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After a first semester chiefly focusing on kinship-based
societies ,tributary states and societies,and early
commercial civilizations,the second term of Humanity
and Society is wholly devoted to the emergence,
successive agendas,dynamism and tortuous byways of
modernity in both its Western and non-Western forms.
Topics dealt with include :the diverse manifestations of
an inquisitive ,acquisitive,aggressive individualism
(from the Renaissance to the European Reconnaissance);
the first generation of (merchant) empires;the military
revolution and the genesis of the modern state;changes in
ways of knowing ;the seperation of the public and the
private;the ındustrial and the French revolutions ; nations
and nationalism; the construction of mass democracy;and
forms of dictatorship and totalitarian rule.Special
attention is paid to the complexity of modernity with
premodernity that results from both colonial and
non-colonial patterns of incorporation of the periphery into
the world -system.The course then converges with The Science
of Nature to conclude with an examination of possible
agendas for the 21st century resulting from the social and
environmental impact of new technologies in the context of
globalization.
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