Uniwersytet Warszawski, Wydział Nauk Ekonomicznych - Centralny System Uwierzytelniania
Strona główna

Intellectual History of America

Informacje ogólne

Kod przedmiotu: 4219-SB060
Kod Erasmus / ISCED: (brak danych) / (0229) Nauki humanistyczne (inne) Kod ISCED - Międzynarodowa Standardowa Klasyfikacja Kształcenia (International Standard Classification of Education) została opracowana przez UNESCO.
Nazwa przedmiotu: Intellectual History of America
Jednostka: Ośrodek Studiów Amerykańskich
Grupy: Kursy do wyboru dla studiów stacjonarnych I stopnia
Przedmioty na stacjonarnych studiach I stopnia
Przedmioty na stacjonarnych studiach I stopnia - 2 rok
Przedmioty na stacjonarnych studiach I stopnia - 3 rok
Zajęcia do wyboru - nauki humanistyczne - studia BA
Punkty ECTS i inne: (brak) Podstawowe informacje o zasadach przyporządkowania punktów ECTS:
  • roczny wymiar godzinowy nakładu pracy studenta konieczny do osiągnięcia zakładanych efektów uczenia się dla danego etapu studiów wynosi 1500-1800 h, co odpowiada 60 ECTS;
  • tygodniowy wymiar godzinowy nakładu pracy studenta wynosi 45 h;
  • 1 punkt ECTS odpowiada 25-30 godzinom pracy studenta potrzebnej do osiągnięcia zakładanych efektów uczenia się;
  • tygodniowy nakład pracy studenta konieczny do osiągnięcia zakładanych efektów uczenia się pozwala uzyskać 1,5 ECTS;
  • nakład pracy potrzebny do zaliczenia przedmiotu, któremu przypisano 3 ECTS, stanowi 10% semestralnego obciążenia studenta.

zobacz reguły punktacji
Język prowadzenia: angielski
Rodzaj przedmiotu:

fakultatywne

Skrócony opis: (tylko po angielsku)

The aim of the course it to acquaint students with the historic development of ideas that lay ground of the American culture as well as way of life. The course will study these developments in connection to larger historical events and the broad context of American cultural history. (The readings will focus on selected short fragments of cited works.)

Pełny opis: (tylko po angielsku)

The aim of the course it to acquaint students with the historic development of ideas that lay ground of the American culture as well as way of life. As their earliest sources are mainly European in origin, and the evolution of American thinking followed that in modern Europe up until the end of the 19th Century, with Enlightenment, Romanticism and other epochs shared by America with the broader Western world, the 20th Century witnessed a major shift as the American philosophy occupied a central and leading role in the intellectual history. The course will study these changes in connection to larger historical events and the broad context of American cultural history, including the non-white contributions and the feminist movements. (The readings will focus on selected short fragments of cited works.)

0. The Making of America as part of the making of modern world. The ideological roots of America in the Modernity. „American Revolution”. How was America possible? How is it part of the universal/West history? Where has it come from? Why does Capitol Hill architecture look as it does? Emancipation and America.

1. 18th Century American Philosophy – the beginnings: the Puritans. Great Awakening. The Enlightenment in America: Samuel Jackson. Enlightened Calvinism: Jonathan Edwards, „Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. One of the creations of the the Enligthened Age, among others such as public education and university, as well as democracy and human rights, was U.S.A. Itself; the product of emancipation of the colonies from the British Crown. How did it all start? When, and why, and how Americans felt they were different?

2. 18th Century continued. Enlithenment in America: The Founding Fathers and Political Philosophy: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Paine: „The common sense”. How did Enlightenment in Europe translate into American foundations? How was it related to British Empiricism, Renaissance Thought and Early Modern Science? How America contributed to French Revolution?

3. 19th Century. Romanticism and Transcendental Philosophy: Henry David Thoreau, „Walden” and the roots of „American Dream”. Ralph Waldo Emerson, „Nature”. Individualism and self-made men. Romanticism, the dark antagonist of the Enligthenment, its Nightmare and Other, is the second grand pillar of the Modern Western Thinking, and as such it also constitutes an essential part of American Identity. The American Individualism, the Concept of the Lonely hero facing the World, the Concept of Superman are all rooted in Romanticism and romantic narratives.

