go to week

Notes;

1) Dates in numerals are given in international form (dd.mm). That is appropriate to a course about the Enlightenment, which was a very cosmopolitan age. But the real reason is the same as the one for the use of German abbreviations for the days of the week: I copied this page from the first-year German site and didn't notice the singularity until late the night before the start of classes. :-)

2) The Schedule will be updated often - don't believe everything you read more than a week beyond where we are. As I update, I'll add check marks (√) and other comments (in CAPS or italic) that show what we did and did not do; assume that what we did not do at the current meeting will be on the plan for the next meeting, in generally the order listed here.

3) Don't start activity assignments until they are announced officially in class and marked here as official, as shown by the link that will bring up the assignment. IF YOU DON'T SEE A LINK ON THIS PAGE, THE ACTIVITY IS NOT YET ASSIGNED AND YOU DON'T NEED TO START WORRYING ABOUT IT YET.

4) Text that is struck out has not yet been finalized. You can skip over it.

9 January

√Get acquainted - studies, career interests, personal interests, language background

√Course description, goal, objectives (brief presentation, more later)

√(most) Course logistics, including ordering books, establishing efficient communication among ourselves, and (did SOME on 11 Jan.) defining standards ("AmAze me").

Decide some issues of course content:

√(briefly) 1) Should there be a language component (second language [ex.: formulate questions for historical figures; write letters to them; linguistics/ philology [e.g., the English of the 18th Century)? And what are the languages in our group?

11 January

Determine baseline knowledge, beliefs, biases

√1) How much do we agree about what "revolution" is and what revolutions are? What "revolutions" or "revolutionary" things are not really that? Are there some revolutions that most people don't recognize as such? Do we like revolutions? this or that particular revolution? Revolutions and evolutionS.

√2) Word-associating with "reason" (variations on the word itself; words and other things we associate with it - example: emotions, ideas, dates). Similar with "revolution".

√3) non-counting quiz: what do we know about the history, science and arts of the period 1590-1770? A LITTLE: what's missing among the quiz items? (maybe with some appropriate background music)

√Standards and grading (based on the Kant reflection assignment; need more about standards for other activities and about A-F grading)

√Kant reading reflection: When should it, and other such reading reflections, be due? We'll discuss the Kant text Wednesday (18 Jan.), so the written reflection should be brought to class by then (=4 on scoring guide); if you give it to me earlier (email OK), it can score higher.

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First reading

Pascal, Pensées: 72 (Man's Disproportion), 82 (Imagination), 100 (Self-love) - reflection for class discussion: Is this how our minds / my mind works? Is this how we view humanity? See 13 January for details

Kant: "What Is Enlightenment?" - reflective writing assignment

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13 January

√Discuss how to start Humboldt project:

1) √finding the schools; what we need to know about them and their populations, and how to get that information; schools with other names that could be the focus of projects in subsequent versions of our course; who will do what on this phase;

2) √(SOME) the larger dimensions of the project; how to ensure that it will be useful and usable even if we don't finish it this year

For an example of a similar project, look at GER320 and "SpeakEasy"

√Start Humboldt project: start researching Humboldt schools; (NOT YET) formulate message & questionnaire

√More course planning; example: should we organize (beyond our case studies of Jefferson and Humboldt) according to topics (significant questions or themes), areas of knowledge, people, texts? How do we balance the case studies with the rest of the course? What other formal activities will there be, beyond the reflective writing and the Humboldt project? (The decision was: 1) to move toward a thematic approach after getting an overview of the historical and social background and looking at short texts by Pascal and Kant; 2) maybe to include invidual projects that linked R&R to one's particular area of interest, such as art or music or math.)

√Introduction to Kant, "What Is Enlightenment?" - we looked at the first sentence and noted the different flavor and even meaning that are conveyed by the translation and the original.

Reading

Note that Barzun has nice, separate indexes (or indices, if you prefer), listing the people and topics he covers.

Start reading Pope, "Essay on Man," for discussion, possibly on Monday 23 January. Study questions and decision about reflective writing to follow.

Adams, The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson, chapters 1 "Taking Leave" and 2 "A Provincial Prelude"

16 January: no meeting (MLK); but you can certainly think about where the Rev. Dr. King, the civil rights movement, and democracy would be (or not be) without Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, and the products of Reason & Revolution. Do you suppose King read Kant's essay? Following this link will give you a look at how German intersects with the civil rights movement.

