German Studies 231 - Tpc:19thC Crit. Soc.Thought

An introduction to some of the great critical voices of the nineteenth century with emphasis on their relevance for contemporary issues. We will explore the ideas of such mutinous thinkers as Karl Marx Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, W.E.B. Du Bois and Franz Kafka focusing on the style as well as the substance of their works and the circumstances that provoked them to write and/or that their writings helped provoke. The course will highlight the tension between appearance and reality, the dialectic of domination and subordination, and the place of reason and irrationality in social life. Case studies of contemporary issues with attention to the impact of 19th century thinkers on critical theory in the 20th and 21st centuries also round out the course.