Course Descriptions

Core Courses

450.749 – Exploring the Liberal Arts
This section of Exploring offers an interdisciplinary perspective on the 1950s and what it meant to be "American." American national identity is considered through the dynamic that emerges between national security and civil rights and liberties; between conformity and conflict; between inside and outside and between American and Un-American. Through the significant and enduring cultural shifts that took place in American life between 1945 and 1960 basic images and ideas closely associated with the '50s are challenged as the course considers a variety of topics from Ike to Elvis to McCarthy, the Beats, the Korean War, the Montgomery bus boycott and the Nation of Islam, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, advertising, the Kinsey Report, the promise of technology and the concern over its affects on the culture, the Cold War, the changing role of scientists, and the rise of the suburbs.

Elective Courses

450.600 – An Introduction to Graduate Research Methods
This course will explore automated/electronic methods of note taking, capturing and managing source material from many sources including the web, and effectively communicating the results in a web-based environment. The course will focus on one day in the life of the City of Baltimore (a day in February 1861) and its importance, asking how much we can know, where we can find it, and how we can organize what we find into a convincing, coherent, possibly even inspiring, historical narrative. The question we will attempt to answer as we learn to seek out and cope with the surviving evidence is: Was there a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln in Baltimore in February 1861.

450.602 – Opera: Drama Thru Music
How does opera work dramatically? How does the text prefigure the music, and the music reflect that text? This seminar explores a varied group of operas from the point of view of their dramatic construction. Four of the operas are based upon prior literary sources: Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammer moor (1835, Sir Walter Scott), Bizet’s Carmen (1875, Mérimée), Verdi’s Otello (1887, Shakespeare), and Britten’s The Turn of the Screw (1954, Henry James). A fifth opera, Mozart’s Così fan tutte (1790), will be studied for comparison, as an example of an opera without specific literary antecedent.

450.604 – Growing Apart? American and Europe in Comparative Perspective 1945-2005
The tension between the USA and Europe over the Iraq war, as well as the casting of an 'Old Europe', a 'New Europe', and a 'go-it-alone' USA, has brought into sharp relief that the two major high income centers of the world economy may in fact be following very different paths of development; politically, economically, and culturally. This course surveys how the US and Europe are both similar and different, and how, despite the supposed homogenizing effects of globalization, those differences are actually becoming more, rather than less, pronounced over time. The class will examine how the US and Europe have, since the end of WW2, developed into quite different places; politically, economically, and culturally, and what still holds them together despite these differences.

450.605 – Media & The Cold War
This course explores the complex relationship between politics, film, and television during the often frightening and unflattering years of the Cold War (1947–86). Students examine such topics as the role of the media in socialization, building patriotism, and rethinking the arms race. They also discuss how Hollywood became either the witting or unwitting voice of both political authority and dissent-and a major battleground during the McCarthy era. Films for class analysis include The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Manchurian Candidate, On the Beach, and The Cuban Missile Crisis.

450.608 – Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Despite over a thousand years of conflict both external and internal, Judaism, Christianity and Islam share doctrines and practices. Students will examine the essential teachings of the three great Abrahamic religion concerning revelation, scripture, sacred geography, worship, prophecy, holy war, divine justice and judgment, blasphemy (including sacreligious humor), and the afterlife. Readings will include selections from the Bible, Qur'an, St. Augustine's The City of God, Moses Maimonides' The Guide for the Perplexed, The Alchemy of Happiness by Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazzali, as well as the contemporary classics What Do Jews Believe? by Rabbi David Ariel, Introduction to Christianity by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), and The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Visits to a synagogue, church, and mosque for a service of worship will be required.

450.609 – Amer Art/lit 19th Cent
Ever since the Mayflower docked at Plymouth, Americans have measured themselves against the yardstick of European civilization—whether rejecting it altogether, clarifying their distinctness from it, or striving to become part of it. Students follow the evolution of American cultural identity in discussions of Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun, Twain’s Innocents Abroad, and James’ The American, as well as paintings by the Peales, Cole, Homer, Eakins, Whistler, and Sargent. In doing so they note how the optimistic, independent, and self-confident Yankee gave way to the introspective, critical, certainly sadder, and perhaps wiser Cosmopolitan.

450.612 – Great Ethical Philosphrs
Are there absolute moral laws that dictate how one ought to behave, or is correct behavior relative to ever-varying circumstances? Is there a type of life that is best for all human beings? Ought one to promote solely one’s own self-interest, or does one have a duty to sacrifice for others? Students discuss how these and other ethical questions have been addressed by Plato in the fourth century B.C., Kant in the 18th century, and Nietzsche in the 19th century.

450.614 – City,Economy,Community
Between 1800 and 1900 Baltimore grew from a frontier town with 25,000 people to a big city with 600,000. How did this happen? How did Baltimoreans deal with the tremendous changes that the 19th century thrust upon them? What kind of community emerged from the experience? This course explores Baltimore’s first full century by bringing together different historical approaches: economics and business, architecture and city planning, politics, population, and literature.

450.615 – Anne Tyler's Baltimore
Anne Tyler moved to Baltimore in 1967. Over the past 40 years, she has published 15 novels set mostly in and around Baltimore City. Her characters may be "traditional," perhaps "provincial," or simply "odd." In an interview shortly after her latest novel was published, Tyler said "nothing in my books comes from real life." Yet she writes about the decaying area of east Baltimore and the affluence of Roland Park in the west. Her protagonists may shop at Lexington Market or at Eddie's. Anne Tyler's novels are but one resource that shall be studied to develop a portrait and appreciation of Baltimore. The visions of Barry Levinson and John Waters will also be considered, along with those of local publications like Baltimore and Urbanite and articles from The Baltimore Sun and The Afro-American. Our discussions may include business and railroads, immigration and race, education and medicine, politics and religion, weather, sports, and food. Anne Tyler is clearly part of the culture she portrays in her work, but we must ask whether her Baltimoreans are stereotypes, archetypes, or merely "novel?"

