This course traverses the breadth of 19th-century literature, the era's transformative social and political movements, groundbreaking economic theories, and revolutionary biological discoveries, offering an overview of this century's contributions to modern thought, society, and science. Students explore the diverse literary landscapes of the 19th century, starting with the romantic idealism and social critique found in romantic poets and moving on to the nuanced social narratives of Jane Austen and the psychological and ethical examinations of Dostoyevsky. From the literary, the course moves to the political currents of the century and the writings of pivotal figures such as Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Abraham Lincoln. Following the political comes the upheaval in the economic order as exemplified in Karl Marx's critical analysis of capitalism and class dynamics and the examination of the complex relationships between economics, culture, and religion in the works of Max Weber and Thorstein Veblen. The course concludes with the seismic shifts in biological sciences initiated by Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species that have reshaped our understanding of life and our place in the natural world.
Daniel Carranza - Harvard University
Freya Johnston - Oxford University, UK
John Mullan - University College London, UK
Joseph Luzzi - Bard College
Katia Bowers - University of British Columbia, Canada
Leo Damrosch - Harvard University
Oliver Ready - Oxford University, UK
Sarah Hudspith - University of Leeds, UK
Vadim Shneyder - University of California, Los Angeles
Vanket Mani - University of Wisconsin, Madison
Wendy Lee - New York University
Aeon Skoble - Bridgewater State University
Cord J Whitaker - Wellesley College
Darrin McMahon - Dartmouth College
Eileen Hunt - University of Notre Dame
James Muldoon - University of Exeter, UK
Janet Todd - Cambridge University, UK
John Stauffer - Harvard University
Mark Philp - University of Warwick, UK
Richard Yarborough - University of California, Los Angeles
Bruce Caldwell - Duke University
Charles Camic - Northeastern University
David Pena-Guzman - San Francisco State
Deirdre McCloskey - The Cato Institute
Emily Skarbek - Brown University
Kimberly Hoang - University of Chicago
Pete Boettke - George Mason University
Angela Creager - Princeton University
Frederic Berger - Gregor Mendel Institute of Biology, Germany
Mario Livio - Israeli Institute of Technology, Israel
Matthew Cobb - University of Manchester, UK
Patrick Forber - Tufts University
