Humanities II (Modern)
A 15-week course surveying the late history of Western culture.
MODULE I – The Rebirth (1454-1603)
Sec 1 • Defining the Modern
1.1 Modus & Modo: The Method & the Way
1.2 Optimism & the Promise of Progress
1.3 Reason, Secularism, & the Individual
1.4 Mapping the Modern: 4 Ages in 15 Weeks
Read: Jervis, Exploring the Modern
Art: Duccio's Madonna & Dürer's Self-Portrait
Listen: Hildegard's chant & Josquin's polyphony
Sec 2 • Renaissance & the Printing Press
2.1 Rebirth: The Medici, Humanism, & the Dignity of Man
2.2 Genius: Leonardo, Michelangelo, & Raphael
2.3 1454: Gutenberg & the First Information Age
2.4 Machiavelli: Politics without Heaven
Culture & Values chs. 12–13
Read: Machiavelli, The Prince (sel.)
Art: Botticelli, Birth of Venus & Raphael, School of Athens
Listen: Josquin, Ave Maria… Virgo serena
Sec 3 • Reformation & the New Heavens
3.1 Luther & the Fracturing of Christendom
3.2 Trent & the Counter-Reformation
3.3 1543: Copernicus & the De-Centered Cosmos
3.4 Elizabeth & Shakespeare: Halmet’s Modern Mind
Culture & Values ch. 14
Read: Luther, Reformation Writings (sel.)
Read2: Shakespeare, Hamlet (sel.)
Art: Dürer's prints; Holbein, The Ambassadors
Listen: Dowland, “Come Again” & Luther, “Ein feste Burg”
MODULE II – Early Modern Philosophy (1604-1775)
Sec 4 • Baroque & the New Science
4.1 Splendor & Shadow: Bernini, Caravaggio, & Rome
4.2 The Dutch Golden Age: Rembrandt, Vermeer, & the Market
4.3 1633: Galileo & the New Science on Trial
4.4 Newton’s Clockwork: The Mechanical Cosmos
Culture & Values ch. 15
Read: Galileo, Starry Messenger (sel.)
Art: Caravaggio, The Calling of St. Matthew & Bernini, Ecstasy of St. Teresa
Art2: Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson & Vermeer, The Astronomer
Listen: Bach & Handel
Sec 5 • Leviathan: The State & Social Contract
5.1 Hobbes after the Civil War
5.2 Locke: Property, Toleration, & the Blank Slate
5.3 Versailles: Absolutism as Theatre
5.4 Rousseau & the General Will
Culture & Values ch. 15 (cont.)
Read: Hobbes, Leviathan (sel.), & Locke, Second Treatise (sel.)
Art: the Leviathan frontispiece & Rigaud, Louis XIV
Listen: Lully at the Sun King's court & Purcell
Sec 6 • The Enlightenment & Its Shadows
6.1 Sapere Aude: Philosophes, Salons, & the Encyclopédie
6.2 Candide: Voltaire Against Optimism
6.3 First Nations: The Americas & Enlightenment's Others
6.4 The Classical Style: Mozart, Haydn, & the Age of Elegance
Culture & Values chs. 16 & 19
Read: Voltaire, Candide (sel.); Kant, "What Is Enlightenment?";
Read2: Waters, American Indian Thought (sel.); Stannard, American Holocaust (sel.)
Art: Fragonard, The Swing; the Templo Mayor & the codices
Listen: Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro (sel.)
MODULE III – Nationalism & Industry (1776-1913)
Sec 7 • The Age of Revolutions
7.1 1776: Common Sense & the Rights of Man
7.2 1789: Paris, the Terror, & the Marseillaise
7.3 Athens on the Potomac: Neoclassicism & the New Republics
7.4 Goya & Napoleon: The Birth of Nationalism
Culture & Values chs. 19-20
Read: Paine, Common Sense (sel.); Hutchinson & Smith, Nationalism (sel.)
Art: David, Oath of the Horatii & Death of Marat; Goya, The Third of May 1808
Listen: “La Marseillaise” & Beethoven, Eroica (and the torn dedication)
Sec 8 • Romanticism & Modern Science
8.1 Sturm und Drang: Goethe & the Sorrows of the Self
8.2 The Sublime: Friedrich, Turner, & Beethoven
8.3 Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus
8.4 Questioning Progress: Romanticism Against the Machine
Culture & Values ch. 20
Read: Shelley, Frankenstein (novel #1) & Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (sel.)
Art: Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog & Turner's storms; Fuseli, The Nightmare
Listen: Schubert, Erlkönig; Beethoven’s No. 5; Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique
Sec 9 • Industry & Empire
9.1 The Machine Age: Coal, Rail, & the Crystal Palace
9.2 Metropolis: Picturing the Industrial City
9.3 Europeans Seize the World: Africa & the Colonizer's Model
9.4 Uncle Tom's Cabin: Abolition & the Sentimental Weapon
Culture & Values chs. 17-18, 20
Read: Mudimbe, The Idea of Africa (sel.) & Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (sel.)
