CS111-4-SP-CO:
The World Transformed: The Enlightenment and Its Critics
2020/21
Interdisciplinary Studies Centre (ISC)
Colchester Campus
Spring
Undergraduate: Level 4
Current
Sunday 17 January 2021
Friday 26 March 2021
15
29 July 2020
Requisites for this module
(none)
(none)
(none)
CS101
(none)
Ours is a world that seems to be shaking at its very foundations. Ideas that have shaped the way we see ourselves and the world around us – ideas like democracy, free speech, citizenship, political authority, individualism, free markets, and human rights – are contested at every turn.
These ideas took their definitive modern form during a period of political and intellectual upheaval known as the Enlightenment (ca. 1650-1800). If we want to navigate our way through the chaos of today, then we need to return to the roots of our contemporary world – the Enlightenment.
This interdisciplinary module explores this revolutionary period so that we can better understand our world today and bring about the world we want tomorrow. We will focus on political revolutions, on societal inequality, sickness, and control, and the dark side of technology. Graduating students often rank it among the most useful modules they've taken.
The aim of this module is demonstrate to students that some of the most powerful discourses of the Enlightenment period and the reactions to the discourses are relevant to our present situation and remain powerful tools to analyse and understand the world we live in.
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:
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.
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.
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, this interdisciplinary module covers topics such as the America, French and Haitian Revolutions, the French the roots of capitalism, the origins of modern law and medicine, Rousseau's critique of social inequality, Wollstonecraft's early feminism, the dark side of technological progress. We will draw on artworks, novels, political pamphlets and speeches, as well as philosophical texts.
Wollstonecraft's early feminism, the dark side of technological progress. We will draw on artworks, novels, political pamphlets and speeches, as well as philosophical texts.
The module will be divided into three thematic blocks. In 2020-21, they will be Political Revolution, Health and Society, and Technology. The clusters offered may change from time to time.
The module will demonstrate how all of these topics remain central to our experience today, and how we can learn from past discourses how to understand the present.
There will be a one-hour lecture and one-hour class/seminar each week. All teaching events and all assessment will be accessible to students on and off campus either face-to-face or remotely through online teaching. As this is one of the Faculty’s interdisciplinary, thematic blended-learning modules, there will be additional online content available for all students which they can access in addition to face-to-face and remote teaching.
- 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
- 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.
- Jonathan Swift; Claude Julien Rawson; Ian Higgins. (2005) Gulliver's travels, Oxford: Oxford University Press. vol. Oxford world's classics
- J. C. A. Gaskin. (1998) 'Chapter XIII - XV', in Leviathan, Oxford: Oxford University Press., pp.86-106
- Declaration of Independence (1776), https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Office of Citizenship/Citizenship Resource Center Site/Publications/PDFs/M-654.pdf
- Wang, Michael. (no date) Cool, Clear Water: The Fairmount Water Works.
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; M. K. Joseph. (1969, ©2013) Frankenstein: or, The modern Prometheus, London: Oxford U.P. vol. Oxford English novels
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. (2009) Discourse on the origin of inequality, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 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
- L'Ouverture, Toussaint; Aristide, Jean-Bertrand; Nesbitt, Nick. (2008) The Haitian revolution, London: Verso.
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp
- Hogarth, Rana Asali. (2019-10) 'The Myth of Innate Racial Differences Between White and Black People’s Bodies: Lessons From the 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania', in American Journal of Public Health. vol. 109 (10) , pp.1339-1341
- Locke, John; Macpherson, C. B. (c1980) Second treatise of government, Indianapolis, Ind: Hackett.
- Gregor, Mary J. (c1999) 'Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment?"', in Practical philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., pp.11-22
- 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
- Juana Ines de la Cruz; Trueblood, Alan S. (1988) Anthology, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
- Jefferson, Thomas; Hardt, Michael; Kindervater, Garnet. (2007) The declaration of independence, London: Verso. vol. Revolutions
- Bacon, Francis. (2006) 'The New Organon [1620]', in Early Modern Philosophy, Chichester: John Wiley and Sons Ltd., pp.39-48
- EBSCOhost ebook collection. (©1999) '"The Meaning of July Four for the Negro" [better known as "The Meaning of July Four for the Slave"], 1852', in Frederick Douglass: selected speeches and writings, Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books., pp.188-206
- 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
- Israel, Jonathan I. (2001) Radical enlightenment: philosophy and the making of modernity, 1650-1750, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Defoe, Daniel; Richetti, John J. (2003) Robinson Crusoe, London: Penguin. vol. Penguin classics
- 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
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.
Assessment items, weightings and deadlines
| Coursework / exam |
Description |
Deadline |
Coursework weighting |
| Coursework |
Spring Reading Quizzes Total |
|
30% |
| Coursework |
Spring Term Assignment (1500 words) |
|
70% |
| Exam |
Main exam: 24hr during Summer (Main Period)
|
Exam format definitions
- Remote, open book: Your exam will take place remotely via an online learning platform. You may refer to any physical or electronic materials during the exam.
- In-person, open book: Your exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer to any physical materials such as paper study notes or a textbook during the exam. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, open book (restricted): The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer only to specific physical materials such as a named textbook during the exam. Permitted materials will be specified by your department. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, closed book: The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may not refer to any physical materials or electronic devices during the exam. There may be times when a paper dictionary,
for example, may be permitted in an otherwise closed book exam. Any exceptions will be specified by your department.
Your department will provide further guidance before your exams.
Overall assessment
Reassessment
Module supervisor and teaching staff
Yes
Yes
No
No external examiner information available for this module.
Available via Moodle
Of 3240 hours, 0 (0%) hours available to students:
3240 hours not recorded due to service coverage or fault;
0 hours not recorded due to opt-out by lecturer(s).
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