Humanistic Perspectives on History and Society: Revolution

HUM 597 / COM 597 / ENG 593
Zahid R. Chaudhary (English), Benjamin Conisbee Baer (Comparative Literature)

Intensive reading of texts of revolution as event, process, rupture, repetition, and metaphor. Worldwide examples considered in terms of a chain of displacements within and across historical time (C17th to contemporaneity; England, USA, France, Haiti, Russia, Mexico, China, Algeria, and beyond). Why and how is revolution different from other radical transformations such as national liberation? What are the openings and where are the dangers in the revolutionary situation, and how have both proponents and opponents of revolution represented them?