BA T700 American Studies (United States),
BA T702 American Studies (United States) (UK Study),
BA T708 American Studies (United States) (Including Year Abroad),
BA T710 American Studies (United States) (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA T712 American Studies (United States) (UK Study) (Including Placement Year),
BA T770 American Studies (United States) (including Placement Year),
BA T7P3 American Studies (United States) with Film,
BA T7P4 American Studies (United States) with Film (Including Placement Year),
BA T7W6 American Studies (United States) with Film (Including Year Abroad),
BA T7W8 American Studies (United States) with Film (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA MT26 Criminology and American Studies (UK Study),
BA MT27 Criminology and American Studies (Including Year Abroad),
BA MT28 Criminology and American Studies (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA MT2R Criminology and American Studies,
BA MT3R Criminology and American Studies (Including Placement Year),
BA MT62 Criminology and American Studies (UK Study) (Including Placement Year),
BA R000 European Studies (Including Year Abroad),
BA R001 European Studies,
BA R002 European Studies (Including Placement Year),
BA R008 European Studies (Including Foundation Year),
BA R9R1 European Studies with French,
BA R9R8 European Studies with French (Including Foundation Year),
BA R9R2 European Studies with German,
BA R9R6 European Studies with German (Including Foundation Year),
BA R9R3 European Studies with Italian,
BA R9R7 European Studies with Italian (Including Foundation Year),
BA T711 Latin American Studies (Including Year Abroad),
BA T721 Latin American Studies (Including Placement Year),
BA T731 Latin American Studies,
BA T7N3 Latin American Studies (Including Foundation Year),
BA T7M8 Latin American studies with Human Rights (Including Foundation Year),
BA T7M9 Latin American Studies with Human Rights,
BA LQV0 Liberal Arts (Including Foundation Year),
BA Q900 Liberal Arts (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA QV00 Liberal Arts (Including Year Abroad),
BA V900 Liberal Arts,
BA V901 Liberal Arts (Including Placement Year),
BA LL36 Social Anthropology,
BA LL3P Social Anthropology (Including Year Abroad),
BA LL6P Social Anthropology (Including Placement Year),
BA L903 Global Studies,
BA L904 Global Studies (including year abroad),
BA L905 Global Studies (Including Placement Year),
BA L908 Global Studies (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA LL37 Social Anthropology with Human Rights,
BA LL38 Social Anthropology with Human Rights (Including Year Abroad),
BA LL39 Social Anthropology with Human Rights (Including Placement Year),
BA L910 Global Studies with Politics,
BA L911 Global Studies with Politics (Including year abroad),
BA L912 Global Studies with Politics (Including Placement Year),
BA L913 Global Studies with Politics (Including Foundation Year),
BA L914 Global Studies with Human Rights,
BA L916 Global Studies with Human Rights (Including Foundation Year),
BA L917 Global Studies with Human Rights (Including Placement Year),
BA L918 Global Studies with Human Rights (Including Year Abroad)
The Enlightenment (roughly 1650-1800) was a politically and intellectually revolutionary period of history that defined the ideas that continue to shape the way we see ourselves and the world we live in - ideas like democracy, free speech, individualism, scientific evidence, free markets, and human rights.
By examining this period, this interdisciplinary module provides students with a crucial framework for understanding today's dominant intellectual currents - a framework that proves remarkably useful for students in their second and third year coursework. Indeed, graduating students often rank it among the most useful modules they've taken. Built on a spine of lectures delivered by staff from across the Faculty of Humanities and the Social Sciences, this interdisciplinary module covers topics such as the aftermath of the Scientific Revolution, social contract theory, the great age of discovery and exploration, the American Revolution, the roots of capitalism, the origins of modern law and medicine, Rousseau's critique of social inequality, the French Revolution, Burke and Paine's debate over human rights, and Wollstonecraft's early feminism. We will draw on artworks, novels, political pamphlets and speeches, as well as philosophical texts.
The aim of this module is to introduce students to the Enlightenment period that was pivotal for the formation of our modern world.
A related aim is to provide students with a framework and background knowledge to navigate successfully their studies in future years.
The following Learning Outcomes will be demonstrated through successfully passing the coursework assessment:
To read, assess and summarise the arguments of challenging texts.
To learn the conventions of an academic writing including structure, quotation, reference, and bibliography.
To show the ability to work from particular questions on a specific text, and to write a coherent essay in response.
To assess and evaluate specific arguments and texts and write a critical analysis.
To compare and contrast two or more selected texts in one particular aspect, and express their similarities and differences.
To explicate a set passage from one of the texts on the programme, to relate it to rest of the text and to fit it in the contextual, conceptual and comparative framework, the Enlightenment itself, established during the module.
To test the ability to respond to general, thematic questions that demand a broad grasp of the intellectual and historical developments considered in the module.
To analyse types of language of a set passage and to relate that language to historical and discursive factors.
No additional information available.
A one-hour lecture and a one-hour class each week.