Read2: Dickens, Hard Times (rec.)
Art: the Crystal Palace; Turner, The Slave Ship; the camera goes to the colonies
Listen: spirituals — “Go Down Moses”
Screen (first film): Metropolis
Sec 10 • Marx & the Age of Oil
10.1 1848: The Manifesto & the Specter of Revolution
10.2 Alienation: The Self on the Assembly Line
10.3 The Prize: Rockefeller & the Age of Oil
10.4 Realism: Courbet, Daumier, & Painting the Poor
Culture & Values chs. 20-21
Read: Marx, The Communist Manifesto (sel.); Yergin, The Prize (sel.)
Read2: Economides, The Color of Oil (sel.); Huxley, Brave New World (sel. — "Our Ford")
Art: Courbet, The Stone Breakers & Daumier, Third-Class Carriage;
Art2: Millet, The Gleaners & Menzel, The Iron Rolling Mill
Listen: Joplin's ragtime — music for a mass age
Screen (brief selection): Modern Times
Sec 11 • Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, & the Fin de Siècle
11.1 The Present Age: Kierkegaard Against the Crowd
11.2 Zarathustra: Nietzsche & the Death of God
11.3 The Painted Moment: Impressionism & Its Rebels
11.4 The Nervous Age: Darwin, Freud, & Mahler's Hammer
Culture & Values ch. 21
Read: Kierkegaard, The Present Age (sel.); Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (sel.)
Art: Monet, Impression, Sunrise; Van Gogh, The Starry Night
Art2: Cézanne & Hokusai & Japonisme
Listen: Debussy, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
Listen2: Mahler, Symphony No. 6 in A Minor (1906) and its hammer blows!
MODULE IV – The End of Modernity (1914-1960s)
Sec 12 • The World at War
12.1 1914: Machine Guns, Mustard Gas, & All Quiet
12.2 The Modernist Rupture: Dada, Duchamp, & The Rite
12.3 The Grapes of Wrath: Depression & the New Deal
12.4 Night: The Holocaust & the Break in Civilization
Culture & Values ch. 22
Read: Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (sel.) & Wiesel, Night (sel.)
Read2: Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (sel.) & Freud, Civilization & Its Discontents (sel.)
Art: Otto Dix's war prints; Duchamp, Fountain; Dalí;
Art2: Lange, Migrant Mother; Picasso, Guernica
Listen: Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring; Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5 in D Minor
Screen (sel.): All Quiet on the Western Front (1930); Night and Fog
Sec 13 • Aftermath: The Bomb & the Absurd
13.1 By the Bomb's Early Light: Hiroshima & the Atomic Imagination
13.2 Existentialism: Sartre, Beauvoir, & Freedom After Auschwitz
13.3 The Stranger: Camus & the Colonial Absurd
13.4 New York Steals Modern Art: Pollock, Rothko, & Bebop
Culture & Values ch. 23
Read: Camus, The Stranger (novel #2) & Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light (sel.)
Read2: Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism (sel.) & Beauvoir, The Second Sex (sel.)
Art: Pollock's drips & Rothko's fields
Listen: Parker's bebop; Cage, 4′33″
Sec 14 • The Culture Industry & the Cold War
14.1 Manipulation: Adorno & the Culture Industry
14.2 One-Dimensional Man: Marcuse, Madison Avenue, & Suburbia
14.3 Strange Fruit to Selma: Civil Rights & the Counterculture
14.4 Dr. Strangelove: The Binary World
Culture & Values ch. 23
Read: Adorno & Horkheimer, The Culture Industry (sel.) & Marcuse, 1-Dem. Man (sel.)
Read2: Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture (sel.) & MLK, Ltr from Birmingham Jail
Art: Warhol's soup cans, Lichtenstein’s pop art, & Levittown through the lens
Listen: Holiday, Strange Fruit, Bob Dylan, & Hendrix's Star-Spangled Banner
Screen (sel.): Dr. Strangelove
Sec 15 • The Postmodern Critique
15.1 The Postmodern Condition: Lyotard & the End of Grand Narratives
15.2 Simulacra: Baudrillard, Warhol, & Hyperreality
15.3 The 21st Century & Its Discontents
15.4 Do Androids Dream?: Blade Runner, AI, & the Inhuman
Culture & Values ch. 23
Read: Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition (sel.) & The Inhuman (sel.)
Read2: Baudrillard, Sim & Simul. (sel.) & Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (sel.)
Art: Venturi & Gehry — architecture after modernism
Art2: Nam June Paik's screens & the machine-made image (2020s)
Listen: Glass & Reich's minimalism; Kraftwerk, Computer World; sampling as pastiche
Screen (film #2): Blade Runner