450.616 – Modern Irish Literature
Though geographically small, economically depressed, and politically troubled, Ireland has produced four Nobel Prize winners in the twentieth century! This class examines three representative works of each literary genre, including poetry by W.B. Yeats, Thomas Kinsella, and Seamus Heaney. We discuss George Bernard Shaw's little-known play, JOHN BULL'S OTHER ISLAND; Samuel Beckett's masterpiece, WAITING FOR GODOT; and Brian Friel's current Broadway hit, TRANSLATIONS. Finally, each student compares stories in James Joyce's DUBLINERS with those by the contemporary writer William Trevor -- and chooses a contemporary Irish novel for class discussion and written analysis.

450.619 – Cosmic Landscapes
In the world of physics, cutting-edge theories come and go. Some, however, are eventually enshrined in the canon and last for centuries. We are told from early days in school that the Earth goes around the Sun and not, as the ancients believed, vice versa. Likewise, we have come to believe that the universe is well-described by the Big Bang theory; that matter is composed of atoms; and that light behaves sometimes as waves and sometimes as particles. From heliocentrism to Big Bang cosmology, from electromagnetism to quantum theory, we will examine the non-mathematical writings of the leading proponents of such theories * including Einstein, Newton, and Hawking. These accessible, thought-provoking readings will enable students to understand the main historical developments of these theories, their key ingredients, and the experimental evidence marshalled to confirm them. Readings (provisional): Dolling, Statile, and Giannelli "The Tests of Time" (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). Paperback, 712 pp $45. Achinstein (ed.) "Science Rules" (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). Paperback, 440pp 29.95.

450.620 – Art of the Court of Burgundy, 1364-1477
The court established by the Valois Dukes of Burgundy (1364-1477) was one of the wealthiest and most politically ambitious courts in the history of Europe. This seminar explores the opulence and diversity of art works commissioned by and for the Valois dukes, and by members of their court circle. Topics include: painting, sculpture, manuscripts, and architecture; daily life and devotional practice; portraiture; and the emergence of a distinctive Burgundian style. With a format combining illustrated lectures, student-led discussions, and gallery visits, this course will be taught at the Walters Art Museum, and will draw from the collections of the Walters and of other museums. A general background in Medieval art and/or history is recommended. Reading knowledge of French will be beneficial.

450.621 – The Self in Question:Reading in Literature and Psychology
What are the boundaries of the self? Modern literature and psychology have complicated our conceptions of selfhood, challenging traditional notions of the stable ego and expanding our understanding of personal identity to include race, class, gender, and culture. In this class we explore writers who have played a fundamental role in defining our humanity. Theorists include Freud, Jung, Horney, Sartre, and Gilligan; literary figures include Dostoevsky, Kafka, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Margaret Atwood, Raymond Carver, Adrienne Rich, Toni Morrison.

450.625 – Bioethics:Phil & Biomed
This course draws upon key concepts in philosophical analysis, particularly ethical theory, to address the myriad of complex moral issues that arise in the biomedical field. Assigned reading includes relevant works in philosophy by Aristotle, Kant, and Mill, as well as those by contemporary bioethicists. In this context students discuss such issues as death and dying, in vitro fertilization, human cloning, physician-assisted suicide, and experimentation with humans and animals.

450.626 – Philosophy of The Universe
What was happening before the Big Bang? Does the universe have a bound, and if so, what lies beyond? Objects are made of atoms, which in turn are made of elementary particles, but what exactly is an elementary particle? That is, what is it made of? In this course, which has no textbook, we answer the above questions. For us to arrive at answers that mean anything requires the use of some mathematics—luckily, only high school algebra and geometry. (Don’t worry if you only half-remember your high school math; the needed facts will be explained clearly in class.) We will follow the progress of human understanding from Copernicus through Einstein’s theory of relativity to the most important human intellectual discovery ever, quantum mechanics. Remarkably, we will discover that some ancient Greek philosophers understood the nature of reality better than many professional scientists do today.

450.627 – Cooper and Twain: The Frontier and Beyond
James Fenimore Cooper wrote the five Leather-Stocking Tales between 1823 and 1841 (The Last of the Mohicans is the best known of the novels). Cooper created Natty Bumppo (Hawkeye), friendly and unfriendly Indians, and settlers, including women (Cooper liked to call them "females"), to tell his version of the country's expansion west. Cooper's portrayal of Indians and women has been challenged, but this first American novelist was widely read and has left an enduring (though not necessarily accurate) image of life on the frontier. Mark Twain published The Gilded Age in 1873 when the frontier was disappearing and a less rural America began to emerge. Arguably the greatest of all American humorists, not withstanding the huge achievement of Huck Finn (1885), Twain wrote novels, short stories, and nonfiction and was given to such sentiments as "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society" and "Familiarity breeds contempt—and children." And Twain's critique of Cooper was a masterpiece.

450.628 – The Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance—the first major intellectual movement of African-Americans—flourished in Harlem and the mid-Atlantic region between 1900 and 1930. It originated from the now-famous debate about whether the African-American’s best hope for success was a liberal arts education as W.E.B. DuBois argued, or manual training as Booker T. Washington urged. Though the main focus of the Harlem Renaissance was on literature (e.g.,Toomer’s Cane, Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and poetry by Hughes, McKay, and Cullen), students also examine parallel developments in music and art.

450.629 – Science in Mass Media
This class involves close and careful reading of selected tragedies and plays about English history by the world’s greatest playwright. We’ll also look at source documents from which Shakespeare drew his plots to learn something about the magic of creativity. Moreover, we’ll examine selected contemporary accounts of the English or Roman history and sample the current criticism of this body of work. The goal is to understand why people consider Shakespeare the greatest playwright ever -- what is it that makes Shakespeare Shakespeare. A related goal is to reflect on the many ways in which these plays, written as the sixteenth century turned into the seventeenth, resonate in our culture as we struggle to get a handle on the twenty-first century. To do this, we’ll discuss film adaptations of Shakespeare’s work, and students will have an opportunity to write about a film version of a play of their choice. Assignments include reading about ten plays, weekly blogging, a final exam, a brief paper on film, and a research-based analysis. The most important thing, however, is close reading and reflective conversation.

