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Course Descriptions
Core Courses
450.749 – Exploring the Liberal Arts
This is a required course for all MLA students and it should be taken within the first three classes. What do we mean by the “liberal arts”–and why are they more important today than ever before? How do the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and arts compare and contrast in terms of their methods of acquiring, analyzing, and conveying knowledge? Are the “ways of knowing” for each discipline incremental or sudden—and why or when? The course is taught using a thematic approach. Previous incarnations of the class have included a focus on "The DaVinci Code," "Time," "The American landscape and the American imagination," "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Fifties," and in Fall 2009, "Seeing."
In Spring 2009, this course we will explore the diverse ways that traditional cultures of indigenous peoples express themselves – in words, in art, in ritual and ceremony, in music and in social, religious and philosophical ideologies. All too often indigenous cultures that have adapted, persisted, survived and flourished amid the drastic changes brought about by colonialism, modernity and a globalized economy have continued to be treated as a peripheral reality and patronized as “exotic” survivals of some timeless romanticized past, rather than as vital participants in the contemporary world. This course will attempt to honor and understand the past but at the same time be attentive to the voice and testimony and artistic expression of contemporary indigenous people. Culture areas that will be studied during the semester include the peoples of the Far North (Inuit and Yupik), Native American cultures of the Pacific Northwest Coast and the American Southwest, the Maya and Qechua people of Central and South America, traditional African cultures of Mali, Nigeria and South Africa, and the Aboriginal and Maori peoples of Australia and New Zealand. Readings for each culture will consist of transcribed oral testimony and literary texts by such Indigenous writers as Oscar Kawagley (Yupik), Charles James Nowell (Kwakiutl), Leslie Marmon Silko (Pueblo), Scott Momaday (Kiowa), Rigoberta Menchu (Maya), Gregorio Condori and Asunta Quispe (Qechua), Chinua Achebe (Nigerian) and others.
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.
450.603 – Baltimore and the Environment
From its earliest development, Baltimore as a corporate entity has struggled to improve the health of the city and the surrounding country side by improving the quantity and quality of the water supply, fighting and preventing fires, and disposing of human and industrial waste. This course will trace the history of these efforts in the context of their impact on the environment and the communities involved, examining such issues as the impact of ground rents on urban expansion and growth, the use of eminent domain (the taking of property by a public agency for public purposes) to return the Gunpowder River from an industrial sewage conduit to its natural beauty and fresh water supply for the city, the disaster of a devastating fire (1904) that led to a state of the art[ public sewer system, and the balancing of industrial pollution (Sparrow's Point) with waste treatment run off (Back River Treatment Plant) that was intended to neutralize any pollution of the Chesapeake Bay by both. Students will learn of the pioneering efforts of the City to face the problems of public health from its earliest days, and examine some of the consequences of industrial decline, both intended and unintended, on those efforts. As their paper/project assignments, students will be expected to research and write a concise biographical study of a lawyer who either worked for the city , or against the city in its efforts to implement such public policy decisions as segregating and containing neighborhoods, the obliteration of the village of Warren in the city's quest for pure water, the creation of the Back River Sewage disposal plant (which had the intended or unintended effect of driving out a red light district in Baltimore County), and the revitalization of the harbor area following the Great Fire.
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 sacrilegious 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 – American Art and Literature of the 19th Century
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 Philosophers
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.
450.615 – 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 marshaled 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: Readings 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.
450.623 – The Theater of Revolt: Makers of Modern Drama
Modern drama has been called “Three Boards and a Passion, “and in this course we follow the playwrights whose passion created a revolution in traditional theater, unleashing energies that continue to drive theater a century later. We will read major plays of Ibsen, Chekhov, Pirandello, Shaw, and Brecht in the context of their 19th and 20th century cultural settings to understand how shifting philosophical and scientific views required new ways of staging stories of human suffering and striving, prompting innovations in both subject matter and technical form. And, because drama is primarily a performed art, we will compare the “play on the page” with“the play on the stage.” Our alternate-weekly, extended class format will afford us the opportunity to analyze scenes from distinguished theater performances that have been captured on film. Early in the term the class will be visited by members of the Single Carrot Theater group who will discuss and give a reading from their recent production of Ibsen’s Wild Duck, and following the March 27th meeting, we will attend the Saturday matinee performance of Our Town at Everyman Theater.
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. Website can be found now at: http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/physics.html
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.
