Global Arc

This course, taken simultaneously with 219, forms the second part of an intensive, four-course (216-219) interdisciplinary introduction to Western culture. Part II extends from the Renaissance to the modern period. These courses bring together students and several faculty members to discuss key texts, events, and artifacts of European civilization. Readings and discussions are complemented by films, concerts, museum visits, and other special events. Students enroll in both 218 and 219.

In combination with 218, this is the second half of a year-long interdisciplinary sequence exploring Western culture from the 15th to the 20th centuries. All meetings are listed under 218.

This is a sequel to Hum 216-219 in which the literature, philosophy, and arts of the 20th century are examined. Works by Freud, Picasso, Warhol, Joyce, Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault, Schoenberg, Akhmatova, Brecht and many others will be studied.

Conceived in 1816, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus has given a name to strange, disturbing, ominous new developments by creators failing to think through the consequences. On its 200th anniversary, we'll study this brilliant novel--about an undergraduate's independent study project conducted without a faculty advisor--in several exciting contexts: literary aesthetics, forms, and traditions; classical mythology; scientific enthusiasm and perils; other tales of transgression, outcasts and "monsters"; philosophical ethics; alter-ego psychology; questions of gender and sexuality; cinematic riffs and adaptations.

Music and language offer unique pathways into studying the human mind. This interdisciplinary course explores the parallels and differences between music and language by investigating their functions and structures, as well as the variety found in each across the globe. We will examine how both past experiences and cognitive processes shape perception in real time. Through a variety of interdisciplinary readings, guest lecturers, and hands-on activities, the course aims to highlight current lively debates and provide students with the background and tools needed to study the relationship between music and language from multiple perspectives.

An introduction to the literature, art, religion, and philosophy of China, Japan, and Korea from antiquity to ca. 1400. Readings are focused on primary texts in translation and complemented by museum visits, films, and other materials from the visual arts. The lecturers include faculty members from East Asian studies, comparative literature, art and archaeology, and religion. Students are encouraged to enroll in HUM 234 in the spring, which continues the course from ca. 1400 into the 20th century.

An introduction to the literary, philosophical, religious, and artistic traditions of East Asia. Readings are focused on primary texts in translation. Lectures and discussions are accompanied by films, concerts, and museum visits. Lecturers include faculty members from East Asian studies, comparative literature, art and archaeology, and religion.

This course compares the canonical cosmogonies of ancient Mesopotamia, Israel and Greece. We will study in detail the creation epic Enuma eliš and the flood epic Atra-hasis from Babylon, the opening chapters of the Biblical book of Genesis, and Hesiod's Theogony and Catalogue of women; as well as considering related texts from across the ancient Mediterranean. We will ask how the set texts describe the earliest history of the world and what this meant for their ancient audiences, how they relate to each other, and how they inform the long history of human investigation into the origins of the universe.

This course focuses on the Near East from antiquity to the early centuries of Islam, introducing the most important works of literature, politics, ethics, aesthetics, religion, and science from the region. We ask how, why, and to what ends the Near East sustained such a long period of high humanistic achievement, from Pharaonic Egypt to Islamic Iran, which in turn formed the basis of the high culture of the following millennium.

This course introduces students to Near Eastern societies and cultures over the last one thousand years. Students will explore the diverse cities and regions of the Near East and the equally diverse religious, ethnic, and ultimately national communities that populated them. Students will have the opportunity to study a variety of genres of sources from religious polemics to architecture, travelogues to hagiographies, philosophical treatises to imperial edicts, feminist critiques to nationalist and religious revivalist tracts, along with short stories, novels, and even graphic memoirs.