This class will discuss important ideas in modern European history, including the writings of Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Michel Foucault.
Prof. Mark Walker
Office: Lippman 216
Office Hours: TBA.
Email: walkerm@union.edu
Learning Outcomes
After taking this course, students should understand many of the most important ideas in modern European history, as well as have improved their reading, writing, and discussion skills.
Disability
Students needing academic accommodations for a disability must first be registered with Disability Services to verify the disability and to establish eligibility for accommodations. Students may call 518-388-8785 or visit Disability Services to begin the process. Once registered, students should then schedule an appointment with me to make appropriate arrangements.
Union College Statement on Mental Health
The Eppler-Wolff Counseling Center provides free counseling and therapy services (including psychiatry) to all enrolled students. Please call 518-388-6161 or visit the Wicker Wellness Center in person any weekday between 8:30 and 5:00 to schedule an initial contact appointment. Visit the Counseling Center website at https://www.union.edu/counseling-center for more information.
Honor Code
Matriculation at the College is taken to signify implicit agreement with the Academic Honor Code. It is each student’s responsibility to ensure that submitted work is his or her own and does not involve any form of academic misconduct. Students are expected to ask their course instructors for clarification regarding, but not limited to, collaboration, citations, and plagiarism. Ignorance is not an excuse for breaching academic integrity.
Please read through this statement on plagiarism.
Students are also required to affix the full Honor Code Affirmation, or the following shortened version, on each item of coursework submitted for grading: “I affirm that I have carried out my academic endeavors with full academic honesty.” [Signed, Jane Doe]
Cell Phones, Tablets, and Laptops
The use of phones is not allowed. All phones must be shut off before class begins. If you use phones during the class, then your final grade will be lowered. Tablets or laptops may only be used if I have given you permission to do so ahead of time. Please discuss this with me during my office hours.
Class Participation
Reading
The reading assignments will be available as PDF files via Nexus and Perusall (within Nexus). Each assignment includes a few questions at the beginning that you should consider while doing the reading.
Note-Taking
This is a class for which you will need to prepare by doing the assigned reading carefully before the class in which it is discussed. Please take notes as you read your sources. If you take notes, make sure to write down the citation of the source at the beginning of your notes, keep a running tally of the page numbers of what you write down, and distinguish between your paraphrase and direct quotations.
Perusall
We will use the Perusall software for this course. Perusall is designed to help you master readings faster and understand the material better by collaboratively annotating the readings with other students in our class.
Your deadline for annotating a reading will be 11:59 pm the night before the class when the assignment will be discussed. If I participate in the discussion, then my participation will end by 9:00 pm that same night.
Our use of the Perusall software, just like every other aspect of this course, must be academically honest. For example, posting comments as your own that have been copied from the text or from external web site will be treated as every other type of academic misconduct and will, at a minimum, result in an overall Perusall score of zero for the term.
Class Participation
I expect you to do the assigned reading, come to class, and participate in the classroom discussion. I will use index cards to call on students by name but also invite voluntary comments and questions.
In-Class Presentations of the Assigned Reading
Beginning with the reading assignment for April 23, two or three students each class will be responsible for introducing the different reading assignments. You should be able to summarize what the reading says and what the authors argued, and should add what you found interesting or significant.
I have shared with you as a Google Doc the in-class presentation schedule, with blanks for signing up. A link to this document is also available on Nexus. Please enter your name in the blank for the reading you want–the readings will be assigned first come, first serve. Please also note that there are three sections, and I want you to sign up for a presentation in each section.
Writing Assignments
There will be four essay assignments based upon the assigned reading. These are designed to make you think, and to learn through the process of writing the essay. I would like papers around five double-spaced pages long, but they may be longer. The calendar below includes when the paper topics will be due.
For each essay, I want you to use a minimum of four different readings (this is not the same as authors, I have included multiple readings from some authors in this course) and construct your own essay topic and argument. You may only use readings that I have assigned.
Along with writing style and grammar, your grade will depend on the quality of the essay topic you choose, and how good your argument is. The final essay, which should use readings from the entire course, but must include some material from topics 15-19, has an additional requirement: this paper should demonstrate how ideas have influenced subsequent authors, in other words, how they have changed over time.
