Michael S. Roth

Michael S. Roth is president and University Professor at Wesleyan University. Author and curator (most notably of the exhibition “Sigmund Freud: Conflict and Culture,” which opened at the Library of Congress in 1998), Roth describes his scholarly interests as centered on “how people make sense of the past.” His fifth book, Memory, Trauma and History: Essays on Living with the Past was published in 2011 by Columbia University Press, and he is currently preparing his next book, Why Liberal Education Matters for Yale University Press. He continues to publish essays, book reviews, and commentaries in a wide variety of venues, including national newspapers, scholarly journals, and the Huffington Post.

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The Modern and the Postmodern (Part 1) (Coursera)

This course examines how the idea of "the modern" develops at the end of the 18th century in European philosophy and literature, and how being modern (or progressive, or hip) became one of the crucial criteria for understanding and evaluating cultural change. Are we still in modernity, or have [...]

The Modern and the Postmodern (Part 2) (Coursera)

This course examines how the idea of "the modern" develops at the end of the 18th century in European philosophy and literature, and how being modern (or progressive, or hip) became one of the crucial criteria for understanding and evaluating cultural change. Are we still in modernity, or have [...]

How to Change the World (Coursera)

How can we use the things we share in common to address some of the most challenging problems facing the world? This course examines issues concerning poverty, the environment, technology, health care, gender, education and activism to helps us understand better how to initiate positive change.