COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Fall 2002

RSCP. 72100 - Rhetoric/Language Theory -- Early Modern Humanism GC: M, 2:00-4:00 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3/4 credits, Prof. Martin Elsky, [37097] {Cross listed with ENGL 71000, C L 80900, MALS 70500}

This course will examine the central role of language in Renaissance Humanism. It will examine a paradigm shift in early modern language theory, its institutionalization in the curriculum, and its practical, social impact through the centralization of the state. The focal point of the course will be the Humanist attempt to replace logic with rhetoric as the master intellectual and social discourse. We will begin with the Humanist reaction against Scholastic philosophical language, and the Humanists’’ preference for a probability-based literary language; we will further consider the social and historical nature of this language, and its uses to negotiate the uncertainties of personal, social, and political life. We will move to the Humanists' use of rhetoric to reorganize the encyclopedia of knowledge, and then to the practical ways in which Humanists sought to disseminate rhetorically based education through print and the university. Finally, we will examine problems and contradictions in the actual impact of Humanist, rhetorical education on its social beneficiaries in the emergent early modern state. The course will center around three major Renaissance writers, Valla, More, and Vives, to be supplemented with other primary and secondary sources.

ART. 71500 - Art in Italy & Beyond 1500-1600 GC: M, 2:00-4:00 p.m., Rm. 3416, 3 credits, Prof. James Saslow, [37447]

This lecture course will survey the principal geographic centers, stylistic currents, and creative individuals in high and late Renaissance Italian art. Emphasis will be placed on the visual arts as expressions of prevailing intellectual, social, and religious ideals, and on the dialectic between art and life in an era of dramatic change and hotly contested values. Special attention will be paid to patronage, religion, politics, eros, theater, and new conceptions of the individual as determinants of artistic form. We will also examine the diffusion of Renaissance styles and concepts beyond their Italian birthplace as a result of cultural exchange (France and Spain) and incipient globalization (exportation of European culture to the Americas and Asia), as well as the reciprocal influence of foreign cultures on the development of Renaissance art in Europe itself. Requirements: Weekly readings and class discussion. Mid-term quiz, final exam, and a 12-to-15-page research paper.

ART. 81500 - German Printing/Graphics 15 & 16C GC: T, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. 3416, 3 credits, Prof. Barbara Lane, [37454]

An intensive study of German painting, woodcut, and engraving from the late Gothic period to the Reformation. After considering the work of master Bertram, Master Francke, Witz, Lochner, Master E.S., Schongauer, and Pacher, lectures will focus on Dürer and Grünewald and then address the paintings and prints of Cranach, Altdorfer, and Holbein. Five (5) auditors permitted.

ENGL. 72400 - Survey 17C Literature GC: R, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 2/4 credits, Prof. Will Fisher, [37473]

This course will provide students with a survey of seventeenth-century English literature, including authors such as John Milton, Ben Jonson, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Aemilia Lanyer and Katherine Phillips. It will also provide an introduction to some of the new methodologies in early modern studies that have appeared over the last two decades. Whereas most methods or theory classes end with New Historicism, this class will begin with it, considering how recent scholarship has attempted to move beyond it. Much of the secondary work that we will be reading could ultimately be labelled "early modern cultural studies".

The following are some of the new methods that we will cover in this course. First, we will discuss recent developments in textual scholarship (or "the history of the book" as it is sometimes called), including the groundbreaking work of Roger Chartier and Randy McCleod. We will also look at studies that focus on the cultural production and valuation of literary texts from the period. These studies often draw (either implicitly or explicitly) on the insights of writers like Pierre Bourdieu and John Guillory. We will then consider the emergence of research on "everyday life" during the early modern period. Theoretical texts here will include Michel de Certeau's The Practice of Everyday Life, Norbert Elias' History of Manners, and Henri Lefebvre's Everyday Life in the Modern World. We will also discuss one of the most lively subfields of "everyday" history--research on objects or material culture. This work on cultural artifacts draws heavily upon the writings of historians like Fernand Braudel and anthropologists like Arjun Appadurai. Finally, we will examine the impact that post-colonial theory has had on early modern studies. In addition to the usual suspects such as Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak, we will read the work of scholars like Ania Loomba and Kim Hall. We will end with a consideration of hybrid methodologies such as recent research on the cultural history of foods like sugar and tea (which combines a focus on material culture with a post-colonial perspective).

