The Age Of Extremes In The Modern Age

Course Description

• This course, “The Age of Extremes,” traces the first half of one of the most volatile centuries in human history where the 19th-century dream of progress collided with the reality of total war and industrial genocide. We will examine the “psychic break” of western thought—from Darwin and Freud upending the rational mind to the rise of totalitarian giants like Stalin and Hitler who sought to rebuild the “New Man” through secret police, state-sanctioned terror, and biological erasure. You’ll investigate how the violence of the colonial “laboratory” boomeranged back to Europe, turning Europe, Japan, and other areas of the East into a graveyard of broken images and surrealist dreams. By analyzing the machinery of fascism and militarism, the paranoia of the Cold War, and the current collapse of global orders, you will gain the radical historical literacy needed to navigate today’s hyper-polarized world and the fragile nature of the global order. If you want to understand how power is truly wielded and how our “Post-Modern” era was forged in the fire of the Gulag, the collective farm, and the bunker, take this course.Most of the homework will be excerpts from primary sources and some secondary sources. Class time will be divided between lessons on topics as well as discussion based on the homework and in-class reading. Assessments will be a combination of written exams and presentations.