450.632 – The Art of Nature and the Nature of Art: Landscape Painting of the 19th Century
Before the 19^th Century western artists viewed nature as little more than a setting for human events, but after 1800 painters of nearly all western countries turned their attention to the intrinsic qualities of the land. They sought, in the infinite variety of its forms, an understanding of their world and themselves. Students will study works by both European and American artists in order to appreciate the extraordinary range of subject matter and style used by 19^th Century artists and to discover the meanings contained in each artist’s distinctive view of nature.

450.633 – Evolution and Creation: Science and Religious Thought in Conversation
This course will explore texts central to an evolutionary understanding of life, to a Judeo-Christian understanding of creation, and to the variety of ways that the two have been understood in relation to one another.

450.635 – Technological Imperative
This course builds upon literature in technology, drawing upon a wide range of scholarship in history, science, economics, anthropology, psychology, literature, theater, film, and current events to address questions that are vital to every aspect of life today. What guides the evolution of technology? To what degree does technology shape us and do we shape technology? How can we predict and direct this evolution? To what degree is there a technological imperative?

450.636 – Cultural Eras: The 1950s
This course examines the idea of being "American" within the context of the fifties when "un-american" activities and associations clearly placed individuals and groups on the outside of the mainstream. American national identity is considered through the dynamic that emerges between national security and civil rights and liberties; between conformity and conflict.; between inside and outside. Through the significant and enduring cultural shifts that took place in American life between 1945 and 1960 basic images and ideas closely associated with the '50s are challenged as the course considers a variety of topics from Ike to Elvis to McCarthy, the Beats, the Korean War, the Montgomery bus boycott and the Nation of Islam, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, advertising, the Kinsey Report, the promise of technology and the concern over its affects on the culture, the Cold War, the changing role of scientists, and the rise of the suburbs.

450.640 – Inventing Modern America
From the end of Reconstruction (1877) to the beginning of the Great Depression (1929), American society was characterized by major paradoxes like the emergence of a powerful national identity beset by searing conflicts of race, gender, and class. This course explores the development of such cornerstones of modern political culture as industrial corporations, state and Federal bureaucracies, overseas imperialism, widespread migration and immigration, the labor movement, women's suffrage, and civil rights movements. Students review several films (e.g., Birth of a Nation and Hester Street) and discuss both secondary and primary documents, including works by Theodore Roosevelt, Chief Joseph, Booker T. Washington, Julia Ward Howe, John Dewey, and George Santayana.

450.641 – Food and Politics
Food is central to our daily lives, yet few of us consider the political implications of what we eat. In fact, numerous political struggles take place over the production and consumption of food. These range from global conflicts over agricultural subsidies or genetically modified foods to more local concerns about food safety or the rising incidence of obesity among children and adults. Over the course of the semester, we will address these debates with two goals in mind. On the one hand, we will consider what is special or unique about food and agriculture as a distinct area of policy. On the other hand, we will attempt to draw larger lessons from the politics of food about the character and operation of political institutions and the public policy process.

450.645 – Documentary Photography
Documentary photographs inform, entertain, and enlighten us on subjects as diverse as civil war battlefields, Alabama sharecroppers, and outer space. We will explore different genres of documentary photography including: the fine art document, photo-journalism, social documentary photography, the photo essay and photography of propaganda. We will look at the relationship of image and text in the works of Walker Evans and Janes Agee. "Let us Now Praise Famous Men" and "Minimata" by Alieen and Eugene Smith. Students will work on a semester-long photo-documentary project on a subject of their choice. A digital camera is required.

450.646 – Crime in Literary West
The course analyzes major examples from the canon of Western literature and thought which, in a philosophically, culturally, and politically significant way, deal with the notions of crime and guilt and their counterparts, punishment and atonement. From the days of the Bible and of Greek antiquity to the present, the texts under investigation trace violations of the ethical, religious, social, or legal codes of their respective societies and the concomitant forms of rectification, redress, retaliation, retribution, and revenge that these societies hold in store for perpetrators. Texts considered include the Old Testament; major works by Sophocles, Dante, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Kafka, and Foucault; and examples from American “death row" poetry.

450.647 – The Impressionist Era
In 1874 a group of young painters defied the official Salon in Paris and organized an exhibition of their own. Reacting against the rigid standards of the French Academy and the emotionalism of Romanticism, the Impressionists (as they came to be called) displayed a realistic attitude to subject matter and an innovative approach to the representation of color and light. This course traces the aesthetic and historical roots of Impressionism and studies the works of its principal artists including Manet, Monet, Renior, Pissaro, Sisley, Degas, Caillebotte, Cassatt and Morisot.

450.653 – Revolution in Modern World Drama: From Strindberg to the Present
The masterpieces of modern theatre are the "canon" of works in which all students of theatre should be immersed to be able to make a contribution to the art form. In scarcely more than one century theatre has undergone several esthetic revolutions. We will look at the contending ideas of Stanislavski, Bertolt Brecht and Antonin Artaud during the 20th century, in light of works for the stage by Ibsen, Chekhov Strindberg (his late preexpressionist works), irandello, Brecht, Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett (Endgame and later plays), Sam Shepard, Wole Soyinka, and Caryl Churchill and Brian Friel. The course concludes with group presentations, and "model books" for proposed productions.

450.655 – Innocents Abroad: The American Experience of Europe from the Colonial Period until World War I
Beginning in 1759 when Benjamin West left Philadelphia in frustration at the paucity of artistic opportunity in his native land, art was what brought the colonists back to Europe. And it was art that continued to lure American artists, writers and tourists in ever increasing numbers throughout the 19th and into the 20th century. Using DC museums as classroom and the real and fictional experiences of American writers Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Henry James and Edith Wharton as guide, this course explores the American experience of Europe -- the "Grand Tour", the European academies and museums, the communities of expatriate artists and writers, the acquisition of European masterworks by wealthy Americans -- and studies its profound impact on American culture.

450.657 – Introduction to World Religions
This course surveys the 11 traditional historical religions of the world [Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto, Judaism, Christianity and Islam] in terms of history, doctrine and practice. The course begins with the classification of the religions of the world into certain families and looks into the ethno-linguistic composition of the world.