ENGL. 73100 - Restoration Poetry and Prose GC: T, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 2/4 credits, Prof. Blanford Parker, [37475]

ENGL. 81400 - Shakespeare and Sexuality GC: W, 11:45 a.m.-1:45 p.m., Rm. TBA, 2/4 credits, Prof. Mario Di Gangi, [37491]

In this course we will examine the representation of sexuality in Shakespeare's plays and poems. "Sexuality" will be broadly construed to encompass the following issues: ideologies of romantic love and sexual morality; discourses of erotic desire; concepts of masculinity and femininity; same-sex relationships; marriage and the family; virginity and chastity; rape and sexual violence; the imbrication of the sexual and the social. Readings will include: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1 Henry VI, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, All's Well That Ends Well, Othello, The Winter's Tale, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Sonnets, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece. We will also examine feminist, historicist, and queer critical accounts of gender and sexuality in early modern England. Requirements include one (20-25 pp.) research paper; three brief response papers; an annotated bibliography; and one class presentation.

HIST. 78400 - The Scientific Revolution: Copernicus to Newton 1450-1700 GC: Thurs, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Joseph Dauben, [37257]

This course will survey, the rise of modern science from Copernicus to Newton, the period of intellectual ferment in the 16th and 17th centuries generally referred to as the Scientific Revolution. In addition to charting the advance of astronomy and physics through the works of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo,. Descartes, Boyle, Newton and Leibniz, the revolution in biology associated with Vesalius,. Harvey and others will also be considered, along with related questions in the history of botany, medicine and iatrochemistry.

The emphasis in this course will be upon texts, a careful reading of "the original scientific "classics," along with diaries and letters where they survive, in order to evaluate as much as possible from primary sources the most important factors that motivated and inspired the creators of modern science. In assessing the social role the "new" science played, the disturbingly unfamiliar world in which philosophical, religious and even political principles were called into question will also be examined. (schedule of class meetings and required texts available in the Certificate Programs Office, Room 5109)

SPAN. 82000 - Seminar: Spanish Literature of the Renaissance GC: T, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 4 credits, Prof. Isaías Lerner, [37269]

El curso se organizará a través del estudio microtextual de la obra poética de estas dos figuras fundamentales de la lírica áurea. Se analizarán poesíías que comprendan la variedad métrica, genérica y temática que practicaron los dos autores. El análisis enfatizará, junto con el reconocimiento del lenguaje figurado y las técnicas de versificación, las alusiones del referente cultural e histórico. A partir de estas figuras claves, se reconstruirá el complejo diseño de las diversas corrientes poéticas del primer siglo de oro. Los textos del curso serán: Garcilaso de la Vega, Poesía Completa, ed. Juan Francisco Alcina, Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, Colección Austral, 1989; Obra poética y textos en prosa , ed. Bienvenido Morros, Barcelona: Críítica, 1995; Poesía castellana completa, ed. E. Rivers, Madrid, Castalia, 1996. 3a ed. corregida y aumentada y Fernando de Herrera. Poesías Castellanas Completas, ed. Cristóbal Cuevas, Madrid: Cátedra, 1985.

SPAN. 82200 - Seminar: Spanish Literature of the Baroque GC: W, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 4 credits, Prof. Lía Schwartz, [37270]

Neostoicism constituted an important component of European thought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It contributed to the establishment of a secular ethics which could be formulated either as an alternative to or as support for Christian moral teaching. The purpose of this seminar will be to examine a series of works by Francisco de Quevedo and Baltasar Gracián that function in Neostoic contexts, while revaluating at the same time Epictetus's and Seneca's influence on Spanish thought of the Baroque. Erasmus's and Justus Lipsius's versions of Neostoicism will also be considered as well as their role as mediators of the classics for the recreation of specific literary genres. Among the works to be studied will be F. de Quevedo's Sueños, and La fortuna con seso y la hora de todos, and B. Gracián's El discreto and El criticón.