COSEM-UA 102 - Terrorism, Nihilism, and Modernity

Institution:

New York University

Subject:

Description:

The past century has witnessed violence the character and scale of which are so unique and unprecedented that we have had to create a new vocabulary to describe it (genocide, terrorism) and the ideologies that underlie it (totalitarianism, fundamentalism). To understand modern violence, we examine the origin of the modern mind in the 17th century, when science, based on universal doubt, ended the Age of Faith, and the traditional sources of moral, legal, and political authority lost credibility. Nietzsche called this the "death of God" (and the Devil); it could also be called the death of Good and Evil, leading to another set of new words (nihilism, agnosticism, anomie, anarchy). We study the origins and implications of these developments by reading Shakespeare and John Donne, Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky, Beckett and Wittgenstein, Simone Weil and Hannah Arendt, as well as modern mass murderers from Hitler to bin Laden. Finally, we ask whether modern human sciences can help us understand how to reverse or at least limit this escalation of violence.

Credits:

4.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nyu.edu

Phone Number:

(212) 998-1212

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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