Instructors: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Axel Schäfer
Event type:
Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.866.512
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 30
Registration group: GS I AS
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
This course examines selected traditions of American social thought and explores their relationships to social movements in the United States. Its aim is twofold. First, it is designed to introduce you to the field of intellectual history in the broader context of developments in American arts and letters. Second, it encourages you to explore the connections between social thought and social action. Using both primary and secondary sources we will examine issues such as the tension between advocating reform and calling for revolution; the problem of retaining ideological purity as opposed to working through existing institutions; the question of using violence; and the challenges of mobilization and leadership. Ideas and movements to be discussed range from pragmatism to neoconservatism.
Contents:
INDICATIVE STUDY PROGRAM
Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: The Challenges of Twentieth-Century Intellectual History
Week 3: Religious and Secular Thought in Post-Civil War Social Reform
Week 4: No class (public holiday)
Week 5: Social Thought in the Progressive Era
Week 6: World War I and Cultural Modernism in the 1920s
Week 7: No Class (public holiday)
Week 8: Social Thought and Social Criticism during the Great Depression
Week 9: Totalitarianism and the Cold War in American Thought
Week 10: Liberalism and the Sociological Imagination in the 1950s and 60s
Week 11: Race and Democracy in Post-War Social Thought
Week 12 : The New Left and the Consciousness Revolution
Week 13: Multiculturalism, Postmodernity, and Neoconservatism
Week 14: Conclusion and Outlook
Recommended reading list:
The course textbook is David A Hollinger and Charles Capper, eds., The American Intellectual Tradition, Vol. 2, Sixth Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Unless stated otherwise, all assigned weekly readings can be found in this book.
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