European Studies

2009-10

14 Napoleon's Legends

Napoleon Bonaparte’s legacy in French domestic and international politics and military strategy profoundly influenced nineteenth-century Europe. But so did the legends surrounding him, created before his great defeat and exile, and nurtured after his death in 1821. In painting, caricature, and sculpture, literature, music, and film, the legends-positive and negative-of Napoleon have served many ends. The cultural complexity of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe becomes clearer when one understands the motives behind and results of these representations of Napoleon.

In this course, we will study painting (e.g., David and Goya), narrative fiction (e.g., Balzac, Stendhal, and Tolstoy), poetry (e.g., Wordsworth and Hugo), music (e.g., Beethoven), urban history and architecture (e.g., of Paris), and the silent and sound films of our century (e.g., Gance). We will examine how different generations and a variety of cultures appropriated the real and imagined images of Napoleon for social, political, and artistic ends, and thereby influenced the creation of modern Europe. Three class hours per week.

Omitted 2009-10. Professor Rosbottom.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Fall 2012, Spring 2015

21 Readings in the European Tradition I

Topics in the past have included readings and discussion of a series of related texts from Homer and Genesis to Dante: Homer’s Iliad, selected Greek tragedies, Virgil’s Aeneid, selections from the Bible, and from medieval texts. Three class hours per week.

Open not only to European Studies majors but also to any student interested in the intellectual and literary development of the West, from antiquity through the Middle Ages.  Required of European Studies majors. 

Limited to 25 students. Fall semester. Professor G. Katsaros.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018

22 Readings in the European Tradition II

Reading and discussion of writings and art that have contributed in important ways to the definition of the European imagination. Previous readings have included Cervantes’Don Quixote, plays of Shakespeare, Montaigne’s Essays, Racine’s Phaedra, Molière’s Tartuffe, Descartes’Discourse on Method, Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Voltaire’s Candide, selected poems of Wordsworth, Marx’s Communist Manifesto, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, and others. Open not only to European Studies majors but also to any student interested in the intellectual and literary development of Europe from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century. Two class meetings per week.

Suggested requisite: European Studies 21. Required of European Studies majors.  Spring semester. Professor Rosbottom.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021

24 Poetic Translation

This is a workshop in translating poetry into English from another European language, preferably but not necessarily a Germanic, Slavic, or Romance language (including Latin, of course), whose aim is to produce good poems in English. Students will present first and subsequent drafts to the entire class for regular analysis, which will be fed by reference to readings in translation theory and contemporary translations from European languages. Two class meetings per week.

Limited to 12 students. Fall semester: Professor Maraniss. Spring semester: Professor Ciepiela.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2019, Fall 2021

26 Medea: Metamorphoses of a Myth

(Offered as European Studies 26 and Women and Gender Studies 14.) Beginning with Euripides’ tragedy, Medea has continued to occupy the European mind mainly in dramatic treatments by male authors (Seneca, Corneille, Grillparzer, Anouilh, and Heiner Müller). As multiple “outsider”-- woman, foreigner, sorceress, demi-goddess, abandoned wife--Medea embodies “otherness” in manifold ways: she is the representative of the conflict between barbarism and civilization, between the supernatural and the natural, the magical and the commonsensical, madness and reason. Recently, women authors like Christa Wolf have entered the debate, aiming to reclaim Medea as one of the repressed voices of femininity. Our approach will be interdisciplinary in nature: in addition to reading dramatic texts and background material, we will explore the transformations of the Medea myth in the European tradition in the fine arts (Vanloo, Delacroix, Anselm Feuerbach), in dance (Martha Graham, the Bolshoi Ballet), sample the operas of Cherubini and Charpentier, and view the films by Pasolini, Ula Stöckl, and Lars von Trier, as well as priceless B-movie masterpiece, Don Chaffey’s Jason and the Argonauts.  Readings will be in English. Students who know any of the foreign languages represented are encouraged to read the material in the original.

Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2009-10. Professor Rogowski.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2009

33 Love

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2010

34 Birth of the Avant-Garde: Modern Poetry and Culture in France and Russia, 1870-1930

(Offered as European Studies 34 and Russian 34.) Between the mid-nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth century, poetry was revolutionized both in France and in Russia; nowhere else did the avant-garde proliferate more extravagantly. This class will focus on the key period in the emergence of literary modernity that began with Symbolism and culminated with Surrealism and Constructivism.

With the advent of modernism, the poem became a “global phenomenon” that circulated among different languages and different cultures, part of a process of cross-fertilization. An increasingly hybrid genre, avant-garde poetry went beyond its own boundaries by drawing into itself prose literature, philosophy, music, and the visual and performing arts. The relation between the artistic and the literary avant-garde will be an essential concern.

We will be reading Rimbaud; the French Symbolists (Mallarmé, Laforgue, Valéry); the Russian Symbolists (Blok, Bely); Apollinaire, Dada, and the Surrealists (Breton, Eluard, Desnos, Char, Michaux); and the Russian avant-garde poets (Mayakovsky, Pasternak, Khlebnikov, Tsvetaeva).

