COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
Spring 2001
ART. 72100 - Dutch Painting 1590-1675 GC: M, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Leonard Slatkes, [40553]
This lecture course will focus on history and genre painting.We will start with a discussion of the late mannerist tradition in Haarlem and Utrecht. Among the topics covered will be the Haarlem Academy, the influence of Bartholomaus Spranger, Karel van Mander as a painter, Hendrick Goltzius - as printmaker and painter - and Cornelis van Haarlem.
Among the Utrecht late mannerists, there will be lectures on Abraham Bloemaert and Joachim Wtewael. We will discuss the development of caravaggism in Utrecht with lectures on Gerrit van Honthorst, Hendrick Ter Brugghen and Dirck van Baburen. In Haarlem, we will examine Frans Hals as a genre painter, and artists such as Pieter de Grebber. In Amsterdam, we will look at Pieter Lastman, in Leiden, early Rembrandt and Jan Lievens, and we will follow Rembrandt to Amsterdam.
The development of the "new" genre styles with Samuel van Hoogstraten and Nicolaes Maes in Dordrecht will be looked at. "Dutch Classicism," does it actually exist?
Problems raised by the recent Rotterdam exhibition will be investigated (Caesar van Everdingen, Jacob van Campen as a painter, the decorations of the Huis ten Bosch in The Hague). The so-called "little Dutch masters": Jan Steen, Pieter de Hooch and Johannes Vermeer will complete the course.
A research paper will be required in addition to a final exam. Auditors permitted.
ART. 81500 - Pontormo, Rosso, and Bronzino GC: W, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. 3416, 3 credits, Prof. Janet Cox-Rearick, [40564]
Students in this seminar will investigate the late Renaissance style in painting, sculpture, and architecture known as Mannerism (ca. 1520-70). Although Mannerism became widely diffused, its birthplace was central Italy, particularly Florence, and its main expression was in painting and drawing. Hence the seminar will concentrate on the oeuvres of the three major Florentine Mannerist painters: Pontormo and Rosso, who belonged to the first generation, known as primo manierismo, and Pontormo's pupil Bronzino, the major expondent of la Bella Maniera in the mid-16th century.
A seminar on this subject is timely, for Florentine Mannerism is by no means a closed subject. Stimulated by the 500th anniversaries of the births of Pontormo and Rosso in 1494, scholars published much new research in the 90s--as for example, important monographs on Pontormo (Costamagna, 1994) and Rosso (Franklin, 1995), and a major exhibition in Florence (L'Officina della maniera, 1996). These and other new publications will provide a basis for a revaluation of the work of these artists and of Florentine Mannerism. Students in the seminar will review the historiography of Mannerism--a 20th-century phenomenon which reflects changing trends in art history, as well as current discourses about the subject.
Another emphasis in this course will be on the graphic work of these artists, whose drawings will be studied in visits to the collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the Morgan Library.
Recommended prerequisite: a survey course in Italian High and Late Renaissance art. Reading knowledge of Italian is desirable but not required. No auditors allowed. Permit students by permission of instructor and Executive Officer or Deputy Executive Officer.
Eng. 81400 - Shakespearean Tragedy and Religious Identity GC: W, 2:00-4:00 p.m., Room TBA, 2/4 credits, Prof. Richard McCoy, [40706]
This course will focus on four major groups of Shakespearean plays and consider some of their major themes and issues, including the problem of evil and the ethical and teleological dimensions of tragedy, the historical impact of the Reformation on English drama, and the growing awareness of individual and alien identities in the early modern period. The 10 plays will be grouped accordingly:
1) The great Shakespearean tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear,and Macbeth
2) Roman plays that confront alien religious beliefs: Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar
3) Problem plays that deal with religion - Measure for Measure and The Merchant of Venice.
4) History plays that probe the origins of the English Reformation:King John and Henry VIII.
Our secondary reading will begin with selections from classic texts on the genre, including Aristotle and Nietzsche, as well as A. .C. Bradley's immensely influential Shakespearean Tragedy. We will also utilize the critical theories of Rene Girard, Mieke Bal, and others, to probe the ritual aspects of tragedy, as well as the scholarly approaches of Stephen Greenblatt, Debora Shuger, and others who concentrate on the religious dimensions of Shakespearean theater.
Finally, we will explore the increasingly self-conscious inwardness prompted by sectarian conflict through selections from Reformation historians, including Eamon Duffy, Christopher Haigh, and others. Assignments will consist of a brief (5-minute) oral report, an annotated bibliography, and a research paper or teaching portfolio.