450.668 – Thinking Economically:History of Economic Thought
This course aims to provide the student with a critical understanding of both the politics inherent in discussions of the economy, and how the analysis of politics, using economic concepts and theories, has evolved over the past 400 years. The course is both historical and theoretical and overlaps with the disciplines of history, economics, and political theory. We begin with some of the most important classical statements (Aristotle, Locke) regarding the nature of the economy and its relation to other spheres of social and political life. After this introduction, the course traces the development of the notion of the economy through a consideration of some of the major contributions to the ‘political’ study of the economy from the 17th century to the present through figures such as Ricardo, Smith, Marx, Keynes, Hayek, and Friedman.

450.672 – Down to the Sea in Ships: Intro. to Underwater Archaeology
This course provides an introduction to underwater archaeology at the graduate level. Students will learn the history of the sub-discipline and a basic understanding of the steps involved in researching, locating, recording, interpreting and conserving artifacts, and protecting submerged cultural remains. No diving is required for this class. There will be a field trip to the USS Constellation in Baltimore's Inner Harbor to learn more about ship.

450.674 – Mod Amer Fict:Identity
By the late 20th century, American fiction had liberated itself from English and European models in both subject and form. Rather than writing about just white, middleclass men, American novelists began to create working-class and marginalized characters. Students explore how our search for identity in a changing world is reflected in such original novels as Doctorow’s Ragtime, Dos Passos’ The Big Money, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and consider their impact on current social and cultural issues.

450.677 – Place and Vision in Contemporary World Literature
We all have places we call home, places we love, places we fear. In this course, we explore the human experience of "place" in contemporary world literature. Drawing on contemporary theories of place relations, we look at the ingredients that give a place its identity -the intersections of geography and culture, the ties of memory and desire, the deep-rooted claims of community. We examine the ways writers inscribe 'place' as a shaping force of character, situation, and personal vision. Finally, we examine the psychic landscape of "placelessness" in narratives of dislocation and war. Writers include Jean Toomer, Jean Rhys, Manil Suri, Carlos Fuentes, Tim O'Brien, Cormac McCarthy, Bobbie Ann Mason, Scott Momaday.

450.680 – From Jerusalem to Graceland
A familiar but puzzling phenomenon of American popular culture is the secular "canonization" of Elvis Presley. This seminar will explore the belief, ritual, and art associated with all those people, places, and things that have been revered as holy, from the earliest centuries of Christianity. And from this historical probing will be extracted a religious/anthropological "model" by which to deconstruct Elvis and Elvis-like examples of secular "sanctification" in contemporary life. Students will come to understand the significance of pilgrimage, relics, votives, sacred souvenirs, miraculous healing, and supernatural apparitions, as well as devotional images (icons), sacred time, and the literary genre of the "Saint's Life." After drawing this all together in the lives and sacred places of the early saints of the Church, and then seeing many of its essential elements replicated in Elvis and at Graceland, students will be challenged to extend their new-found understanding and analytical skills to other "holy" people and places of our times, from Princess Diana to Ground Zero.

450.684 – Living Sustainably: A Moral Imperative
During this century, the human population will increase to 9 or 10 billion people, constraining our use of natural, economic, and human resources. This course will provide a forum for exploring ways in which we might live sustainably, seen from the complementary perspectives of contemporary science and moral reflection within a variety of traditions, religious and secular. We will do our best to think and write critically and imaginatively about how cosmology, Earth science, philosophy, and theology can inform our choices as we attempt to negotiate the complexities of an increasingly global society.
450.686 – The American Revolution
This course will explore the roots of the American Revolution, comparing the perspectives of England and the colonies on the causes, comparing the positions of Loyalists and Patriots within the colonies, exploring the role of diplomacy during the revolutionary years, reviewing the war years, and discovering the legacy of the revolutionary experience on the social, religious, economic and political fabric of the new nation.

450.692 – Shakespeare: Tragedies and Histories
This class involves close and careful reading of selected tragedies and plays about English history by the world's greatest playwright. We'll also look at source documents from which Shakespeare drew his plots to learn something about the magic of creativity. Moreover, we'll examine selected contemporary accounts of the English or Roman history and sample the current criticism of this body of work. The goal is to understand why people consider Shakespeare the greatest playwright ever – what is it that makes Shakespeare Shakespeare. A related goal is to reflect on the many ways in which these plays, written as the sixteenth century turned into the seventeenth, resonate in our culture as we struggle to get a handle on the twenty-first century. To do this, we'll discuss film adaptations of Shakespeare's work, and students will have an opportunity to write about a film version of a play of their choice. Assignments include reading about ten plays, weekly blogging, a final exam, a brief paper on film, and a research-based analysis. The most important thing, however, is close reading and reflective conversation.

450.702 – History of the Book in the West
This course explores the development of the book from its inception in the Late Roman Empire (the fourth and fifth centuries) to the dawn of printing with Gutenberg’s invention of movable type at Mainz in 1450. Students consider the book as a product of “new" technologies (e.g., the invention of movable type), changing economic and social conditions (e.g., the rise of vernacular texts for a literate nobility), and religious and secular practices (e.g., books for monasteries, universities, and private houses).Through this course, students gain an appreciation of objects that are both key historical documents and very often, consummate works of art. Note: Since this course draws upon the resources of the Department of Manuscripts at The Walters Art Museum, some class sessions are held at the museum.

450.704 – Plato,Geomtry,Islamc Art
Approaching the study of art through the figural tradition privileges the arts of Western Europe, India, and China. Less well known to many of us are arts of the Islamic world. Using an experimental approach that combines literary criticism and philosophy with art history and an exploration of geometry, students will engage in various two-dimensional constructions to understand experientially aspects of Islamic art that inform a beauty of form, pattern, and structure. Readings will include sections from Plato's Timaeus, commentaries by Aristotle and several Neoplatonist writers, as well as philosophical writings by later Arab and Persian authors.

