HUM 220 - Modern European Humanities

An interdisciplinary study of the development of modern European humanities, from the Enlightenment to roughly the mid-twentieth century. Primary attention is given to the transformations of ideas, political institutions, social structures, and forms of artistic, literary, and philosophical expression that characterize the modern world. The course addresses such crucial topics as colonialism and slavery, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, Romanticism, the Industrial Revolution and new technologies, liberalism and socialism, the modern city, imperialism, Darwinism, psychoanalysis, modernist art and literature, the rise of the novel, photography and film, the Bolshevik Revolution, and twentieth-century war, totalitarianism, and genocide. The course includes lectures, discussions, and papers on topics of individual interest that are developed in each conference.

Unit(s): 2
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I, Distribution Group II
Prerequisite(s): HUM 110 or equivalent
Instructional Method: Lecture-conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Notes: Yearlong course, 1 unit per semester. Lecture attendance is mandatory.
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).
Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other;
Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.