人类理智和人之为人的来源是什么？当约翰·洛克声称（在1690年的《人类理智论》一文中）知识仅仅来源于经验时，这一问题的答案便更倾向于个人的历史经历和背景，而非上帝的意志或者不变的自然法则。如果说洛克的理论一方面引发了某些人宣称个体可以决定其人生历程理论的话，那么另一方面，从“我们是自身经验的产物”这一观念出发也会很容易得出相反的结论：我们不过是盲目的被动反应的机器，无法掌握自身的命运。在“漫长的十八世纪”文学中，该问题是如何形成的，此后又它有哪些不同反应？本课程会追寻这些脉络研究整个过程。 阅读材料将涵盖多种文体，从抒情诗、小说到日记集、哲学散文和政治评论，包括亚历山大·蒲柏、乔纳森·斯威夫特、玛丽·埃斯代尔、大卫·休谟、劳伦斯·斯特恩、奥兰达·厄奎亚诺、玛丽·黑斯、玛丽·雪莱的作品。涉及讨论的主题有：性别认同的建立，社会中的个体，想象与诗人的创作。要求写两篇论文，篇幅分别是：一篇5-6页，一篇8-10页。

When John Locke declared (in the 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding) that knowledge was derived solely from experience, he raised the possibility that human understanding and identity were not the products of God's will or of immutable laws of nature so much as of one's personal history and background. If on the one hand Locke's theory led some to pronounce that individuals could determine the course of their own lives, however, the idea that we are the products of our experience just as readily supported the conviction that we are nothing more than machines acting out lives whose destinies we do not control. This course will track the formulation of that problem, and a variety of responses to it, in the literature of the "long eighteenth century." Readings will range widely across genre, from lyric poetry and the novel to diary entries, philosophical prose, and political essays, including texts by Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Mary Astell, David Hume, Laurence Sterne, Olaudah Equiano, Mary Hays, and Mary Shelley. Topics to be discussed include the construction of gender identities; the individual in society; imagination and the poet's work. There will be two essays, one 5-6 pages and one 8-10 pages in length, and required presentations.