450.705 – Art Collectors/Collecting
Using the museums of the Washington/Baltimore area as classroom, this course traces a dual path through the history of art (particularly Renaissance to Modern painting) and the history of art collecting in the United States. The National Gallery will provide an overview of art history and the Corcoran, Clarke, Phillips, Freer, Hirshhorn, Walters and Cone collections will provide case studies. Issues of taste, who and what influence it, and the impact of private collections and the art museums that became their legacy on the development of American culture will be addressed. Particular attention will be paid to the choices made by individual collectors exploring the meaning and relevance of the works of art they selected to their own lives and also to the larger picture of American history during their lifetimes.

450.709 – World of Dante
As distant as late 20th-century America may seem from 14th-century Europe, the work of Italy’s greatest poet reveals universal insights into an individual’s political and moral obligations with respect to both the human city and the “City of God." These and other issues are explored within the historical context of early Renaissance Italy, as well as the classical and religious traditions (e.g.,Virgil and Augustine) upon which Dante drew. Student discussion focuses on the social and cultural dimensions of Dante’s major works: The Divine Comedy (sections from Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise), The New Life (Dante’s account of his love for Beatrice), and On Monarchy (Dante’s political philosophy).

450.710 – The Mind of Leonardo Da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was one of the most fascinating individuals in history. He is the creator of what are arguably the world's two most famous paintings: the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. He was also a brilliant scientist and engineer; he made dozens of original anatomical discoveries (for example, he injected hot wax into an ox brain to demonstrate the shape of the ventricles), and he invented hundreds of devices (from ball bearings to a steam cannon). He was well known as a musician, court entertainer, and even as a practical joker. Who was Leonardo? What do we know of his personal life, including his thoughts on religion, sexuality, or politics? What personal traits shaped his genius? This course explores his thousands of pages of manuscripts; his paintings and other artistic projects; his scientific projects (including anatomy, physiology, botany, and geology); and his civil and military engineering projects.

450.711 – Romanesque and Gothic Art
Variously described as the "Dark Ages." The "Age of Faith," and the "Age of Cathedrals," the so-called Middle Ages have inspired the curiosity of students, scholars, and laypeople for centuries. This seminar explores the development of Medieval art and architecture in Western Europe from the turn of the first millennium to the full flowering of the Renaissance in the 15th century, against a backdrop of changing social, political, and cultural history. Topics include: relics, the cult of saints, pilgrimage, cathedrals, the crusades, and various artistic media and techniques. Special emphasis will be given to art of the Romanesque, Gothic, "International Style," and Late Gothic periods in the North. Using a combination of lectures, discussions, and gallery visits, this course will be taught at the Walters Art Museum, and will draw from the Walters renowned collection of Medieval art and artifacts.

450.712 – Black Arts Movement
In 1967, in Newark, New Jersey, black people took to the streets, moved to violence by decades of police brutality, exclusion from city government, inadequate housing, unemployment, poverty, and a host of other ills rooted in racism. In the middle of it all, the poet Leroi Jones (who later changed his name to Amiri Baraka) was arrested on a concealed weapons charge. Strangely enough, a poem he had published in a small literary magazine was entered into evidence at his trial. The story of Jones' conviction highlights some of the central issues we will explore in the study of the literature of the Black Arts Movement, the cultural "sister" to the Black Power Movement. These include: race as a social construction, cultural nationalism, revolutionary aesthetics, and the relationship between gender, sexuality, and the black aesthetic in the U.S. At the end of the course, we will consider these issues in the light of contemporary politics and African American culture. The reading list includes: W.E.B. Dubois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Henry Louis Gates, and others.

450.713 – Shakespeare & The Film
This seminar will examine film adaptations of four tragedies by Shakespeare: Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, and Titus Andronicus. Emphasis will be on the importance of Shakespeare's plays to the East as well as to the West, and will include works by the following directors: Kenneth Branagh (English), Akira Kurosawa (Japanese), Gregori Kosintsev (Russian), and Julie Taymor (American). In addition to considering the influence of native traditions on the interpretation of Shakespeare (such as that of the Kabuki theater on Kurosawa, or Bunraku puppetry on Taymor), the seminar will analyze the styles and cinematic techniques of individual directors.

450.714 – Progress & Amer Envr
Free-flowing rivers, bountiful wildlife, and sublime vistas of distant mountains? Or unlimited energy, tidy neighborhoods, and economic prosperity? Unrestricted in what we can do with our own land or inhibited by regulations designed to protect the common good? This course examines American cultural attitudes toward wilderness and nature as they have evolved through history and are expressed today in social and political decisionmaking.

450.718 – Faulkner's Fiction: Beyond the Southern Mystique
Although Faulkner's fiction can be viewed as the historical culmination of works about the American South, it should also be placed in the larger artistic context of Shakespeare, Balzac, Melville, Twain, Conrad, Dickens, and Joyce. This course explores the development of Faulkner's psychological themes and innovative techniques in representative short stories, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, The Hamlet, and Go Down, Moses. During Spring Break, students will have the option of visiting Oxford and other areas of Mississippi that served as sources for many of Faulkner's fictional settings.

450.719 – American Short Story
Of all genres in American literature, the short story explores most profoundly and directly the complex issues of culture, gender, class, and race. Students examine thematic and technical developments from Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle" and Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter" to works as diverse as Wharton’s “Roman Fever," Faulkner’s “That Evening Sun," and Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues." Finally they discuss short fiction by Marylanders John Barth, Josephine Jacobsen, and Anne Tyler, as well as contemporary examples of the “short-short story."

450.722 – Southern Women Writers
Is it true that there still is—or ever was—a distinctive literature by Southerners? Even more pertinent to this course: How—if at all—do Southern women poets, playwrights, and fiction writers differ from their male counterparts in terms of themes and techniques of setting, characterization, style, and point of view? Such issues will be explored with regard to all three literary genres, beginning with representative poems by two black women, Margaret Walker of Alabama and Nikki Giovanni of Tennessee, and two white women with Baltimore roots, Josephine Jacobsen and Adrienne Rich. Students then examine Lillian Hellman's play Another Part of the Forest, set in 1880s Alabama, Carson McCullers' own dramatic adaptation of her novel The Member of the Wedding about a mid-20th-century family in Georgia, and Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart, a contemporary play about three Mississippi sisters, which was revived on Broadway this year. Finally, we discuss stories by women born in Georgia, Texas, and Mississippi, respectively, Flannery O'Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty.

