090103 VO Introduction to Modern Greek Enlightenment (2020S)

This course is an introduction to the distinctive manifestation of the intellectual movement of the Enlightenment that has been termed "modern Greek Enlightenment". Through a variety of documents we will discuss the state of Greek society in the last fifty years before 1821, with an emphasis on the educational and social initiatives that prepared the way to the War of Independence. If the Ottoman rule and the aspiration to freedom gave Greek Enlightenment a predominantly political character, there are also social, philosophical, scientific, and religious questions that link the Greek exponents of the movement to their European counterparts. Central to our discussion will be the leading figure of Adamantios Korais, but also thinkers such as Iosipos Moisiodax, Kostantinos Koumas, Veniamin Lesvios, Athanasios Psalidas. Key texts by Kant, Locke, Diderot, Voltaire and others will consolidate the comparative frame of our discussion. Finally we will consider continuities and discontinuities between Enlightenment and Romanticism both in Europe and in Greece (eg. the language question from Korais to Dionysios Solomos).