ENGL 206

Fall 2020 All Classes

All Classes

Enlightenment Literature and Culture

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Credit: 3 hours.

Study in Anglophone and global texts from the period 1600 to 1800, with attention to cultural and historical contexts.

Same as CWL 257. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for:

Humanities – Lit & Arts

Cultural Studies - Western

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ENGL 206 class schedule data for fall 2020
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	39502	Lecture-Discussion	P	9:30AM -10:50AM	TR	432 Armory	Wiechmann, B	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/24/20-12/09/20 Degree Notes: Humanities - Lit & Arts, and Cultural Studies - Western course. Section Info: There is certainly no moment in history when the world suddenly ceased to be old and became new or modern. But Europe in the long eighteenth century, during the period known as “the Enlightenment,” witnessed unprecedented social, economic, cultural, and political changes that collectively produced a giant leap towards the world we inhabit today. It was an age of revolution and newfound faith in the rights of the individual, though these rights were by no means extended to all. It was an age of reason, of tremendous advances in science and technology, though reason was by no means the only altar at which so-called enlightened men and women worshipped: God and sentiment remained powerful forces in eighteenth-century European life. This course offers an introduction to Enlightenment literature and culture by focusing on a select group of highly influential literary and non-literary works of the period, primarily from Britain but also from Continental Europe and the United States. Our readings are divided into four parts. After an overview of the Enlightenment spirit in Part I, we will consider three crucial concerns of eighteenth-century letters: property, race, and empire (Part II), virtue (Part III), and knowledge (Part IV). The individualistic mindset characteristic of the period was developed in the context of these themes, and it put considerable pressure on traditional conceptions of duty and long-established social and political hierarchies. As our precursor culture, the Enlightenment continues to speak to us today, and our aim this semester is not only to understand its core values but also to link them to our own.