FIRST-YEAR
SEMINAR -- 2008
What
is Enlightenment? The Science, Culture and Politics of Reason
The two-semester
First-Year Seminar, through the reading of a series of core texts common to all
sections, introduces every in-coming student to crucially important
intellectual, artistic, and cultural ideas which serve, in turn, as a strong
basis for a liberal arts training as each student develops in subsequent years
at the college. Yet the course is not
meant to be a mere survey of background material. Rather, frequent writing assignments and an intimate seminar
format among peers encourage an active debate over ideas for which there is no
foregone conclusion. Seminar reading
and discussions are supplemented by a mandatory series of guest lectures, panel
presentations and films.
The seminar's current
yearlong theme is “What is Enlightenment?” and its main focus is on the
intellectual ideas of 17th -18th Century European culture. The fall semester course, subtitled “The
Science, Culture and Politics of Reason”, also looks back to the Ancient World
and to earlier texts that crucially influenced European thought. The spring semester course, subtitled
“Revolution and the Limits of Reason”, also looks forward to our modern era in
which many assumptions of the Enlightenment have fallen under severe critical
scrutiny.
The
core reading for the Fall 2008 semester will be:
The Book of Genesis
Plato: The Republic
St. Augustine: Confessions
Ibn Tufayl: The Story of Hayy bin Yaqzan
Galileo Galilei: The Starry Messenger and Letter to
the Grand Duchess Christina
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: First I Dream
Rene Descartes: Discourse on Method
John Locke: Second Treatise on Civil Government
Denis Diderot: Supplement to Bougainville’s Voyage
Olaudah Equiano: The Interesting Narrative of the
Life of Olaudah Equiano
Voltaire: Candide
By way of an engaged
encounter with the above texts, a number of critical problems will emerge that
pertain to the formation of modern intellectual disciplines. For instance, scientific method, psychology,
political theory, economics, and the novel were all new ways of knowing the
world that came into being during "the long eighteenth century". Not
only did the concepts of equality and individual liberty represent a radical departure
from the past, but the rise of global exploration and empire influenced
scientific and political thought as well.
Students are encouraged
to pursue the development and articulation of their own point of view on the
core reading. The spirit of First-Year
Seminar is best exemplified by the observation that in our daily lives we
frequently encounter (and ourselves invoke) concepts drawn from the selected
texts; without a first-hand knowledge of those concepts and a critical and
historical framework in which to understand them, we risk having others define
them for us. First-Year Seminar is
designed to be a cornerstone for each student’s rigorous and individualized
pursuit of learning at Bard.
FIRST-YEAR
SEMINAR -- Spring 2009
What
is Enlightenment? Revolution and the
Limits of Reason
During
the Fall semester of First Year Seminar, students focused on the constructive
agenda of “Enlightenment.” The authors
read gave life to Kant’s dictum, "Have the courage to use your own
reason!" to describe the world they saw and how they thought it should
be. The Spring semester begins with the
eventful culmination of Enlightenment thinking, and then explores the complex
and ambivalent re-evaluation of the Enlightenment’s ideals throughout the 19th
and 20th Centuries. Readings
and discussions will show how Enlightenment thought was challenged by its
encounters with different cultures and traditions, as well as its own
limitations. Throughout the semester,
we will contrast different approaches to the challenges faced during these
historically and intellectually tumultuous times. We will also look forward in time, reflecting on how the spirits
of Enlightenment and Revolution are present in our modern world.
The
core reading list for the Spring 2009 semester will be:
Jane Austen: Sense
and Sensibility
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
Immanuel
Kant: Groundwork for the Metaphysics of
Morals
William Blake: The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
Friedrich Nietzsche:
Also Sprach Zarathustra
Karl Marx: Essay on Estranged Labor, and The Communist Manifesto
Max Weber: Selections from The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism
Albert Einstein: Relativity, along with
Werner Heisenberg: The Development of
Philosophical Ideas Since Descartes
in Comparison with the New Situation in Quantum Theory
Sigmund Freud:
Civilization and Its Discontents
Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse
Beyond
the reading assignments, students and faculty will explore revolution and the
limits of reason in other ways. Seminar
discussions and extensive writing throughout the semester will challenge us all
to actively engage in addressing difficult questions, rather than to take the
writings of any our predecessors as the last word on a subject. Weekly symposia will supplement our
text-based studies with lectures and other presentations that will focus on
historical, artistic, and scientific perspectives of the ideas raised in the
course.
Students
will be asked to read Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility during the
month of January for discussion during the Spring semester.