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Open to advanced
undergraduates by permission. |
Course DescriptionThe debates about taste, judgment, beauty, sentiment, and sensation in the 18th century gave rise to the modern discourse of aesthetics and continue to influence our views about art. Less frequently described is the role of these debates as a powerful intervention in Enlightenment models of knowledge, virtue, and freedom. In a sense, they were an integral part of the conditions out of which the modern subject emerged. The aim of this seminar is to investigate this aspect of the aesthetic discussions from around 1690 to 1800, and to consider their contribution to the idea of the subject via a close reading of Goethe's monumental Bildungsroman, "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship." The first half of the semester will be devoted to a survey of some foundational texts of aesthetics drawn from the British and German traditions (including Locke, Smith, Burke, Lessing, Schiller, and Kant). The focus will be on describing their contribution to epistemological and moral philosophy, and their construction of the ‘enlightened’ and ‘free’ subject. Specific topics to be addressed will include, the relationship between sensation and knowledge, moral sentiment, theories of the beautiful, and definitions of taste. In the second half of the semester, we will consider how these questions informed and were taken up by Goethe's classic narrative of subject-formation. The emphasis will be on close-reading of the novel's key passages, but there will also be some discussion of contemporary scholarship on the novel and the genre of the Bildungsroman (both American and German), in order to highlight the importance of the text in modern accounts of the relationship between the novel-form and subjectivity. Required assignments are one oral presentation and one final paper (around 20 pages long).
Partial Reading List:Primary Literature from 18th Century
Secondary Literature
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