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HUMANITIES 220 SYLLABUS
Spring Semester, 2003
Texts for the course:
Humanities 220 Pamphlet
Flaubert: Madame Bovary
Alain Corbin: Women for Hire
Baudelaire: Paris Spleen
T.J. Clark: The Painting of Modern Life
Wagner: The Valkyrie
M. Owen Lee: Wagner’s Ring: Taking the Sky Round
Benedict Anderson: Imagined Communities
Nietzsche: Genealogy of Morals
Gauguin: Noa Noa
Conrad: Heart of Darkness
Freud: The Freud Reader
Kafka: The Complete Stories
Marc Ferro: The Great War, 1914-1918
Paul Fussell: The Great War and Modern Memory
Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway
Lenin: The Lenin Reader
Brecht: Mother Courage
Michael Burleigh: The Third Reich: a New History
Primo Levi: Survival in Auschwitz
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Reading and Lectures
WEEK 1 (JAN. 27-JAN. 31): REALISM SUBVERTS ROMANTICISM
Flaubert: Madame Bovary
Lecture on Madame Bovary: Wednesday, Jan. 29 (Salah Khan)
WEEK 2 (FEB. 3-FEB. 7): MID-19th CENTURY PARIS
Theodore Zeldin: France, 1848-1945 (reserve and pamphlet)
Alain Corbin: from Women for Hire, 3-29, 46-63, 115-122. 132-143, 186-206, 261-264, 322-325.
Emile Durkheim: from Rules of Sociological Method (pamphlet)
Lecture on Class in Modern Society: Monday, Feb. 3 (Christine Mueller)
Lecture on Paris: Wednesday, Feb. 5 (Christine Mueller)
WEEK 3 (FEB. 10-FEB. 14): POETRY, PAINTING AND THE MODERN CITY
Baudelaire: "The Painter of Modern Life" (pamphlet)
Baudelaire: Paris Spleen (your instructor will asssign the prose poems)
Marshall Berman: "Baudelaire: Modernism in the Streets," from All that is Solid Melts into Air (pamphlet)
T.J. Clark: "Olympia’s Choice," from The Painting of Modern Life
Lecture on Paris and Modernity: Monday, Feb. 10 (James Van Dyke)
WEEK 4 (FEB. 17-FEB. 21): WAGNER, NATIONALISM, AND ANTI-SEMITISM
Wagner: The Valkyrie (Die Walkure) (the libretto)
Wagner: "Jews in Music," from Wagner on Music and Drama (pamphlet)
M. Owen Lee: Wagner’s Ring: Taking the Sky Round
Benedict Anderson: Imagined Communities, 5-46, 67-111, 141-154
(There will be showings from Die Walkyrie on Sunday, Feb. 16, Monday, Feb. 17, and Tuesday, Feb. 18, each night at 6:00 in Psychology 105--note new time)
Lecture on Wagner: Monday, Feb. 17 (Leila Falk)
Panel on Nationalism and Anti-Semitism: Wednesday, Feb. 19
(Ed Segel and Katja Garloff)
WEEK 5 (FEB. 24-FEB. 28): NIETZSCHE AND THE ATTACK ON BOURGEOIS IDEALISM
Nietzsche: Genealogy of Morals
Lecture on Nietzsche: Wednesday, Feb. 26 (Jan Mieszkowski)
WEEK 6 (MARCH 3-MARCH 7): COLONIALISM IN ART AND LITERATURE
Gauguin: Synthetist Theories (pamphlet)
Gauguin: Noa Noa
Conrad: Heart of Darkness
Lecture on Gauguin’s Primitivism: Monday, March 3
(James Van Dyke)
Lecture on Heart of Darkness: Wednesday, March 5
(Roger Porter)
WEEK 7 (MARCH 10-MARCH 14): MODERNISM AND THE UNCONSCIOUS
Freud: from The Freud Reader (your instructor will choose the readings)
Lecture on Freud: Monday, March 10 (Katja Garloff)
-- SPRING BREAK --
WEEK 8 (MARCH 24-MARCH 28): KAFKA, MODERNISM AND WORLD WAR
Kafka: from The Complete Stories (your instructor will choose the readings)
Marc Ferro: The Great War, 1914-1918, chapt. 9-12, 14
Paul Fussell: The Great War and Modern Memory, chapt. 1-2
Lecture on Kafka: Monday, March 24 (Katja Garloff)
Lecture on World War I: Wednesday, March 26 (Ed Segel)
WEEK 9 (MARCH 31-APRIL 4): FEMINIST FICTION IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE WAR
Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway
Lecture on Mrs. Dalloway: Wednesday, April 2 (Jay Dickson)
WEEK 10 (APRIL 7-APRIL 11): SOVIET SOCIALISM AND REVOLUTIONARY ART
Lenin: The Lenin Reader, pp. 311-335, 369-384, 461-476
Arthur Koestler: essay from The God that Failed (pamphlet)
Film of Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin
Walter Benjamin: "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (pamphlet)
(There will be showings of Battleship Potemkin and a short clip from Triumph of the Will on Tuesday, April 8 and Wednesday, April 9, each night at 6:00 in Psychology 105; and on Thursday, April 10, also at 6:00, in Biology 19. Note new times and the new location for April 10.)
Lecture on Lenin: Monday, April 7 (Christine Mueller)
Lecture on Eisenstein and Avant-Garde Film: Wednesday, April 9 (Katja Garloff)
WEEK 11 (APRIL 14-APRIL 18): RESPONSES TO TOTALITARIANISM: FILM AND THEATRE
Brecht: Mother Courage
Brecht: "The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre," "Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction," and "Short Description of a New Technique of Acting which Produces an Alienation Effect" (pamphlet)
Trotsky: "Revolutionary and Socialist Art," from Literature and Revolution (pamphlet)
Clement Greenberg: "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" (pamphlet)
Lecture on Brecht: Monday, April 14 (Roger Porter)
Lecture on Abstract Art: Wednesday, April 16 (James Van Dyke)
WEEK 12 (APRIL 21-APRIL 25): NAZISM AND THE HOLOCAUST
Michael Burleigh: The Third Reich: a New History, 27-60, 85-121, 144-177, 190-215, 571-662 (recommended: 382-404)
Film of Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (The flm assignment is optional, at the discretion of the instructor.)
(There will be showings of Triumph of the Will on Tuesday, April 22 and Wednesday, April 23, each night at 6:00; and on Thursday, April 24, also at 6:00, in Biology 19. Note new times and new location for April 24.)
Lecture on The Third Reich: Monday, April 21 (Christine Mueller)
Lecture on The Holocaust: Wednesday, April 23
(Christine Mueller)
WEEK 13 (APRIL 28-MAY 2): WITNESSING THE HOLOCAUST
Primo Levi: Survival in Auschwitz
Paul Celan: "Death Fugue" (pamphlet)
Dan Pagis: "Written in Pencil in the Sealed Rainway Car" (pamphlet)
A. Sutzkever: "Faces in the Swamps" (pamphlet)
Lecture on Holocaust literature: Monday, April 28
(Katja Garloff)