by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Dante’s 700-year-old masterpiece the Divine Comedy still attracts great attention. For centuries readers have been drawn to his vivid description of the afterlife. This course will explore the first portion of the Divine Comedy, Inferno, in its entirety. The...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
One of the most popular and beloved novelists in the English language, Jane Austen wrote novels that have beguiled and challenged readers for two centuries. For some, Austen is our beloved Aunt Jane, chatting with us about tea parties, excursions in pony phaetons, and...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
The tragicomedy genre, so prevalent in our day, has actually been evolving for many centuries. While one can take a primarily aesthetic approach to any genre–what makes comedy comedy?–here we will include a fuller consideration of history, stressing the...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
This course examines the fundamental issues and theories surrounding the art production and reception of Modern Art in Europe and America through the twentieth century. Framed by discussions of Post-Impressionist painting of the 1880s and the Post-Modern pluralist art...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
This seminar will examine mysterious moments, ancient and modern, which have come to the fore in humanity’s quest to understand our place in the cosmos. We begin in prehistory, where from the oldest humans we have evidence of sophisticated astronomy. How much did the...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Can a movie probe more deeply into theology than other works? Can it show the strengths and weaknesses of religious thought more directly, more dramatically? This seminar probes theology and film, examining movies with strong Christian themes. We will use film...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
What were the key technologies and major technical achievements of classical Greek antiquity? This course examines crucial technological wonders from ancient Greece, focusing on: temple construction (the Parthenon), the mastery of fire for bronzes (the Delphi...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
I have put in [Ulysses] so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant. James Joyce While most of the great avant-garde art works of the early 20thcentury rest securely within the canon of modernist classics,...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
This course is for those who love to read ! Beginning with his memoir Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth and then moving into War and Peace, we will discuss the world that the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy created in his fictions against the backdrop of the social and...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
How do Shakespeare and filmmakers who adapt his plays engage their audiences, construct meaning, and enable us to understand more fully our own culture and ourselves? This seminar will deepen our understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare’s drama and of his...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
The Odyssey gives us an adventure story of a Greek hero returning to his home in Ithaca after the Trojan War. This could be a straightforward journey lasting three or four days at most. But in the Odyssey the journey is expanded into a narrative of 24 books (= ancient...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) or The Good Fight, as was it was commonly called on the left, was democracy’s first major confrontation with fascism. Its indelible mark on Spain and on the international community is still felt today. This course will look at...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
After 2500 years, Ancient Greek Drama still fascinates modern audiences. In this course students will explore the interactions between the ancient and modern. By reading ancient Greek plays or poems and reading or viewing a modern play or film based on the ancient,...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
What makes comedy comedy? Does the comedic aesthetic evolve across cultural and temporal barriers? How do interpretation and performance affect our understanding of the works? What does it mean that comedy is deadly serious? These are a few of the questions to be...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Franz Liszt (1811–1886) is one of the seminal figures of the 19th century. As one of the great piano virtuosos, he toured Europe from one end to the other, coming into contact with virtually all the prominent figures of the period. As a composer, he contributed to all...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Two years ago the Main Library of the University of Arizona was given a massive donation of original collections from the American Vaudeville Museum by its curators Frank Cullen and Donald McNeilly. This collection is one of the largest in the world. To commemorate...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
When Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that “the life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience,” he meant that law is a messy and imperfect invention reflecting the human condition. This course will explore the imperfect nature of law today by focusing on...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
This course will give students an understanding of how the Earth’s climate changes naturally, as well as how humans are driving this change. We will explore what is likely to happen in the future, resulting both from natural change and change driven by the...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Gothic literature, theater, and (more recently) films have been a part of Western culture for over 250 years and have presented us, in disguise, with heightened — and sometimes lurid and monstrous — symbols of what really haunts us as a culture in our...
by bartmann | Apr 4, 2024
Alexander Hamilton promised that the Constitution would “unite parties for the general welfare,” but Washington perceived that “the baneful effects of the spirit of Party” continued to threaten the republic. In the centuries since, we have blamed partisans and...
