Sips & Scholars: Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment with Michael Stevenson

Class is in session this summer! We’re partnering with the Brooklyn Institute of Social Research to offer the second annual Sips & Scholars series, free lectures set in bars, parks, cafes, and restaurants all over Brooklyn. This session, entitled "Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment" will be led by Michael Stevenson. 

European Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries valued universalism, cosmopolitanism, and the abstract pursuit of rational order, both natural and socio-political. Intellectual historians and historians of philosophy often speak of a “Counter-Enlightenment” which opposed these sacred values. This opposition, so it was suggested, was marked by a subterranean irrationalism grounded in the given, unmediated, sensuous and private, and connected to instinctual, vitalistic and primordial forces. Thus subjective feeling, faith, conviction, and fanaticism is privileged over rationality and objectivity, leading us to believe "Counter-Enlightenment" is the origin and abettor of all forms of 20th and 21st century nationalisms, fascisms and totalitarianisms which threaten liberal, secularized democratic societies. This lecture will try to challenge this picture, and to reevaluate this movement as more of a corrective, alternative Enlightenment than a rejection of it.

Food and refreshments will be available! Please RSVP in advance. 

Everyone is welcome! Come ready to learn and open to discuss interesting questions together. Advanced reading is not required, but we encourage you to check out the suggested booklist. 

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PARTICPANT

 

Michael Stevenson is a member of the Core Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.  He was educated at University of Pennsylvania (B.A.), Cornell University, and Columbia University (PhD), and has previously taught at Columbia University, Barnard College and Hunter College, City University of New York. He specializes in the German philosophical tradition, particularly Kant, German Idealism, Phenomenology, and Existentialism. 

 

 

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About The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research

The Brooklyn Institute for Social Researchis an interdisciplinary teaching and research institute that offers critical, community-based education in the humanities and social sciences. Working in partnership with local businesses and cultural organizations, we integrate rigorous but accessible scholarly study with the everyday lives of working adults and re-imagine scholarship for the 21st century.