4. Romanticism and the early critique of Americanism: Hermann Melville, „Moby dick”. Melville, a prodigy child of Romanticism and a brilliant witness to American way of life in its initial stage of development seems prophetic and all-encompassing in his outlook on Americanism in Moby Dick and other prosaic pieces, such as „Bartleby, the Scrivener”, a profound metaphor of resistance and endurance of the human in face of the dehumanizing forces of the system.

5. Pragmatism: William James, „Pragmatism”, „The Varietes of Religious Experience” - the Truth American way. Also one of the keys to understanding American reliogious engagement.Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey. The most American of Ideas. Is what works true?

6. Franz Boas – the birth of cultural anthropology. „The Mind of Primitive Man”. How has anthropology as an academic discipline started?

7. 20th Century American Philosophy: Analytic Philosophy in General. The ultimate way to solve problems of metaphysics. W.V.O. Quine and the concept of knowledge. Kripke: problems of modal philosophy. What does it mean to be possible?

8. Analytic Philosohy of Mind. Searle and Quine on the essence of Mind, dualism and monism: The „Chinese Room debate”. The problem of Consciousness: Daniel Dennett. Hillary Putnam and the brain in the vat. Are we just brains in the vats? - the problem that inspired the movie „Matrix” and its origins in Descartes.

9. Second Wave Feminism. Betty Friedan, „The Feminine Mystique” - the book that changed American women.

10. Political Philosophy: Libertarianism and Objectivism, Ayn Rand, and her fiction-books: The author that shaped American right. „The Virtue of Selfishness”, Robert Nozick: „Anarchy, State, Utopia” - what is capitalist utopia of absolutely free market?

11. Political and Moral Philosophy: John Rawls, „Theory of Justice”, and the Social Contract in Contemporary Philosophy. The origins of the Social Contract in 17th Century England. Alisdair Macintyre and virtue Ethics: „After Virtue” - the Canadian revival of the ancient moral philosophy. Toronto School.

12. Political Philosophy: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, Black Panthers and Black Separatism

13. Social Philosophy: Marxism in America. Herbert Marcuse, „The One-Dimensional Man” - the grandfather of the hippies; Marshall Berman, „Adventures in Marxism”. Noam Chomsky and the ultraradical critique of the American foreign policy. Immanuel Wallerstein and the „World-System”.

14. Postmodernism: Richard Rorty and neopragmatism, „Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature”; Francis Fukuyama and the End of History – how was it supposed to end after the fall of communism – and what went wrong?

15. Postmodernism: Queer theory. Judith Butler, „Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity” - rooted in the French Theory, Derrida and Deleuze, this feminist revolutionized the language of contemporary debates on gender.

Literatura: (tylko po angielsku)

Literature – (selected fragments of the following works will be specifically listed during the course):

Jonathan Edwards, „Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”.

Thomas Paine: „The common sense”.

Henry David Thoreau, „Walden”

Hermann Melville, „Moby dick”, „Bartleby, the Scrivener”

William James, „Pragmatism”, „The Varietes of Religious

Experience”

Franz Boas, „The Mind of Primitive Man”.

Hillary Putnam, „Reason, Truth, and History”

Betty Friedan, „The Feminine Mystique”

Ayn Rand, „The Virtue of Selfishness”

John Rawls, „Theory of Justice”

Herbert Marcuse, „The One-Dimensional Man”

Richard Rorty, „Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature”

Francis Fukuyama, „The End of History”

Judith Butler, „Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity”

Efekty uczenia się: (tylko po angielsku)

Students know, understand and discuss critically the concepts and ideas constitutive for American Intellectual History listed in the above syllabus. They have a deepened knowledge and critical understanding of the texts mentioned in the literature section; they know how to interpret and evaluate them. They understand and recognise the impact and meaning that American history of ideas has within the Western and global culture.

Metody i kryteria oceniania: (tylko po angielsku)

Active participation in classes - passing grade (3). Final grades higher than 3 depend on the final essay (800-1000 words).

Przedmiot nie jest oferowany w żadnym z aktualnych cykli dydaktycznych.
Opisy przedmiotów w USOS i USOSweb są chronione prawem autorskim.
Właścicielem praw autorskich jest Uniwersytet Warszawski, Wydział Nauk Ekonomicznych.
ul. Długa 44/50
00-241 Warszawa
tel: +48 22 55 49 126 https://www.wne.uw.edu.pl/
kontakt deklaracja dostępności USOSweb 7.0.3.0 (2024-03-22)