HISTORY 318 - Making of the Individualist Self

Institution:

Hobart William Smith Colleges

Subject:

Description:

Self-consciousness may be one of the few human attributes that has existed outside of history and regardless of culture. But the self itself, the subject and object of self-consciousness, has been understood with enormous variation through time and across the globe. This seminar explores a very influential conception of selfhood: the "individualist self," the self driven by belief in its coherence and its own goals, set in contrast to other selves and other structures, and indebted for its origins to the major shifts that took place in western Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Attention is given to the Protestant Reformation, encounters with new and ancient worlds, and the spread of experimental science, representative government, and capitalism. Students also examine historical sources most intimately connected with this phenomenon: the written forms-diaries, autobiographies, and other self-examination exercises-through which people documented their existence and came to constitute and reflect a new mode of self-understanding and engagement with the world. (Kada ne, offered every three year

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

WWW.HWS.EDU

Phone Number:

(315) 781-3000

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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