1
LTCS 120
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON CULTURE: THE DARK
SIDE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
TTH 2-3:20PM
WLH 2206
Instructor: John D. Blanco
(jdblanco@ucsd.edu)
Office hours: T 11-12; W 10-12pm
3434 Literature Bldg.
phone: 4-3639
When one speaks of “Enlightenment” as a philosophical, political, and social revolution
in Europe and the Americas (both North and South) – a revolution that promised
universal human freedom, the individual’s free exercise of reason, equality under
democratic republican institutions, unlimited progress and world peace – it is easy to
forget that such ideals brought in their wake terror, insecurity, madness, colonial
brutality, imperialism, world war, the nightmares of the unconscious, the police state, and
the extremes of totalitarianism and fascism. This course examines the comparative
intellectual and cultural history of Enlightenment from its dark side in the nineteenth
century, which will enable us to see how the “theory” of Western reason translated into
the “practices” of world domination, social crisis, alienation, and unprecedented
massacres. Texts may include works by Immanuel Kant, Francisco Goya, the Marquis de
Sade, GWF Hegel, José Mariano de Larra, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Bram Stoker,
Joseph Conrad, Sigmund Freud, Gustave Klimt, and Arthur Schoenberg.
REQUIREMENTS:
Attendance (10%) (2 absences or less = A; 3 absences = B; 4 absences = C; 5 absences =
D; 6 absences = F); Participation (20%); oral presentation (15%); 3 short responses
(1-2 pages each) (15%); 1 medium-length paper (7-10 pages) (20%); final exam (20%)
READINGS
G. W. F. Hegel, Reason in History
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
Sigmund Freud, On Dreams
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Pauline Hopkins, Of One Blood
Course reader (available from University Readers: go to
http://www.universityreaders.com/students/instructions.php or email University
Readers at orders@universityreaders.com).
READING SCHEDULE
Th
27 September 2007 Introduction
T
2 October
Enlightenment and / as Terror
2
Th
T
Th
T
Th
T
Th
T
Th
Immanuel Kant, “Was ist Aufklärung?” (R); Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
excerpts from The Social Contract (in
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/rousseau-contract2.html); Eric
Hobsbawm, “The French Revolution” (R)
4
Hobsbawm, “The French Revolution” (cont’d); Maxmillien Robespierre, 3
speeches (in http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook13.html;
paintings by Goya
9
John Phillips, “Chapter 4: Sade and the French Revolution” (R); Marquis
de Sade, “Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, if You Would Become
Republicans (Philosophy in the Bedroom, 91-122)
11
Marquis de Sade, 120 Days of Sodom (excerpts); Salò (film excerpts)
16
Georges Bataille, “Sade” (R); Maurice Blanchot, “Insurrection, the
Madness of Writing” (R); Michel Foucault, “Language to Infinity” (R);
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, “Excursus II” (R); “Modern
Times” (excerpt); 1st paper due
18
The Politics of Control
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: Birth of the Prison (excerpts)
(pdf)
23
GWF Hegel, Reason in History
25
Reason in History (cont’d)
30
Hegel, “Appendix: The Natural Context or the Geographical Basis of
World History” (R); 2nd paper due
1 November Systematizing Inequality
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
T
6
Marshall Berman, “All That Is Solid Melts Into Air” (R); Eric Hobsbawm,
“Chapter 3: The Age of Empire” and “Epilogue (R);
Th
8
The Underside of Enlightened Consciousness
Sigmund Freud, On Dreams; My Twentieth Century (excerpt)
T
13
On Dreams (cont’d); Carl Schorske, “Gustav Klimt: Painting and the
Crisis of the Liberal Ego” (R);
3
Th
15
“Gustav Klimt” (cont’d); 3rd short paper due
T
20
The Dark Side of Enlightenment
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
22
THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
Th
T
Th
T
Th
27
Heart of Darkness (cont’d); Edward Said, “Two Visions in Heart of
Darkness” (R); W.E.B. duBois, “Souls of White Folk” (R)
29
Pauline Hopkins, Of One Blood
4 December
Of One Blood (cont’d)
6
Of One Blood (cont’d); conclusion; final paper due
FINAL EXAM: DECEMBER 13, 3-5:59PM