450.632 – The Art of Nature and the Nature of Art: Landscape Painting of the 19th Century
Before the 19th 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 19th 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 – Modern English Literature
This course investigates a wide range of twentieth-century English works in all genres of imaginative literature. In regard to poetry, students discuss selections from Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden, and Stevie Smith to Carol Ann Duffy, England’s first woman Poet Laureate, appointed last spring. Then they analyze three novels: E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange. The syllabus concludes with the plays The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter, Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, and Top Girls by Caryl Churchill.
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.
450.641 – 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.
450.643 – Reading Photographs: Theory and Practice
A photograph can tell many stories: one the photographer tries to communicate, one through the lens of culture and politics and one through the eyes of the viewer as influenced by his/her own personal history.In this course students will learn to analyze and write critically about photographs. Concurrently they will learn to use their digital cameras, creating a series of images inspired by the photographs they study during the semester.
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 James 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.
450.647 – 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.
450.649 – Languages of the World
This course begins with an investigation into the origins and growth of language. It then proceeds to systematically look at the fifteen major ethno-linguistic families of the world such as the Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Hamito-Semitic, Ural-Altaic, Niger-Congo and others in terms of their origins and as to how the various languages of the world are classified under them. It will then make a comprehensive survey of at least one language in each family. It also looks into the distinction between language and dialect. The linguistic theories of certain important scholars will also be enunciated. The course will then proceed to look at the Indo-European family in particular to which belong languages like English, Spanish, German, Greek, Russian and Sanskrit among others. It will explore the origins of the English language and look into the structure of its vocabulary from Greek, Latin, Norman French, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic. It will then look at the various types of English spoken around the world created by the British Empire. The course will comparatively look at some interesting grammatical facts in several Indo-European languages. Students will attempt to learn the scripts of several languages, both ancient and modern, and then try to read and write elementary words and passages in these languages. It will also look at certain esoteric meanings of the alphabets in certain languages.
450.652 – Understanding Modern Art
Paintings, prints, and sculptures represent the world as their makers see it. Some artists depict a world that is harmonious and beautiful; some depict a chaotic world; and some show a world that seems unrecognizable. No matter how the world is shown, every artist is attempting to convey complex messages. For millennia, artists communicated using the artistic vocabulary of realism. Then, a little over a hundred years ago, realism was replaced by a plethora of new artistic vocabularies and Modern Art was born. Understanding Modern Art is not a simple process. In the first place, the word “modern” doesn’t mean contemporary. In fact, Modern Art ended in the last decades of the 20th century, when the art world entered the Post-Modern period. In addition, not all artists working in the Modern period created Modern Art (which by definition must be characterized by innovation and social comment). Some artists moved in and out of modernist phases in their work. For example, the paradigmatic 20th century artist, Pablo Picasso, worked in five distinctly different styles, only some of which are modernist. A final complication is that Modern Art encompasses a series of distinct art movements which seem to have little in common with one another. This course surveys the phenomenon of Modern Art, beginning with its immediate 19th century precursors and ending with a quick look at what followed the Modern period. Among the movements to be studied are Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Dada and Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Super-realism, and Post-modernism.
450.654 – Science Fiction Film in the 20th Century
This course provides a survey of Science Fiction Film from the early part of the 20th century and the very beginnings of film, through 2001. We will look at influential filmmakers including George Melies, Fritz Lang, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg and will analyze the basic component of the genre through science fiction “classics” like A Trip to the Moon, Metropolis, The Day the Earth Stood Still, A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, Star Wars, Close Encounters, Blade Runner, and AI among many others. The goal is to develop critical analytical skills in understanding the role of science fiction within culture. What is the “science” that drives the science fiction and what does it mean to be human? What is the view of the future, of technology? How are cultural and social concerns expressed through genre? The films and filmmakers are placed within a larger historical, cultural, and social context as we explore film as an industry, as a technology, as a form of communication, and as an artifact of 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.
450.660 – Extreme America: Political Extremism in the U.S., 1870-1920
For many of us, politics seem especially polarized at present. But in the half century between 1870 and 1920, socialism, anarchism, and communism were real presences in American life, not just smear words. On the right, racism was open and openly defended, respectable figures argued that there was too much democracy and that the "unfit" (including many of our ancestors) shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. This course will examine political extremism in this extraordinary period with an eye toward understanding the causes and consequences of a political culture of extremism.
