Interdisciplinary Seminars
Art Now: Tradition and Change
K20.1222 HUM, 4 CR SSI: MW 5:30-8:30 Raiken/Ruhe
This course focuses on the contemporary art world and the forces producing continuous change and the re-creation of tradition. We examine new media, technologies and performance and trace their origins in ancient communities, shamanism and ritual. We explore the relationships between new media/performance forms and traditional artistic practices. We ask such questions as: What is the importance of place in energizing creativity? Have the forces of the art world shifted from capital cities outward toward unexpected influences and movements? Is New York still the capital of the art world? We pursue these questions by visiting museums and galleries, through imaginative writing and making art; and through individual and group projects. Readings may include Meyer Schapiro’s Modern Art, Irving Sandler’s The New York School, Harold Rosenberg’s The Tradition of the New, Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark, Clyde Taylor’s The Mask of Art, Suzi Gablik's Reenchantment of Art, John Berger's The Shape of a Pocket, Victor Turner’s From Ritual to Theatre, Dorothy Lee's Valuing the Self, Mary Anne Staniszewski’s Believing Is Seeing and Robert Goldwater’s Primitivism in Modern Art.
Classic Texts and Contemporary Life
K20.1239 HUM, 4 CR SSI: TR 5:30-8:30 Rutigliano
This course examines several “classic” texts to understand both their own intrinsic merit and their influence on society from their inception until our own time. Our emphasis, indeed, is on using these texts to understand our lives and world now. We explore classic texts in relation to contemporary life’s dilemmas of consumerism and spiritualism, individual rights and community rights, vocation and career, God and the afterlife, rebellion and escape from freedom. Readings may include Aeschylus’ The Oresteia, Sappho’s Poems, Plato’s Republic, Lucretius’ On the Nature of the Universe, Ovid’s Metamorphoses or Cicero’s On the Laws, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales or Cervantes’s Don Quixote.
The Cultural Politics of Childhood
K20.1268 SOC, 4 CR SSII: MW 5:30-8:30 McCreery
This interdisciplinary seminar examines the ways that society has imbued children and childhood with certain cultural meanings. We start by focusing on two widespread assumptions about children—that they are naturally innocent and that they are routinely endangered by social problems such as violent crime, drug abuse, and sexual predators. Next, we study how these cultural assumptions originated in Romantic and Victorian visions of childhood and how “childhood” itself emerged as a coherent life stage only in the past several centuries. Finally, we study how childhood increasingly has become the focus of academic attention, popular concern, and state control. While the main focus of the course is on cultural understandings of childhood, we also examine how children themselves have made sense of their lives. Texts come from the fields of literature, history, political science, psychology, and queer theory. They may include Ariès’s Centuries of Childhood, Barrie's Peter Pan, Levine’s Harmful to Minors, and Postman's Disappearance of Childhood.
Theorizing Politics: Machiavelli, Marx, and Foucault
K20.1272 SOC, 4 CR SSI: TR 1:30-4:30 Shulman
This course explores American ambivalence toward and alienation from “politics.” What do our apathy and cynicism say about politics as it is practiced in our society, and what do they say about ourselves? To pursue these questions we analyze what politics–as a concept and a practice–has meant in history, means to us now, and could mean. The course proceeds by closely reading several canonical texts in political theory and using them to think about current events. Working through several profound visions of politics will help us learn to “think politically.”
The Ancient Greeks and Their Influence
K20.1322 HUM, 4 CR SSII: MW 1:30-4:30 Rock
The astounding power of the ancient Greek philosophers and poets has been felt from their times to ours. Scholars in every age have pondered the questions they raised: What is the nature of man? What is the relationship of God or gods to humans? What is a good life? How do we live it? What is our relationship to nature? This course examines the way the Greeks examined these questions and the Greek influence on subsequent cultures. Works to be studied may include: The Odyssey, Oedipus Rex, The Symposium, The Consolation of Philosophy, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and selected poetry from Wordsworth, W.B. Yeats, and Wendell Berry.