450.729 – Maya Worlds: Ancient and Modern
This course will survey the Pre-Columbian Maya cultures of Mexico and Central America, in light of ongoing archaeological excavation work and the current project of glyph decipherment that has now established that the Maya of the Classic era (third to ninth centuries, CE) were a fully literate Native American civilization. Slide lectures on such important sites as Copán, Tikal, Palenque, Uxmal, and Chichen Itzá will explore basic urban layout, the design of ceremonial centers, and the symbolism and iconography of Maya art and architecture, and what these can tell us about the social, political and religious life of the ancient Maya. The course moves on to study the period of European contact, of prolonged struggle, and of colonial and national hegemony, along with continued Maya strategies of cultural survival through accommodation and resistance. Topics will include the crises of the Caste Wars in the Yucatan; the neo-liberal "reforms" of the late nineteenth century that appropriated indigenous communal lands; and the genocidal repression of the 1980's in Guatemala. Special attention will be devoted to the subject of religious "syncretism," the blending of Maya traditionalism with distinctively Maya forms of Catholicism, and other religious practices.

450.731 – American Composers of the 20th Century: Ives, Gershwin, Copland and Bernstein
The musical legacy of this quartet of composers is, simply put, the notion that Americans can and have produced an art music competitive with that of their European counterparts. Classes first focus on the coming of age of the American composer and, afterward, study the art of four individuals whose contribution to music in America is as yet unmeasured. Although students examine the historical context of the music of Ives, Gershwin, Copland, and Bernstein, primary emphasis is on their melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, contrapuntal, and formal aspects.

450.736 – Romanticism in Music
Romanticism characterized 19th-century European music as well as literature and the visual arts. After examining works by such leading composers as Beethoven, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky, students discuss the important differences between romanticism and both 18th-century classicism and 20th-century modernism. By the conclusion of the seminar, students will be able to identify the selections, themes, and composers of the music studied.

450.739 – Race and Jazz
The music known as jazz has been celebrated and performed by peoples throughout the world. This course will examine the music itself as well as the role that race has played in the creation of jazz, the perception of its history, and the perceived authenticity of present-day jazz. We will examine the music from a historical perspective through the study of the music and lives of its creators and practitioners beginning with precursors in ragtime and minstrelsy and continuing into the modern era. Students will learn to make aesthetic judgments, identify various jazz styles and discuss their relevance to their time and to the present. Classes are planned to include guest artists from the Baltimore jazz scene, examples in various media and live performances by the instructor.

450.740 – Film & Public Memory
Both the feature film and the film documentary have the power to shape public perceptions of key historical events and individuals in U.S. history and culture. This course examines the film as a form of public history replacing “real" history with a constructed, mediated version that more often reflects current controversies and cultural dramas through an exploration of the past. We explore the presentation of historical figures like Bonnie and Clyde and the wars (Dr. Strangelove, Platoon), analyze films that depict the nation’s past (John Ford’s West in The Searchers), and examine visions and perceptions of the future embodied in futuristic films like Star Wars.

450.743 – Idea of Freedom
Since the time of the Greeks, Western thinkers have been deeply concerned with the issue of whether human beings are merely cogs in an impersonal cosmic machine over which they have no influence, or whether they can control their individual destinies in some way. Students consider this perennial conflict between determinism and free will by examining philosophical, theological, literary, and psychological writings by such thinkers as Sophocles, Aristotle, Augustine, Luther, Descartes, Spinoza, Hegel, Gide, and Skinner.

450.745 – King Arthur in Legend and Literature
After reviewing early evidence for King Arthur, students discuss “the Matter of Britain," the stories and legends surrounding Arthurian figures that appear in Welsh tradition and French romance. In addition to reading the romances of Chrétien de Troyes and Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, students investigate the appropriation of the Arthurian story in subsequent literature, including works by Tennyson, T.H. White, and recent writers.

450.750 – The Artificial Human
Plato defined man as a "featherless biped" and thought the matter resolved, until Diogenes threw a plucked chicken over the wall of the Academy in Athens. With the help of modern writers (Anne Rice) and filmmakers (Ridley Scott), as well as a few scientists (James Watson) and philosophers (John Searle), we will enter the fray. We shall not, however, try to define "human," but rather gain an understanding of what it means to be human, from the perspectives of popular literature (fiction and non-fiction) and film. In the process, we shall look at everything from animated characters (cartoons) and vampires, to aliens, androids, and computers. We shall see that many of these "life forms" have something "human" about them, whether they are evolved or engineered, organic or inorganic, real or imagined. Metaphorical chickens may be plucked.

450.751 – Birth of Modern Music
This course examines the changes that occurred in musical thought, circa 1890–1914, by considering representative works of first-echelon composers. These are analyzed stylistically, meaning the focus of the course is the language of music: melody, rhythm, harmony, form, timbre, and so on. The philosophical/aesthetic changes that brought the changes into being are also discussed. The focus is music itself and the new craft(s) that set into play the whole notion of “modern" music.

