Timing of final grades and certificates

In order to allow everyone to review their marks on the final writing assignment, we will be waiting
one week to generate the final course grades and the certificates. Please check your assignment as soon
as possible so that we can address any questions prior to generating the final grades.
Fri 17 May 2013 8:46 AM PDT (UTC -0700)

final week's note to class

This is it, my friends, the final week of our semester long class. Congratulations on staying with the
material throughout the semester! In the last week I have published a couple of short essays about my
MOOC experience, one in the Chronicle for Higher Education and the other in the Wall Street Journal.
Here are the links:
http://chronicle.texterity.com/chronicle/20130503b/?sub_id=CIenPhTumx75t#pg18
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323335404578443010159618082.html?
mod=googlenews_wsj
(access may be restricted by a pay firewall, which sometimes you can avoid by searching for my name
plus the name of the periodical).
This weeks lectures will start off with a review of the semester. To mix things up a little (and to point
to another area of fascinating inquiry), I begin with the contrast between modernist and postmodernist
architecture. The differences between the elegant purity of the former and the playful hybridity of the
latter can stand for a more general distinction. I then review some of the major ideas weve covered this
term before going on to the reading for our last section.
Ive called this last week postmodern pragmatisms. Giving up the search for the really real doesnt
have to leave one with meaninglessness or boredom. The anti-foundationalist, pragmatist emphasis on
inquiry and making a difference in the world will take many forms. As philosophers, artists, writers
students and teachers continue to learn together we will surely find new questions and new ways of
making sense of our culture so that we can shape its future.
For the last time this term I wish you happy reading. Ill add a wish for continued joy in learning.
Yours truly,
Michael
Sat 4 May 2013 10:11 AM PDT (UTC -0700)

Performance, Improvisation and Postmodern

Authority
I can hardly believe we are about to begin the penultimate week of The Modern and the Postmodern! I

have very much enjoyed preparing the lectures and following your discussions online. Thank you for
all your efforts!
Our two readings this week are from philosophers who are prolific authors and important public
intellectuals. Judith Butler and Slavoj iek are both very influenced by contemporary French theory:
Jacques Derrida in the formers case and Jacques Lacan in the latters. All of these figures have a great
debt to Freuds work as well as to theories of language (structuralist and poststructuralist) that
emphasize the arbitrary nature of the sign. In other words, they all emphasize how little sense it makes
to try to ascertain how our words correspond to reality, and instead they pay attention to how we use
language or how language uses us.
I fear this is yet another point in the syllabus at which students may ask why we didnt read author X, Y
or Z. We would profit from reading Roland Barthes, for sure, or a critic of the postmodern move like
Jurgen Habermas. We could read contemporary Latin American or African writers who employ
hybridity of genres in ways that feel very postmodern, or explore Asian artists who are exploding the
boundaries between media. Some of my students at Wesleyan are interested in Affect Theory, which is
connected with what some call a new materialism that moves away from language to consider bodies
and things.
Ive chosen Butler and iek this week because their work has been in the mix for all sorts of
contemporary philosophical, artistic and political discussions. You will see that in the lecture I use
video clips from both (including an interview I did with Judith at Wesleyan this semester), and you will
find lots more available on YouTube. I trust you find that they are good to think with.
In our final week, Ill make a case for postmodern pragmatism, and Ill also do a quick review of the
entire syllabus. Meanwhile, happy reading and thinking!
Yours truly,
Michael
Sat 27 Apr 2013 6:27 PM PDT (UTC -0700)