450.664 – Ideas of Justice
This would deal with conflicting ideas about justice, as they have come down to us in political philosophy, often as influenced by religious thought. We will focus on ideas of what philosophers call distributive justice, that is, ideas as to what ways of distributing wealth and other advantages in society are just (e.g., can it be just for society to allow there to be sizable inequalities among its members?). Connected with this are ideas as to property rights, and as to the nature of rights in general. In discussing these matters it would be important to notice the differing ways in which thinkers have tried to argue for the views they advocate, and to ask whether there is a correct way of arguing about such views. Readings could be from Plato, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Mandeville, Rousseau, Smith, Mill, Rawls, Nozick, and others.
450.672 – Down to the Sea in Ships: Introduction 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 – Modern American Fiction: Search for 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 considers 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.
450.678 – Religions of the Emerging World
As former “third world” nations rise in global importance, it is important to understand their religious traditions. This course explores the Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist and Islamic traditions “at their best,” probing the essential spirit of each tradition—key insights into what is of ultimate importance, what the highest human good is, and how human persons should set the basic direction of their lives.
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.
450.682 – The American Presidency
This course is an introduction to the study of the presidency. Part one of the course examines how the office of the presidency became the central focus of the American political system and how the presidency developed various resources beyond the formal constitutional powers of the office such as party leadership, control of the executive, and relations with the public. Part two explores how presidents engage the broader political system and its relations with Congress, the press, the broader public, and the bureaucracy. Part three questions the sources of successful presidential leadership and examines whether presidential leadership hinges on personal skill, particular electoral or political circumstances, or an incumbent's position within a larger partisan context of American politics. The class concludes with a consideration of presidential "greatness" and asks whether such a goal is attainable (or desirable) given the complex environment of contemporary American politics.
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 – Modern Scuplture
Paintings, prints and sculptures represent the world as their makers see it. Some artists depict a world that is harmonious and beautiful; some depict a chaotic world; and some show a world that seems unrecognizable. But no matter how the world is shown, every artist is attempting to convey complex messages. For millennia, artists communicated using the artistic vocabulary of realism. Then, a little over a hundred years ago, realism was replaced by a plethora of new artistic vocabularies and Modern Art was born. When we consider the art of the hundred years, we tend to concentrate on painting. Painters were the first modernists, after all, and led most of the innovations in subsequent art styles. But sculpture slowly became equally as important, and over the past 20 years it has surpassed painting as the most innovative medium.
In this course, we’ll trace the development of sculpture over the past century, from the last years of the 19th century the beginning of the 21st. We’ll look at works from the Expressionist, Cubist, Dadaist and Surrealist, Abstract Expressionist, Pop Art, Super-realist, Conceptualist, and Public Art movements. So that you learn to recognize the various movements visually, we’ll look at lots of sculptures, but we’ll concentrate most of our time in class on a few important examples of each movement. Although it is not a prerequisite, the course will elaborate on ideas discussed in Introduction to Modern Art.
450.688 – Violence to End Violence: Slavery, Anti-Slavery and the Coming of the Civil War
The period between 1828 and 1865 was one of the most tumultuous eras in American history. At the center of this turmoil were slavery, a new, more militant antislavery movement, and an extraordinary amount of violence that each generated. This course looks at that violence-and at alternatives to it—in order to examine a number of questions of contemporary, as well as historical, significance. Some of them are: When and why do men and women resort to violence to achieve group goals? What are the consequences, intended and unintended, of using violent means to achieve a group’s ends? What alternative to violence were there at particular historical moments? Who condemned or supported violence, and for what reasons?
450.691 – Introduction to Northern Renaissance Art
This seminar explores the development of art and architecture in Northern Europe ca.1400-1600 and addresses the concept of the “Renaissance” in the North against a backdrop of changing social, political, and cultural history. Topics include: artistic media and techniques, devotional practice, the emergence of realism, and portraiture. Special emphasis will be given to the 15th-century founders of Early Netherlandish Painting. With a format combining lectures, discussions, and gallery visits, this course will be taught at the Walters Art Museum, and will draw from the collection of the Walters and other museums.
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.
