Autumn

This seminar will discuss and evaluate efforts to conceptualize modernism in the arts from the eighteenth century to the present. Modernism is widely thought to challenge traditional notions of aesthetic success (theories of perfection, the beautiful, harmony, etc.) and by doing so to raise large philosophical questions about perception, experience, language and the modern condition itself. Who first understood this massive change in aesthetic practices? Who best understood why it occurred? Is there such a thing as modernist philosophy? Did modernism end? Of what significance is that fact? Readings will include a range of philosophical and critical texts by, among others, Fr. Schlegel, Hegel, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Cavell, Clark, and Fried.

PQ: Open to undergrads with consent of instructor. The idea of this class consists in reading European and US poets – including one of the major modernist Russian poets, Osip Mandelstam, Spanish giant Antonio Machado, Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz and our contemporary, Seamus Heaney from Ireland – in the context of their historic situation. We'll be looking both at the political and cultural context of their writing and try to combine interest in what's absolutely specific for each single writer with the concern for conditions underlying his/her creative endeavor. Students will be asked to actively participate in the class discussions and to write a final paper addressing the issues relevant to the course content. Books: Inger Christensen: Alphabet ; Seamus Heaney: Poems Essays ; August Kleinzahler: Green Sees Things in Waves ; Osip Mandelstam: Poems Essays ; Czeslaw Milosz: Poems The Witness of Poetry ; Don Paterson: The Eyes [Versions of Antonio Machado] ; Tadeusz Rozewicz: New Poems .

Gottfried Benn, Elizabeth Bishop, Durs Grünbein, Zbigniew Herbert, C. K. Williams are three generations of Modernism in poetry: Benn as one of the grandfathers, Bishop and Herbert as representatives of the middle generation, and C. K. Williams and Grünbein as grandchildren. The idea of the class is to read poems closely and to discuss them in the class. Discussion section arranged for students who are majoring in German. All work in English.

This two-course sequence examines discursive practices in a number of literary and cinematic works from the South East corner of Europe through which identities in the region become defined by two distinct others: the barbaric, demonic Ottoman and the civilized Western European.

This course is designed as an overview of major cinematic works from Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Rumania, former Yugoslavia and Turkey. While the main criterion for selection is the artistic quality of the work, the main issues under consideration are those of identity, gender, the poignant relation with the Western World, memories of conflict and violence, and socialism and its disintegration and subsequent emigration. We compare the conceptual categories through which these films make sense of the world, especially the sense of humor with which they come to terms with that world. Directors whose work we examine include Vulchanov and Andonova (Bulgaria); Kusturica, Makavejev, and Grlic (Former Yugoslavia); Guney (Turkey); Boulmetis (Greece); and Manchevski (Macedonia).

PQ: Prior or concurrent enrollment in CMST 10100. This is the first part of a two-quarter course. Taking these courses in sequence is strongly recommended but not required. This course introduces what was singular about the art and craft of silent film. Its general outline is chronological. We also discuss main national schools and international trends of filmmaking.

Ferdowsi completed his verse rendition of the tragic history of the Iranian nation a millennium ago, in 1010. Through close reading, lecture and discussion, this course will analyze the Shahnameh as world literature, and as a foundational text for Persian ethnicity and Iranian national feeling. We will consider the Shahnameh as epic genre, as comparative Indo-Iranian mythology, as political commentary, as reflective of ideals of masculinity and femininity, and as an illustrated text. All readings and discussions will be in English. A separate section will meet for those with two or more years of Persian to read the original Persian text.

The centerpiece of this class will be a reading of Book IV of the Elegies of Propertius. The class will, however, also consider elegy more broadly as an avant-garde poetic practice. To this end, we will look at Propertius' claim to be the Roman Callimachus in the light of the reinvention of Greek elegy by the Alexandrian poets. Finally, we will consider Ezra Pound's Homage to Sextus Propertius as a retroactive assimilation of Symbolism's Laforgian vector to the practice of the ancient elegists.

May be taken in sequence with CMLT 20600/30600 or individually. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. This course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in Western drama from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, medieval religious drama, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson, along with some consideration of dramatic theory by Aristotle, Horace, Sir Philip Sidney, and Dryden. The goal is not to develop acting skill but, rather, to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with other members of the class. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended.

This seminar will consider Goethe's work after 1805 with the aim of delineating the characteristics of Goethe's post-classical style and thought. One could also say: Goethe's modernity. It has become a commonplace in the study of Goethe to refer to the allegorical nature of his late works. We shall contest this reading. 1805, the year of Schiller's death, is taken as the starting point of a reassessment of the nature of artistic activity that finds expression in Goethe's poetic works as well as in his theoretical and critical writings. Among the texts to be discussed: the Winckelmann essay, Pandora, Wahlverwandtschaften, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, essays from Kunst und Altertum, selected scientific writings.