Last Review: Imitation, Autobiography and the

Posthuman
We are getting near the end of the course, and you have a week to catch up on readings and writings
before we conclude with some contemporary thinkers working in Continental and American critical
theory and philosophy.
Ive inadvertently created some confusion on the syllabus, I fear, by posting a bunch of readings and a
film during this review week. Please treat these as suggestions complementary materials that
illuminate some of the issues in the last section of this course.
I chose Blade Runner because the question of the really real plays an important role throughout the
film and gives it much of its energy. What is the status of the replicant, and how can we claim to know
who is a real human and who is an imitation? This, you will recognize, is a question that was crucial for
Rousseau, and it haunts modern thinking. Here are two scenes you can watch as reminders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWPyRSURYFQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwJEb3vJvWY
Who (or what) is Deckard? One version of the postmodern response is to dissolve the distinction
between the original and the imitation, between the real human and the replicant. Maybe a capacity for
empathy or suffering is more important than ontological status. Ill leave it to you to decide how the
film comes out on these issues.
I suggest Alison Bechdels memoir because it is a rich, contemporary meditation on self, sexuality,
secrets and on literature. I realize that many of you will not be able to get a copy of Fun Home, but you
can find some great examples of the Bechdels work at http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/. Working in the
pop genre of the graphic novel, her autobiographical project is haunted but not limited by James
Joyces Portrait of the Artist as a Young Many and Marcel Prousts In Search of Lost Time. Her queer
re-working of these modernist classics is powerful, funny and moving.
Jennifer Egans is one of the great contemporary American novelists. She plays with postmodern
themes like post-authenticity and pastiche, and Ive given you a link to a story (originally published in
tweets!) about some posthumans and homeland security. Ive also provided to a link to a story that was
part of her wonderful novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad.
Remember, all these readings are recommended I wont be lecturing on them or asking you to write
about them. The lectures this week briefly follow up on the painting discussions of a few weeks ago. I
hope you enjoy it all!
Happy reading and watching!
Michael
Sat 20 Apr 2013 5:58 PM PDT (UTC -0700)

April 12th Google Hangout Videos

I've just posted the video from Friday's Google Hangout discussion session, broken into 4 segments.
They are in this week's section of the Video Lectures , "The Postmodern Everyday." I've sent them off
for captioning, but that usually takes a day or two to complete--please check back later for the
captioning and transcripts.
Best regards!
Jolee
Sat 13 Apr 2013 6:56 PM PDT (UTC -0700)

Critique, Conformity, and Thinking Otherwise

After our consideration of the everyday through the work of Woolf, Emerson and Wittgenstein, this
coming week's reading takes us to the heights of critical theory in German and French contexts.

Horkheimer and Adorno are reacting to the rise of Nazism, and they argue that the modern forms of
tyranny that emerge in the twentieth century are a product of the ideology of progress and
Enlightenment. The Enlightenment effort to "make the world more of a home for human beings" results
in its dialectical opposite: a world of almost total alienation and domination. Writing a generation later,
Foucault is also concerned with how domination emerges as a product of what many had thought of as
the march of progress and the growth of freedom. Beneath the guise of liberal movements of various
kinds, he argues, we can see increasing conformity.
Our readings this week are rejections of the modern project or analyses of how the modern project
has brutally failed. Is there any escape from this prison house of domination?
Well, the following week we have a break from reading and a return to art. Art plays a crucial role for
our authors this week and next week I'll post some remarks on twentieth century painting. We'll also
have a recording of the Google Hangout to share.
Happy Reading, wherever you are! I hope spring is coming into your world!!
Michael
Sat 13 Apr 2013 2:18 PM PDT (UTC -0700)

Self-Reliance and the Everyday

This coming week we have an unlikely pair: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Emerson
was a great 19th century American essayist and lecturer, while Wittgenstein moved from Vienna to
England to make some of the most important contributions to twentieth century analytic philosophy.
I've linked them under the rubric of "The Postmodern Everyday," the ideas for which I've borrowed
from the contemporary philosopher, Stanely Cavell. As I write this, I realize it sounds like quite a
mash-up!
The key for this week is that both Emerson, Wittgenstein (like everyone else we will read for the
remainder of the course) have given up on the project of discovering "the really real." For Emerson this
is a liberation to discover one's own capacities while experiencing more fully. You will see, I think,
some important affinities with Nietzsche. For Wittgenstein, giving up on the foundational project
allows one to pay more attention to what's really going on all around us. You might say, in terms of our
Woolf reading, that he abandoned Mr. Ramsay's effort to get to the next intellectual "letter of the
alphabet" to participate in Mrs. Ramsay's embrace of the world.
More simply put, both of our authors in the coming week want us to pay attention to ourselves and
those around us without worrying whether we can justify what we do on scientific or philosophical
grounds. How might we live if there are no such grounds?
As I write this, spring is slowly making its way into New England. It's a good time to embrace the
everyday!
Happy Reading!
Michael

