In this moment of unprecedented economic inequality and populist backlash, the time seems ripe for a return to Marx. But what would such a 21st-century Marxism look like? How would Marx understand (or not understand) Trump and Brexit? How might Marxist thought need to be updated in light of the present? What can Marxism learn from other…

In the last 15 or so years, the status of television within the broader cultural landscape has undergone a radical shift. In the wake of so-called "quality television" programs like The Wire and Breaking Bad, television — once derided as a form of mere entertainment — is now arguably the paradigmatic art form of contemporary US culture. In…

Counter to received wisdom, it is in the Romantic period, not the 20th century, that war assumes its modern form as “total war.” In this seminar, we will thus examine how literary, philosophical, and artistic Romanticisms grapple with this new phenomenon. Subtopics include: war, media, and technology; landscape, spectatorship, and the sublime;…

This course examines the crisis of European subjectivity in the wake of WWII and the Holocaust. Such a crisis implicates not merely the concepts of Europe and the subject, but the very concept of the concept and thus entails a transformation of thought itself. Topics include crises of the subject and the human; the question of technology; the…

Co-taught by Professors Daniel Hoffman-Schwartz (Comparative Literature) and Anson Rabinbach (History), and drawing on the expertise of distinguished Princeton faculty and visitors, this seminar aims to provide a broad, multidiciplinary perspective on turning points in European culture from the early modern period to the present. It serves as…