The idea of 'Enlightenment' has been used to suggest a historical period (1650-1800), and to describe modern society as critical, self-reflected, and secular. Yet, whether we use the term as a way to praise the values of modernity, or as a way to describe a period in history where these critical values become dangerously dominant, Enlightenment remains a slippery and preoccupying concept for social theorists. This course will focus on three texts from the middle of the twentieth century that have taken up the challenge of trying to work with this concept. The seminar will be organized as three cycles, with the core of each cycle being one of the following texts: Foucault's, Order of Things, Habermas's, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, and Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment. Our approach will be to treat each of these rhetorically rich texts as "primary" material rather than to assume its theoretical coherence. Working closely with these twentieth-century authors, we will allow time to read the eighteenth-century texts that the authors draw on in their characterizations and descriptions of Enlightenment. We will, for instance, read The Order of Things together with Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and Habermas together with Spectator essays and essays from the Female Spectator. We will also read Kant's famous essay "What is Enlightenment" together with Foucault and Habermas's writings on Kant. Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: journal entries totaling 8-10 pages, and one final 10- to 12-page paper. Prerequisites: a 100-level English course, except 150. Enrollment limit: 25 (expected: 20). (1700-1900 or Criticism)

Hour: LUPTON