2:30-3:20P      MTWR     BH149

Topic:	The Long Eighteenth Century
Above section open to undergraduates only
Above section carries culture studies credit

The study of British history in the eighteenth century is key for the
understanding of development of modern culture. This was a period in
which it is possible to see the development of central aspects of
modern society such as consumerism, class relations, family
structures, and popular democracy. This age of transition was one of
contradiction and social conflict in Britain and throughout the
Atlantic world. Eighteenth-century Britain had great wealth and
extreme poverty, great opportunity for some and abject slavery for
others, patriarchal ideology and new social roles for women,
oligarchic government and growing popular radicalism, industrial and
commercial revolutions and strong plebeian customs. These conflicts
were both cause and outcome of new types of personal and political
identities for people across society. This course will look at the
political, social and cultural changes that affected the lives of the
British people in this tumultuous period which began with the Glorious
Revolution in 1688, gathered momentum through the American Revolution
and culminated in the French Revolution in 1789. This history of
conflict and change will be addressed through lectures and group
discussions in class based on four eighteenth-century texts, which are
the only required reading for the course.

Requirements
1.	Attendance at the four seminars devoted to the discussion of
the assigned texts. The reading must be done in full, and this will be
recorded through quizzes on each text.
2.	One essay analyzing one of the assigned texts. These will be
5-7 pages and should be submitted before the seminar at which the text
is being discussed.
3.	Two exams: a mid-term and a final. The exams will relate
directly to the lectures and the recommended textbook. Attendance and
regular participation at the lectures is strongly recommended and is
the key to success in the exams.

Grading
The requirements listed above will count toward the final grade in
this course in the following proportions:

Seminar Quizzes:	20%
Essay:			25%
Mid-term:		25%
Final:			30%

Reading List
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution
Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah
Equiano
John Gay, The Beggars Opera

The recommended textbook is Douglas Hay and Nicholas Rogers,
Eighteenth-Century English Society: Shuttles and Swords (Oxford
University Press, 1997).