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 the core course for the Program in European Cultural Studies (ECS) and the Program in Contemporary European Politics and Society (EPS).

Sample reading list:
Galileo Galilei, Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger)
Richard Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
Charles Baudelaire, "The Painter of Modern Life"
Walter Benjamin, Berlin Childhood around 1900
Sergei Eisenstein, Film Form & October (film)