In 1667, John Milton published what he intended both as the crowning …
In 1667, John Milton published what he intended both as the crowning achievement of a poetic career and a justification of God's ways to man: an epic poem which retold and reimagined the Biblical story of creation, temptation, and original sin. Even in a hostile political climate, Paradise Lost was almost immediately recognized as a classic, and one fate of a classic is to be rewritten, both by admirers and by antagonists. In this seminar, we will read Paradise Lost alongside works of 20th century fantasy and science fiction which rethink both Milton's text and its source.
Close study of a limited group of writers. Instruction and practice in …
Close study of a limited group of writers. Instruction and practice in oral and written communication. Topic for Fall: Willa Cather. Topic for Spring: Oscar Wilde and the 90s. From Course Home Page: This seminar provides intensive study of texts by two American authors (Herman Melville, 1819-1891, and Toni Morrison, 1931-) who, using lyrical, radically innovative prose, explore in different ways epic notions of American identity. Focusing on Melville's Typee (1846), Moby-Dick (1851), and The Confidence-Man (1857) and Morrison's Sula (1973), Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), and Paradise (1998), the class will address their common concerns with issues of gender, race, language, and nationhood. Be prepared to read deeply (i.e. a small number of texts with considerable care), to draw on a variety of sources in different media, and to employ them in creative research, writing, and multimedia projects.
Close study of a limited group of writers. Instruction and practice in …
Close study of a limited group of writers. Instruction and practice in oral and written communication. Topic for Fall: Willa Cather. Topic for Spring: Oscar Wilde and the 90s. At this distance Oscar Wilde seems not only to be on the threshold between centuries and between cultural-systems: in many ways he seems to be the threshold. His aesthetics look backwards to the aestheticism of Pater and the moral sensibility of Ruskin, and they look forward to Modernism. His antecedents are 18th century playwrights, and he opened a path of irony and structural self-reflexivity that leads to Beckett and Tom Stoppard. He was Irish but achieved his great successes in England. Arguably, his greatest success was his greatest public failure: in his scandalous trials he shaped 20th century attitudes toward homosexuality and toward theatricality and toward performativity. His greatest performance was the role of "Oscar Wilde": in that sense he taught the 20th century how to be itself.
What does the Genesis story of creation and temptation tell us about …
What does the Genesis story of creation and temptation tell us about gender, about heterosexuality, and about the origins of evil? What is the nature of God, and how can we account for that nature in a cosmos where evil exists? When is rebellion justified, and when is authority legitimate? These are some of the key questions that engaged the poet John Milton, and that continue to engage readers of his work.
Subject studies important examples of the literary form that, between the beginning …
Subject studies important examples of the literary form that, between the beginning of the eighteenth century and the end of the nineteenth century, became an indispensable instrument for representing modern life, in the hands of such writers as Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Burney, Austen, Scott, Dickens, the Bront%s, Eliot, Hardy, and Conrad. The class alternates between eighteenth and nineteenth century topics, and may be repeated for credit with instructor's permission.
In this class, you will read, think about, and (I hope) enjoy …
In this class, you will read, think about, and (I hope) enjoy important examples of what has become one of the most popular literary genres today, if not the most popular: the novel. Some of the questions we will consider are: Why did so many novels appear in the eighteenth century? Why were theyŰÓand are theyŰÓcalled novels? Who wrote them? Who read them? Who narrates them? What are they likely to be about? Do they have distinctive characteristics? What is their relationship to the time and place in which they appeared? How have they changed over the years? And, most of all, why do we like to read them so much?
This subject traces the history of the European novel by studying texts …
This subject traces the history of the European novel by studying texts that have been influential in connection with two interrelated ideas. 1) When serious fiction deals with matters of great consequence, it should not deal with the actions of persons of consequence--kings, princes, high elected officials and the like--but rather with the lives of apparently ordinary people and the everyday details of their social ambitions and desires. To use a phrase of Balzac's, serious fiction deals with "what happens everywhere". 2) This idea sometimes goes with another: that the most significant representations of the human condition are those dealing with persons who try to compel society to accept them as its destined agent, despite their absence of high birth or inheritance.
Intensive close study and analysis of historically significant media "texts" that have …
Intensive close study and analysis of historically significant media "texts" that have been considered landmarks or have sustained extensive critical and scholarly discussion. Such texts may include oral epic, story cycles, plays, novels, films, opera, television drama and digital works. Emphasizes close reading from a variety of contextual and aesthetic perspectives. Syllabus varies each year, and may be organized around works that have launched new modes and genres, works that reflect upon their own media practices, or on stories that migrate from one medium to another. At least one of the assigned texts are collaboratively taught, and visiting lectures and discussions are a regular feature of the subject.
