European Cultural Studies

An intensive introduction to the methods and practice of history, designed to prepare students for future independent work through the close reading of sources on three different topics in European history. This year these will be: 1) the Galileo affair; 2) the trial and execution of Louis XVI; and 3) the trials of Nazi leaders at Nuremberg. The class combines lecture with discussion, to introduce students to the basic vocabulary of European historiography and to develop their skills in the interpretation and analysis of documents, the framing of historical questions, and the construction of effective arguments.

Critical investigations of particular problems in the development of German literary prose. Topics may include love as a mode of literary self-expression, the role of utopia in the rise of the modern novel, the history of the German novella, detective fiction, and the modern short story and experimental prose. Prerequisite: 107.

Readings in continental philosophy of the early modern period, with intensive study of the works of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Topics to be specially considered include: knowledge, understanding, and sense-perception; existence and necessity; the nature of the self and its relation to the physical world. Two 90-minute classes.

Language determines our expressive capacities, represents our identities, and connects us with each other across various platforms and cultures.This course introduces classical and contemporary approaches to studying language, focusing on three main areas: 1) language as a system of rules and regulations ("structure"), 2) language as a symbolic mechanism through which individuals and groups mark their presence ("identity") and 3) language as a means of communication ("sign"). In addition to this, the course examines various ways through which language molds our individual selves: from organizing dreams and desires to shaping autobiographies.

The evolution of Italian contemporary civilization through the study of historical, sociopolitical, and cultural topics. The approach will be interdisciplinary; each year a different topic will be selected and studied as portrayed in representative samples of slides, films, and pertinent reading material. One-hour lecture, two-hour precept. Prerequisite: a 200-level Italian course or instructor's permission. Offered in alternate years.

Modern Western literature in the perspective of its development since the Industrial Revolution. The peculiarity of "modernist'' style exemplified by various genres. Significant philosophical trends that define the parallel development of modern art and thought. Texts from English, German, French, and other literatures. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Symbolic systems and social life in specific historical eras. Topics will vary. Recent courses include, for example, magic, art, and science in Renaissance culture, political discourse and nationalism, culture and inequality, history of technology, and the rhetoric of new media.

Symbolic systems and social life in specific historical eras. Topics will vary. Recent courses include, for example, magic, art, and science in Renaissance culture, political discourse and nationalism, culture and inequality, history of technology, and the rhetoric of new media.

Beyond the myth of the City of Light, this course proposes to look at the real "lives" of Paris. Focusing on the modern and contemporary period, we will study Paris as an urban space, an object of representation, and part of French cultural identity. To do so, we will use an interdisciplinary approach, through literature, history, sociology, art history, architecture, etc. To deepen our understanding of its history and its making, we will take a mandatory trip to Paris during Fall Break. Students will not only (re)visit the city, but also meet guest speakers and conduct personal projects they will have designed in Princeton. Prereq: FRE 207

The arts and the media in different cultures. Topics will vary, for example, history of the book, art/architecture and society, opera and nationalism, literature and photography, theater and politics.

The arts and the media in different cultures. Topics will vary, for example, history of the book, art/architecture and society, opera and nationalism, literature and photography, theater and politics.

In this course we will study films that address global audiences yet ground themselves in particular, local, vernacular sources of artistic creation. Our focus will be on three exciting postwar cinematic movements (Italian Neorealism, Iranian New Wave, the Danish Dogma 95), but we will also discuss parallels in American filmmaking. Familiarity with Homer's Ulysses, Virgil's Aeneid and Shakespeare's Hamlet will be helpful since they serve as the frame of reference for many of the examined films.

Since its advent in the 19th century, photography has been a privileged figure in literature's efforts to reflect upon its own modes of representation. This seminar will trace the history of the rapport between literature and photography by looking closely at a number of literary and theoretical texts that differently address questions central to both literature and photography: questions about the nature of representation, reproduction, memory and forgetting, history, images, perception, and knowledge.

In an effort to encompass the variety of responses to what is arguably the most traumatic event of modern Western experience, the Holocaust is explored as transmitted through documents, testimony, memoirs, creative writing, historiography, and cinema. In this study of works, reflecting diverse languages, cultures, genres, and points of view, the course focuses on issues of bearing witness, collective vs. individual memory, and the nature of radical evil. One three-hour seminar, plus weekly film showings.

Topics will range from the oeuvre and context of a single author (for example, Balzac, Baudelaire, or Beckett) to specific cultural and literary problems (modernism and the avant-garde, history as literature, women's writing). Prerequisite: a 200-level French course or instructor's permission.

A study of major figures from the Augustan Age through the Age of Johnson: Swift, Pope, Fielding, Boswell, Johnson, Sterne, and Blake. Selections include a wide range of literary types from Gulliver's Travels and Joseph Andrews to Boswell's London Journal and Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course examines an emergent historical situation as it unfolds: the ongoing financial, social, and humanitarian "crisis" in Greece, including the "refugee crisis." It offers a comparative approach to current Greek cultural production, through literature and film of the past decade and writings drawn from history, anthropology, political science, economics, news sources, and political blogs. We also probe terms like "crisis," exploring how language shapes our understanding of events and how our perceptions of an unfamiliar culture, history, and society are mediated not just by linguistic translation but by market forces and media spin.

The visual arts in Germany during the Weimar Republic (1918-1933). Works of art, cinema, and literature in historical context. Topics include: modernism and modernity; Expressionism, Dada, New Objectivity in painting, photography, cinema, and literature; historical conditions of bodily experience and visual perception; emergence of new artistic and technological media; expansion of mass culture; place of politics in art; experience and representation of metropolitan life; changes in the conceptualization and representation of individuality, collectivity, embodiment, race, class, gender, sexuality. Two 90-minute seminars, one film screening.

A study of the young writers who defined English literary culture, especially the Romantic movement, in Regency and late Georgian England. Course material will include poetry, prose, and fiction, with emphasis on close reading as well as cultural contexts. Among the major figures to be studied are the Shelleys, Byron, and Keats. Two 90-minute seminars.

Study of a selected theme or topic in comparative literature. Subjects will range from historical and cultural questions (literature and politics, the literature of the avant-garde) to the study of specific literary themes or topics (feminine autobiography, the grotesque in literature).

The course is primarily about War and Peace, framed by some earlier and later fiction and by Tolstoy's essays on art and religion. Tolstoy's radical ideas on narrative have a counterpart in his radical ideas on history, causation, and the formation of a moral self. Together, these concepts offer an alternative to "The Russian Idea," associated with Dostoevsky and marked by mysticism, apocalypse, and the crisis moment. To refute this idea, Tolstoy redefined the tasks of novelistic prose. Seminar.

Topics in 17th- and 18th-century art and architecture. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 2 distribution requirement. Prerequisite: a course in the art of this period or instructor's permission. One three-hour seminar.

A study of some of the major themes and movements of modern architecture from the late 19th century to the present day. Students will be encouraged to examine the social and political context, to probe the architects' intellectual background, and consider issues of class and gender in their relation to architectural and urban form. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 3 distribution requirement. One three-hour seminar.