Global Arc

Three hundred and sixty years ago, the young Louis XIV, King of France, began transforming his father's hunting lodge at Versailles into the site par excellence of absolute monarchy and court society. In this course we will study the making and meaning of the palace and its gardens, and analyze some of the manifold cultural artifacts associated with them. Readings, both literary and non-literary, will be complemented by various visual resources, ranging from original prints to websites and films.

The Nineteenth Century as we know it is largely an invention of Balzac's, said Oscar Wilde. The seminar will focus on Balzac's understanding and dramatization of a new era, its growing cities, its increasingly mobile population, its dynamic forces, its intellectual self-reflections, through a reading of his novels, and some related materials by Baudelaire, Flaubert, Henry James. Novels may be read in French original or in translation; some knowldge of French helpful though not required.

The arts and the media in different cultures. Topics will vary, for example, history of the book, art/architecture and society, opera and nationalism, literature and photography, theater and politics.

The arts and the media in different cultures. Topics will vary, for example, history of the book, art/architecture and society, opera and nationalism, literature and photography, theater and politics.

The course examines the history of fascism, with a focus on Italy and Germany. It also asks whether the concept of fascism is still useful for understanding contemporary developments. Special emphasis is placed on the evolution of fascism as a form of political ideology, on the expression of fascist ideas in film and architecture, and on the question whether fascism can be understood as a matter of individual and collective psychology. Students will become familiar with a range of theories of fascism, as well as larger trends in twentieth-century visual culture and literature.

Since its advent in the 19th century, photography has been a privileged figure in literature's efforts to reflect upon its own modes of representation. This seminar will trace the history of the rapport between literature and photography by looking closely at a number of literary and theoretical texts that differently address questions central to both literature and photography: questions about the nature of representation, reproduction, memory and forgetting, history, images, perception, and knowledge.

The course examines the interplay between architecture and the built environment on the one hand and political belief ideas on the other. Our focus is on the twentieth century, sometimes dubbed an "age of ideologies." We will not assume that ideas are in uncomplicated ways reflected in architecture, nor that the descriptions architects give of their own work and intentions can be taken at face value. Students will become familiar with major architectural theories, different approaches in political theory, and also learn how to craft arguments at the intersection of politics and aesthetics.

A study of the fantastic in nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction and in a selection of theoretical texts. Issues to be discussed include the relation of the fantastic to neighboring genres such as magical realism, the cognitive challenges it poses, thematic preoccupations such as the double and altered sensory states, the importance of reception, and interdisciplinary approaches drawing on philosophy, psychoanalysis, and literary theory.

This course will offer an intensive introduction to the history of the making, distribution and reading of books in the West, from ancient Greece to modern America. By examining a series of case studies, we will see how writers, producers, and readers of books have interacted, and how the conditions of production and consumption have changed over time.

When the sum of our pains surpasses that of our pleasures, non-existence becomes preferable to existence. This argument became ubiquitous in Enlightenment philosophical debates. Many used it to discuss the rationality of suicide, God's creation, religious faith, as well as the metaphysical grounds of human existence and the idea of progress. Some criticized the quantitative premises of the argument and questioned the idea that pain could change the positive value of human existence into a negative one. We will examine those debates in philosophical and literary texts and discuss their later and contemporary echoes in ethics.