450.693 – A Comparative Look at the Manuscript Book
Drawing upon the world famous collection of illustrated manuscripts at The Walters Art Museum, Curators Amy Landau and William Noel will discuss the manuscript book from Paris to Persia. For one thousand years the manuscript was the principle vehicle for the dissemination of ideas and artistic tastes throughout Europe and Asia. In this class, accessing original works of art, students will discover how books were made, used, and valued in their respective cultures. Topics to be addressed include: the materials and methods of book production; the significance and development of the book in religious and non-religious contexts; styles of scripts and illustration; as well as later responses to the manuscript, including the re-visitation of codices, circulation of books as commodities and diplomatic gifts, and the manuscript book’s preservation and adoration in public and private collections. Discussing such topics, we shall explore both similarities and differences in approaches to the manuscript book in the western and Islamic traditions. This class offers students the unique opportunity to study manuscripts first hand.
450.701 – Theories of Ethics
Are there correct answers to ethical questions about what behavior is right and what is wrong? Or is no one’s opinion about ethics any more correct than anyone else’s? In other words, are ethical judgments capable of being true, or are webeing deceived by an illusion if we suppose so? Here is a basic and vexed problem, which has concerned many thinkers. Philosophers, ancient and moderns, such as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Kant, and Nietzsche have put forward treatments of this problem, and theologians, psychologists, anthropologists, and political theorists also have written about it. A variety of these viewpoints will be considered and appraised, in search of a resolution to the problem.
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 – Poetry and the Visual Arts
This course will explore the relationship between poetic and visual imaginations in the modern era. We will consider this subject from a number of angles, including, for example: poems based on paintings (Auden’s “Museé des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s “Fall of Icarus”); poetic images that make use of a pictorial tradition (Chinese ink painting in Li-Young Lee’s “Persimmons”); exchanges between poets and artists that contributed to a transformation in the arts (the Belle Epoch in Paris, as exemplified by Stéphane Mallarmé’s friendships with Berthe Morisot and Édouard Manet); reciprocal tensions in the poetry and art of a single artist (Derek Wolcott); the use of similar techniques, such as the symbolic coding of color, in poems (Wallace Stevens), and in painting (Marc Chagall).
The class will use a blog for the posting of visual images and other class-related materials. Requirements will include short papers/commentaries, and one long paper.
450.705 – Art Collectors and 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.
Course meetings for Fall 2009: Sept. 12, Sept. 26, Oct. 10, Oct. 31, Nov. 14, Dec. 5, and Dec. 19. From 10am
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 – Cosmos and Consciousness: Perspectives from Modern Physics and Religion
What does the culture of mass-energy, space-time, the big bang and black holes have to say to the culture of myth, ritual, contemplation and prayer? And vice-versa? In this course, students are introduced to the profoundly strange realities unveiled by modern physics, and they explore the impact of quantum theory and relativity on our understanding of questions which have traditionally been the province of the world’s great spiritual traditions: What is the origin of the cosmos and where, if anywhere, is it headed? Does the universe have meaning? What is the relation between time and eternity, between mind and matter? Who are we and how did we get here? In exploring these questions, students examine the problems and possibilities of finding common ground where modern science and the world’s time-honored spiritual traditions can meet. This course is team-taught by a physicist and a religious studies scholar.
450.713 – Shakespeare and the Film
Subtitle: Shakespeare in Asia: Film Adaptations of the Tragedies
This seminar will examine Indian, Chinese, and Japanese film adaptations of four tragedies by Shakespeare. The plays and their directors are as follows: Macbeth (Maqbool by Vishal Bharadwaj, and Throne of Blood by Akira Kurosawa); Othello (Omkara by Vishal Bharadwaj); Hamlet (The Banquet by Feng Xiaogang); and King Lear (Ran by Akira Kurosawa). Students will discuss each play prior to viewing its film adaptation(s); the seminar will also make use of a blog for weekly postings of related materials. Seminar requirements include a paper and oral report concerning the influence of an Asian native tradition on one of the films under study, such as that of Noh theater on Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, or Peking opera on Feng Xiogang’s The Banquet.
450.714 – Progress and the American Environment
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 decision making.
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
The distinguished tradition of the American short story has continued into the twenty-first century with recent collections by two alumni of Johns Hopkins University—John Barth (also professor emeritus from its School of Arts and Sciences) and Louise Erdrich (a descendent of the Chippewa Indians about whom she often writes). After discussing representative fiction by founders of the genre—Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe—students explore stories by a diverse group of writers including Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, Joyce Carol Oates, and John Updike (whose sixty-year writing career ended with his death in 2009).
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 in 2008. Finally, we discuss stories by women born in Georgia, Texas, and Mississippi, respectively, Flannery O'Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty.