Fri 5 Apr 2013 7:56 AM PDT (UTC -0700)

And the winners are....

The winners of the drawing to participate in the April 12th Google Hangout are:
Kawther Gasmi
Erika Shandor
Joshua Sharp
Monalisa Dutt
If anyone declines, I'll draw another name, or however many needed to fill the 4 slots.
Best regards,
Jolee West
Thu 4 Apr 2013 11:53 AM PDT (UTC -0700)

To the Lighthouse: knowledge vs intimacy; loss

vs art
This week we move from Freud's stoic account of self-inflicted suffering to Woolf's exploration of
family, love, knowledge as they intersect with the violence of history. We will meet the Ramsay family,
whose philosopher-patriarch is contrasted with his extraordinary beautiful (and potent) wife. Woolf was
pushing on the borders of the novel, and the effects are magical.
We are planning another Google Hangout for Friday, April 12 at noon EST. Students will be selected
via a drawing--so if you want to participate, sign up using the form below.
I write this message from the road. I will lecture on liberal education today at Penn State, where a
former student of mine is a professor.
Happy reading!
Michael
The sign-up has closed.
Fri 29 Mar 2013 6:24 AM PDT (UTC -0700)

Sex! Aggression! Freud!

Well, we are back to our reading this week with Freud's Civilization and its Discontents. Freud is one
of those thinkers that students often have opinions and notions about before they even read a word. Our
text this week is from the late side period Freud's work it was first published in 1930 and Freud was
born seventy years before that. It is highly speculative, and I think he wrote it to provoke his readers

and to spur speculation among them.

I have spent many years working with Freud's texts. My first book (which was based on my senior
thesis at Wesleyan) is called Psycho-Analysis as History: Negation and Freedom in Freud, and I have a
section on Freud, memory and trauma in my most recent book. Recently, I published essays based on
interviews with two historians who were heavily influenced by psycho-analysis, Peter Gay and Carl
Schorske.
I keep coming back to Freud because I have always been interested in how people make sense of the
past. This was Freud's great subject. I don't go to his work for answers, but I still find his answers
"good to think with." Some years ago I curated an exhibition at the Library of Congress in Washington
D.C. (which traveled international) that attempted to make sense of Freud within cultural history. You
can see much of the material of the exhibition here. In the exhibition there are film clips that show the
impact of psychoanalysis on popular culture, and there is a voice recording of Freud made at the end of
his life (in English).
The students return to Wesleyan for the last half of the semester. Like you, they will be hitting the
books and working on essays. All good wishes as you continue your work.
Happy Reading!
Michael
Fri 22 Mar 2013 1:01 PM PDT (UTC -0700)

Google Hangout Recordings

Today we are posting our first Google Hangout. Thanks to Barry and Bill, who joined Wes students
(and Teaching Assisants) Ari and Penny in a conversation with me about the course thus far. There are a
couple of glitches words swallowed here and there, but I hope many of you will find it interesting.
I'd like to get more folks to participate in another Hangout soon. We are eager to get different
perspectives in the conversation!
We've asked about posting papers online, and the Coursera folks have told us that we can only do that
going forward. But I do encourage you to post your papers on the forum thread Barry has started so that
many more of you can share your work. There are also some good conversations going on at the
Modern and the Postmodern Facebook page.
I know we've had some technical challenges with the painting lectures, and the Coursera folks are
trying to fix them.
Thanks in advance for your patience!
I'll be sending my regular message at the end of the week.
Best wishes,
Michael
Wed 20 Mar 2013 9:03 AM PDT (UTC -0700)

