Download Course Descriptions for Summer 2007 (pdf)
By questioning long-standing assumptions and traditions, Enlightenment thinkers achieved a reformulation of ideals and values which has been of lasting influence on modern society. In the context of the Enlightenment emphasis on reason and humanity, this course examines eighteenth-century European arguments for (and against) freedom of religion, the abolition of slavery, and the emancipation of women, as well as eighteenth-century views on science, education, and government. Text by Leibniz, Lessing, Kant, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, Graffigny, Locke, Hume, Wollstonecraft, and others.
Approved for arts and science core curriculum:
ideals and values.
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This course offers an introduction to some major topics, styles, critical currents, and research areas of classic and contemporary film theory. In this course we aim to understand the function of sophisticated types of film criticism. Why are we interested in films? What is there to “the art of the 20th century” that makes it one of the most popular arts ever? How do movies work formally, technically, socially, psychologically? Why should we care? We will analyze theoretical texts and discuss their relevance and applications in film studies and discuss the use value of film theory itself. You will be expected to read difficult materials, produce fairly sophisticated writings, and engage in mature, serious discussions about films and critical works.
Approved for arts and science core curriculum:
critical thinking.
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This class will apply Freud’s psychoanalytic method of interpreting works of art to the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Although Hitchcock is often self-consciously Freudian in his art (eg. in Vertigo, Spellbound, etc.), the true "latent content" of the films is only to be revealed by an application of Freud’s theories of narcissism, the Oedipus-complex, the uncanny, etc. "against the grain" of the manifest content of Hitchcock’s works themselves. For example, we will seek to explain Hitchcock’s recurrent and complicated use of "maternal super-egos" (as in Psycho), of male narcissism (as in Rear Window), of a violent "male protest" (Shadow of a Doubt) and of a female and trans-gendered violence of nature and the unconscious (Marnie, The Birds). And above all, we will examine the persistent figure of “Mother” in Hitchcock’s films as it informs all of leading female characters.
Requirements: Weekly viewing of the films will be accompanied by class presentations and discussions, culminating in a final research project involving the psychoanalytical interpretation of at least one of Hitchcock’s films.
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In this comparative, interdisciplinary course we will examine Freud’s, Nietzsche’s, and other theories of criminality and apply those to the study of a number of films and literary works which focus on heroic figures who are also, paradoxically, criminals.
In addition to Nietzsche (The Gay Science) and Freud (“Character-Types Met in Psychoanalytical Work”), other works to be studied include: Antigone, Macbeth, Notes from Underground, A Good Man is Hard to Find (Flannery O’Conner), The Stranger, and The Executioner’s Song. Films include Herzog’s Aguirre the Wrath of God, and the films of Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Cape Fear, etc).
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*Contact Libby Residential Academic Program for registration information (303-735-4211)
**Contact Kittredge Honors Program for registration information (303-492-3695)
***Controlled enrollment course, contact Shirley.Carnahan@Colorado.edu for registration.
This course provides an analytical, chronological, comparative and integrated study of works in literature, music and visual arts from the age of the Baroque to the contemporary era. While students are reading Racine and Moliere, for example, the art and music lectures examine the architecture of Versailles as well as the compositions of Lully and other court composers. In the appropriate context with the literature, such composers as Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and Stravinsky are studied along with such artists as Fragonard, Goya, Monet, and Picasso.
Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: historical context or literature and the arts.
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*Contact Libby Residential Academic Program for registration information (303-735-4211)
**Contact Kittredge Honors Program for registration information (303-492-3695)
Introduces interrelationships in the arts of African Americans and the African American contribution to American culture as a whole.
Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: cultural and gender diversity or United States context.
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This course is meant to promote a deeper understanding of
perhaps the most influential writer of the 20th century, whom W.H.
Auden defined "the Dante and Shakespeare of our age," as well as of the
very dynamic of literary influence. Not only has "Kafka" become a household
name, "Kafkaesque" is liberally applied to anything, from works of art to
State bureaucracies, from types of shoes to architectural styles, by
people who may never read a word of Kafka’s writing. This course is
meant to counteract such a trend and to expose the students to a wide selection
of Kafka’s literary output, with the aim of reaching our own tentative answer to
the question: What is Kafkaesque?
Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum:
Literature and the Arts.
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This course is an interdisciplinary one, intended to
explore and compare various types of dramatic deception
as they manifest themselves in play texts and films.
We will begin by defining dramatic irony in its more official
form and comparing it with the looser usage of irony as paradox.
The course will continue with close readings of plays by such
authors as Shakespeare, Pirandello, Wilde, Shaffer, and Stoppard.
Topics of discussion will include how characters deceive others, how they deceive themselves, how the audience is deceived by the characters, how it is deceived by
the author, and many more. Usually the class is required to attend one live dramatic performance. This course is reading and writing intensive.
Restricted to sophmores/juniors/seniors.
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This course will engage in a discussion on method,
and, more specifically, on the method of the humanities
as opposed to that of the natural sciences. We will start
by looking at the text that inaugurated such discussion:
Descartes’ Discourse on Method, and at the emergence of
a modern concept of probability in the XVII century.
We will explore the dialectics of method and probability
when we discuss Joseph Conrad’s novel Chance. Restricted to sophmores/juniors/seniors.
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Examines the enlightenment belief in reason and the
common humanity of all individuals and cultures.
Emphasizes arguments for and against freedom of
religion, abolition of slavery, and emancipation of
women in 18th century European and American literature
and thought.
Approved for arts and
sciences core curriculum: ideals and values.
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***Controlled enrollment course, contact Shirley.Carnahan@Colorado.edu for registration.
Offers a philosophical attempt to define the nature of
cinema. An intensive seminar, the course involves a
great deal of reading in classic and contemporary film
theory, and requires a working knowledge of silent
film history. Prerequisite: HUMN/FILM 3051. Restricted to senior HUMN/FILM/FMST majors.
Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum:
critical thinking.
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In this class we will read novels by contemporary writers
from six different countries. Paying close attention to
questions of language and form we will examine how
these writers address the question of writing personal,
social and national identities and histories. The major
concerns of the class will be to probe the relationship
between the novel and the nation, and to see what insights
developments in the novel form in the last 30 years might
afford us into contemporary global politics and culture.
We will also in the process address the question of the
possibility of a comparative study of "world Literature". Prerequisites: HUMN 2000 or junior/senior standing.
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This course will examine various topics in "religious poetry"
as presented in several languages and cultures of premodern
times. Auden saw religion and poetry as involving two separate,
even antithetical impulses. Others have seen similarities here,
even identity. Topics to be explored include the matter and
manner of poetry-in-religion/religion-in-poetry, the play between
the sacred and the sensual as well as the verbal construction of
inspiration, revelation, epiphany, ecstasy. Four historical periods
of religious poetry will be compared and contrasted in this course:
religious verse from ancient and medieval China, Christian themes
in early English poetry, Medieval Latin hymns and songs, and
17th century metaphysical poetry.
Prerequisites: HUMN 2000 or junior/senior standing.
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This course will examine the place of theory within 20th century critical
discourse and will explore the extent to which every theoretical text is
constituted around a central difficulty in the concept of theory itself.
The difficulty of theory is therefore not its inability to account for why,
in a practical or real world, such a thing is the way it is, but rather it
is within the theoretical text that one discovers the difficulties theory is
supposed to explain. Prerequisites: HUMN 2000 or junior/senior standing.
[Note that this course in process of becoming a critical thinking course; if
this is approved in time the course number will change to HUMN 4560 at the
end of the add period in the spring.]
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Students read in English translation the major epics
of Greco-Roman antiquity such as the Iliad, Odyssey,
Argonautica, Aeneid, and Metamorphoses. Topics
discussed may include the nature of classical epic,
its relation to the novel, and its legacy. No Greek or
Latin required.
Approved for arts and science core curriculum:
literature and the arts.
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Studies Aristophanes, Plautus, and Terence in English
translation. No Greek or Latin required.
Approved for arts and sciences
core curriculum: literature and the arts.
