Syllabus

Instructor

Professor Nicolas de Warren, KU Leuven, Belgium

Description

The First World War, also known as the Great War, was the original catastrophe of the 20th-century. This course investigates the complex ways in which the Great War mobilized philosophical reflection during the war and the varied ways in which philosophical thought responded to the war.

Prerequisites

There are no formal prerequisites for this course. However, the course reading is sourced from primary source materials and therefore an undergraduate level of reading skills would be of benefit.

Duration and Work Load

The course will run for eight weeks. Every week half a module (i.e., two subsections) will be released. For more information about the release dates, please look at the course schedule.

Assigned workload per session will vary according to the topic and the reading material, but on average, students should expect to dedicate 4-5 hours per week.

Learning Outcomes and Objectives

Basic knowledge of important philosophical reactions to the First World War
Conceptual understanding of philosophical and literary texts
Historical understanding of the war and its cultural impact
A clearer grasp of the complex ways in which philosophy and the First World War intersected

Grading

This course will be graded based on the following criteria:

Assessment Type	# of Assessments	% of Final Grade
Quiz	16 (4 per module)	5%
Multiple choice evaluation	4	25%
Discussion (self-evaluation)	4	45%
Peer assessment	1	25%

Passing grade: 60%

Course Structure

The course is divided into four modules:

1) A War of Absolutes
2) The Clash of Civilizations
3) Memento Mori
4) Peace and Utopia

Each module is divided into four sections.

Module 1:

A) Clausewitz and Modern War
B) War and Colonialism (J-P Sartre)
C) War and Revolution (Lenin)
D) War and Existence (Carl Schmitt)

Module 2:

A) The Ideas of 1914 (Rudolf Eucken)
B) Philosophicus Teutonicus (Edmund Husserl)
C) Bergson and L'union sacrée
D) Judaism and Germany (Hermann Cohen)

Module 3:

A) Foreboding (W N Hodgson, Adolf Reinach)
B) The True Enemy (Wilfred Owen, André Malraux)
C) Fronterlebnis (Jan Patočka)
D) Freud on War and Death

Module 4:

A) Above the Battle (Romain Rolland)
B) Pacifism and Revolution (Bertrand Russell)
C) Mysticism and Anarchy (Gustav Landauer, Martin Buber)
D) The European Anarchy (Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson)

In addition to required readings for the lectures, each module also includes supplementary material (texts, images, poems). The materials in these nodes are connected to discussions questions that can be explored collectively in the discussion forums.

Two kinds of discussion questions are provided:

"Discovery and discuss" assignments that ask you to actively discover new material (a historical document, a painting, etc.) and discuss it in the discussion forum
Discussion assignments that ask you to share your thoughts with others in the multilingual discussion forums.

Please note that a unique feature of this course is a multilingual discussion environment. In addition to the main discussion forum in English, there are discussion forums in French and Dutch.

Readings

Section	Required	Recommended
Module 1	Clausewitz - On War, Book 1 Lenin - Socialism and War	Sartre - Critique of Dialectical Reason Schmitt - The Concept of the Political & Theory of the Partisan
Module 2	Eucken - The Moral Power of the War Husserl - Fichte’s Ideal of Humanity Bergson - The Meaning of the War	Cohen - Deutschtum und Judentum (1916)
Module 3	Hodgson - Before Action Reianch - Phenomenology of Foreboding Freud - Reflections on War and Death	Owen - Anthem for Doomed Youth Malraux - The Walnut Trees of Altenburg Patocka - Heretical Essays Plato and Europe Patocka - Plato and Europe
Module 4	Rolland - Above the Battle (3 Sections) Dickinson - After the War Landauer - Revolution	Russell - Texts on Pacifism

Course schedule

New content will always be released at 10:00 (am) UTC.

Name module	Release date
Introduction	04 April 2017
Module 1: Intro, sections A and B, discussions	04 April 2017
Module 1: Sections C and D, evaluation (peer and discussion), concluding thoughts	11 April 2017
Module 2: Intro, sections A and B, discussions	18 April 2017
Module 2: Sections C and D, evaluation (peer and discussion), concluding thoughts	25 April 2017
Module 3: Intro, subsections A and B, discussions	02 May 2017
Module 3: Subsections C and D, evaluation (peer and discussion), concluding thoughts	09 May 2017
Module 4: Intro, subsections A and B, discussions	16 May 2017
Module 4: Subsections C and D, evaluation (peer and discussion), concluding thoughts	23 May 2017
Concluding thoughts	23 May 2017
Course end	30 May 2017

Assessment deadlines

Deadline for:

quizzes
multiple choice evaluation
discussion self-evaluations

30 May 2017
(10:00 am UTC)

Deadlines for submitting your own answer in the peer assessment (module 3)

23 May 2017
(10:00 am UTC)

Deadlines for evaluating your peers in the peer assessment (module 3)