In 1994, the British historian Eric Hobsbawm deemed the period between the beginning of WWI and the fall of the Soviet Union (1914-1991) as “the age of extremes”. The label is sometimes understood as a successor to the more familiar “long 19th century” (1789-1914). Taken together, the two appellations tell a story—perhaps one of promise which became disaster. But these are not the only creatures of their kind; the modern world abounds with few things more numerous than self-conscious (and often disconcerting) pronouncements about itself.
Whatever the value or veracity of these designations might be, they arguably share one prevailing aspect—the sense of an accelerating current of history which, moreover, is strong enough to carry off both individuals and societies with it, and to deposit them on the shores of “modernity”. In this course, we will try to delve into these currents to recover that which often escapes the grand narratives of social and political change: the lone individual who, in the course of their childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, must (unwillingly) confront problems much larger than themselves. Reading along a trail of crumbs left behind by some of the era’s most sensitive writers, we will think about what the modern world demands from the individual, its attitudes toward disobedience, and finally, what possibilities and consolations remain to us for sincerity and ethical adulthood.