The first three papers may be resubmitted and, if they are significantly improved, the grades will be raised. All assignments should be shared with me via Google Docs or sent to me as word processing files via email. Please do not give me paper and ink copies. I will return all assignments with comments via Google Docs. All papers must be submitted in an acceptable quality to pass the course.
Google Sites
You will learn how to use the Google Sites software in order to make a presentation of your final paper topic to the class during the last week of the term.
Documentation of Sources
You will need to document the sources for your essay assignments using footnotes or references in the text. However, rather than the original publications, you need only refer to the readings I provide via Nexus. For example, if you use material you found in Ernst Jünger’s essay, “Fire” from the topic “Militarism, Fascism, Nazism,” then you should refer to
Ernst Jünger, “Fire” (1922) in “Militarism, Fascism, Nazism,” x-y, here z.
Please be sure that you understand when and where to use a footnote or reference in the text. It is important that you understand that footnotes and references in the text are not reserved for direct quotations. If you get significant information from a source, you have to cite it even if you do not take a direct quotation from it.
Grading
Perusal: 10%
First paper: 15%
Second paper: 15%
Third paper: 15%
Google Sites presentation: 5%
Fourth paper: 20%
Class participation: 20%
I will use both your participation in the classroom discussions and the statistics generated by the Persuall software to determine whether or not you are doing the reading. If you do not do the reading, you will not pass this course.
Cell Phones, Tablets, and Laptops
The use of phones is not allowed. All phones must be shut off before class begins. If you use phones during the class, then your final grade will be lowered. Tablets or laptops may only be used if I have given you permission to do so ahead of time. Please discuss this with me during my office hours.
Honor Code
Matriculation at the College is taken to signify implicit agreement with the Academic Honor Code. It is each student’s responsibility to ensure that submitted work is his or her own and does not involve any form of academic misconduct. Students are expected to ask their course instructors for clarification regarding, but not limited to, collaboration, citations, and plagiarism. Ignorance is not an excuse for breaching academic integrity.
Please go to the Union College statement on plagiarism for an explanation of what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.
Students are also required to affix the full Honor Code Affirmation, or the following shortened version, on each item of coursework submitted for grading: “I affirm that I have carried out my academic endeavors with full academic honesty.” [Signed, Jane Doe]
Disability
Students needing academic accommodations for a disability must first be registered with Disability Services to verify the disability and to establish eligibility for accommodations. Students may call 518-388-8785 or visit Disability Services to begin the process. Once registered, students should then schedule an appointment with me to make appropriate arrangements.
Calendar
Tuesday, April 2 Introduction of Class.
Thursday, April 4 Topic 1: Enlightenment (God).
Tuesday, April 9: Topic 2: Enlightenment (Politics).
Thursday, April 11: Topic 3: Enlightenment (Gender and Race).
Tuesday, April 16: Topic 4: Enlightenment (Economics) and Marxism.
Thursday, April 18: Topic 5: Darwinism
Tuesday, April 23: Topic 6: Anti-Semitism, Racism, Social Darwinism, Imperialism
The first paper assignment drawn from topics 1-4 due by 11:59 pm on April 23.
Thursday, April 25: Topic 7: Eugenics
Tuesday, April 30: Topic 8: Nietzsche
Thursday, May 2: Topic 9: Mass, Freudian, and Jungian Psychology
Tuesday, May 7: Topic 10: Militarism, Fascism, and Nazism
The second paper assignment drawn from topics 5-8 due by 11:59 pm on May 7.
Thursday, May 9: Topic 11: Anti-Militarism
Tuesday, May 14: Topic 12: Revisionist Socialism , Leninism and Stalinism
Thursday, May 16: Topic 13: Relativity, Quantum Physics, and Cosmology
Tuesday, May 21: Topic 14: Scientific Management and Modern Dystopias
Thursday, May 23: Topic 15: Nazism in Practice
Tuesday, May 28: Topic 16: Feminism
The third paper assignment drawn from topics 9-14 due by 11:59 pm on May 28.
Thursday, May 30: Topic 17: Ambivalence about Science and Technology
Workshop in class on Google Sites software.
Tuesday, June 4: Topic 18: Existentialism and Foucault
Thursday, June 6: Topic 19: Presentations of fourth paper topic using the Google Sites software.
Thursday, June 13 (End of exam period)
The fourth paper assignment, which should use readings from the entire course, but must include some material from topics 15-19, and all revisions of earlier assignments, are due by 11:59 pm on June 13.