Hist131: The Enlightenment - Understanding the Modern World

Available 2008/2009

Module Convenor: Dr Stephen Pumfrey

This is an opportunity to study one of the most important developments in the history of the Western world.  We learn how attitudes about religious beliefs, forms of government, education, the relationship between humans and nature, the idea of progress, etc. were all transformed during the so-called ‘Age of Reason’.  We explore the common view that the eighteenth century witnessed the origin of our progressive world of democracy, tolerance and mastery of nature, but also critics who think that the ‘Enlightenment project’ underpinning modern society is oppressive.

Teaching Arrangements: Two lectures and one seminar per week in the Michaelmas Term. There are revision lectures in weeks three and four of Summer Term, the term in which the Topics Courses are examined.

Page last updated: 28 April 2008

< Part I Courses

| Home | News & Events | Prospective Students | Undergraduate Programmes |
| Postgraduate Programmes | Online Resources | Research | Staff |