ENGL 232 | Romanticism, Consciousness, and the Psychedelic Renaissance

Human consciousness is at once the most basic and most mysterious fact of our existence. It is difficult to describe because it cannot be compare the ground upon which the experience of living rests, including our ability to make comparisons. Moreover, its source remains elusive; no one knows, the brain, a material organ, creates perceptions, ideas, or emotions, all of which are immaterial. Poets, novelists, and philosophers of the Romantic 19th C.) were especially preoccupied with the mysterious nature of consciousness and sought both to describe and explain the puzzling relationship subjective experience and the exterior world that subjectivity negotiates. This course focuses on the ways in which literary art of the British Romantic questions that attend the study of consciousness: Is the mind created by nature, or does it create nature? What is the mind's relationship with the subjective experience of being a self governed by imagination? In what ways are the literary arts uniquely suited to explore the mystery of human also examines how Romantic era authors subsequently influenced poetry and music of the Beat Generation and the 1960s counterculture, as well with contemporary research in philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, physics, and the burgeoning field of psychedelic studies.