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Interdisciplinary course that examines and compares
various forms of the dramatization of narrative:
written texts, audiotapes, videotapes, film, and live
performance. Compares different versions of the same
narrative or theme, especially if different media are
used and different time periods are involved.
Prerequisites: HUMN 2000 or junior/senior standing.
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Analyzes the rise of realism in the 13th and
14th century Italian literature and parallel
manifestations in the visual arts. Focuses on
Boccaccio's Decameron and contemporary realistic prose
and poetry with emphasis on gender issues and medieval
cultural diversity. Taught in English. Prerequisites: junior standing or instructor consent.
Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum:
literature and the arts, or cultural and gender
diversity.
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Emphasizes Nietzsche's major writings from 1872 to
1888 with particular attention to the critique of
Western values. Includes a systematic exploration of
doctrines, concepts, and ideas leading to the values
of creativity. Restricted to sophmores/juniors/seniors.
Approved for arts
and sciences core curriculum: ideals and values.
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Introduces various hermeneutical methodologies
(literary/philosophical criticism, biblical exegesis,
art history, etc.) with which to examine the question
of interpretation. Methodologies are studied in close
conjunction with particular works of art. Prerequisites: HUMN 2000 or junior/senior standing.
Approved for arts
and sciences core curriculum: critical thinking.
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Interdisciplinary course emphasizing the influence of
art in 20th century Russian literature. Follows the
changing cultural landscape from the time when Russia
was in the vanguard of modern European literature to
the gradual cultural relaxation that culminated in
perestroika and glasnost.
Approved
for arts and sciences core curriculum: literature and
the arts.
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Recitation Schedule
|
| 011 |
9:00-9:50 AM |
MWF |
KTCH 301 |
K. Rogers |
| 021 |
9:00-9:50 AM |
MWF |
KTCH 303 |
F. Voss |
| 031 |
10:00-10:50 AM |
MWF |
KTCH 301 |
A. Fobes |
| 041 |
10:00-10:50 AM |
MWF |
KTCH 303 |
F. Voss |
| 051 |
11:00-11:50 AM |
MWF |
KTCH 301 |
A. Fobes |
| 061 |
11:00-11:50 AM |
MWF |
KTCH 303 |
K. Rogers |
| 071 |
1:00-1:50 PM |
MWF |
KTCH 303 |
H. Luthers |
| 081 |
2:00-2:50 PM |
MWF |
KTCH 303 |
M. Bentley |
| 091 |
3:00-3:50 PM |
MWF |
KTCH 303 |
M. Bentley |
| R881* |
11:00-12:15 PM |
TR |
KTCH 231 |
P. Gordon |
| *Contact the Honors Department, Library M400L, for registration information. |
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Recitation Syllabi
 Matthew Bentley (081, 091)
Alex Fobes (031, 051)
Helga Luthers (071)
Katina Rogers (011, 061)
Jim Voss (021, 041)
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Introduction to Humanities 1 is a 6 credit hour course that is composed of six meetings a week (three discussion classes and three lecture-demonstrations in art and music). The course provides an analytical and comparative study of works in literature, music, and visual arts from Aegean to Baroque eras. An emphasis is placed on structure, content, and style using specific examples. This course is approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: historical context or literature and the arts.
For the fall 2006 semester, Dr. Eddy will teach the music section and Ms. Bernardini will teach the art section. Dr. Eddy's lectures begin the semester by covering the basic elements of musical compositions, providing those without a music background a solid foundation from which to build upon. The class studies the music found in a number of different time periods starting with Archaic and Classical Greek, then moving on to Medieval (covering both sacred and secular music), followed by Renaissance vocal/instrumental music and dance, as well as the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Readings will be assigned on a regular basis, some of which will be posted online. Included in the textbook is an audio CD from which listening assignments will periodically be assigned.
