This course explores key ideas and thinkers that have shaped modern thought from the 19th century to the present. Students will have the opportunity to explore different topics and ideas that collectively have shaped how we engage with and interpret the present. Of particular concern in the class is the way that our intellectual antecedents have prepared us to adapt our thinking to the coming shift in economic, demographic and climatic conditions that will unfold over the remainder of the century.

The first half of the class examines foundational ideas from famous thinkers of the 19th century who each sought to define one or more aspects of what was understood to be a rapidly unfolding modernity. In the second half of the class, we turn to more contemporary thinkers to consider the pitfalls and problems that the creation of a specific idea of modernity has introduced. Authors we will consider include Kant, Hegel, Marx, Mill, Spencer, Adorno, Arendt and Foucault.