Baroque culture is the first instance in the West of a “global” cultural movement. It also offers the first example of an artistic moment that is truly interdisciplinary. In this seminar we will study the emergence and development of Baroque literature and thought, beginning at the end of the sixteenth century, from Rome to Mexico.  Our approach will have two aspects. On the one hand, we will want to identify and study certain key features of Baroque culture, across languages, continents, and media, working out, as it were, a kind of topography of culture and politics.

So-called ‘mystical’ forms of thought and experience have played a major role in the history of medieval theology and spirituality.  They also were of importance to modern authors from Hegel to Georg Lukàcs, Martin Heidegger, Georges Bataille, and Jacques Derrida; and from Novalis to Robert Musil, Paul Celan, Ingeborg Bachmann, Pierre Klossowski, to John Cage (to name just a few).  In this seminar we will read and discuss medieval key texts written by Ps.

In this seminar we will read Horace’s complete works, partly in translation and partly in Latin (the proportions will vary from student to student), in roughly chronological order, possibly spending some extra time with the Odes (but this will depend on the interests of the group).  The goal is to familiarize students with an exceptionally influential body of poetry (and with some of the major trends in the scholarship) and to open up a space for exploring what one might want to make of Horace now.  Thus while the basic trajectory of the class will be set at the outset, the topics for and d

A comparative course exploring the intersections of literature, psychoanalysis, queer studies, and environmental studies.

In this seminar we will be pursuing those aspects of meaning that occur not “in” texts but in between them – meaning that is to be found in the uses that  texts make of other texts, and that readers make of texts, in the histories that accumulate around texts and their different uses, in the histories also of their transmission and circulation.

SEMINAR IN RENAISSANCE LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Also listed as German 205

This seminar will focus on lyrical poetry produced in the margins – or outside of — the modern Anglo-European canon in order to call into question static typological theories of genre, as well as what may be a majoritarian, heteronormative or Eurocentric set of biases behind contemporary attacks on the lyric as solipsistic, apolitical “personal expression.” Participants will draw on their own cultural and linguistic specialties to compile a multi-lingual course Reader of modern lyrical poetry marginalized by gender, sexuality, class, race, place or language.

Did you ever wonder how other people get their work done? Or what great ideas look like and where they come from? Are you curious about the best strategies and habits for clear, forceful, and engaging writing? This seminar about writing and publishing is for you. You must have a seminar paper that you wish to revise in the course of the semester. You must also commit to sending your revised essay out for review by a journal at the end of the fall. The vast majority of our time will be spent discussing the written work of the seminar members.