Global Arc

Symbolic systems and social life in specific historical eras. Topics will vary. Recent courses include, for example, magic, art, and science in Renaissance culture, political discourse and nationalism, culture and inequality, history of technology, and the rhetoric of new media.

Symbolic systems and social life in specific historical eras. Topics will vary. Recent courses include, for example, magic, art, and science in Renaissance culture, political discourse and nationalism, culture and inequality, history of technology, and the rhetoric of new media.

What does it mean for a film to be embedded in a local tradition, language, and landscape, while being challenged by a global culture with an increasingly homogenized taste for the films of Hollywood? With the help of Nossiter's 2004 provocative documentary, Mondovino, we will explore the possible analogy between the theory of terroir (a sense of place) in wine production and a theory of local-vernacular filmmaking by comparing classical Hollywood studio films with films of Italian Neo-Realism and works by the highly controversial Danish filmmakers Vinterberg and von Trier.

Increasing numbers of people across the world hate the West. We will look in detail at intellectual genealogies of anti-Westernism in Germany and Russia and different ideas of the "West" before branching out to other regions (especially the Islamic Middle East).

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.