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This course examines how religious experience and religious ideas have been interpreted in literature and the fine arts. Emphasis shall be placed on mysticism and ritual. Our inquiry will focus on a highly diverse group of works, including dramas from ancient Greece and contemporary Africa; medieval and modernist poetry; works of classical music from the 19th and 20th centuries; and sacred architecture from the US, Europe, and Asia.
This course is designed to provide students with an overview of contemporary media and an in-depth study of the changes that have occurred in the American media landscape during the last 15-20 years.
This course explores the historical fate of various representations of “Human Nature” in philosophy, psychology, theology, anthropology, sociology, politics, cross-cultural studies, the history of ideas, literature, media and film, and especially the fine (visual) arts. Although we will read a broad spectrum of philosophical and psychological writings that place cognitive issues at the center of discussion, our main emphasis will be on relating these views to cultural, existential, and phenomenological perspectives that seek to understand human nature in terms of both the diversity and commonalities in human experience and expression. We will explore the achievements of Homo Aestheticus, the creator of symbolic forms, and more specifically, writers and artists from Europe and the Americas working in a variety of media, widely ranging from antiquity to the present.
During the 20th century Europeans have witnessed an astonishing number of changes. From 1914 and the interwar period to the recent collapse of Communism, this region has experienced several radically different political regimes. These political cataclysms were accompanied by a rich literary and artistic tradition.
This course is designed to give students an understanding of the historical, political and aesthetic import surrounding the twentieth century totalitarian systems in Central-Eastern Europe.
Through an analysis and examination of films and literature we will investigate the connections between history, trauma, witnessing and representation. How do the Central and Eastern European authors and filmmakers of international renown depict events that shatter traditional forms of perception and comprehension? How do history, memory and imagination coalesce in their respective texts?