This class will explore how the modern processes of cultural and structural pluralization, rationalization, urbanization, and the triumph of technology have undermined traditional sources of meaning; affected understandings of the self, community, and social relationships; and complicated the individual's quest to make meaningful sense of the world. Investigation into the effects of modernity on social arrangements and individual consciousness will include analysis of what new strategies, forms of discourse, and codes of moral understanding individuals are appealing to in the contemporary context in order to cope with or "face up to" the quandary of modernity. The course will also consider whether modern culture has itself evolved into a new epistemic order. Has ours become a postmodern culture? Or is it best characterized as the further advancement of modernity-what some call "high modern" culture? What further perplexities might so-called postmodern developments (i.e., fragmentation, anti-foundationalism, globalization, and the collapse of the great modernist narratives) pose on individual and collective quests to make meaningful sense of the world; on social understandings of the past and visions for the future; and on collective efforts to sustain the public order? Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: midterm, book review essay, and research paper.