HS 063: Cultural and Institutional History of Modern Europe (Honors Section)

The Boston College Core Program is the University's unique contribution to our students' liberal education. It is designed to fulfill a number of very specific goals, which can be summarized as a systematic encouragement for students to learn how to raise the most important questions facing everyone: who am I? how did I get here? what is my relationship and obligations to my fellow humans, to the society in which I exist, to the cosmos around me? In other words, how do I get to know myself? 

This course is part of the history department's contribution to the Core. The title: Cultural and Institutional History of Modern Europe, indicates that its major focus will be on intellectual and cultural questions and the answers which men and women came up with and embodied in institutions (political, religious, social, cultural, and economic). Our task will be to examine how these ideas originated, how people reacted to them, and how the institutions they inspired succeeded or failed to carry out their original designs. This evolution will be examined in chronological order, with attempts to show how technology, scientific discoveries, and social forces (industrialization, population growth, gender roles etc.) affect this process and are in turn affected by it. Its special approach will be to integrate art and music with the political and social developments. 

The focus will be on the European origins of these concepts of human dignity and artistic insights, as well as the creation of modern states, of representative government, democracy, and our modern understanding of human rights. In this process, we will discover how these same forces were then transmitted to the entire world&emdash;a process which is still going on today&emdash;thus transforming what was in its origin the contribution of a rather small part of the globe into a world-wide civilization. But the principal goal will be for students to ask how these past events impact on our daily lives.

Discussion Section Assignments for Fall 2003

Syllabus

Required Musical Evenings/Programs

Most Impotant Geneological Charts

Statement on Academic Integriy

Paper Assignments

French Revolution Documents

Study and Review Questions: French Revolution

Geographical European Atlas

Review Questions for Final Exam

I have also made available two additional web sites. The first is art site to which I am gradually adding all the art works which are shown during the lectures and discussions. This site, unfortunately, is far from complete. The second is a collection of appropriate maps, including those which I showed during the lectures. This site too is under construction.

Art in European History 

Selected Political Maps