The Spring Quarter of "Making of the Western Mind" studies the years from the outbreak of the Reformation on Oct 31, 1517 with the posting of the Ninety Five Theses by Martin Luther and continues to the nineteenth century and the new modern world of Romanticism. A separate Institute course is offered on the "Twentieth Century." In Spring Quarter we devote a significant amount of our time to the emerging "modern" world, the world of clocks, science, machines, revolution, and to the dominant intellectual movement of all of Western history from 1750 to the present: Romanticism. The prophet of Romanticism is Rousseau and the greatest poet of Romanticism is George Gordon, Lord Byron. Our last class of the year is devoted to the most famous painter of Romanticism: Vincent Van Gogh.
Week 21: "Martin Luther" Thursday March 31, 2011
The Reformation and Martin Luther.
MATERIAL ON THE WEB:
(print out and bring to class)
REQUIRED READING:
The Ninety-Five Theses (website).
RECOMMENDED READING:
There are so many biographies of Luther that I hesitate to choose one. But this one by Richard Marius is new and up to date and now available in a nice softcover edition. Richard Marius, the author, has written a notable biography of Thomas More for which he was greatly celebrated. And if you like More (he does) you probably won't like Luther (he doesn't) thus it seems odd to write a biography about someone whose "radical" position brought on the most important religious movement in the whole of the modern world, when you really like "moderates" such as Thomas More. But that is the position from which Marius writes this book: if only Martin had been more reasonable it could all have been worked out with the nice Pope in Rome. But that having been said, this really is a good book and it is just packed with wonderful detail about young Luther and how he came to lead the Reformation. So if you keep in mind that most of the time the author thinks Luther is "extreme," then the book is a pleasure to read.
The other biography of Luther that everyone should own is the one book on Luther that has dominated all studies of Luther in the United States for the last fifty years. It is the work of Roland Bainton, the Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale for almost half a century. Bainton was the professor of my professor. So I am his academic "grandson." Bainton's biography of Luther is still in print fifty five years after its first publication. It's a complete bargain in hardcover, at $14.
Week 22: "Rembrandt" Thursday April 7, 2011
Rembrandt and the New Individualism.
The painter and individualism.
The self-portrait and individualism.
Democratic republics and individualism.
Prostestants and individualism.
Rembrandt and Holland.
Consciousness and Self-Consciousness and Modern life.MATERIAL ON THE WEB:
REQUIRED READING:
No required reading.
Week 23: "Galileo" Thursday April 14, 2011
Galileo: Italy, Florence and the Papacy.
Galileo and the overthrow of Aristotle.
The beginnings of Modern Philosophy and Modern Science.MATERIAL ON THE WEB:
Please be sure to visit the Galileo page and click on the photos. There you will find photos of the villa where Galileo spent the last years of his life under house arrest and also of the convent where his daughter Maria Celeste lived. Remember that you can click on the thumbnail photos to see the larger photos. The villa and monastery is in Arcetri just outside Florence.
SLIDES:
Life of Galileo.
REQUIRED READING:
No required reading.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING:
I highly recommend this wonderful book to you and am delighted that it is now available in a paperback edition. It is a book that will capture your heart as you read of Galileo's extraordinary daughter Suor Maria Celeste and read her touching letters to her beloved father. We will visit her monastery on our Galileo night, so it will be a great night with beautiful pictures of the hills south of Florence where Galileo and his daughter lived their lives.
Week 24: "Rousseau" Thursday April 21, 2011
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
The Philosopher and Romanticism.MATERIAL ON THE WEB:
SLIDES:
Painting in the 18th Century,
Watteau, Boucher, Gainsborough, Romney.REQUIRED READING:
RECOMMENDED READING:
The best biography of Rousseau is written by an Englishman, (Can you imagine how the Frence hate that!) Maurice Cranston who devoted a lifetime to Rousseau and produced a brilliant biography at the end of his life. It is available in 3 softcover volumes. It is very readable, very well written. For our work the first volume is the most immediately useful but all three are worth reading at some point in your investigations into Romanticism.
Vol. 1: Jean-Jacques; the early Life and Work (1712-1754)
Vol. 2: The Noble Savage (1754-1762)
Vol. 3: The Solitary Self (1762-1778)
University of Chicago Press.
Week 25: "Goethe and Werther" Thursday April 28, 2011
The Novelist and Romanticism.
Werther, The first international bestseller.MATERIAL ON THE WEB:
REQUIRED READING:
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is absolutely essential to read Sorrows of Young Werther with NO previews of its content. Thus it is important not to read any introductions or prefaces or reviews or blurbs. So beware even browsing in a bookstore. Some editions have blurbs that give the whole book away with just a sentence right on the cover or back cover. This Vintage Classics edition is the best edition in English. But PLEASE DO NOT READ W. H. AUDEN FOREWARD before reading the book. You can go back and read it later. Just go right to page 3 (Book One, May 4, 1771) and start reading. The best way to read it is to set aside some time and read all the way through in one sitting. Notice that in this edition they include another book by Goethe called "Novella" which starts on page 169. That is NOT part of Sorrows. It is another short novel that you can read some other time but is not part of this week's assignment.