18 January

√more about standards and grading

(NO: will do this later with other Pascal text) discuss Pascal text (postponed from previous Friday); here are some questions and topics to consider:

1) What is his concept/picture of the human mind (intellect, emotions, beliefs, morals), and how does that differ from yours - both your own mind, and your concept/picture of the human mind?

2) What serious concerns about our life and our world does Pascal have, and how do they match up against yours?

You might also peek ahead into the section about Pascal in Barzun (pp. 214ff.)

√discuss Kant text (see thought-questions; written reflection DUE today. I want to try something I've done in other, similar courses: You and I will each score your reflection, using the generic scoring guide for these pieces. Each completed scoring guide goes into a sealed envelope. You and I will exchange envelopes and then compare the scores. Where my rating of you is the higher, that rating stands. Where your rating is lower, we split the difference.

√(some) Pascal, Louis XIV & XVI (what about XV?), Kant, Friedrich der Große

NO: Two epitomes of the Enlightened person: Cavendish and Gradgrind; some counterexamples (Blake); very problematic: Newton, Goethe, Napoleon

20 January

I will be participating in back-to-back videoconferences that have to do with a big grant project that relates to our course and the Humboldt project. They will be held at PSU, near our classroom. From 3-4pm is "Natural Disasters," and from 4-5pm is "Revolutions in Science." Please come to the videoconference room (TBA shortly) during our class time to observe how larger projects similar to ours are conducted, and to glean ideas for our own. The homepage of the grant project is:

http://ceprnet.uoregon.edu/

Go there to learn about the background. The particular project involved here is the one with the label "FIPSE" (US Department of Education, Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education). What the videoconference groups are working on are the "Senior Seminars." Some of the files are quite larger, or are password protected, so I will give you a CD-ROM with them.

Outline Schedule

√23.01 Part 2 of Kant discussion; main idea of Humboldt Project; how to structure the week - general idea is to devote entire class periods, in rotation, to discussion of primary texts, Humboldt Project, and maybe discussio of secondary reading or to presentations about smaller topics

√25.01 The "DWM" issue: in general, as it affects our course, as it affects the Humboldt Project; what to do first to get the HP on the way in several of its dimensions

√27.01 Pope and (NOT YET) Gibbon (Ch. 1 and some additional excerpts): style, view of the individual, society, history; √Humboldt Project: What will be in the "Box"? Take on individual parts of it

Topics/Themes

How they communicated: the Enlightenment and the development and stabilization of vernacular languages; scholarly societies; travel

How they lived, especially what the major cities of the Enlightenment were like

Reading

Adams, The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson, chapter 3: "The City"

Helferich, Humboldt's Cosmos, preface (DON'T SKIP IT - IT'S NOT THE USUAL 'THANK-YOU' STUFF!) and chapter 1, "Tegel"

Barzun 239ff., "The Monarchs' Revolution" (if time and need, also Barzun, "The Eutopians," pp. 117ff.)

Barzun (182-90) gives a concise picture of daily life in various social classes; 285-305 shows us up close what it was like to be Louis XIV

Pope, "Essay on Man"

Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 1 and some later excerpts

Bruford; Defoe

chapter about Paris, London;

Think about

-that old favorite principle of revolutions: They don't happen when things are totally bad, but rather after they start to improve.

-the meanings of "republic," "democracy," "monarchy," "tyrant"

What of this can we exploit for the Humboldt project?

How can the group meet outside class hours to work on the project (or the other parts of the course)?

We need to learn about Kant and Pascal and their respective backgrounds (and do the same about other major figures), but how to go about finding the information, and how to determine what is important?

We also need a chronological "map" of people and, even more important, significant events and cultural products - not for rote memorization, but so we can make sense of how the pieces of Reason and Revolution fit together. The "map" could be part of the Humboldt project. This will also let us finish the discussion of the 11 January quiz: which of the items on the historical chart are actually significant, which of them are merely curious and amusing, and how do we deal with a significant item that emerged over an interval rather than at a point in time?

Reading

Adams, chapter 4 "The Patriot Aesthete"

Pascal on the infinite

Barzun 191ff., "The Invisible College"; 307-331, "The View from London", 359-92 "The Encyclopedic Century"

Newton, Leibniz

Revolution as metaphor; theology, science, arts, econ as "metaphors" of the world

presentation about Berlin; if possible, NY, DC, and Monticello

30 January:

√Substance in Pope: How does he conceive of the Universe (use astronomy as your topic)? Who and what are this "Man" which, instead of God, is "now" (since when?) our "proper study"? "Whatever is, is right." - What can he possibly mean by THAT?

