24	Comte, continued & Andrew Wernick, Auguste Comte and the Religion of Humanity
Friday, 2/26	Discussion: Comte and Positivism
Monday, 3/01	Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from On the Constitution of Church and State (1830)
Wednesday, 3/03	Coleridge, continued & Pamela Edwards, from The Statesman’s Science: History, Nature, and Law in the Political Thought of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2004)
Friday, 3/05	Discussion: Coleridge and the Discontents of the Modern State
Monday, 3/08	Spring Recess
Wednesday, 3/10	Spring Recess
Friday, 3/12	Spring Recess
Monday, 3/15	John Henry Newman, “The Tamworth Reading Room” (1841)
Wednesday, 3/17	Newman, continued & Robert Pattison, from The Great Dissent: John Henry Newman and the Liberal Heresy (1991)
Friday, 3/19	Discussion: Newman’s Critique of Modern Secular Liberalism
Monday, 3/22	Modern Evolution and the Crisis of Protestantism: Robert Chambers, from Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), 191-235 & 277-323.
Wednesday, 3/24	Chambers, continued & James Secord, from Victorian Sensation, 222-­96.
Friday, 3/26	Discussion: Science and Religion in Early Victorian England (Chambers and Secord, continued)
Monday, 3/29	Matthew Arnold, from Culture & Anarchy (1869), “Doing as One Likes”, "Hebraism and Hellenism" & "Porro Unum est Neccessarium"
Wednesday, 3/31	Arnold, continued; review of Arnold’s Culture & Anarchy by Henry Sidgwick (1867), and Vincent Pecora, from Secularization and Cultural Criticism, 131-56.
Friday, 4/02	Discussion: Arnold’s Critique of Modern Morality
Monday, 4/05	George Eliot, “Review of Mackay’s The Progress of the Intellect” (1851); “W. R. Greg's The Creed of Christendom" (1851) & "The Natural History of German Life" (1856).
Wednesday, 4/07	Fyodor Dostoevsky, from The Brothers Karamazov (1879), Chapters: "Rebellion" & "The Grand Inquisitor"
Friday, 4/09	Discussion: Modernism, Secularism, and the Aesthetics of Despair
Monday, 4/12	Friedrich Nietzsche, from Beyond Good & Evil (1886)
Wednesday, 4/14	Nietzsche, continued & Alexander Nehamas, from Nietzsche: Life as Literature, 42-73.
Friday, 4/16	Discussion: Nietzsche, Rhetoric, and Immoralism
Monday, 4/19	Max Weber, from The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)
Wednesday, 4/21	Weber, continued & John Milbank, from Theology and Social Theory (2006)
Friday, 4/23	Discussion: Secularization and the Rise of Modern Sociology
Monday, 4/26	Thomas Mann, Gladius Dei (1902) & Paul Bishop, “The Intellectual World of Thomas Mann" (2002)
Wednesday, 4/28	Thomas Mann, Blood of the Wälsungs (1906/1921/1958) & Hermann Kurzke, from Thomas Mann: Life as a Work of Art (1996)

Requirements:

1. •Regular Attendance (2 absences free; any additional absence will result in a ½ point drop of the final course grade) 
   

2. •Active participation in Recitation/Discussion meetings
   

3. •1 short­ paper (5­-6 pp.) due by January 25th
   

4. •An annotated bibliography of approx. 8 titles (due March 5th), comprising both primary and some secondary texts (samples will be posted on the course website shortly); that bibliography will become the basis for a...
   

5. •medium­-length research paper (~12­-15 pp.), a draft of which will be due April 5th. On the basis of instructor feedback, this draft is to be revised and resubmitted. The final version of your research paper will be due on April 28th in class.
   

6. •Grade breakdown: short paper: 15%; annotated bibliography: 25%; research paper: 40% (the grade on the draft of your research paper will be superceded by the grade assigned to the final version); attendance & participation: 20%.
   

FOR MORE INFORMATION regarding the research component, please visit Assignments.

1. SECULARIZATION & MODERNITY
   

2. SYLLABUS