1:00-2:15   MW   BH 142

Meets with C329

E-Mail: Okenshur@Indiana.edu

The course will provide a general introduction to eighteenth-century
literature and thought while focusing on a development that has
become the object of keen interest in recent years, namely, the
emergence of the concept of the self. Since concepts of self are
necessarily intertwined with ideas about the relationship between
self and other, between the political subject and political
authority, and between the individual and God, the course will
inevitably touch on psychology, epistemology, ethics, political
theory, and religious thought. Since our texts will include works
from a variety of literary and philosophical genres, and since a
knowledge of earlier developments will be necessary for an
understanding of why explorations of the nature of the self form a
central concern throughout the eighteenth century, the course will be
amount to a high-level introduction to early-modern literature and
thought. It will also provide an indispensable background for those
interested in nineteenth and twentieth-century debates about
subjectivity.

Locke, Second Treatise on Government
Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Shaftesbury, Essay Concerning Virtue, or Merit
Mandeville, Fable of the Bees
Montesquieu, Persian Letters
Sterne, Sentimental Journey
Rousseau, Confessions
Diderot, Rameau’s Nephew
Goethe, Werther

N.B.  THE COURSE MEETS AT THE TIME INDICATED ABOVE, NOT THE TIME
GIVEN IN THE SCHEDULE OF CLASSES.