450.752 – Spies, Sabotages, Escapes, Evasions and Code-Breaking in World War-II
Even though it is common knowledge that the Allied generals and admirals won the Second World War on the battlefields and the high seas, it remains almost unknown and opaque to the general public as to how much information the espionage agents, the deciphering of Axis codes, the resistance fighters etc. were able to provide in contributing to the ultimate Allied victory over Nazi Germany and Militarist Japan. Equally and frighteningly true is how much knowledge the Axis powers had gained about the Allies and thankfully for various reasons did nothing about it. This course will delve into the various incidents such as the espionage case where the butler to the an allied ambassador to a Near Eastern country was able to photograph documents containing the top secret minutes of the conferences of the Allied leaders concerning the D-Day invasion; a communist spy circle based in the Far East and one of whose members sat in on the cabinet meetings of the Imperial Japanese council of ministers and thereby passing all the information to the Kremlin; the extensive communist spy network operating out of the various centers of wartime Europe whose information helped the Red Army at various stages in the battles of the Russian front from Stalingrad to Berlin; the sabotage of the German heavy-water production plant by resistance fighters; the sabotage of the Southeast Asian railway by Allied POWs after the Japanese military forced them to build it under inhuman conditions; the daring escape by Jewish inmates and Russian POWs from a Nazi-run extermination camp; the planned assassination of an important Reichskommissar by partisans and their eventual martyrdom at the hands of the Germans; the disappointing story of a demonic SS medical doctor who managed to slip through the cracks after his capture by the Americans at the end of the war and successfully escape to South America where he evaded, for thirty years, various types of Nazi-hunters including the Israeli Intelligence Service; a young Jewish girl's gripping story of the several miraculous evasions from the Germans for six long years in Nazi-occupied Poland; the wonderful story of a British missionary woman who helped save hundreds of Chinese children from certain death at the hands of the cruel Japanese military; the heart-warming story of the miraculous release of the deeply religious woman from a Nazi concentration-camp; the breaking of the German 'Enigma' code by brilliant British mathematicians; the breaking of the JN-25 Japanese code by the Americans which enabled both the Allied victory at Midway and by some bizarre stroke of luck at Normandy as well.

450.753 – Idea of South-amer Lit
The American South continues to cast a powerful mystique, though its meaning can vary considerably. Whose version of the South is recorded? How do we even define “the South"? What racial, sexual, and cultural tensions lie behind the fabled magnolia trees, white-pillared mansions, and mint juleps? Since literature has always captured the complex realities beneath deceptive appearances, this seminar explores such questions in works by Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Lillian Hellman, Katherine Anne Porter, Robert Penn Warren, Toni Morrison, and others.

450.754 – Alienation and Deviance
Sometimes we see more deeply into our culture when we view it from the outside in, as through the eyes of those defined as deviant by American society or those profoundly alienated from it. Drawing upon history and literature, this course looks at such outsiders as "lunatics" in nineteenth-century America, Richard Wright growing up in segregated Mississippi, gay men in New York before World War II, an over-privileged prep school flunk out, and a schizophrenic young woman from a wildly dysfunctional family. To paraphrase the insight of one of our authors, the broken parts say a great deal about the machine itself.

450.755 – Evil From Greek Tragedies to Gothc Tales
Writers of all genres and periods have been fascinated by the motives and manifestations of evil, as well as individual strategies for combating it and artistic implications of expressing it. In reading representative works from Greek tragedies to Gothic tales, we will consider the definition, nature, and operation of evil; the causes or enabling factors of evil (personal and historical); the consequences of evil (e.g., suffering, revenge, personal growth); the strategies for characters—and readers—to handle evil and the implications of writing about evil for literary form (e.g., positive and negative effects on characterization, structure, and tone). Works for discussion include Euripides' Medea, Shakespeare's Macbeth, Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and short fiction by Poe, Hawthorne, and James.

450.756 – What is History?
How do historians evaluate evidence and draw conclusions about the past? How persuasive is the thesis of Simon Schama’s Dead Certainties that “the asking of questions and the relating of narratives need not…be mutually exclusive forms of historical representation," and that history ultimately must be “a work of the imagination"? After probing these and other issues, and writing their own “histories" based upon the document packets, students focus on Allen Weinstein’s Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case to discuss whether historians can ever determine “the truth" no matter how rich the evidence. This course is intended to be an introduction to the resources and tools for history available on the Internet and the World Wide Web, as well as a reflective exercise on the meaning of history.
450.760 – Beethoven And His Age
Beethoven’s profound influence on the music of succeeding generations is as yet unmeasured. The main focus in this course is analyzing works from all periods of Beethoven’s life in terms of melody, rhythm, harmony, and other aspects of musical style. Attention is also devoted to those contemporary developments—such as the French Revolution—which affected Beethoven’s sensibility and made possible his appearance as a radically new kind of musician.

450.763 – Myths:Development and Significance
Myths provide profound insight into the human condition because they contain the collective wisdom of many generations. Although most modern studies concur that myths are important, there is little agreement about the best way to explain their origin and sources of power. This course explores the many modern methods employed in the study of myths and applies these methods to stories selected from African, Biblical, Greek, Japanese, Mesopotamian, Native-American, Southeast-Asian, and other mythologies.

450.764 – Medicine in the Ancient Near Eastern and Classical Worlds
This seminar examines the practices of medicine in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Israel, as well as classical Greece and Rome. The primary emphasis is on early ideas about health and disease. Students discuss such issues as the practice of surgery, methods of hygiene, knowledge of contagion, definitions of illness, and concepts of ritual purity. Readings include primary texts surviving from ancient Near Eastern documents (e.g., Egyptian papyri and Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets), as well as the Hippocratic treatises and other medical literature from the Greco-Roman World.

450.765 – Politics/Cult Holocaust
This course examines genocide through a study of the Holocaust, both as a paradigm of state-supported mass destruction and as a unique catastrophe that continues to generate prodigious amounts of literature in such fields as sociology, philosophy, psychology, fiction, and theology. To understand better a writer’s dilemma in trying to communicate horrors that defy imagination and reason, students discuss Wiesel’s Night, Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, Fink’s A Scrap of Time, Kosinski’s The Painted Bird, and other works. The class also analyzes films such as Imsdorf's Indelible Shadows and the video of the Wannsee Conference.

450.769 – Dead Sea Scrolls
The recovery of a massive ancient library from caves near Khirbet Qumran in the Judaean Desert has been described as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in modern times. Seminar participants read the scrolls themselves in English translation to learn more about the Jewish apocalyptic in the Greco Roman period. Jewish apocalyptic is important not only as a lost chapter in the history of Judaism but also as the spiritual and intellectual context out of which Christianity emerged. Topics include the circumstances of the scrolls’ discovery, theories of their origins, their historical context, and the ongoing controversy over publication rights.

