V45.0562PHILOSOPHES ET LUMIERES: Enlightenment and Postmodern ThoughtLucien Nouis From the Frankfurt school to the school of Geneva, from psychoanalysis and structuralism to deconstruction, recent currents of thought have attempted to revisit and reassess the legacy of the Enlightenment. One could even say, along with Michel Foucault, that all European philosophy after Kant has been returning to the same question: “What is this event called the Aufklärung that has determined, at least in part, what we are, what we think, and what we do today?” This course will consist in an exploration of the ongoing dialogue between the Enlightenment and postmodernity. Our approach will be twofold: along with reading canonical authors such as Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire, and resituating them within the context of the eighteenth century, we will bring in several texts that have attempted to rescue, criticize, or mobilize the ideas of the Enlightenment from a postmodern perspective. The aim of the course will thus be to give an overview of the questions and problems raised by the "Lumières," while at the same time providing the students with the possibility of understanding their impact on “our” postmodernity. |
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