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BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Literature (LIT).

Prerequisites: FREN BC3021, BC3022, BC3023, BC3024, or the equivalent.

This course examines the phenomenon that dominates and revolutionizes 18th-century philosophical, religious, sociological, and political discourse in the West: the Enlightenment. Calling into question the hitherto uncontested authority of an all-powerful church and state, the Enlightenment calls for the freedom of expression and of worship; condemns religious intolerance and cultural prejudice; denounces societal inequality; examines the merits and shortcomings of different forms of government; and subverts the oppressive and often hypocritical dogmas of the Catholic church and the absolutist monarchy--with far-reaching political and historical consequences (e.g., the American and the French Revolutions). With the exception of one German text (by Immanuel Kant, and assigned in English translation), readings will be limited to texts by the Enlightenment's leading Francophone authors: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau, as well as by two "dystopian" novelists, Charrière et Sade. All discussion, coursework, and examinations will be in French.