Syllabus (POLITICAL SCIENCE)

Course Type: MAJ-11

Semester: 7

Course Code: BPLSMAJ11T

Course Title: Enlightenment and its Critics

(L-P-Tu): 5-0-1

Credit: 6

Practical/Theory: Theory

Course Objective:

Learning Outcome: Course Outcome: Students will have the knowledge and skills to demonstrate critical understanding of key themes and issues in the study of the Enlightenment; analyse and explicate major ideas associated with the history of the Enlightenment; examine relat

Learning Objectives:

The primary aim of this course is to spark and nourish your fascination with the fields of Enlightenment studies and European intellectual history. If you invest time, thought, and hard work in the course, you can also expect to:

• learn how to think historically, growing attuned to the importance of context, causality, contingency, complexity, and change over time for understanding the past.
• understand how and why scholars debate the past and how such debates relate to presentday concerns
• become a sharper, more perceptive reader of writings from the past in light of their historical contexts.

• Course Content: 6*6= 36 Classes (6 Classes per topic)

• Background to European Enlightenment.
• Kant and Enlightenment.
• Hegel’s criticism-concept of civil society, concept of state.
• Marx & Hegelians.
• Right Hegelians-Nietzsche & his theory of Superman.
• Modernity & its criticism - rise of Post-modernism, Feminist critique of Enlightenment.

• Suggested Readings:

• J. K. W. Möhsen, “What is to be Done Toward the Enlightenment of the Citizenry?”, in James Schmidt, ed.
• Moses Mendelssohn, “On the Question: What is Enlightenment? in James Schmidt, ed.