ENGLISH HISTORY AND CULTURE, 16TH-18TH CENTURY

PROGRAMME

 

This seminar aims to study the changes which were underway in the 16th to 18th-century English culture. Concepts such as Renaissance and Enlightenment will be explored. Key factors will be approached, namely: the religious schism; the empire genesis; the ideologies and political practices then-prevailing in Europe. The supremacy of reason in individuals’ and communities’ actions / decisions will reflect on the study of political uprising – French Rev., and the nationalist assertion versus the empire – the American Rev. Due to their impact on modern society, the scientific and technological advances, the consolidation of capitalism and urban exodus will be object of study.

 

Syllabus

 

1. Exploration of Renaissance definitions within the scope of the history of ideas and the      studies of culture.

2. The Tudors

2.1. The religious schism. Protestant Reformation;

2.2. The dynastic upheavals;

4. Ideologies from Renaissance to Enlightenment and parliamentarism.

4.1. Utopianism: Thomas More’s Utopia – an ideological proposal;

4.1 From the centralisation of the royal power to absolutism;

4.1.1 The early Stuarts and the Civil War;

4.1.2. Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate: Analysis of excerpts of Cromwell’s speeches;

4.1.3. Hobbes’ s absolutism. Approach of excerpts of Leviathan.

5. Parliamentarism

5.1. From Restoration to the Constitutional Monarchy;

5.2 Approach of excerpts of Locke’s “Second Treatise of Government”.

6. Enlightenment and knowledge

5.1 The Scientific Revolution;

5.1.1 Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis;

5.2. the dissemination of knowledge;

5.3. Dominant philosophic thought: rationalism, empiricism and idealism.

6. The empires: the relationship between the metropolis and the colonies.

6.1 Economic models: mercantilism and liberalism

6.2. The American Revolution.

7. The French Revolution

7.1. Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man.

9. Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?”.

 

Bibliography

Adams, Julia, Elisabeth S. Clemens, Ann Shola Orloff. Remaking Modernity: Politics, History, and Sociology. Duke University Press, 2005.

Armitage, David. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire. C.U.P., 2000.

Articles of Union. https://www.parliament.uk/documents/heritage/articlesofunion.pdf. (29-11-2019).

Bacon, Francis. “New Atlantis”. The Advancement of Learning and New Atlantis. Edited by Arthur Johnston. Clarendon Press, 1980, pp. 213-248.

Burke, Edmund. Speech on the Conciliation with America (1775). https://www.constitution.org/primarysources/burke.html (03-12-2019).

Descartes, René. O Discurso do Método. Introdução e Notas de Étienne Gilson. Tradução de João Gama. Edições 70, 1979.

Dickinson, H. T., ed. A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain, Blackwell, 2006.

Heyck, Thomas William. A History of the Peoples of the British Isles. From 1688 to 1914. Routledge, 2002.

Himmelfarb, Gertude. The Roads to Modernity. The British, French and American Enlightnments. With an Introduction by Gordon Brown. Vintage Books, 2008.

Hindle, Steve, Alexandra Shepard, John Walter, eds. Remaking English Society. Social Relations and Social Change in Early Modern England. The Boydell Press, 2013.

Hobbes, Thomas. “Of Common-Wealth”, Leviathan. Dent, 1979, pp. 86-126.

Hyland, Paul, Olga Gomez, Francesca Greensides, eds. The Enlightenment. A Sourcebook and Reader. Routledge, 2006.

Kant, Emmannuel. “What is Enlightenment?”, 1784. http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s6787.pdf. (29-11-2019).

LaHaye, Laura. “Mercantilism.” The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Ed. David R. Henderson. Liberty Fund, 2008. https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/Mercantilism.html

Lewis, C. S. “New Learning, New Ignorance”. English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, excluding Drama. Clarendon Press, 1954, 1959, pp.  1-65.

Locke, John. “The Second Treatise of Government”. Two Treatises of Government. Edited with Introduction and Notes by Peter Laslett. C.U.P., 2003, pp. 265- 428.

More, Thomas. Utopia. Edited by George M. Logan and Robert M. Adams: C.U.P., 1999.

Paine, Thomas. Rights of Man. Prometheus Books, 1987.

Roots, Ivan, ed. Speeches of Oliver Cromwell. J.M. Dent & Sons, 1989.

Smith, Bruce R. ed, “England, 1560-1650”. The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare. Volume I. C.U.P, 2016, pp. 607-680.

 Zalta, Edward N., Gen. Ed. “Descartes’ Theory of Ideas”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.2007; ver. 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html.

______ “Immanuel Kant”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2010; substantive ver.2016.