√Style in Pope as a bridge to Gibbon's style, with the first paragraph of Thomas Paine's Crisis (to be handed out in class) as the on-ramp to the bridge, and Barzun's Introduction as the off-ramp. Why all this emphasis on style? Are we not only what we eat, but also what we speak and write - our "style"?

NO European Union bingo with the maps of the past: Now you see it [plug in name of country], now you don't

√If time: Will the real Thomas Jefferson stand up / emerge from the nickle (or nickel) / the $2 bill?

See 1 February as you do an -inadvance note-taking activity: outline your boxlet, including thoughts about

1 February

European Union bingo with the maps of the past: Now you see it [plug in name of country], now you don't

Re-examine the term "Age of Reason". How did the Enlighteners seek to avoid Error, and just errors, in their thinking? How do we? Do we? Demographic survey and ideological ice-breaker: "Button, Button, Who's Got the Hot Button". Thought questions: 1) What is the difference between a "cause" and an "issue"? 2) Two consecutive US presidential elections pitted a polished, Ivy League-educated Northeasterner against a salt-of-the-earth candidate from the West. It was a bitter campaign, and the "patrician New Englander" plainly thought that his opponent was "a badly educated bumpkin with little prepartion for high office" (both phrases from a modern history source). The candidate who won the popular vote in the first election did not become President, and historians generally regard it as having been stolen. Another seedy feature of the elections were vicious attacks on a President's sexual behavior. Any idea what the genuine political "hot button" issues were? When you find out about them, will they matter to you? Hint: You may be able to find some help at the ATM.

3 February

Humboldt Project:

Begin outlining the "boxlets" in the Humboldt Project "Box", minus the proprietor of the given "boxlet", tell what the boxlet should contain and accomplish. The the downcast proprietor of the boxlet will respond, perhaps after tearing up prepared notes from activity described under 30 January.

The schools are there: commit to researching either topics or schools; what do we need to find out about the schools? from the school? Starter question: Why on earth did schools get named for AvH? Do the schools remember why?

Cute is one thing, academic rigor is another: How do we ensure that the Project delivers learning (and, by the way, which learning - about then or about now, there or here)? Can we make the materials age-appropriate for two or more ages? two or more other demographic groups?

Upcoming: start reflection piece about ••? Maybe present our own enlightened views in a verse-form or prose-style that fits them? Rewrite Kant in the style of Pope?

••Adams, chapter 5 "The Liberal, Literary, Scientific Air of Paris"; Young's Experiment;

Paine about religion

Humboldt (81ff.) measuring the world around him

••Klopstock, "Rite of Spring / Frühlingsfeier"

••Adams, chapter 6 "The Diplomat"

Maybe split this topic and move half to Week 8

••L&C

••Notes on the State of Virginia

Leo Marx Machine in Garden

D of E, Constitution

Paine

OCH articles?; Barzun 261ff., "Puritans as Democrats"

Smith; Ricardo

Geology

Goethe, "An Amerika"

The Enlightenment and Islam ("to the shores of Tripoli")

Siege of Vienna and thereafter

Barzun 169ff. "The View from Venice"

••Adams, chapter 7, "The Women in His Life"

Barzun, 333-358, "The Opulent Eye"

••Salons

education; tutors; intellectuals

Jews, Gypsies, criminals, the insane, homosexuals, atheists, Christian intellectuals

Barzun 393-424, "The View from Weimar Around 1790"

Rousseau

Paine

Goethe, Werther

Barzun, 145-67

Adams, chapter 8 "Storm in the Atmosphere"

••Goethe, "An Amerika"

Measuring America

Jefferson's failed dream

••Barzun 425-462, "The Forgotten Troop" and 465-489, "The Work of Mind-and-Heart"

••

Subsequent revolutions and counter-revolutions - 1815a&b, 1830, 1848; 48ers in America

••Marx

Napoleon

Blake

Engels and Manchester

Communist Manifesto

Emergence of modern national(social)ism

Barzun,, 491-518, "The View from Paris Around 1830" and 519-550, "The Mother of Parliaments" (after this, you're on your own with the rest of Barzun)