450.770 – The New South
Born in defeat, despair, defiance and devastation, the post-Civil War South accomplished remarkable feats of physical and psychological rehabilitation. At once a distillation of America and yet also a thing apart, the "New South" embodied some of the best and worst of this nation, and spun off a vibrant cultural heritage. As we ask whether "the South" still really exists today, we will trace the regional past from Appomattox Court House to something called the Sun Belt. Readings, discussion, and a research paper.

450.776 – American West:Image and Reality
The American West has always exerted a profound influence on American life and thought. This course examines the importance of the frontier in 19th-century history, as well as Americans' changing perceptions of how the West was settled. Topics include the conflict between whites and native Americans, the role of women on the frontier, the development of "civilizing" institutions like churches and schools, law-and-order justice, and the timeless distinctiveness of the West. Readings include Frederick Jackson Turner's essay about the importance of the frontier, Julie Jeffrey's Frontier Women, Owen Wister's The Virginian, and Walter Van Tilburg Clark's Ox-Bow Incident.

450.779 – Euripides:Tragic Playwrt
Why did Aristotle’s Poetics praise Euripides (485-406 B.C.) as the best interpreter of the tragic genre in Greece? How did his tragedies differ from those of Aeschylus and Sophocles? Why are they, despite their cynical and often brutal subjects, among the most often performed plays today? Students address these and related questions by examining how Euripides constructed his plots and characters around myth and politics, psychology and sexuality, and reason and religion. Plays under discussion include the Bacchae, Helena, Iphigenia in Aulis, The Trojan Women, Hippolytus, and Medea.

450.787 – Angst, Alienation
No single intellectual or cultural movement has had more of an impact on the 20th century than existentialism, with it emphasis on angst, alienation, and absolute freedom. After exploring its philosophical basis in the works of Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir, and Heidegger, students discuss the following literature: Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, Kafka’s The Trial, Hesse’s Steppenwolf, Camus’ The Stranger, Sartre’s No Exit, and Ellison’s The Invisible Man.

450.795 – Reading Paris
The years between the Revolution of 1848, which installed a short-lived republic, and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, which toppled the empire of Napoleon III, witnessed great changes - socially, economically, and culturally - in Paris. The city we visit today was in large part created by the urban renewal projects of Baron Haussmann in the 1850s and 60s, while the innovations in fiction, poetry, and painting that instituted Modernism date from this period. We shall be studying these developments in the novels of Gustave Flaubert and Emile Zola, in the poetry of Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud, and in the painting of Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet. We shall also read accounts of the 1848 Revolution by Alexis de Tocqueville, Victor Hugo, and Karl Marx, and of the Commune of 1871 by various participants, observers and more recent historians. The class will meet on the Homewood campus for the month of September and part of October, and then during the second week of October, we will reconvene in Paris, where a series of lectures, museum tours and urban walks will serve to supplement and illustrate our readings and discussions.

450.796 – Civility & Civilization
Is civility necessary to civilization? What do philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists say about both? This course examines the refinement of manners in selected societies—ancient and modern—and the ideological debates underlying that process. Students focus on the relationship between democracy and civility in the United States from its post-revolutionary years to the present. Readings include Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, Elias’ The Civilizing Process, and Kasson’s Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth Century Urban America.

450.799 – New York City: a Cultural History
In this course we will explore the cultural history of New York City, from its non-urban origins as a place of Native American culture, through its urban beginnings as Dutch New Amsterdam and British colonial New York. From that point the course will focus on major cultural moments in the life of New York City: the impact of the Erie Canal in establishing NYC as the mercantile capital of the United States; the role of Hudson River School of painting in extending the reach of NYC as a metropolitan cultural center; the creation of Central Park and the building of Brooklyn Bridge as perhaps the city's two greatest cultural monuments of the 19th century. We will follow the
progress of NYC's art scene from lesser-known regional painters and the New York impressionists, through the famous Armory Show of 1913, the Ashcan School, the Harlem Renaissance and the WPA era, through Abstract Expressionism and the New York School. At the same time we'll look at the writers who centered their work on N YC, from Whitman through Henry James and Edith Wharton to E. L. Doctorow, and we will look at the representation of New York City in film. The course will pay close attention to NYC's architecture, but also to its unique infrastructure of bridges, tunnels and subways and especially to the less often told stories of NYC's distinctive neighborhoods. To enhance our exploration, the course will include two overnight weekend visits to New York City.

Capstone

450.082 – MLA Portfolio
The Liberal Arts Portfolio is a non-credit option within the MLA Capstone. Students who select the Portfolio option will take 10 courses in the program. The portfolio will be completed within the same semester as the 10th course, and for students not selecting a graduate project or thesis, the portfolio is a degree requirement. The associate chair serves as the portfolio adviser. The portfolio consists of a sampling of the best papers and projects written over the course of the student's graduate career. It is not simply a collection of papers but designed to help students see the intellectual point of convergence in their studies. It is also provides a travel log chronicling the student's journey toward their own "way of knowing."

450.830 – MLA Graduate Project
Most students enrolled in the Master of Liberal Arts program conclude their degree requirements by writing an independent project under the direction of a faculty sponsor. The graduate project is interdisciplinary in scope and reflects an emphasis or interest that the student has discovered in the MLA program. Before registering for the graduate project, a student must receive proposal approval from the faculty sponsor and the MLA associate program chair.

450.835 – MLA Thesis I
Following the completion of eight courses, you may choose to do the two-course Master Thesis option. The thesis provides you with the opportunity to conclude your MLA degree by making a substantial and original contribution to knowledge. Under the guidance of a faculty adviser, you will find a worthwhile problem or unsolved question, and write a formal analytical research paper of 75 to 100+ pages. The thesis is interdisciplinary in scope and reflects an emphasis or interest that you have discovered through the MLA program. An MLA thesis should review all past scholarship in the chosen field and attempt to go beyond it to make an original contribution, which is publishable. Before registering for the thesis, a student must receive proposal approval from the faculty sponsor and the MLA associate program chair.

450.836 – MLA Thesis II
This is the second part of the two part MLA Graduate Thesis course in which students have to complete their theses.