Spring 2015
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 criticism and literary and art theories to look at and interpret movies that address […]
Is Turkey in Europe or the Middle East? Is this a question of geography, history, politics, or culture? This course explores all those sides of Turkey since the late 19th-century empire, focusing on the republican era after 1923. Turkey is one of the world’s most populous Muslim countries, a parliamentary democracy, a NATO member, and […]
What is intelligence? What differentiates humans from other animals? This course explores the evolution of cognition in humans and other species, and discusses how science investigates these questions. Why are humans such a unique species on earth–or are we? Why we are so good at solving some problems and yet fail so often at solving […]
The short story has held a prominent place in Latin American literature for at least 200 years, but it is only within the past few decades that it has become widely known in translation. The course will use the short story as a vehicle to introduce some of Latin America’s best-known writers, including Nobel Laureates […]
Perennially fascinating, ancient Greek mythology has inspired and continues to inform creative activity from “highbrow” literature to popular media. This course will explore major mythological events and characters beginning with the creation tale, which features a succession of generations of gods embroiled in gender and generational conflict. We will examine the gods’ importance in ancient […]
The “scandalous female genre” has long had box-office value and cultural presence. This seminar explores the history of such women in films. We will first discuss genre conventions: how film style and storytelling present and comment on scandalous behavior. We then will explore how film-industry conditions permit and encourage portraying scandalous females. Each week we […]
The Dance—as Homer named it—is always an expression of the ideas, traditions, and values of the society that creates it, whether spiritual, recreational, or artistic in form. The body in motion is both the mode of expression and the meaning of the Dance. In this course we explore the correlations between the body image as […]
Berlin, capital of the Weimar Republic between the two World Wars, was one of the most exciting cities in Europe–the place of the most radical experimentation in the visual and performing arts, in mass entertainment and theater, in literature and architecture. Berlin was a laboratory of modernity. While the cultural stage was vibrant and intoxicating, […]