The European Enlightenment

This course aims to introduce students to classic and more recent literature on the intellectual and cultural history of the Enlightenment. The field has expanded far beyond the cohort of free-thinking philosophes around which it was initially conceived to encompass broader cultural, economic, and religious preoccupations. Given these tendencies, how has the significance of the Enlightenment shifted as a historical period and interpretive framework? In what ways do scholars explicate its origins, outcomes, and legacies? The readings trace the development of Enlightenment thought and practices from their early manifestations in Britain and the United Provinces before shifting attention to France, the geographical focal point of the movement by mid-century. Topics to be addressed include the relationship of traditional political authorities to an emerging public sphere, the invention of society as a means of mediating human relationships, the entrepreneurial and epistemological innovations made possible by new media, the struggles of the philosophe movement for legitimacy, debates surrounding luxury consumption and commercial society, the rise of political economy as field of knowledge and practical platform, and arguments between Christian apologists and radical atheists over the status of religious truth.