Global Works and Society: Modernity (GWM-UF)

The last semester of Social Foundations examines major intellectual and historical events from the Enlightenment and the Qing dynasty (around 1700) to the contemporary world. This period has seen some of the most rapid and significant changes in human society and scientific understanding. At the same time many of the enduring questions of humanity have become even more critical as disparate cultures interact in a new global arena. This course is a cap to the Foundations sequence; accordingly, authors and themes come from a range of texts both interdisciplinary and international.

This course focuses on the world’s great traditions in philosophy, theology, history, and political science from the Enlightenment through Modernity. It familiarizes students with the impact of the colonial and post-colonial eras on major world discourses about the nature of human identity and society through a comparative study of seminal texts. The course includes such works as: The Communist Manifesto,The Wretched of the Earth, and Orientalism.