Eng. 81500 - Gender and Class in Milton and His Legacy GC: F,11:45
a.m. -1:45p.m., Room TBA, 2/4 credits, Prof. Jacqueline DiSalvo, [40707]
{Cross listed with WSCP 81000}
This class will begin with a study of class, gender and sexuality as it
appears in Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes and their Biblical traditions.
We will attend to the historical context of the Puritan Revolution and
recent historicist, Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic readings by such
scholars as Nancy Armstrong, Aschaf Rushdy, David Lowenstein, Joseph Wittreich,
Mary Nyquist, David Norbrook, Sharon Achenstrin, Laura Knoppers etc.
Then we will consider Blake's Romantic and counter-Puritan appropriation and revision of Milton. Finally we will examine the Miltonic legacy in American Puritanism via Nathaniel Hawthorne and the feminist and revisions of these traditions Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Tony Morrison's Paradise.
Students will be expected to do substantial reading in primary and secondary works, to contribute to the seminar through an oral presentation and to submit a term final paper or shorter papers.
Students can prepare by reading several essays in Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England, especially on Puritans,Industriousness, Sabbatarianism, the Poor. Bawdy Courts, the Church, Parish, Household & Communities.
FREN. 83000 - Seventeenth Century Studies GC: M, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, [40092]
For further information, contact the Ph.D. Program in French - Room 4204
HIST. 70500 - Health, Disease and Medicine in Early Modern Europe, ca. 1500-ca. 1700. GC: T, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 3 credits, Prof. Nancy Siraisi, [40383]
Topics to be covered include: the disease environment; epidemics and social response; patterns of medical education, occupation, and regulation; intellectual and scientific developments in medicine (impact of Renaissance humanism, Paracelsianism, new science); the experience of illness and doctor/patient relation; hospitals and charity; popular medicine and self help; medicine and religion.
Readings are drawn from selected primary sources in English translation and the large recent secondary literature that deals with the intellectual, cultural, and social aspects of health, disease, and medicine.
In addition to completing the readings, students will submit short papers and oral presentations.
(Course bibliography of secondary literature available in Certificate Programs office-Room 5109)
Phil. 76100 - Renaissance Philosophy. GC: W, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. Rm TBA 3 Credits Prof. Purnell, [40574]
This course will concentrate on the major developments in philosophy from 1350 to 1600. Topics to be investigated will include the rise of Humanism, Renaissance Platonism, varieties of Aristotelianism, the influence of the Protestant Reformation, the new philosophies of nature and the overthrow of the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian cosmology. Particular attention will be paid to the development of a mathematized physics by Galileo and his contemporaries and the role of Neoplatonism in fostering the growth of Hermeticism and the practice of natural magic.
Readings will include selections from Petrarch, Valla, Cusanus, Ficino, Giovanni Pico, Erasmus, More, Montaigne, Pomponazzi, Telesio, Patrizi, Bruno and Galileo. Texts: Cassirer, E., P.O. Kristeller and J.H. Randall, Jr., The Renaissance Philosophy of Man (Chicago). Copenhaver, B.P., Renaissance Philosophy (Oxford). Kristeller, P.O., Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance (Stanford). Popkin, R.H., Philosophy of the 16th and 17th Centuries (Free Press).
SPAN. 82000 - Sem: Span Lit of the Renaissance: Major Trends in Spanish Renaissance Thought: from Cartagena to Vives. GC: M, 4:15-6:15 p.m., Rm. TBA, 4 credits, Prof. Ottavio Di Camillo, [40081]
This course will deal with the emergence and development of Renaissance
Humanism and with the spread of the new learning and ideas that characterized
the cultural life of Castile during the period extending approximately
from 1420 to 1550. Beginning with a critical evaluation of the terms 'Humanism'
and 'Renaissance', we will examine the economicand social context in which
the traditional arts of the Trivium were gradually expanded and transformed
into the studia humanitatis, a cycle of disciplines better suited to the
needs of the time.In examining the repercussion of humanism in the writings
of the period, we shall pay special attention to the rhetorical, literary,historiographical,
ethical and philological theories and practices as well as to the social,
political and religious concerns of representative humanists.Since Spanish
Renaissance humanism is an area of study relatively unexplored, a great
deal of emphasis will be placed on research and discussion aimed at generating
studies andcritical editions
of humanistic texts.
Texts to be used in this course include: P. O. Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and its Sources, Eugenio Garin, La revolución intelectual del Renacimiento, Francisco Rico, El sueño del humanismo: de Petrarca a Erasmo, and a selection of works photocopied from Prosistas castellanos del siglo XV, etc. General and specific bibliography will be distributed in class throughout the course.