OVERVIEW:

As the third course in the Humanities program, 324 introduces students to the geo-politics, philosophy, art and literature of the Modern World.  We explore the multiple legacies of the Enlightenment, from the quest for universal rights to the ontological primacy of scientific rationalism. The resistance of institutions to the extension of rights for all, indeed the erosion of rights under dictatorial regimes, leaves students with questions about the meaning of modernity and contemporary challenges to resolve dilemmas unleashed in the 17th century. For many of the world’s peoples, these dilemmas were experienced in intimate life and at the level of the body, the focus of this section of the course.

By the end of the course, students should be able to:

  1. demonstrate knowledge in the interdisciplinary study of diverse cultures.
  2. identify the key features of a text, artifact, or art object.
  3. articulate their own values and beliefs and compare them with those of diverse cultures studied and identify the relationships between them.
  4. analyze source material and write a well-supported, clearly articulated argument.

 

TEXTS:

-Rizzo and Gerontakis, Intimate Empires: Body, Race and Gender in the Modern World. Oxford University Press, 2016

The Asheville Reader: The Modern World, 2nd edition (AR below)

-Juníchirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows

-Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience an

Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World (OEMW below)

–additional readings posted to Moodle (M below)

ACADEMIC ACCESSIBILITY:

University of North Carolina at Asheville is committed to making courses, programs and activities accessible to persons with documented disabilities.  Students requiring reasonable accommodations must register with the Office of Academic Accessibility by providing supporting documentation.  All information provided will remain confidential.  For more information please contact the Office of Academic Accessibility at (828)232-5050 or academicaccess@unca.edu or visit them in the OneStop Student Services Center.

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ASSIGNMENTS

  1. Weekly reading and lecture response                         20%

Each Friday by 5PM I will post three questions for the following week’s reading assignment and its connection to lecture. Write three to four sentences in answer to each. You must email your responses to me by 10AM the following Tuesday morning. Each response must refer to the general point of the entire assignment and cite something specific from the given reading. I will mark these with plus, check or minus.

In Class Examinations                                                                                                60%

Once a month I will ask you to reflect on the content of the course by posing an open-ended essay question worth 50% of your grade on the test. I will also ask you to identify 5 terms (major ideas or authors), worth 10% each. Dates: 2/5, 3/19, 4/23

RESEARCH PAPER                                                                                     20%

This 8-10 page paper (12 pt font, 1 in margins, double spaced) requires research in primary and secondary scholarly sources in support of a thesis. Pick one topic from Intimate Empires and read 2 scholarly sources it references. Then find five primary sources; no more than 2 can come from our syllabus. Topics and bibliography must be submitted for my approval no later than March 6. DUE, along with a 7 minute presentation, at the time of the final on 4/30.

Extra Credit                                                                                                    10%

Attend three preapproved cultural events with relevance to the course and write a 1 page commentary connecting the event to course themes. DUE one week after the event. One of these will be the CLA assessment.

POLICIES:

  1. Attendance is required.
  2. Make up assignments will only be allowed in cases of emergency.
  3. Late work will be penalized with a half grade deduction per day.
  4. All work MUST BE YOUR OWN.  Citations are required for all direct quotes and paraphrased information.  Any assignment which includes plagiarized information will be failed.

READINGS AND LECTURE SEQUENCE (NB readings follow the lecture. We discuss OEMW readings on Tues and all other readings on Thurs):

January 12Monday: classes begin

Galileo Galilei, “The Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina” (AR: 2-8)

Newton, from Principia (AR: 19-25)

Francis Bacon (M)

Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?”  (AR: 59-66)

OEMW: Enlightenment, Modernity

January 16: “Colonialism and the Enlightenment” – Rizzo

John Locke, from Two Treatises on Government (AR: 26-36)

Wollstonecraft, from A Vindication of the Rights…(AR: 186-201)

Jean Jacques Rousseau, from The Social Contract (AR: 50-58)

Olaudah Equiano, from The Interesting Narrative… (AR: 181-185

Emperor Ch’ien-lung “Letter to King George III” (AR: 119-121)

Bentinck, “Comments on Ritual Murder and the Limits of Religious Toleration “ (AR: 290-295)

            OEMW, Empire and Imperialism

January 23: “The Question of Universal Rights: Revolutions Across the Atlantic” – Dunn

Jefferson, “The Declaration of Independence” (AR: 76-81)

Banneker and Jefferson,   Letters (AR: 113-118)

de Gouges “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizen ” (AR: 175-180)

Burke, from Reflections on the Revolution in France (AR: 103-112)

Simόn Bolívar, “Message to the Congress of Angostura”  (AR: 230-235)

OEMW, Atlantic Revolutions

January 30: “Industrialization, Capitalism, and Alienation” – Konz

Adam Smith, from The Wealth of Nations (AR: 68-75)

Flora Tristan, from The Female Worker’s Union (AR: 251-255)

Friedrich Engels, from Conditions of the Working Class in England in 1844 (AR: 256-261)

Marx, Communist Manifesto (Rizzo M)

OEMW, Industrialization

 

First exam, February 5

 

