Poli 315W-01/Hum 497W-01/CLHI 497W-01

Spring 2006

 

Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan and the Modern Age

 

Prof. Sammy Basu (Politics)

 

 

         

 

 

 

 

This course is devoted to the close reading of Thomas Hobbes's great 'discourse of Common-wealth,' Leviathan (1651). Leviathan is widely said to have ushered in the Modern age though there is less agreement about just what that means. The course will consider the Leviathan and the interactions between its political, economic, philosophical, scientific, religious and literary dimensions in relevant historical contexts including the English Revolution, the advent of Capitalism, the Cartesian Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, the Protestant Reformation and the transformation of Humanist Rhetoric.  The guiding question for the course is Ôwhat does it mean to be Modern?Õ

 

Syllabus