Emphasis on the analytical reading of lyric poetry in England and the …
Emphasis on the analytical reading of lyric poetry in England and the United States. Syllabus usually includes Shakespeare's sonnets, Donne, Keats, Dickinson, Frost, Eliot, Marianne Moore, Lowell, Rich, and Bishop. This subject is an introduction to poetry as a genre; most of our texts are originally written in English. We read poems from the Renaissance through the 17th and 18th centuries, Romanticism, and Modernism. Focus will be on analytic reading, on literary history, and on the development of the genre and its forms; in writing we attend to techniques of persuasion and of honest evidenced sequential argumentation. Poets to be read will include William Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth, William Wordsworth, John Keats, T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, and some contemporary writers.
Survey of Indian civilization from 2500 BC to present-day. Traces major political …
Survey of Indian civilization from 2500 BC to present-day. Traces major political events as well as economic, social, ecological, and cultural developments. Primary and secondary readings enhance understanding of this unique civilization, and shape and improve understanding in analyzing and interpreting historical data. Examines major thematic debates in Indian history through class discussion.
Medieval and early modern Russia stood at the crossroads of Europe and …
Medieval and early modern Russia stood at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. In this course we will examine some of the native developments and foreign influences which most affected the course of Russian history. Particular topics include the rise of the Kievan State, the Mongol Yoke, the rise of Muscovy, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, relations with Western Europe. How did foreigners perceive Russia? How did those living in the Russian lands perceive foreigners? What social relations were developing between nobility and peasantry, town and country, women and men? What were the relations of each of these groups to the state? How did state formation come about in Kievan and Muscovite Russia? What were the political, religious, economic, and social factors affecting relations between state and society? In examining these questions we will consider a variety of sources including contemporary accounts (both domestic and foreign), legal and political documents, historical monographs and interpretive essays.
Focusing on the emperors Augustus and Nero, this course investigates the ways …
Focusing on the emperors Augustus and Nero, this course investigates the ways in which Roman emperors used art, architecture, coinage and other media to create and project an image of themselves, the ways in which the surviving literary sources from the Roman period reinforced or subverted that image, and the ways in which both phenomena have contributed to post-classical perceptions of Roman emperors. Material studied will include the art, architecture, and coinage of Augustan and Neronian Rome, the works of Suetonius and Tacitus, and modern representations of the emperors such as those found in I, Claudius and Quo Vadis.
This class is a global survey of the great transformation in history …
This class is a global survey of the great transformation in history known as the "Industrial Revolution." Topics include origins of mechanized production, the factory system, steam propulsion, electrification, mass communications, mass production and automation. Emphasis on the transfer of technology and its many adaptations around the world. Countries treated include Great Britain, France, Germany, the US, Sweden, Russia, Japan, China, and India. Includes brief reflection papers and a final paper.
This art history video discussion examines Edouard Manet's "Emile Zola" 1868, oil …
This art history video discussion examines Edouard Manet's "Emile Zola" 1868, oil on canvas (Musee d'Orsay, Paris). This portrait was painted in appreciation for the support Zola gave to Manet in his 1866 essay in La Revue du XXe siecle and during Manet's independent exhibition held along side the Universal Exposition in 1867.
This art history video discussion examines Edouard Manet's "In the Conservatory", 1878-1879, …
This art history video discussion examines Edouard Manet's "In the Conservatory", 1878-1879, oil on canvas (Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin).
This art history video discussion examines Edouard Manet's "Le Dejeuner Sur L'herbe" …
This art history video discussion examines Edouard Manet's "Le Dejeuner Sur L'herbe" (Luncheon on the Grass), oil on canvas, 1863 (Musee d'Orsay, Paris).
This art history video discussion examines Edouard Manet's "The Balcony", 1868-69, oil …
This art history video discussion examines Edouard Manet's "The Balcony", 1868-69, oil on canvas, (Musee d'Orsay, Paris). The three principal figures depicted are each a friend of the artist. From left to right they are: the painters Berthe Morisot and Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemet, and Fanny Claus, a violinist. Some have suggested that the fourth figure, barely visible in the shadows, is the young Leon Leenhoff, the son of Manet's wife.
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