February 6:  “1848: Romanticism and its Discontents” – McClain

Emily Brontë, The Night-Wind  (AR: 160-162)

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

John Stuart Mill, from On Liberty (AR:  262-267)

Alexis de Tocqueville, from Democracy in America (AR: 236-245)

Charles Darwin, from The Origin of Species (AR: 382-390)

OEMW, Darwinism, Marxism, Nationalism

February 13: “Africa in the Modern World” – Dwight Mullen

Olive Schreiner, from Trooper Peter Halket… (AR: 296-298)

Marcus Garvey, Selections, (AR: 367-375)

Saheed Aderinto, “Isaac Fadoyebo at the Battle of Nyron” African Voices of the First and Second World Wars. Ca. 1914-1945” (M)

OEMW Belgian Congo, Chilembwe

February 20:  “The Contagion of Freedom:  Anti-Slavery, Women’s Rights, and Economic Justice” – Judson

Frederick Douglass, from Narrative of the Life… (AR: 206-212)

Sojourner Truth, “Address to…”  (AR: 218, 220-221)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments” (AR: 213-217)

Ida B. Wells, “Speaking Out against Lynching” (AR: 355-359)

W.E.B. Du Bois, from “Strivings of the Negro People” (AR: 360-366)

Booker T. Washington, “Address at the World’s Fair in Atlanta” (AR: 344-349)

OEMW, Unions

          

February 27:   Islam and the Modern World:  From the Ottoman Empire to the rise of the Republic of Turkey” – Payne

(all are on M)

Lady Montagu, “Embassy to Constantinople”

Anis al-Jalis, “…Defines a Vision of Women…”

“Rifa’a Tahtawi Reflects on Paris, Its People…”

Kemal, “Design for a Modern Secular Turkish State”

Fasheri, “Transferring the New Civilization…”

Khan, “The Rights of Women”

“Decrees from the Ottoman Tanzimat”

Queen Soraya, “The Liberation of Afghan Women”

OEMW: Armenia

 

March 6:  “Imperialism:  Japan and the United States of America” – McClain

Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows

Ito Hirobumi, from Sources of Japanese Tradition (AR: 327-332)

José Rizal, from The Lost Eden (Noli Me Tangere) (AR: 299303)

Ohiyesa, from The Soul of the Indian (AR: 315-320)

Zitkala-Ša, “Why I am a Pagan”  (AR: 311-314)

OEMW, Native Americans, Philippines Expedition

 

March 13:  Spring Break

 

March 19, Second Exam

 

March 20:  “World War One and the Russian Revolution”– Roubinek

Helena Marie Swanwick, from The War and Its Effect upon Women

(AR: 456-460)

Sigmund Freud, from Civilization and its Discontents (M)

Carl Jung, from The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man (AR: 441-446)

Vladimir Lenin, from Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (AR: 333-338)

Mahatma Gandhi, from Indian Home Rule (AR: 321-326)

OEMW: British Raj, Communism, Freudianism, WWI

March 27: “New Math and New Physics” – Johnson and Perkins

(M)

“Euclid’s Elements”

“From Five Fingers to Infinity:  The Parallel Postulate”

Einstein:  “Internationalism of Science,” “Letter to Sigmund Freud,” “What I Believe,” “Religion and Science”

OEMW: Eugenics, Physics

April 3:  Modernism”  –  Russell and Galloway

Gertrude Stein, “Picasso” (AR: 424-427)

Franz Kafka, “A Country Doctor” (AR: 428-434)

Radclyffe Hall, from The Well of Loneliness (AR: 435-440)

Christopher Isherwood, from The Berlin Stories (M)

Langston Hughes

Anne Bethel Spencer

OEMW: Harlem Renaissance

April 10: “Totalitarianism and the Interwar Years” – McClain

John Maynard Keynes, from The End of LaissezFaire (AR: 470-474)

Mussolini, from The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism (AR: 480-487)

Adolf Hitler, from Mein Kampf (AR: 461-469)

Lázaro Cárdenas, “Speech to the Nation” (AR: 493-496)

Hannah Arendt, from The Origins of Totalitarianism (AR: 497-502)

Winifred Holtby, from Women and a changing Civilization (AR: 475-479)

OEMW: Fascism, Stalinism

April 17:   “World War Two and the Holocaust” – Rizzo

Theodor Herzl: “On the Jewish State, 1896” (M)

Monica Sone,   “Japanese Relocation” (AR: 527532)

OEMW: Nuclear Weapons, overview; Nurnberg Trials; Palestine; Vichy; WWII; Zionism

Intimate Empires intro through chapter 2

 

April 23, Third Exam

 

April 24:  “1948” – Davis/Campbell

Bruno Bettelheim, from The Informed Heart: Autonomy in a Mass Age  (AR: 504-507)

Primo Levi, from “The Drowned and the Saved” (AR: 508-512)

Albert Camus, from The Myth of Sisyphus (AR: 513-517)

Jean-Paul Sartre, “The Republic of Silence” (AR: 518-521)

Intimate Empires intro chapter 3-5

April 30: presentations and research paper due, 11:30

Intimate Empires intro chapter 6, Conclusion