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Literature in early modern Europe was essential to the naturalizing of the human body, a partner in the reshaping of the cultures and disciplines around it. This course looks at several shifts within major literary works of the 17th and 18th centuries, a time of great intellectual upheaval, a moment when the interpenetration of the literary, scientific and political cultures was such that “art for art’s sake” would have been considered irresponsible. The primary goals of the course are to allow students to understand the intrinsic literary value of the texts, but equally to show how that literary activity, both of writing and of reading, was the vehicle for the elaboration of the modern mind set. We will focus on three cases: vision, the body’s “economy” and Body of the State, and the “scandal” of smallpox vaccination. Texts will include, for example, extracts from: Newton’s Opticks, Cyrano de Bergerac’s The States and Empires of the Sun, Montesquieu’s Persian Letters and Spirit of the Laws, Voltaire’s English Letters, Rousseau’s The New Eloise, Laclos’ Dangerous Liaisons, Guillotine’s text inventing the guillotine. For more information, please see the full course description at http://www.wilda.org/Courses/CourseVault/Undergrad/Naturalizing/Description.html. This course and texts will be in English, but readings will also be available in French.