The focus of the coruse will be on the social and political thought, primarily in Germany and France, with the peripheral attention paid to England and Italy. Related philosophical and cultural trends will also be discussed. The readings will consist largely of selected texts which are representative of the major currents of the period.

This course will focus on the relationship between the individual and society, which is a classical topic of modernity. With the emergence of modern mass society as a result of industrialization and urbanization, the ideal of the Enlightenment, the autonomous individual guided by reason, also came into crisis. Using primary sources in English translations, the course will reconstruct the debate against the background of its historical context. Close readings of the original texts will be related to the major developments of 20th century European history. Among the authors covered are Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche, Simone de Beauvoir and Max Weber, Ágnes Heller and V.I. Lenin, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Alexandra Kollontai, Frantz Fanon and Jean Améry, Giovanni Gentile and Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin and Theodor W. Adorno. All readings will be available in digital form. Instructor bio: Philipp Lenhard is DAAD Professor of History and German at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on modern German and Jewish history, comparative European history, and Intellectual history, especially the Frankfurt School.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills