Global Arc

Freud is approached as a systematic thinker dedicated to discovering the basic principles of human mental life. For Freud, these basic principles concern what impels human thought and behavior. What moves us to think and act? What is it to think and act? Emphasis is placed on the close study and critical analysis of texts, with particular attention to the underlying structure of the arguments. Two 90-minute classes.

The early modern period is often called the "Age of Discovery" because of European encounters with the New World. In fact, the period was one of multiple discoveries: not just of different parts of the globe but of ancient texts, of human biology and psychology, of the science of politics, and even of the ways to classify human knowledge. Co-taught by a historian and a literary scholar with shared interests in theater, visual arts, and the natural sciences, this course provides an introduction to European culture from the Renaissance to the French Revolution by focusing on different forms of "discovery" in historical and literary texts.

Between the 700s and 1000s, pirates known as Vikings raided much of Europe. Some were linked to merchant communities trading in Central Asia, while others joined diaspora groups that settled the North Atlantic. They made their world through various means--texts, images, artifacts, and behaviors. In this course, students will accomplish parallel work, guided by the principle that making is best studied by doing. Students will learn how Viking-Age peoples made their world and consider how we recreate and represent that world today. This course includes travel to Denmark during spring recess.

This class combines hands-on experience of nineteenth-century photographic processes with the study of surviving images and readings on cultural and scientific forces driving photographic inventions. The goal is to deconstruct the current black box that is digital photography by introducing students to do-it-yourself practices (chemistry and optics) behind multiple types of imagery that are often lumped together retrospectively as "photography." Students will make their own personal visual statements and may mix hand-made processes with modern intermediaries such as digitally produced negatives.

This course, designed as a seminar, will trace the ways in which humans have dug into the ground in order to find the material remains of the past and then interpreted what they found. We will look at efforts of many kinds: discoveries made by chance as well as those made by deliberate searches; discoveries inspired by dreams and visions as well as those motivated by formal surveys; discoveries of the relics of saints, Christian and other, as well as the remains of ancient civilizations. We will examine our subjects' ideas and their practices, and set both into context.

The students will pursue inquiry beyond the conventional boundaries of the two respective disciplines (ART amd CEE): to learn and master relevant elements of structural engineering and to understand, appreciate, and solve myriad problems of realization of large structural works, including their design, structural analysis, and construction; and, concomitantly, to pursue a fully historical contextualization of architectural structures, including the technological developments, sociological aspects, and aesthetic traditions in which these monuments find their place. Students will work in mixed groups and collaborate on their course projects.

Focusing on René Char's wartime "notebook" of prose poetry from the French Resistance, Feuillets d'Hypnos (Leaves of Hypnos), this course joins a study of the Resistance to a poet's literary creation and its ongoing "afterlife" in translations around the globe. History, archival research (traditional and digital), the practice of literary translation, and a trip to France that follows in Char's footsteps as poet and Resistance leader will all be part of our exploration. We will conclude with a dramatic performance of the "notebook" in multiple languages, as created by seminar participants.

Co-taught with renowned artist Josephine Meckseper, this seminar will explore the dynamics of creative collaboration through case studies of utopian communities of artistic practice in 20-c. Europe and the US (Worpswede, Bauhaus, Black Mountain) and the architecture of modern cities planned and imagined. We'll consider how utopian and dystopian ideas emerged historically, and bring critical perspectives to bear on concepts of utopia in relation to colonialism and capitalism. We'll not only study but also practice collaborations across disciplines and media. Seminar guests will include artists and writers. Enrollment by application; see below.

In 19- and 20-c. debates that crossed borders among disciplines including psychology, sociology, anthropology, art history, philosophy, and political theory, empathy and alienation emerged as key terms to describe relations among human beings, works of art, and commodities. This seminar addresses the dynamics of empathy and alienation across a range of discourses and artifacts in European culture. Our explorations of how relationships between empathy and alienation were variously conceptualized in psychological aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and critical theory will aim to open up new perspectives on recent debates about identity and affect.

This team-taught seminar examines texts, objects, periods and themes from an interdisciplinary perspective. Although designed to be the capstone course for students pursuing a certificate in Humanistic Studies, it is open to other students if space is available. The specific topic varies each year depending on the focus of the faculty team.