course-description

Instructor: Jenks

Course Content

Instructors: Merrow, Wheeler, York, Jenks

In the first two quarters of the sophomore year, students inspect the “deep past” out of which arose (and which was seriously challenged by) the project of experimental science examined in the freshman year. We begin in the Fall quarter with the classical foundations of modern Western civilization, examining the limitations attached to Greek and Roman notions of the “public citizen.” In Winter quarter, we explore the development of humanism in the universities and its relationship to knowledge production within the framework of courtly culture.

Core Texts - IV
Homer, Iliad
Plato, Symposium
Euripides, Medea
Virgil, Aeneid
Augustine, Confessions

Core Texts - V
Walter of Chatillon, The Alexandreis: A Twelfth-Century Epic
Dante, The Divine Comedy: The Inferno
Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier
Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism

Instructors: Merrow, Wheeler, York, Jenks

Instructor: York

Course Description:
In this course we will examine the development of the genre of vernacular, prose historical writing during the Middle Ages from roughly the eleventh through the fourteenth centuries. We will also inspect the related genre of vernacular, prose travel writings as they developed
during this period. Two of the main texts that we will focus on are Marco Polo's On the division of the world and John Mandeville's Travels. These texts combine what factual and “fantastical” history and description of the orient from a western perspective. The authors describe the beliefs and customs of a range of peoples of the orient including a number of "monstrous" races. They also give accounts of wondrous or marvelous events and practices that serve to reinforce the
mysterious nature of the lands in the East. Our task will be to think about the ways in which these historical texts and travel accounts provide a particular narrative of the past and of distant lands and peoples for a particular purpose.

Instructor: York

Instructor: York

Course Content:
In this course we will study the history of beliefs and attitudes toward the human body in European society. Our primary focus will be directed toward scientific efforts to understand the human body through anatomical investigation from antiquity through the Renaissance. Therefore, we will examine the practice of animal and human dissection and how scientists justified the practice of cutting open bodies and we will contrast these arguments with the scientific and cultural beliefs that opposed the practice of human dissection. We will also be concerned with the development of artistic techniques of scientific illustration used to convey knowledge about the body. Finally, we will explore the ways in which human dissection influenced the representation of the body in art and literature in early modern Europe, a period characterized by one scholar as the "culture of anatomy."

Note: This course counts as an elective course for the minor in the History and Philosophy of Science.

Instructor: Michael Flower

Instructor: Michael Flower

Instructors: Kathleen Merrow and Lawrence Wheeler

Course Content
We will study the history and development of the graphic novel in the 20th and 21st centuries by making a case study of several significant graphic novels. Our main focus will be on the relationship between form and content in each text, and the way in which each text raises larger questions about the nature and limits of representation. We will use related materials (handed out in class) in order to situate each text in its intellectual, professional, and historical contexts.

Instructor: Lawrence Wheeler

In this seminar we shall examine the morally complex act of observation ("theatron" is an ancient Greek word which means "place of observation.") By looking at the complex act of observation in different historical settings (ancient Greece, early modern England, nineteenth century Europe), we shall consider the way observation is rich in its attachment to (and representation of) its culture, period, epoch. A seminar paper/presentation will be expected.