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The development of literature and the arts from the Renaissance to the modern period: such figures as Shakespeare and Michelangelo through T.S. Eliot and Picasso. Literature and art in the context of society and ideas. Overall, the focus of the course will not be on “art appreciation” but on how cultural contexts – the ideas and values regarding religion, philosophy, political thought, social practices, aesthetics, and related fields – shape and make possible the various expressions of Western art and literature during this period.

Requisites - None

Breadth - Literature

Level- Elementary

Counts as L&S Credit

The objective of this course is two-fold. First, this course introduces students to the basics of Western political, economic, and social thought. Through a careful reading of canonical texts, the elementary symbols and concepts of Western thought will be discussed. Our second objective is to learn how these symbols and concepts can be brought to bear on contemporary problems and how they can inform questions concerning our own political and social order. What part, for instance, does reason play in our world? What does a good citizen look like? What is the good human life? What is the place of violence? What does justice look like? Thinkers such as Homer, Thucydides, Plato, Aristophanes, Aristotle, and Augustine may be considered.

Requisites - None

Breadth - Humanities or Social Science

Level - Elementary

Counts as L&S Credit

The development of Western political, economic and social thought from the Reformation to the present day: the origins, logic and evolution of liberalism, Marxism, and organic conservatism as the principal systems of thought of the modern age. Through a careful reading of canonical texts, the elementary symbols and concepts of Western thought will be discussed. From these readings, student will learn how these symbols and concepts can be brought to bear on contemporary problems and how they can inform questions concerning our own political and social order.

Requisites - None

Breadth - Humanities or Social Science

Level - Elementary

Counts as L&S Credit

Writing intensive course based on the conventions in which Western writers have expressed religious ideas. Readings from Jewish, Christian, and other spiritualities. This course introduces some key aspects of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought and historical experience by exploring a range of texts from antiquity to the modern era. We begin by considering major themes in the sacred scriptures of each religion – themes conveyed via such literary genres as narrative, law, prophecy, gospel, epistle, apocalyptic, and poetry – with a focus on ways in which later texts interact with earlier ones. The middle unit of the course examines different approaches, in the medieval and early modern periods, to knowing and experiencing the divine. We will consider how monotheistic thinkers drew on Greek ideas about reason and knowledge, and we will read bits of philosophical theology, mystical writing, and polemical treatises on the nature of religious and intellectual authority. In the final course unit we will read two spiritual autobiographies and a novel to explore relationships among religious tradition, identity and the search for meaning in the modern world.

Requisites: Satisfied Communications A requirement

Breadth - Humanities

Level - Intermediate

Counts as L&S Credit

This course fulfills the Communications B requirement.

This is an interdisciplinary, cross-college course that will bring together Theatre and non-Theatre students, scientists and non-scientists. The aim is introduce students to ways of encountering science and art so that one can think critically about why these two domains have for so long been seen as separate and even mutually excluding, and how one might bring them back into some sort of dialogue. While the title of the course suggests the main trajectory (“Theatre”), there will be room for students to pursue collaborative research and projects based in art forms other than theatre: spoken word, multimedia art, installation art, applied theatre, and the like. Students will read or view a variety of plays that address scientific themes and characters. As well, we'll view and discuss more contemporary multimedia (sometimes virtual) art/theatre/installations with scientific form and/or content. These primary materials would be supplemented by short, layperson-accessible essays on scientific ideas, sometimes supplemented by video material on particular ideas from physics, cosmology, cognitive science, biology, and genetics.

Requisites: Sophomore standing

Breadth - Literature

Level - Intermediate

Counts as L&S Credit

Introduces students to the major works of Machiavelli through the close reading of his writings in cultural and historical contexts. Discussion and targeted writing assignments will aim at cultivating in students 1) a broad understanding of Machiavelli's principal intellectual attitudes, 2) a deeper understanding of his literary sensibility, and 3) the ability to articulate controversies and complexities surrounding his thought.

Requisites: Satisfied Communications A requirement

Breadth - Literature

Level - Intermediate

Counts as L&S Credit