Week 7 -- A break and some time for review

After a week of intensity with Baudelaire and Nietzsche, it really is time for a break! Some have noted
in the discussion forum that with these authors we seem to have crossed a line perhaps it's the line
between the modern and postmodern. The willful disdain for foundations and for goals that fuel the
writings of Baudelaire and Nietzsche, their cultivation of intensity and art "without a net," will
certainly be important for later thinkers who embrace the postmodern label. As some of you noted,
Darwin may have been, with more rhetorical modesty, tilling the same soil. There is an ungrounded
spirit of critique in these authors, and some of you have found that invigorating and some of you have
found it disturbing (or worse!). That is how it should be.
This week we have a chance to take a breath, catch up on some reading and writing and review where
we have been. I will be holding a discussion session (via Google hangout) with some students, and we
intend to record it and make it available before the end of next week. We'll also post some lectures that
serve as reminders of some of the things going on in painting during our period. We've been very
focused on texts in this course, and it's important to remember that authors are also paying attention to
the visual and performing arts. I wish we had time to talk about music, too!
The reading in the three weeks following this little break will focus on the everyday, or the ordinary.
With Freud, Woolf, Emerson and Wittgenstein we are going to be encountering some different issues,
but I hope we will see how all continue to wrestle with the Enlightenment ambitions, the ambitions of
modernity, with which we began.
What a difference a week makes! The snow is all gone (for now)

Happy viewing!
Michael
Fri 15 Mar 2013 7:43 AM PDT (UTC -0700)

Week 6 -- Baudelaire, Nietzsche and Snow!

Well, if you have survived the week on Darwin, then it probably means you are among fittest and will
survive the rest of this class! Next week we take another sharp turn and head back to the Continent to
spend just a brief amount of time with poet Charles Baudelaire and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Both writers extended (one might say exploded) their respective genres. The pieces in Paris Spleen that
I've asked you to read are prose-poems, works that strain against notions of traditional verse. And the
Nietzsche essay that I've assigned is part of his project to turn the history of philosophy into something
else entirely. For Nietzsche, philosophy took a wrong turn with Socrates (!), and it was high time for a
radical correction. We could spend weeks with each author, but in this course we can just introduce
them. I do so under the rubric of "intensity." Instead of searching for the "really real," both writers seek
out an intensity not bound by the usual rules of the game.
Baudelaire and Nietzsche are both important for postmodern thinkers after World War II. They are

appropriated for their iconoclasm, for their disdain for morality and for science, and, most of all, for
their refusal of foundations. The thinkers we've read thus far have core concepts (like authenticity, class
struggle, art, natural selection) that serve as foundations for their approach to knowledge, history,
politics and art. Baudelaire and Nietzsche try to escape a dependence on foundations, and this is key for
the postmoderns we consider at the end of the course.
Please remember that after Baudelaire and Nietzsche we have a midterm review (no exam!). There will
be a couple of video lectures that week on painting, and we are trying a discussion of some of your
questions in a "Google Hangout" that we'll record and post.
At Wesleyan we are about to start "spring break," though today it's snowing like crazy!

A snowy March day on the Wesleyan campus.

Happy reading!
Michael
Fri 8 Mar 2013 7:49 AM PST (UTC -0800)

