The course examines the series of dramatic changes which began to take place in Europe more than five hundred years ago eventually leading to the consolidation of a modern cultural identity whose main characteristics are still identified with the spirit of our time. The constant and expeditious changes that we experience in everyday life are a result of various breakthroughs in the system of social organization, in economic development and in science and philosophy, since the Renaissance and the Reformation up until the age of Globalization supported by information technology.
The course will focus on the processes which brought about and determined the modern turn as a cultural phenomenon and as a cultural paradigm, in an attempt to understand the foundations of contemporary culture and to review the solutions and achievements of modernity as well as its dilemmas and contradictions.