Contemporary Civilization (Spring 2019)

Created in 1919 as a War and Peace Issues course, the central purpose of Contemporary Civilization is to introduce students to a range of issues concerning the kinds of communities—political, social, moral, and religious—that human beings construct for themselves. This course is intended to prepare students to become active and informed citizens by developing the intellectual skills necessary for participating in enduring debates about what the best kind of community looks like. Central to the question of how to construct human society is the question of power. Last semester, we looked at a range of answers to the following questions: what is power, who should have power, and why? The texts at the end of the semester came to the consensus that the only legitimate basis for state and social power is the consent of the people and that the purpose of possessing power is to ensure the common good. The texts we read this spring—written during and as a reflection on what scholars call “modernity”—explore the challenges of securing the consent of every member of society and acting toward the benefit of all rather than the privileged few.

The trajectory of this semester tracks the new issues that have arisen since the eighteenth century as thinkers and activists have sought to figure out what it would take to achieve the good of all. We start with Enlightenment and contemporary considerations of whether the possession of “common humanity” means that diverse human communities can uphold a universal code of ethics that ensures the collective good. While not necessarily abandoning the premise of a universal “common humanity,” the next unit takes seriously the phenomenon of human difference. Early feminists, liberal politicians, and civil rights activists all demonstrate how socially constructed interpretations of human difference have unjustly led to an unequal distribution of the “good.” The second half of the syllabus explores whether this unequal distribution of the good can be overcome. Marxists propose that this unequal distribution can only be transcended through class conflict; the global wars of the first half of the twentieth century suggest the implausibility of achieving quality of life for all; while sexual minorities, postcolonial subjects, and those writing at the intersection of multiple forms of social inequality have considered how personal and cultural transformation might be pursued despite the manifold circumstances that make this transformation seem unrealizable.

On the syllabus, you’ll find many names that have been taught in CC for decades, from Immanuel Kant to Friedrich Nietzsche. You’ll also find names you might have encountered in other classes but which are not part of the standard CC syllabus, from James Baldwin to Gloria Anzaldúa. These authors rightfully sit at the center African-American Studies’ and Women Studies’ curricula, but they also contribute unique perspectives to the same issues that occupy John Stuart Mill and Frantz Fanon. As you do the reading for this semester, consider how voices like Baldwin and Anzaldúa give you new insights into the arguments of someone like Mill; also consider how the context of CC might lead you to read someone like Baldwin in a new ways.