The Art portion of this course, taught by Ms. Bernardini, will begin by studying the Sculpture and Architecture of the various Greek time periods, including Classical, Late Classical, and the Hellenistic eras. From that point, the course will examine the various works of art produced during the time of the Roman civilization before moving on to Romanesque and early Gothic architecture. In addition, Renaissance portraits and the technique of perspective will be analyzed during lecture, with an emphasis on the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo. Students are expected to complete weekly readings from Art Through the Ages and Art History’s History and are expected to place emphasis on the works listed on the course website.
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In this survey of "green" writing from early Goethe to the late twentieth-century, we will critically examine texts from sevel periods in many different genres, including Nietzsche's masterpiece Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nature and environment are the unifying themes of our course, with these terms referring both to nature as the wild and to human nature interacting with its environment. By the end of the course we will be familiar with several major figures of European intellectual history whose thought influences current sensibilities regarding humanity's place on and treatment of the Earth. Assessment includes 3 quizzes, a midterm, participation assignment (lead the discussion on a topic), and final or research paper.
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Humanities 2000 will be team-taught by various members of the Comparative Literature and Humanities Department faculty who will each offer a separate "mini-course" on one of the essential issues or methodological concerns which students can expect to encounter in their future coursework for the Humanities major. Although the subject of each mini-course may be expected to vary from year to year, topics proposed by faculty in the past include: word/image studies; rhetoric; translation; the canon; gender studies; cultural studies; literature and the other arts; literary theory; philosophy and literature; etc.
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In this course we will examine theories of tragedy (Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche) and apply those theories, in order to examine their potential efficacy, to various works of art. After a careful examination of Greek tragedy, beginning with Aeschylus and Sophocles and concluding with Euripides’ last play on The Bacchae, the only extant tragedy which deals with Dionysus and the "birth of tragedy," we will examine the survival of tragedy in 19-th and 20th century works of art—specifically, the works of the William Butler Yeats, Ibsen (Hedda Gabler), Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard), and Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire).
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This course is designed as an introduction to the major positions and concepts in film theory. As one of the key phenomena of the twentieth century, film has attracted a large number of philosophically-minded observers who have sought to understand its power and potential. We tend to take cinema in its present form for granted, and thus it can be an exciting process of defamiliarization to ask ourselves deceptively childlike questions such as, "What is cinema?" or "Why do people go to the movies?" The tradition of film theory allows us to think in new ways about many aspects of the medium--its raw materials, its technical means, its stylistic choices, its social implications, and its meaning for audiences. The goals of this course are first, to give you entrance into an on-going dialogue about cinema that has stretched over decades, and second, to improve your own skills in analytical and conceptual thinking.
*This is a controlled enrollment course, contact Shirley.Carnahan@Colorado.edu for registration information regarding this course.
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Our readings in this course will span the high-tide of English colonialism in India, the rise of Indian nationalism, the partition and independence of India (and Pakistan), and the early decades after decolonization. We will do two things: 1) we will trace the rise of the novel in India, and 2) we will examine the cultural narratives of imperialism and nationalism and try to uncover the complex ambivalences and collusions beneath what appears to be a simple conflict between colonizer and colonized. In both cases we will ask the question, "How are English and Indian identities created, staged and written under colonialism?" and see what answers we can come up with.
This will be a reading intensive course.
Texts will likely include: Anita Desai, The Clear Light of Day, E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Rudyard Kipling, "Naboth", "On the City Wall", R.K. Narayan, Waiting for the Mahatma, Raya Rao, Kanthapura, Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, Paul Scott, The Jewel in the Crown, Rabindranath Tagore, Ghare Baire (The Home and the World).
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Why is it that we conceive of our contemporaneity in terms of a
"post-"? Poststructuralism, postcolonial, posthuman, postmodern,
etc. What does it mean to live in an era defined only by the
rejection of what went before? What does this mean for our position
in history? The course will examine these questions and their
consequences by examining the rise of modernity in enlightenment
thought, the effect of modernity on our concepts of art (in
particular the effect of photography on art), as well as why
modernity never seems to be quite modern enough to secure our place
in history. The extent to which postmodernity is able to articulate
a position over and against modernity will be a central question for
the seminar. Authors to be studied include, Winckelmann, Diderot,
Kant, Adorno and Horkheimer, Foucault, Baudelaire, Benjamin,
Habermas, Jameson, Vattimo, Lyotard, Nancy; photographs by Eugene
Atget and Thomas Struth as well as writings by Calvino, Blanchot and
schedule permitting a film by Lars von Trier.