Week 5 -- Charles Darwin

I trust you've enjoyed reading Flaubert, although I know many of you were at least as frustrated with
Emma and Charles (to say nothing of the good Homais!) as you were delighted with the author's prose.
I have enjoyed reading many of your posts, and I continue to be fascinated by the variety of
perspectives that you bring to this material.
Next week we make another big change as we move to a discussion of intellectual history in England
as a background to Charles Darwin. For many of my students at Wesleyan, Darwin seems an outlier in
the syllabus. This is certainly because he is the only recognizable scientist among our authors, and I
think it's also because of the style in which he writes. Darwin is one of the very few breakthrough
scientists who successfully wrote about his work for a large audience. Although he is very far from the
"art for art's sake" that we began discussing in regard to Flaubert, I trust you will see that his
revolutionary perspective on nature and change is very much a part of the modern and the postmodern.
In the week following Darwin, we turn back to philosophy and literature with readings from Baudelaire
and Nietzsche. Many of you will be pleased to note that after THAT, there is a breather of sortsno
reading for a week. That's what I call "review" on the syllabus. I will post some brief lectures on
painting, but it is meant also as a chance to catch up before we charge onto the twentieth century.
At the beginning of this week I published a short essay about a lecture on liberal education that I gave
in Beijing. You can find it here or (with a picture) on my Wesleyan blog. This weekend the Board of
Trustees is here at Wesleyan for some meetings, and so it is a busy time for your teacher. I look forward

to hearing your reactions to Darwin's "re-imagining the world." Happy Reading!

Yours ever,
Michael
Fri 1 Mar 2013 1:49 PM PST (UTC -0800)

The coming week: Madame Bovary by Flaubert

Dear Friends:
As I write today the Coursera website has been experiencing lots of server problems. I'm sorry for any
inconvenience this has caused you, and I am hopeful that they will have resolved the issues very soon. I
know that those of you who plan to send in writing assignments might have to have a little extra
patience.
This week I've been very impressed by the online discussions concerning Marx and Hegel. Many want
to know more about the ways in which Marx transformed his inheritance from German idealism, others
would like more information on how the German context of critique differs from the French
Enlightenment context with which we began. Still others are interested in seeing how Marx's comments
on alienation and criticism of private property are relevant today. All good questions! I am hopeful that
the readings in subsequent weeks will also inspire fruitful lines of inquiry.What makes a line of inquiry
fruitful? I'd say that a fruitful line of inquiry leads to more inquiry.
In the coming week we switch gears once again as we read Flaubert's great novel Madame Bovary. The
questions we've posed to philosophers might at first seem out of place for a writer of fiction, but I hope
we will see that this novelist was deeply concerned with how modernity was unfolding and how to
position his own art within it. Flaubert was deeply concerned about the place of art in the modern
world, and that reflexive dimension will be crucial for the development of modernism. More about that
in the lectures!
In the past week I was in Los Angeles to talk with Wesleyan alumni about our new College of Film and
the Moving Image. There was a great deal of excitement because some of our recent graduates have
made a film (Beasts of the Southern Wild) that is nominated for some Oscars. Since I often teach a film
and philosophy course (Past on Film), I felt part of the Hollywood anticipation.
Now I'm back in Middletown, waiting for more snow. I'm also waiting to hear your good thoughts
about Flaubert! Happy reading!!
Yours truly,
Michael
Fri 22 Feb 2013 2:02 PM PST (UTC -0800)

Signature Track Option -- Deadline Feb 26th

The team at Coursera recently offered their new Signature Track for The Modern and the
Postmodern. This track allows students to confirm their identity and earn a verifiable electronic

certificate. For many of you this wont be relevant, but some of you might want to take advantage of
this new program.
Below are more details from Coursera regarding the Signature Track.

Earn a Verified Certificate with the Signature Track for The Modern and the Postmodern and
certify your success in this course offered by Wesleyan University on Coursera.
Signature Track securely links your coursework to your identity, allowing you to confidently show the
world what youve achieved on Coursera.
Your Work, Your Identity: Link your coursework to your real identity using your photo ID and
unique typing pattern.
Earn a Verified Certificate: Earn official recognition from Wesleyan University and Coursera for
your accomplishment with a verifiable electronic certificate.
Share Your Success: Share your electronic course records with employers, educational institutions,
or anyone else through a unique, secure URL.

