Friday, May 21, 2010

Romanticism - Open University

I am always fascinated by Romanticism. Although this term is usually reserved for a cultural movement in nineteenth century Europe, it is not so clearly a movement as rather a style of thinking, a type of mind set, a particular view of man and the world. As such, it is sufficiently amorphous so that it cannot so easily be pinned in space and time. Part of my fascination is the inkling Romanticism actually never went away and is still part of our cultural landscape today.

This demands a more active definition of Romanticism and one might consider turning to the Open University which offers an undergraduate course From Enlightenment to Romanticism and together with this course, it offers a small set of audio under the title Analyzing European Romaniticism (feed). Although this is far from a course, or even an introduction to Romanticism, it does give six useful audio essays delineating critical aspects of nineteenth century Romanticism.

The Open University will set the scene in Germany, in literature, philosophy and the adversaries of Romanticism and consequently it will go on to talk of England, France and Spain. Eventually this is a mere kick off and in order to dive deeper into the atmosphere and logic of Romanticism, one must continue to look. In podcast, fine contributions were made by Entitled Opinions and Berkeley's History 5.

More Open University:
Ethics Bites,
The things we forgot to remember.