Our study of the arts will include Symbolism (Moreau, Redon); Fauvism (Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck); Cubism, Dada, and early Surrealism (Duchamp, Ernst, Dali, Artaud); the “World of Art” movement; Primitivism and Constructivism (Goncharova, Malevich, Rodchenko, Eisenstein). Course will be taught in English. Students who read fluently in French and/or Russian will be encouraged to read the material in the original language.

Spring semester.  Professors Ciepiela and L. Katsaros.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Spring 2010, Spring 2014

35 Culture and Politics in 20th-Century Europe

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014

36 Dangerous Reading: The 18th-Century Novel in England and France

(Offered as European Studies 36, English 48, and French 62.) Why was reading novels considered dangerous in the eighteenth century, especially for young girls?

This course will examine the development, during this period, of the genre of the novel in England and France, in relation to the social and moral dangers it posed and portrayed. Along with the troublesome question of reading fiction itself, we will explore such issues as social class and bastardy, sexuality and self-awareness, the competing values of genealogy and character, and the important role of women-as novelists, readers, and characters-in negotiating these questions. We will examine why the novel was itself considered a bastard genre, and engage formal questions by studying various kinds of novels: picaresque, epistolary, gothic, as well as the novel of ideas. Our approach will combine close textual analysis with historical readings about these two intertwined, yet rival, cultures, and we will pair novels in order to foreground how these cultures may have taken on similar social or representational problems in different ways. Possible pairings might include Prévost and Defoe, Laclos and Richardson, Voltaire and Fielding, Sade and Ann Radcliffe. French novels will be read in translation. Two class meetings per week.

Omitted 2009-10. Professors Frank and Rosbottom.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2010, Fall 2011

37 Music and Culture I

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2021

38 Art and Architecture of Europe from 1400 to 1800

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2009, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021

44 Renaissance Art in Italy

2023-24: Not offered

47 God

This interdisciplinary course will reflect on shifting representations of the divine in theology, philosophy, literature and the arts. Students will reflect on the tension between polytheism and monotheism in ancient times, read portions of medieval and Renaissance texts, and treatises and novels from the Enlightenment to the contemporary period. Foundational sources like the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, the Popol Vuh, and various others will be featured, along with material by such authors as St. Augustine, Aquinas, al-Ghazali, and Maimonides. Spinoza's geometrical system, the emergence of secularism as a refutation of God's omnipotence, and agnosticism and atheism as modern responses to religious faith will all be covered. The course will include readings from Newton, Berkeley, Dostoevsky, Freud, Unamuno, Einstein, Jung, Kafka, Pirandello, Borges, and Wittgenstein, as well as explorations of music from such composers Johann Sebastian Bach and John Cage to Negro Spirituals. Finally, we will analyze such films as Ingmar Bergman's cinematic meditations, Woody Allen's comedies, and The Matrix

Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2009-10. Professor Stavans.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Spring 2013, Spring 2021

50 Cityscapes: Imagining the European City

Cities, the largest human artifact, have been at the center of Europeans’ relationships with nature, gods, and their own kind since their first appearance. With the advent of capitalist energy, the European city went through radical change. The resultant invention, re-invention and growth of major metropolises will be the subject of this course.

We will discuss histories and theories of the city and of the urban imagination in Europe since the 18th century. We will consider Paris, London, Berlin, Rome, and St. Petersburg among others, and the counter-example of New York City. We will study examples of city planning and mapping, urban architecture, film and photography, painting, poetry, fiction, and urban theory. And, we may study Atget, Baudelaire, Benjamin, Calvino, Dickens, Joyce, Rilke, Truffaut, Zola, and others.

Questions addressed will include: To what extent do those who would “improve” a city take into account the intangible qualities of that city? How do the economics of capital compromise with the economics of living? How does the body-healthy and unhealthy-interact with the built environment? How and why does the imagination create an “invisible city” that rivals the “real” geo-political site? Two classes per week.

Spring semester. Professor Rosbottom.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Spring 2010, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2017

52 Designing Architecture Across Borders and Time

(Offered as European Studies 52 and Art 16.) In this intermediate architectural design studio we will explore the intellectual and creative process of making and representing architectural space. The focus will be to explore the boundaries of architecture--physically and theoretically, historically and presently--through digital media. Our process will prompt us to dissect 20th-century European architectures and urban spaces and to explore their relationships to contemporary, global issues. The capstone of the course will be a significant design project (TBD) requiring rigorous studio practices, resulting in plans, sections, elevations and digital models. This course will introduce students to various digital diagramming, drawing, and modeling software, while challenging students to question the theoretical and practical implications of these interdisciplinary media processes. This course will combine lectures, reading, discussion, and extensive studio design.

Requisite: Basic Drawing. Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 8 students. Spring semester. Professor Long.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018

56 Baroque Art in Italy, France, Spain, and the Spanish Netherlands

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2010, Fall 2013, Fall 2016, Spring 2022

60 Performance

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2009, Spring 2011, Spring 2014, Fall 2017, Fall 2020

63 Traumatic Events

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2010, Fall 2014, Fall 2018

64 Architectures of Disappearance

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2010, Fall 2013, Spring 2016, Spring 2019

65 Making Memorials

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Fall 2012, Fall 2016, Fall 2021

77, 77D, 78, 78D Senior Departmental Honors

A double course.

Spring semester.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022

97, 98 Special Topics

Spring semester.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011