Introductory description

This module introduces students to four key theorists and critics of modernity and of Enlightenment conceptions of the subject, Marx, Nietzsche, Simmel and Freud, and provides a useful theoretical background to modules focused more strongly on literature and culture of the period since the late 19th century.

For much of the 19th century an optimistic outlook on modern, post-feudal society was widespread. Modernity seemed to bring liberation from old social and religious constraints, and the powers of human reason, the refinement of moral sensibilities and scientific and technological progress promised to improve humanity’s lot. In the course of the 19th century, and intensifying in the decades around the turn of the century, however, this belief in the blessings of modernity became increasingly more problematic. This module will engage with four key theorists and critics of modernity and of Enlightenment conceptions of the subject, Marx, Nietzsche, Simmel and Freud, whose work can be seen as emblematic for this development. An engagement with some of their key works will introduce students to Marx's criticism of alienation and socially produced unfreedom in capitalism, to Freud’s and Nietzsche’s challenges to the idea of the human being as primarily rational, to their theories of the dark and unknown regions of the self and to their critique of bourgeois morality. We will study Freud’s and Simmel’s accounts of the connection between modernity and neurosis, Simmel’s analysis of life in the modern city and Marx's and Simmel's accounts of the role of the economy, value and money in modern culture and its consequences. The module thus provides a useful theoretical background to modules focused more strongly on literature and culture of the period since the late 19th century.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Introduction: The concept of ‘modernity’

2. Lecture/Seminar: Karl Marx and the critique of capitalist modernity 1 - The concept of alienation

3. Seminar: Karl Marx and the critique of capitalist modernity 2 - Marx's view of the dynamic of modernity

4. Lecture/Seminar: Nietzsche and the Critique of Morality 1: 'Also sprach Zarathustra'

5. Seminar: Nietzsche and the Critique of Morality 2: ‘Zur Genealogie der Moral’

6. Reading week

7. Lecture/Seminar: Georg Simmel and the phenomenology of urban life - ‘Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben’

8. Sigmund Freud's analysis of civilisation 1: 'Das Unbehagen in der Kultur'

9. Sigmund Freud's analysis of civilisation 2: 'Das Unbehagen in der Kultur'

10. Revision, essay & exam workshop

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Critically assess the contributions made by Marx, Nietzsche, Simmel and Freud to a critical understanding of modernity
• Situate Marx', Nietzsche's, Simmel's and Freud's work in its cultural and historical context
• Demonstrate a principal understanding of key concepts used by Marx, Nietzsche, Simmel and Freud.
• Critically engage with relevant secondary literature
• Ability to abstract and synthesise key information from written sources
• Ability to organize, present and defend ideas within the framework of a structured and reasoned argument orally and in writing
• Ability to formulate an argument with reference to established interpretations
• Ability to analyse critically a range of materials
• Ability to conduct independent research using library, bibliographic resources and ICT skills
• Ability to engage critically with a variety of theoretical approaches and interpretations
• Command of German

Indicative reading list

Friedrich Schiller

Schiller, Friedrich, Briefe über die ästhetische Erziehung, Brief 6 (extract)

Marx, Karl, Ökonomisch-Philosophische Manuskripte aus dem Jahre 1844 (extracts)
Translation: Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts (extracts)
Marx, Karl, Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie (extract)
Translation: Grundrisse (extract)
Marx, Karl, Das Kapital, vol. 1 (extract)
Translation: Capital, vol. 1 (extract)

Nietzsche, Friedrich, Also sprach Zarathustra (extracts)
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Zur Genealogie der Moral (extracts)

Simmel, Georg, 'Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben', in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 7 (=Aufsätze und Abhandlungen 1901-1908, vol. 1), Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1995, pp. 116-131

Freud, Sigmund, Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, Frankfurt: Fischer, 2009

View reading list on Talis Aspire

International

All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of the UK and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.

Subject specific skills

This module will develop students’ linguistic skills through engaging with primary materials in the target language. It will build students’ capacity to engage with aspects of German culture through analysis of this primary material and through seminar discussion aimed at deeper critical thinking. In particular, students’ awareness of modernity and its discontenets will be enhanced through lectures and seminars which engage in scholarship in the field.

Transferable skills

All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and their target language(s), intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the target language(s), personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.