Oh dear, the French. A terrible subject, especially so since it seems to me that everyone, ever, anywhere, pretty much dislikes them. Oh sure, it's the language of romance and there's that tower in paris that everyone at some point takes takes a picture of, but the actual people? No thank you! Then again, I am quite biased at the moment. I'm doing a course on Counter Enlightenment and they pretty much hate the French for reasons. I mean, the anti-Christ was not a person, but rather a "nation composed of individuals, who should profess and act up to the impious principles of the atheistic scoffers" - consequently in a "pandemonium of licentious anarchists and determined atheists" the anti-Christ would be found and "we can scarecely hesistate to pronounce him to be revolutionary France." Well take that, France, you're the anti-Christ! And other bad stuff too, with your revolutions and your evil ways!
I'll get back to that in a minute, but first it might help to elaborate a little bit on how Counter Enlightenment fits in the "grand scheme of things I do at university." I'm expecting that, since you are reading this, you probably know who I am, because well, chances are you're either my mom or a really bored friend from university that should be writing an essay (GET BACK TO YOUR ESSAY) - still, I suspect sometimes that even my mom doesn't know what it is exactly that I'm doing, beyond "something with history and genderstudies, I think. In Utrecht! As far as I know anyway..." As a student of Taal- en Cultuurstudies (TCS, translated as Language and Cultural Studies, I suppose) it's a bit difficult to explain what you're up to at any given time anyway, since it differs so much from person to person. I am majoring in Political History and International Relations, with a minor in Gender Studies. However, that still doesn't solve the problem of what I actually do, and how I ended up following a course on Counter Enlightenment.
That's the beauty of TCS though. I can pick whatever I like. It's how I ended up taking three courses in English, a course on Art History, an introductory course to Bible History, a course on Cold War History, something with Gender and Globalisation, a historeography of feminist ideas, a course on Dutch Identities, etc. etc. So, Counter Enlightenment, why not? In the grand scheme of things that is my course selection, the only real logical thing is how I pick my courses. "Oh, this seems interesting, why not?" Of course, they warn you beforehand that in the end, your bachelor degree should reflect a variety of courses that form a whole and I haven't yet figured out how to bluff my way through that, but I'll get there. If not, I'll be doing a master in gender studies anyway, and I'm hoping that piece of paper will be more important in future job interviews anyway. In any case, my defense of my choice in subjects might go something like this: "Well, I needed four subjects in the gender department for my minor, which I picked because I thought it was interesting. Then the courses in the history are all on modern history, because I think that's interesting as well. So it's a sort of historical... critical... mix of things... that's quite erhm. Yeah. Look. A bird!" So it needs some work.
In any case, Counter Enlightenment is a brilliant course that I would reccommend to everyone who still needs a level 3 Modern(ish) History course, because of the French.
Well, not really the French, because the course is awesome because of the professor, the discussions, the subject material and so forth, but the French aren't the most well-liked group of people throughout the course content. And that's what I started this post with, the French, that is, so I needed to get back to them for this post to make sense. Anyway, I started writing this post to procrastinate on writing an essay (which is pretty much the biggest motivational force that drives me to do anything in my life at all, I think) - I'll conclude this post by things the French are, and some other random amusing bits from the course on Counter Enlightenment.
The French: They produced Napoleon, who, through a lot of creative interpretation of the bible, was seen as the anti-Christ. How awesome is that? People in the nineteenth century went all: "Well that Napoleon could hardly be called an upgrade from all that revolutionary stuff they did earlier, so how do we explain that? He's the anti-Christ. Yeah. Definitely. Cos if you spell his name creatively, and do some fancy math, it totally adds up to 666 which is the number of the beast. THE END OF THE WORLD IS NEIGHT, NAPOLEON IS THE ANTI-CHRIST!"
Similarly, the French Revolution should be interpreted as the result of a godless and lawless horrible people. First, there was Enlightenment and the philosophes, then, a lot of historians went "but there was no one Enlightenment" and the subject got complicated. But the nineteenth century people didn't really know that yet, so they went all, look at the French, they are evil, EEEEVILLLLLL. Fucking philosophes, with their rational thinking and critical stuff. Just listen to your king. And then Napoleon, well that's no king either. So the end of the world has come, the apocalypse is near. The French Revolution is the end of times. Etc.
Now, that's Counter-Enlightenment.
What's brilliant about Counter Enlightenment though (and insert some historians rambling about a construct, complications, and so forth, here - but I'm not aiming for historical accuracy now -) In any case, there's Romanticism and all the feeeeeeelings, there's Conservatism and their weird approach to god and history. There's Mysticism, which, according to yesterday's lecture, is basically like sex. How to get in tune with the universe? The joining of two people and an orgasm of course. Not bad. In any case, it's brilliant, because this course allows me to read articles on Napoleon as the anti-Christ, various ways in which the French people are the most aweful on the world (no really, chivalry is dead because of the French), articles on animal magnetism and feminism, articles with titles such as "Academic Hutchinsonians and their Quest for Relevance" (ouch!) and so forth. This course is awesome and University is the best thing ever. And with that nerdy ending, it's time to start writing that essay.
(The quote about the French being the anti-Christ comes from an article by Michael Pesenson: "Napoleon Bonaparte and Apocalyptic Discourse in Early Nineteenth-Century Russia)
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