Identity Verification
To join the Signature Track for The Modern and the Postmodern, youll build a Signature Profile that
you use to tie your coursework to your identity. Your Signature Profile includes a biometric profile of
your unique typing pattern and your photo. Every time you submit coursework, youll confirm your
identity with a typing sample or webcam photo.
Verified Certificates and Shareable Course Records
When you successfully complete The Modern and the Postmoderns Signature Track, youll receive a
Verified Certificate issued by Wesleyan University and Coursera. Youll also be able to electronically
share your course performance via a Shareable Course Records page. Your Verified Certificate does not
include credit towards a degree, nor does it make you a student at Wesleyan University. Instead, the
Verified Certificate proves you met the passing criteria, as outlined in the grading policy, of this
rigorous course.
When to Join and Price
You can join the Signature Track for The Modern and the Postmodern beginning now by going to this
link. The option to join will end three weeks after the class start date.
The regular price of joining the Signature Track for this class is $89, but as part of the first launch
you'll be able to join for an introductory price of $49.
Other Options
Joining the Signature Track for The Modern and the Postmodern is optional. You can still fully
participate in the free course if you decide not to join. The course will still offer the standard Statement
of Accomplishment if you successfully complete the regular course.

Verified certification for courses opens up many new and valuable opportunities for students, while
giving Wesleyan University the ability to invest in continuing to provide high-quality free courses to
students around the world. Free access to this and all of the courses on Coursera will remain available
to all students, as part of our core mission of making high-quality education available to everyone.
To learn more, please take a look at the Signature Track Guidebook.
We hope that you're as excited about the Signature Track as we are. Happy learning!
Tue 19 Feb 2013 6:48 AM PST (UTC -0800)

Week 3 - Karl Marx

Well, we are almost through Week 2, and it feels like we are gathering some momentum. Next week we
go on to Karl Marx, and so we move from thinkers who were writing on the brink of major European
upheaval to a thinker who feels he is living in an era of (and helping to make) radical change through
revolution. We begin with some of Marxs youthful philosophical work on alienation, and then we are
on to his political tract, The Communist Manifesto. You will see that I spend some time on another
German philosopher, G.W.F. Hegel, in order to set the stage for Marxs ideas of history and its
meaning. Of course, there is a lot more to say about Hegel, his context, and the issues with which he
wrestled (one of my early books was about the reception of Hegel in France). But in this class we
introduce thinkers and move quickly
Some have asked why we started with Kant, or why these particular texts of Rousseaus were assigned.
These are reasonable questions because there is no set canon of texts that everybody would agree
about. As I said on the syllabus, I hope these readings are good to think with, and that they lead many
of you to read other things by these (and related) authors.
I have been so impressed by the quality of discussion on the Forums. I wish I could reply to many of
the threads, but I am teaching another course on campus (Photography and Representation) and
running the university. But I do appreciate your camaraderie and your intelligent explication of some
very difficult issues. I am learning so much from you, and I am grateful for the efforts you are putting
into the class.
We will be releasing the first writing assignment very soon. I can tell you the length (800 words) and
the question: How did Kant define Enlightenment? Use Kants definition to discuss whether either
Rousseau or Marx is an Enlightenment figure. The essays will be peer-graded, and well be sending out
more information about that soon.
The snow is melting here in Connecticut, and the weekend is beckoning. Happy learning!
Yours truly,
Michael Roth
Fri 15 Feb 2013 1:33 PM PST (UTC -0800)

