History 203 - Public Intellectuals

[EU/TC] This course explores the intellectual history of the “Age of Extremes” by focusing on its feuding political ideas and their chief advocates: the public intellectuals. Liberalism, Conservatism, Communism, and Fascism were all created by intellectuals, and all relied on intellectuals for their ideological struggle. The course will investigate the many – glorious and inglorious – careers of intellectuals of very different agendas, polities, legacies and fates (Arendt, Gramsci, De Beauvoir, Sartre, Orwell, Schmitt, to name a few). The course thus has two goals: first, it is an introduction to twentieth-century political ideas in their historical contexts; second, it is an examination of public intellectuals, their history, role, responsibility and even accountability. Course materials will include historical analysis and works of fiction; works of propaganda and works of art; manifestos and political trial confessions. Two class meetings per week.

Fall semester. Professor A. Gordon.