In Ideas of the 20th Century, Dr. Daniel Bonevac examines the major intellectual movements that shaped modern Western thought. Beginning with the Scientific, Agricultural, and Industrial Revolutions, the course explores how traditional beliefs came under pressure, creating tensions between human freedom and scientific determinism and contributing to cultural and political upheavals. Through the ideas of thinkers such as Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and the existentialists, as well as debates over totalitarianism, liberty, language, truth, and justice, the course traces the search for meaning in the modern world. By connecting philosophy, politics, and culture, it reveals how the central ideas of the 20th century continue to shape contemporary society and the challenges facing Western civilization today.
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Air Date: 2026-03-19
In our introductory lecture, Dr. Bonevac reveals the interdisciplinary roots of 20th-century thought, tracing how the...
Air Date: 2026-03-19
In lecture two, we encounter the crisis of belief in the 20th century, examining how tensions between scientific and ...
Air Date: 2026-03-19
In lecture three, we analyze how early 20th-century intellectual movements like Shaw's cynicism about moral values an...
Air Date: 2026-03-19
In lecture four, we examine the rise of conservatism and progressivism in the 1910s and 1920s and their lasting impac...
Air Date: 2026-03-19
In lecture five, we study the Russian Revolution's roots in Marxist philosophy, examining how Marx's materialism redu...
Air Date: 2026-03-19
In lecture six, we explore the profound impact of World War I on Western intellectual thought through the poetry of W...
Air Date: 2026-03-19
In lecture seven, we explore the contrasting perspectives of Rudyard Kipling and F. Scott Fitzgerald as voices of the...
Air Date: 2026-03-19
In our eighth and final lecture, we investigate how World War I trauma created "unfathomable reservoirs of the absurd...