The following Learning Outcomes will be demonstrated through successfully passing the coursework assessment:
1. To read, assess and summarise the arguments of challenging texts.
2. To learn the conventions of an academic writing including structure, quotation, reference, and bibliography.
3. To show the ability to work from particular questions on a specific text, and to write a coherent essay in response.
4. To assess and evaluate specific arguments and texts and write a critical analysis.
5. To compare and contrast two or more selected texts in one particular aspect, and express their similarities and differences.
The following Learning Outcomes will be demonstrated through successfully passing the examination assessment:
6. To explicate a set passage from one of the texts on the programme, to relate it to rest of the text and to fit it in the contextual, conceptual and comparative framework, the Enlightenment itself, established during the module.
7. To test the ability to respond to general, thematic questions that demand a broad grasp of the intellectual and historical developments considered in the module.
8. To analyse types of language of a set passage and to relate that language to historical and discursive factors.
- Juana Ines de la Cruz; Stavans, Ilan; Cruz, Sor Juana Ines de la; Peden, Margaret Sayers. (1997) Poems, Protest and a Dream, London: Penguin Books Ltd.
- Letter XI-On Inoculation. Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de. 1909-14. Letters on the English. The Harvard Classics, http://www.bartleby.com/34/2/11.html
- Roger Ariew. (2000) 'Discourse on the Method for Conducting One's Reason Well and for Seeking the Truth in the Sciences', in Descartes: Philosophical Essays and Correspondence, Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing Co, Inc., pp.46-82
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp
- Jonathan Swift; Claude Julien Rawson; Ian Higgins. (2005) Gulliver's travels, Oxford: Oxford University Press. vol. Oxford world's classics
- Sloane, H.; Birch, T. (1755-01-01) 'An Account of Inoculation by Sir Hans Sloane, Bart. Given to Mr. Ranby, to be Published, Anno 1736. Communicated by Thomas Birch, D. D. Secret. R. S.', in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. vol. 49, pp.516-520
- L'Ouverture, Toussaint; Aristide, Jean-Bertrand; Nesbitt, Nick. (2008) The Haitian revolution, London: Verso.
- Gregor, Mary J. (c1999) 'Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment?"', in Practical philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., pp.11-22
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; M. K. Joseph. (1969, ©2013) Frankenstein: or, The modern Prometheus, London: Oxford U.P. vol. Oxford English novels
- Hill, Christopher. (1983) 'A New-Year’s gift for the parliament and army', in The law of freedom, and other writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., pp.159-210
- Lord Byron's speech in the House of Lords against the "Frame Work Bill" [1812], https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1812/feb/27/frame-work-bill#S1V0021P0_18120227_HOL_7
- Wollstonecraft, Mary. (1999) 'Chapter IV: Observations on the state of degradation to which woman is reduced by various causes', in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman & A Vindication of the Rights of Men, Oxford: Oxford University Press. vol. A Vindication of the Rights of Women
- Bacon, Francis. (2006) 'The New Organon [1620]', in Early Modern Philosophy, Chichester: John Wiley and Sons Ltd., pp.39-48
- Letter from Jamaica, https://library.brown.edu/create/modernlatinamerica/chapters/chapter-2-the-colonial-foundations/primary-documents-with-accompanying-discussion-questions/document-2-simon-bolivar-letter-from-jamaica-september-6-1815/
- Israel, Jonathan I. (2001) Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750: Oxford University Press, USA.
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. (2009) Discourse on the origin of inequality, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Defoe, Daniel; Richetti, John J. (2003) Robinson Crusoe, London: Penguin. vol. Penguin classics
- Thomas Paine. (1984) Rights of man, New York: Penguin. vol. Penguin classics
- Locke, John; Macpherson, C. B. (c1980) Second treatise of government, Indianapolis, Ind: Hackett.
- Declaration of Independence (1776), https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Office of Citizenship/Citizenship Resource Center Site/Publications/PDFs/M-654.pdf
- Immanuel Kant. (2011) 'Of the different races of human beings', in Kant: anthropology, history, and education, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., pp.84-97
- Thomas Hobbes; J. C. A. Gaskin. (1998) Leviathan, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Peck, Raoul; Jackson, Samuel L.; Belafonte, Harry; Brando, Marlon; Cavett, Dick; Bush, George W.; Baldwin, James. (2017) I am not your Negro, [United States]: Velvet Film, Inc.
- Jefferson, Thomas; Hardt, Michael; Kindervater, Garnet. (2007) The declaration of independence, London: Verso. vol. Revolutions
- Juana Ines de la Cruz; Trueblood, Alan S. (1988) Anthology, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
- Edmund Burke; Conor Cruise O' Brien. (1969) Reflections on the revolution in France: and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
- Samuel Butler. (1970) 'The Book of Machines; The Machines—Continued; The Machines—Concluded', in Erewhon, or, Over the Range, London: Penguin Books Ltd., pp.232-271
- Jefferson, Thomas. (1997) '"The difference is fixed in nature"', in Race and the enlightenment: a reader, Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell., pp.95-103
- Foucault, Michael. (1967) 'The Birth of the Asylum', in Madness and civilization: a history of insanity in the Age of Reason, London: Tavistock Publications., pp.229-264
The above list is indicative of the essential reading for the course. The library makes provision for all reading list items, with digital provision where possible, and these resources are shared between students. Further reading can be obtained from this module's reading list.