This course focuses on recognition as a guiding theme in 19th-century social and political thought. By foregrounding related issues such as social and political visibility, material inequality and self-consciousness, students will be introduced to the tradition of modern political theory and will also canvas some important early responses to Hegelian, liberal and Marxist visions of individuals and society. Alongside these theoretical resources, the course also includes literary meditations on religious, colonial, and feminist themes — including contributions by Harriet Jacobs, Joseph Conrad, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Virginia Woolf and others — and the way these anticipated the transformative and turbulent century to follow.
