LARTS 246 — Ancient Near East
A writing system based on moist clay and wedges. Magic spells and maps through the underworld to the throne of Judgment. The production of the first papyrus scrolls, the potter’s wheel, law codes, astronomical and mathematical systems. Monumental architecture, ranging from city walls to mountain shaped temples, and decorative and useful arts: pottery, jewelry, carpets—even recipes for making beer. This course examines the literary and other cultural artifacts of the Ancient Near Eastern civilizations, focusing on Mesopotamia, Egypt, ancient Iran (Persia) and the Levant (Syria, Israel, and Palestine). We’ll look at ideas of kingship, society and social stratification, mythologies, and the arts from the early bronze age (about 3300 BCE) to the time of the Babylonian and Israelite kingdoms (through 539 BCE). We’ll consider the reality of plunder, warfare, and destruction in this fragile region and the possibility of constructing a consistent history of competing early cultures in the 21st century. (2 credits) Hoffmann
LARTS 257 — The Romantic Movement
This interdisciplinary course will focus on Romantic writers. To contextualize and enrich our literary explorations, we will simultaneously study romanticist innovations in music, the visual arts, and intellectual thought. (2 credits) Gatlin
LARTS 346 — Wilderness to Wasteland: American Landscape and Identity
Focusing on literature, painting, and photography, this course explores how narratives and images of American landscapes have shaped ideas about national identity. We will examine prominent metaphors for the American landscape—the “virgin land,” the “wilderness,” the “frontier,” the “sublime,” the “pastoral,” the “wasteland”—and investigate their limitations. Looking at race, ethnicity, gender, global economies, and diverse American experiences, we will ask: What is “Americanness”? How are place, nation, and identity related? Which landscapes are seen as “quintessentially American” and which are overlooked? (2 credits) Gatlin
LARTS 363 — Film Studies I
Following some of the principal developments in narrative films, we will give particular attention to examining how the visual elements work together to convey meaning and create their overall effect. How do lighting, camera angle, and frame composition work together? How does the rhythm of a scene shape our experience and expectations? This course explores ways of seeing and forms of representation in film, examines the viewer’s engagement in the visual image and narrative, and establishes critical perspectives for viewing films. (2 credits) Breese
LARTS 364 — Film Studies II
This course focuses on European art films from the ‘20s to the present. We will examine surrealist and expressionist films, the work of Eisenstein, the French "New Wave," German "New Cinema," and selected Italian films. Prerequisite: LARTS 363 (2 credits) Breese
LARTS 456 — Food for Thought: Representations of Food in Literature & Culture
This course examines the artistic, cultural, personal, and political significance of food on local and global scales. Through literature, critical essays, films, and personal observations, students will explore a menu of topics including: food as artistic inspiration; as entertainment, nourishment, and tradition; as object of desire and abhorrence; as tool of seduction and resistance; and as focal point in debates about health, disease, hunger, consumer culture, gender, race, class, nationality, colonization, social justice, genetic modification, and environmental degradation. (2 credits) Gatlin
LARTS 461 — Modernism
“Make it new!” demanded modernist poet Ezra Pound. This interdisciplinary course will focus on the “new” literary styles and statements of modernist writers who sought to represent a world characterized by rapid social and technological changes. Students will study not only “high modernism” but also the Harlem Renaissance and the Proletarian movement. To contextualize and enrich our literary explorations, we will simultaneously study modernist innovations in music, the visual arts, and intellectual thought. (2 credits) Gatlin
LARTS 462 — Postmodernism
This interdisciplinary course will focus on the literary styles and statements of postmodernist writers, whose work has been variously characterized as “the sheer pleasure of . . . invention” and as “modernism with the optimism taken out.” To contextualize and enrich our literary explorations, we will simultaneously study postmodernist innovations in music, the visual arts, and intellectual thought. (2 credits) Gatlin
LARTS 466 — Ecology: The Study of our Environment
This course examines the discipline of Environmental Studies, including the history, economics, sociology, politics, and philosophy of the “green movement” over the last hundred years. The class focuses on and develops four crucial issues in environmental studies: the continuing debate between “wise use” and “preservation”; the larger international debate between “development” and “nature”; the economic debate between capitalism and its rival value systems; and, finally, the philosophical debate about whether ecology is rooted in human philanthropy or “the rights of living beings.” (2 credits) Klein
LARTS 468 — Bio-Culture: Nature, Gender & Sexuality
This course examines three recent trends in Cultural Studies: Green Cultural Studies, Gender Theory, and Queer Theory. These fields investigate what is "natural" and what is socially constructed about nature, gender, and sexuality, respectively, working toward more complex understandings of binaries including nature/culture, nature/nurture, and the biological/cultural. In addition to asking what nature, gender, and sexuality are, we will explore what they mean in contemporary culture. How do our understandings of these terms affect our interactions with human and nonhuman others; our social structures and ecological values; and our sence of identity, performance of identity, and self-expression? What does it mean to live in an era of ecological crisis, gender-bending, and polarized public discourse on sexuality? What are the implications of the ways we represent nature, gender, and sexuality in the arts and popular culture? (2 credits) Gatlin
LARTS 481 — Cultural History of India
This course is a study of the history of Indian culture beginning with the advent of Hinduism (c. 1500 BC), through the growth of Buddhism (c. 563–200 BC), the “classical era” (c. 320–647 AD), the period of Islamic influence (1200–1750 AD), and the modern era, drawing on such forms of cultural expression as philosophy, literature, science, architecture, and the visual and performing arts. Examples include the Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana, the invention of algebra, Hindu and Islamic architecture (e.g. Taj Mahal), Bharata Natyam (classical dance), and miniature paintings. (2 credits) Row
LARTS 490 — Advanced Seminar
A seminar designed for third and fourth year students that focuses on a single topic in depth. Topics will change depending on the faculty member leading the seminar. (2 credits) Faculty
•Fall 2012: Freud: The Personal and Social Theories of Freudian Psychoanalysis in the Modern Age
This Advanced Seminar offers close reading, discussion, and analysis of critical works by the leading psycho-analytic theorist of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud. In a sense, we are all Freudians now, and our readings will help us to understand not only his controversial ideas and insights, but how they developed over Freud's long career; how and why he applied his personal analytic style to religion, culture, and — ultimately — the entire civilization; and what that meant not only for his own generation, but for modernity and the modern world. (2 credits) Klein
2013-04-16
VIRGIL THOMSON