London, Paris, New York: The Novel and the City, 1860-1925
K20.1347 HUM, 4 CR SSI: TR 5:30-8:30 Murphy
The city itself becomes a character in the modern novel: a place of mystery and danger, a place of seduction and riches, a dreamscape or a hell. Identities are destabilized on city streets; a fine lady is taken for a prostitute and vice versa; a benevolent helper is in actuality a dangerous crook. The city is a place where one can wander, lose oneself, one’s money, one’s soul—or find redemption in a stranger’s glance. The city is envisioned as a place of infinite possibilities. But it is also a place where one can be haunted by everything old or left behind. This course will take as its focus the relations sustained between novels as a form and the modern city. Studying a small number of novels that take Paris, London, or New York as their primary scenes, we will examine how the novel comes to create cities and how in turn it is created by them. We’ll supplement our reading of the selected fictions with theoretical and historical texts ranging from Marx and Benjamin to contemporary writings on labor, poverty, finance, consumption patterns and housing issues. Authors considered may include Dickens, Zola, Wharton, Woolf, and Breton.
The Global Neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan
K20.1403 SOC, 4 CR SSII: TR 10:00-1:00 Poitevin
This course explores three downtown Manhattan neighborhoods: the Lower East Side, Chinatown, and the West Village. What are the historical and political roots of these communities? What are the social and economic forces shaping their identity, from architecture to public space and community organizations? How is globalization transforming them? How are their residents fighting back? Through lectures, readings, walking-tours, films, class presentations, and field work with community-based-organizations, students will gain a first hand understanding of the idiosyncrasies and struggles that make New York City such an unique place. Reading assignments include Janet Abu-Lughod, Jack T. Chen, Saskia Sassen, Neil Smith, and Sharon Zukin.
Frankenstein
K20.1404 HUM, 4 CR SSII: TR 1:30-4:30 Lennox
Frankenstein is one of the most intriguing and multi-layered novels of the nineteenth century. It was equally reviled and celebrated when published in 1818. Written by nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley, it remains one of the quintessential texts of the Romantics. Its sources include folk tales, the Golem myth, and the writings of Milton, Coleridge, Goethe, Percy Shelley, and Byron. It also reflects turbulent social and political conditions that include industrialization, scientific experimentation, national revolutions, and theological debates. Shelley’s tale raises ethical and psychological issues that continue to be relevant. It is also closely tied to Shelley’s own adventurous, but haunted youth. Its publishing history includes questions about authorship, market manipulation, and revision, especially the 1831 edition where Shelley’s changes removed incestuous undertones. We will also view and discuss the film versions that invented the iconic image of Frankenstein’s Monster. In addition to Frankenstein, readings will include, but not be limited to, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” selections from Byron, Shelley, Mary Shelley’s journals and letters, Paradise Lost, and Young Werther.
Life on the Square: Washington Square Park as Muse and Refuge
K20.1405 HUM, 4 CR SSI: MW 1:30-4:30 Smith-Howard
This course is a literary and historical survey of one of New York’s (and America’s) most pivotal cultural epicenters. Since the 19th century, Washington Square has been a center of cultural life in New York City. In this course we will examine Washington Square’s role as muse and haven for generations of writers, artists and “bohemians.” Our investigation will encompass a diverse cross-section of literature and the arts: the work of such writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Marianne Moore, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Allen Ginsberg and Michael Cunningham; the visual art of such artists as the Hudson River School, Jackson Pollock, de Kooning and Edward Hopper; and the music and lyrics of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Following in the footsteps of such legendary artists, course participants (who will be required to maintain an observation and research journal) will develop and produce their own responses to “life on the Square.” The course will culminate in a final paper. For those who wish to produce a more creative response, Washington Square may serve as muse for an individual project in fiction/nonfiction, poetry, film, visual arts, theatre and/or music. Students should plan to pay for their own travel and museum admissions fees.