Week 26: "Byron" Thursday May 5, 2011
The Poet and Romanticism.
MATERIAL ON THE WEB:
Save reading the critical opinion until after class.
Let us read him first before we read the critics.SLIDES:
Life of Byron.
REQUIRED READING:
We will discuss in class which poems to read on your own. We will read Childe Harold together in class.
RECOMMENDED READING:
If you visit the Byron Bibliography
you will see a number of excellent books on Byron, his wife, his daughter and his sister and other aspects of his fascinating story. If you would like one good biography to begin your extra reading on Byron, the Benita Eisler biography is a good choice. Here is a short review from Amazon: "In this masterful portrait of the poet who dazzled an era and prefigured the modern age of celebrity, noted biographer Benita Eisler offers a fuller and more complex vision than we have yet been afforded of George Gordon, Lord Byron. Eisler reexamines his poetic achievement in the context of his extraordinary life: the shameful and traumatic childhood; the swashbuckling adventures in the East; the instant stardom achieved with the publication of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; his passionate and destructive love affairs and finally his tragic death in the cause of Greek independence. This magnificent record of a towering figure is sure to become the new standard biography of Byron."
Week 27: "Byron and Childe Harold" Thursday May 12, 2011
The Poet and Romanticism.
Byron and the image of the Romantic poet.
Byron creates a fictional self in Childe Harold.
Childe Harold: fiction, story, image, fame.MATERIAL ON THE WEB:
Save reading the critical opinion until after class.
Let us read him first before we read the critics.REQUIRED READING:
Canto III from "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" in Selected Poems.
We will read in class this section of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, pp. 415-455.
Week 28: "The Underground Man" Thursday May 19, 2011
This week we read one of the most extraordinary books of the Nineteenth Century. It is complicated and brilliant and witty and frightening. I encourage you to make a try. You will be exaperated and you may not like the narrator, but engage with him in his brilliant dialogue. All of Twentieth Century literature (Joyce, Kafka, Proust) begins here.
Romanticism at an End?MATERIAL ON THE WEB:
REQUIRED READING:
A NOTE ABOUT READING Notes from the Underground.
Do not read the "Foreward." You can go back and read it later. Plunge right in to the text which begins on page 3. Note that the book is written in two parts: Part 1, "Underground" and Part 2, "Apropos of the Wet Snow." The "Underground" section was written when the narrator was forty years old. The second section, "Apropos," is written later, but it recounts incidents that occur BEFORE the "Underground" time period. So there is a very complex chronological structure to the work and that structure should be one of the things we think about and discuss in class.
Week 29: "Vincent Van Gogh" Tuesday May 26, 2011
Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
Romanticism in art.
Romanticism enduring?
The Romantic myth of the mad genius.
Van Gogh, Modern Times, and Western Civilization.REQUIRED READING:
Selected letters in:
RECOMMENDED READING:
After our night with Van Gogh many of you will want to own a good book of Van Gogh paintings. The best that I know is Van Gogh's Van Goghs, New York, Harry Abrams, 1998. This book was the catalog for the greatest show of Van Gogh paintings ever held outside of the Netherlands. The reproductions are as good as you will ever see of Van Gogh paintings. You can buy it in either hardcover or softcover. I think the hardcover at $37.50 is the best $37.50 you will ever spend for a book.
Week 30: "The Western Tradition: A Look Back" Thursday June 2, 2011
In the thirtieth week of the 2010-2011 academic year of study we will look back at the major themes that we have discovered as esential to the Western Tradition.
RECOMMENDED READING:
Review:
In this short, illuminating, and very readable work, Philippe Nemo argues that what we call 'the West' is one and only one cultural entity, to which both North America and Western Europe belong. In contemporary debates, then, Nemo asserts, it is simply incorrect to exaggerate the differences or gaps between countries that are indeed 'Western'. Brilliantly and succinctly surveying the last five or six millenia, Nemo pieces together the history of the West's development. He weaves together political events, philosophical discoveries, religious movements, and scientific and technological innovations to demonstrate the factors that have influenced and shaped Western culture. Already translated from the original French into Portuguese, Italian, German and Greek, "What is the West?" has received considerable interest throughout Europe; earlier this year, in fact, it received the Italian 'Citte della Rose' prize for essays. Now available for the first time in English, this book will be essential reading for those interested in contemporary cultural debates on Western culture and nationhood, as well as American values; as well as those interested in world history and politics, philosophy and religion, and contemporary global politics. Not geared to specifically conservative or liberal viewpoints but to an accurate rendering of historical ideas and trends, Nemo's book should do much to advance our understanding of each other in an increasingly global community.
About the Author
PHILIPPE NEMO is a professor at the ESCP-EAP European School of Management, where he teaches philosophy and the history of political ideas. He is also the author of Job and the Excess of Evil.