450.725 – Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, whose bicentennial arrives in 2009, rivets our attention as the most important, successful, and wonderfully human president in our history. This course examines his life and times as America expanded, changed, nearly disintegrated in the nation’s bloodiest war, and finally emerged reunited under Lincoln’s singular leadership.
450.726 – Lost Books of Bible
After centuries of agreement about which texts constituted the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, modern archaeological discoveries have rekindled the profound ancient controversies about which books should be considered sacred and authoritative. The Dead Sea scrolls, for example, predate the time when the limits of the Hebrew Bible were set, and the Gnostic writings found at Nag Hammadi include forgotten gospels that once rivaled those preserved in the New Testament. In this seminar students compare the processes of inclusion and exclusion that produced the Jewish and Christian Bibles — giving special attention to the light shed by recent manuscript discoveries. Special Topic for Spring 2009: The Lost Books of the New Testament, giving special attention to The Gospel of Mary (Magdalene) and the recently discovered Gospel of Judas.
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 and Public Memory
This course considers the complex interaction between the feature film and culture through a consideration of how films have presented real history and science. Feature films often contain inaccuracies in how historical and scientific subjects are presented, but moviegoers do not go into a film armed with textbooks with which they gauge the truthfulness or accuracy of a particular film. For the length of the movie the audience exists in a closed world being addressed with a particular set of truths. Studies clearly show that movies do teach and inaccuracies in the movies are more likely to be accepted as truthful even when the presentation is challenged by a scholarly perspective on the subject. The American West is a complex subject but we “remember” the West most clearly through a mental reference to a John Ford western? Can the science of cloning ever be presented by a scientist as clearly as it was in the feature film Jurassic Park? Was Oliver Stone right when he said about his1986 film Platoon,” “Remember. Just remember what the war was. Remember what the war is. This is it.” This course examines the film as a form of public history; a constructed, mediated version of history often seamless in presentation and powerful in address. We will not be judging the history or science embedded in these films. Rather we will try to understand the larger cultural imperatives that influence the presentation. Filmmakers hail their films as “realistic,” “accurate,” and “truthful” while employing a documentary style of filmmaking and extra-textual materials to address the audience and audiences gauge the success of a film on how well it lived up to expectations. How do historians and scientists respond to the sheer power of these films in defining complex issues for a mass audience? How can interpretation of these films be changed with a shift in context? Movies can inspire the young to study science or draw people to historical subjects, and yet the vision of the past is often refracted through a lens of current cultural influences. We will explore the presentation of historical figures like Bonnie and Clyde, the wars (Dr. Strangelove, Platoon, Waltz with Bashir), and analyze films that depict the nation’s past (John Ford’s west in The Searchers.)
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.
450.753 – Idea of the South in American Literature
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 Gothic 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 and Culture of the 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.
450.787 – Angst and Alienation
No single intellectual or cultural movement has had more of an impact on the 20th century than existentialism, with its 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.
450.799 – New York City: a Cultural History
Starting out as “Mannahatta,” a bountiful Native American hunting, fishing and camping ground, the island at the mouth of the Hudson River has gone on to see 400 years of dramatic transformations from the commercial venture of Dutch New Amsterdam to the rough and tumble politics of British colonial New York, from a brief role as capital of the new United States to a more enduring role as the capital of capitalism. We’ll trace NYC’s cultural history through a look at the great public projects that helped to define its character: the Erie Canal, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, Lincoln Center and the World Trade Center. We’ll study how the successive waves of new populations that built the City -- African-American, German, Irish, Chinese, Italian, East European Gentile and Jew, Puerto Rican and countless others – have turned the City into a united nations of culture. From the delis and synagogues of the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, Brooklyn to the churches and jazz clubs of Harlem, the restaurants and fiestas of Little Italy, the Hindu shrines and henna tattoo parlors of Jackson Heights in Queens, and NYC’s three Chinatowns, these are the neighborhoods of Manhattan and of the Outer Boroughs often considered by natives to be “the real New York." We will follow the progress of NYC’s art scene from the New York Impressionists, through the Ashcan School, the artists of the Harlem Renaissance and the WPA projects, through Abstract Expressionism and the New York School. We’ll read and discuss writers who centered their work on NYC, from Irving and Whitman through Henry James and Edith Wharton to E. L. Doctorow and Allen Ginsberg, and we’ll look at the representation of NYC in film from the silent era through Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen. 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.