Second Week
Dear Friends:
We are moving into the second week of our course, and I trust you are all finding editions of
Rousseaus Discourses with which you can work. This week there are four video lectures, and that will
be more typical of our class.
Ive very much appreciated the kind words students have shared about the opening lectures, and Im
impressed with the good questions and thoughtful conversations inspired by Kant and Rousseau. I
would, though, like to pass along the advice I often repeat to my students here on campus. Many of us
have the habit of coming to judgment about something we read pretty quickly. We think we see what
that author is up to, or we think we see where the author has made a mistake of some kind. I tell my
students here at Wesleyan that they should assume that anything that looks like a mistake to us in
reading someone as important as, say, Kant, is likely to be there for a very good reason. That reason, in
some of our authors, will be to provoke readers into thinking they have discovered an error.
In person, I can (most of the time) get students to stop telling me what they think of Rousseau, and tell
me instead why they think Rousseau said what he said. I ask them to assume that the authors we are
reading already considered the issues we critically raise -- at least we will get more out of the texts if
we assume this. In contemporary culture the urge to "critique" is often much stronger than the urge to
consider, and I am hoping that my class opens us further to consideration. There will always be time for
critique.
I try to make a case each week for whomever we are reading, and to do so, in part, in relation to the
writers cultural context. I have favorites, I suppose, but each week the author assigned is my favorite!
I am sending this from a very snowy campus in Central Connecticut. If you are curious about what its
like here, you can check out my blog, Roth on Wesleyan. Ive just put up some pictures taken after last
nights blizzard. On a more intellectual note, the Washington Post ran a review I wrote on a book of
popular philosophy. You can read that here.
Wishing you all the best,
Michael Roth
Sun 10 Feb 2013 12:56 PM PST (UTC -0800)

Welcome to the Class!

Welcome to The Modern and the Postmodern! It's great finally to be underway. In this course we'll
begin talking about some of the authors and some of the concepts that have defined modernity, and
we'll consider why recent writers have argued that we have moved beyond the modern to the
postmodern.
Most of the authors we read in this class develop critical perspectives on the status quo of their time,
but few agree with one another. I don't attempt to poke holes in the authors' arguments, but instead I try
to make a case for each author we read. You'll decide which writers and ideas you want to continue

thinking about.
We begin with the idea of Enlightenment, which I describe as the effort to make the world more of a
home for human beings. My lectures will quote from the readings as I try to underscore some of the
key ways that these texts illuminate modernity. You can find a syllabus for the class on the Coursera
class page with links to editions of many of the texts assigned. We won't be all working with the same
editions and translations, but I trust we'll find our way.
In an earlier email message I provided some biography, and I'll just repeat some of that here. I am
president ofWesleyan University in Connecticut (USA), and I write and teach in history/philosophy and
humanities programs. My books are in the field of intellectual history, and my research interests
concern how people make sense of the past. So, I've written about philosophy, politics, psychology,
photography and the arts. My most recent book is calledMemory, Trauma and History: Essays on
Living With the Past. You can find a list of some of my other books here. I've been teaching different
versions of this course for many yearsfrom small seminars to larger lectures. But this is the first
online version, and I am very excited to learn how what I've done in the classroom might translate to
this format.
Alas, I won't be in direct contact with students in the class on a regular basisthere are just too many!
But I will be listening in on the forums from time to time and look forward to hearing your reactions to
the readings and videos. The Teaching Assistants (Ethan, Rebecca and Ari) are Wesleyan students who
have taken The Modern and Postmodern here on campus, and they will be following your discussions
more closely. We plan to have a couple of live discussions that will allow for more interaction. More on
that later in the course.
Welcome!
-- Michael S. Roth
President, Wesleyan University
Fri 1 Feb 2013 7:04 AM PST (UTC -0800)

Documentary on higher education

Dear students of The Modern and The Postmodern:
We are producing a documentary film on higher education, including portraits of innovative
teaching and learning such as Professor Roth's class. In addition to capturing the experiences
of students and staff on the physical campus, we are interested in telling the stories of
students like you who are experiencing the class online. We'd be thrilled to learn more about
what drew you to the Modern and The Postmodern and what it's like to take it at a distance.
Anyone can participate, and we'd be happy to correspond with you over email to set up an
initial conversation over Skype.
Please just send us a message with your name, location, contact info and a little bit about
yourself (links encouraged) to the following address: higheredfilm@gmail.com. We will get
back to you shortly - looking forward to hearing from you!

Andrew Rossi
Director