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European Enlightenment and the Encyclopedia Project

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SYLLABUS

The European Enlightenment and the Encyclopedia Project: 18th Century European Intellectual History
Ada Palmer

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION

The European Enlightenment and the Encyclopedia Project: 18th Century European Intellectual History

Reading and discussion of major texts of the European Enlightenment, from the late 17th century to the late 18th century. Focus on the intellectual community that produced the Encyclopédie, the role played by personal relationships and exchanges of letters, and the influence of Enlightenment Project on the American and French revolutions. Exploration of cultural relativism, libertinism and new ideas of gender and sexuality. Readings in Bacon, Locke, Bayle, Montesquieu, Voltaire, D'Alembert, Diderot, Rousseau, Beccaria, de Sade and Paine.

COURSE SCHEDULE:

Week 1: Introduction.
Week 2: Bacon, Novum Organon and New Atlantis, selections. Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, selections.
Week 3: Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary, selections.
Week 4: Montesquieu, Persian Letters, letters 1-69, 83, 86-88, 97, 105, 112, 114-116, 133-138, 147-161.
Week 5: Voltaire, Letters on England (Letters 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16), also Zadig, Micromegas, Story of a Good Brahmin.
Week 6: Rousseau, First Discourse. Voltaire, Letter to Rousseau, August 30 1755. In the course pack: Selections from Diderot and Rousseau with their contradictory stories of how Rousseau came up with the thesis of the Discourse. In Class: FIRST PAPER DUE.
Week 7: Voltaire, Poem on the Lisbon Earthquake and Candide. Johnson, Rasselas. From the course pack: Rousseau's letter to Voltaire of August 18th, 1756. Brief quotes of the exchange between Voltaire & Johnson.
Week 8: D'Alambert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot. From the course pack: Selections from Encyclopedia: Selections. Selections from A Diderot Pictorial Encyclopedia of Trades and Industry. From Candide and Other Writings, Voltaire's Of the Encyclopedia, Letter to Diderot, January 1758, Letter to D'Alambert, April 5 1766, Letter to D'Alambert, June 26 1766, Letter to D'Alambert, July 18 1766, Letter to Diderot, July 23 1766. Darnton, "The Encyclopédie Wars of Prerevolutionary France." Kafker, "The Recruitment of the Encyclopedists."
Week 9: Rousseau, Emile, books 1-2, and the Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar in book 4.
Week 10: Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments, selections. Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist and his Master, (beginning through the night before landlady begins the story of Mme de La Pommeraye; chapters 1-2 in the Norton edition, pp. 21-98 in the Penguin.) In Class: Students expected to announce which author and text they have selected for their second paper.
Week 11: Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist and his Master, remainder.
Week 12: Sade, Philosophy in the Bedroom.
Week 13: Paine, Age of Reason, selections. From the course pack: Jefferson, Declaration of Independence. Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. In Class: SECOND PAPER DUE. Students briefly present the supplemental authors and texts they worked on for their final papers.

READING LIST

  1. Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
  2. Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary, Selections, tr. Popkin (Hackett, 1991) 0872201031
  3. Montesquieu, Persian Letters, tr. Betts (Penguin, 1973) 0140442812
  4. Voltaire, The Portable Voltaire tr. Redman (Penguin/Viking 1977) 0140150412
  5. Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, tr. Cole (Everyman's Library) 0460873571
  6. Johnson, Rasselas. (This text may be purchased either in the nice affordable anthology Samuel Johnson, the Major Works (Oxford, 2000) 0192840428 which also has a lot of other great Johnson texts in it usable for the final paper for students who like Johnson, or is slightly cheaper by itself in The History of Rasselas: Prince of Abissinia (Dover, 2005) 048644094X.)
  7. D'Alambert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, tr. Schwab (Chicago) 0226134768
  8. Rousseau, Emile, tr. Payne (Prometheus) 1591021111
  9. Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments, tr. David Young (Hackett, 1986) 0915145979
  10. Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist and his Master (standard is the Coward translation, Oxford 1999, 0192838741; I prefer the J. Robert Loy translation, Norton 1978, which I fear is out of print.)
  11. Sade, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings (Grove Press 1990) 0802132189

COURSE PACK

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

  1. Attendance at class and informed participation in discussion (30%).
  2. Two papers. The first 8 pages (2400 words), on a subject of your choice related to the readings; the paper should be analytical (i.e., question-oriented), not mere summary (15%). The second paper 10 pages, using the knowledge of the period you have acquired in the course so far to analyze one additional text off the list of recommended texts or another book from the period approved by the professor; the paper may analyze that book alone or compare it to one or more of the other course texts (25%).
  3. Final examination (30%).

Recommended texts for the final paper: