ANSC 4341 Tradition and Innovation
The dynamism and transformative power of Western civilization (and any future global civilization that derives from it) is unintelligible without recognizing that the modern West is an outgrowth of classic works and institutions and that these works and institutions have produced an ethos encouraging change. The course considers topics such as the nature of history and tradition; the nineteenth-century emergence of historical/historicist philosophies and the subsequent questioning of tradition’s value; the interplay of tradition, authority and cultural change; the nature and power of what is classic; differences between traditionalism and tradition; negative and dysfunctional traditions (e.g., racism and anti-Semitism); the role of education and the university in transmitting the past and facilitating the future; the challenges to tradition of science and technology; and the difficulties of achieving a fully integrated life in the face of the specialization and destabilization of human work and activities.
Offered
Alternate years.