Wesleyan University
The Modern and the Postmodern (Part 1)
Wesleyan University

The Modern and the Postmodern (Part 1)

Michael S. Roth

Instructor: Michael S. Roth

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Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
4.8

(1,010 reviews)

11 hours to complete
3 weeks at 3 hours a week
Flexible schedule
Learn at your own pace
98%
Most learners liked this course
Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
4.8

(1,010 reviews)

11 hours to complete
3 weeks at 3 hours a week
Flexible schedule
Learn at your own pace
98%
Most learners liked this course

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Taught in English

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There are 8 modules in this course

“The Modern and the Postmodern Part I” covers the first half of a full semester course on European history, literature and philosophy. We begin with Immanuel Kant and Jean Jacques Rousseau and conclude with Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Baudelaire and a very quick look at painting at the time they wrote. Although in the final week themes of postmodernism begin to emerge, a discussion of how modernism becomes postmodernism is at the heart of Part II of this course.

What's included

2 readings

Why is philosophy relevant to modernity? Through reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant, we examine philosophy as a reflection on modernity and progress.

What's included

2 videos1 reading

Using Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, we study how the pursuit of knowledge is related to the politics of inequality.

What's included

4 videos1 reading

Karl Marx is our focus here as we move from a consideration of ideas to a confrontation with alienation, class struggle and revolution.

What's included

5 videos1 reading1 peer review

We read Flaubert’s Madame Bovary as a reflection on convention, stupidity and art in the wake of the failures of mid-19th century revolution.

What's included

4 videos1 reading1 peer review

We situate Charles Darwin’s great achievement in the context of the English Enlightenment traditions and reimaging the world without a goal for change.

What's included

4 videos1 reading

Through an examination of Charles Baudelaire and Friedrich Nietzsche, we focus on an aesthetic embrace of intensity instead of search for the “really real.”

What's included

6 videos1 reading1 peer review

A Quick Survey of how advanced painting moved toward a consideration of the surface of the canvas and away from a quest for the most realistic representation of the world.

What's included

2 videos

Instructor

Instructor ratings
4.9 (169 ratings)
Michael S. Roth
Wesleyan University
3 Courses194,929 learners

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