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This is a reading course which carries upper-division credit in the Core Curriculum in the content area of Literature and the Arts. There is no formal prerequisite, but experience writing and talking about literature will be helpful. We will be reading a selection of the surviving works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides (all works written at Athens in the 5th c. BCE) and Seneca (whose 1st c. CE tragedies represent the sole examples of the genre at Rome surviving in non-fragmentary form). There will also be substantial secondary or background reading to guide the development of an understanding of the religious and moral dimensions of tragic drama in context. In this course, the aim will be to develop skills and habits of close observation, analysis and argument, as well as respect for ideas, nuances and differences. As we read, we will attend to the importance of the texts in the literary historical tradition and their role in shaping cultural norms, habits of thought and the imaginative landscape of western civilization. We will also consider what they tell us of what it is to be human in a complex and ever-changing world.
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In this course we will undertake close readings of selected cantos from Inferno and Purgatorio which will bring into relief the history and culture of the Medieval Mediterranean world. Our readings will provide insight into a number of aspects of Medieval culture, including the persistence of the classical tradition, medieval views on women, the impact of non-Christian civilizations, and the poetic traditions of the period. We will study the Divine Comedy as a summa of medieval learning in natural philosophy (cosmology, medicine, astronomy) and the liberal arts. As we read, we will also examine visual representations/interpretations of Dante's poem, from medieval illuminated manuscripts to the recent films Se7en and Hannibal. Students will hone their critical thinking skills while developing the skills necessary for perceptive literary and cultural analysis.
All works will be read and discussed in English, although from time to time we will refer to the Italian. Italian majors and minors should be reading the Italian as well, and will be expected to write a brief essay in Italian.
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"Perhaps the most sublime utterance is that inscribed on the temple of Isis: "I am all that is, that was, and that will ever be; no mortal has lifted my veil." (Kant)
In this course we will examine theories of the sublime and apply those same theories to various works of art. Beginning with Longinus, we will then move to the beginning of modern discussions of the sublime in Burke and Kant before proceeding to the "golden age" of sublimity, 18-19th century German and English romanticism. After a study of sublimity in Goethe’s Faust we will then turn our attention to the writings of the English romantic poets (Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge), as well to the early 19th-century novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. After an examination of the sublime paintings of Turner (and his predecessors) we will move, in the final section of the course, to an examination of the survival of the sublime in the 20th century paintings and films of Barnett Newman, Georgia O’Keefe, Werner Herzog, and John Carpenter.
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We emphasize Goethe's Faust parts I and II, but the course begins with Marlowe's reworking of the original Faust material, includes Byron's Manfred and selections from Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, before concluding with Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus. The Faust theme has intrigued students of literature and thought for many centuries, and it serves as a metaphor for the modern condition. How does one assign a value to the human soul, if Christianity is not accepted as the supreme authority? What happens to notions of the good life in the age of Enlightenment? How are human beings disposed to conceive of their essence "after the death of God?" How does evil manifest itself in the twentieth century? How does the dualism of the here and now versus the here-after influence humanity's habitation of the Earth? Requirements include short papers on the three main readings, midterm, and final or research paper.
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During the early modern period (1300 - 1700) male authors all across Europe vigorously debated the status of women. Should women be educated? Do they possess the mental and physical capacities to govern? What are their duties as wives and mothers? What are the implications of women's physical difference? In this course, we will first focus on the often overlooked "other voice" to be heard in this debate, that of women. In particular, we will examine the artistic production of early modern women, both literary and visual, living and working in Venice and the Veneto. Throughout the course we will listen to what this "other voice" had to say about topics as diverse as sex, love, education, politics, art, motherhood, and marriage. Modern theoretical and critical writings will accompany the primary texts. Students will hone their critical thinking skills while developing the skills necessary for perceptive literary and cultural analysis.
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Fall '08 Courses
