Related Courses: German Across the Curriculum

From the earliest painting on cave walls, to the soaring cathedrals of the Gothic Period, this course offers an historical approach to the art and architecture of the western world before the Renaissance. Art is approached as a text with which one can examine religion, history, technology, and many other aspects of society. NOTE: This course fulfills the Historical Mode of Inquiry requirements of the LSP.

From Renaissance chapels to the most contemporary multimedia works this course covers the history of art in Europe and the United States from 1400 to the present day, tracing the various and changing ways in which the world is represented by artists during this period. Art is examined not only as a physical and visual object, but also as a record of the interaction between images and diverse historical and cultural fields. NOTE: This course fulfills the Fine Arts: Aesthetic Mode of Inquiry requirements of the LSP.

Medieval Art explores a millennium of European monuments (4th-15th centuries). Within a feudal system of Christians, artisans and builders create or react to vigorous church, state, and civic patronage; the continuity, cooptation and perennial renewal of pagan Roman forms; German migrations, Nordic raids, Islamic and Hungarian incursions; the Crusades and pilgrimages of Christian knights and commoners. Medieval works exhibit sustained stylistic developments and erratic formal shifts. Monuments of art and architecture make visible the clash and synthesis of Western European and Mediterranean traditions with those of insular Christianity and the Byzantine East. NOTE: General Honors Course.

Origin, development, and characteristics of Renaissance art. NOTE: General Honors Course.

This course covers the history of Art in Europe from 1600-1700; issues such as the effect of the Catholic Reformation on art, changes in patronage and the art market, styles, materials and individual artists will be examined. NOTE: General Honors Course.

An analysis of literary representations of war and warriors. This course will assess the aesthetic problems that martial topics pose various genres. Readings may include Quaker songs; Sumerian, Greek, Roman and Norse Epics; songs by Bob Dylan, works by Tolstoy, Crane, Jones, Remarque, Hemingway, Brecht, Duras, Heian; or samuri saga, Noh drama.

A study of literary works that constitute what is often called the Western Tradition. Works read will be by such authors as: Homer, Sappho, Vergil, Dante, Cervantes, de Pizan, Shakespeare, Moliere, Sand, Ibsen, Eliot, Brecht, Mann, Yeats.

A critical reading of literary representations of women in plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Racine, Ibsen, Williams, Noh plays, Lorca, and a number of women playwrights such as Treadwell, Churchill, Gambaro, Hernandez, Sachs, Fornes, Deveare, Hellman.

Myths and mythic patterns inherent in world cultures and literatures, including classical Greek and Roman, South American, North American, African, Asian, Sumerian, and Germanic civilizations. Students should take ENG 208 Writing about Literature either before or in conjunction with this course. NOTE: General Honors Course.

In order to provide a framework for the study of literature, this course explores patterns of myth in world cultures, including Sumerian, Hebrew, American Indian, African, Germanic, Celtic, Greek, Roman, modern American, and others. NOTE: General Honors Course.

Topical and regional study of Europe. NOTE: General Honors Course.

A topical approach to medieval and/or early modern Europe, focusing on a particular theme throughout the semester. The themes will vary, but possible offerings include: The Renaissance, The Reformation, Science and Culture in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Europe in the Fifteenth Century. Students will analyze historical interpretations and do research in appropriate secondary and primary sources. This course may be repeated for credit as long as there is no duplication of previous topics. NOTE: General Honors Course.

Political, social, economic, religious, cultural, and scientific trends in Europe from c. 300 AD to c. 1400 AD. NOTE: General Honors Course.

This course explores the history of European women form approximately 200 to 1700. Major themes include the impact of Christianity, politics, the economy, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the law on the lives of women. Changing attitudes towards womanhood, sexuality, reproduction, and the family will also be discussed, as will women’s power and independence. NOTE: General Honors Course.

This course explores the history of European women from approximately 1700 to the present. Major themes include: the impact of political and economic change on the lives of women; changing attitude towards womanhood, sexuality, reproduction and the family; individual and collective struggles for women’s liberation. NOTE: General Honors Course.

Europe from c. 1400 to 1789, a synthesis of political, social, economic, and cultural developments form the Renaissance to the outbreak of the French Revolution. NOTE: General Honors Course.

Europe from 1789 to the present. Political, social, economic, and cultural trends in the history of Europe from the outbreak of the French Revolution to the present. NOTE: General Honors Course.

Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries-an era of dynastic rivalry, economic expansion, and philosophical creativity. Students will read a combination of secondary and primary sources illuminating the principal developments of the years between the Protestant Reformation and the French Revolution. NOTE: General Honors Course.

Developments in the history of Europe from 1789, the era of the French Revolution and Napoleon, to 1871, the age of Bismarck and the Franco-Prussian War. NOTE: General Honors Course.

Developments in the history of Europe from 1871 to 1945, an age of imperialism, revolution, totalitarianism, world conflict, and prelude to superpower rivalry. NOTE: General Honors Course.

This course explores France’s role in the destruction of European Jewry in World War II. Through primary and secondary sources, we investigate Germany’s occupation of France and French collaboration with and resistance to the Nazis in the Shoah. We also consider the turn-of-the-century roots and interwar spread of French fascism, as well as how selective remembrance and forgetfulness contributed to forging a postwar national identity. NOTE: General Honors Course.

Readings and research on selected topics of European history, 1815-1914.

Directed study in the issues and problems of Europe from the World War I era to 1945.

A critical historiographical examination of the major themes and methodologies that currently preoccupy scholars in the field of Modern European History. The course explores a series of themes that are pivotal for thinking about this field, focused around major texts that constitute key points of reference for historians, laying out and evaluating the categories currently employed in historical understanding.

This course will focus on depictions of women and women’s roles in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries C.E. These depictions may come from the women authors themselves, from male contemporaries, or from less literary portrayals in sources such as canon law, visual art, musical compositions, medical treatises, etc.

This course examines the problems that German Jews have faced in establishing a sense of identity in the 20th century. The first part will focus on the “Jewish Question;” the second half will focus on the holocaust and holocaust memory among German-Jewish intellectuals.

This course uses evidence from linguistics, archaeology, and history (among other disciplines) to explore the origins and identity of the speakers of Indo-European, a language spoken over five millennia ago, which gave rise to modern languages such as English, Russia, Hindi, the Romance Languages, etc.

A survey of 17th and 18th century European philosophy emphasizing primary readings from the Rationalists, the British Empiricists, and Kant. Major themes of the course are the fundamental nature of reality and the possibility of grounding of knowledge. NOTE: General Honors Course.

An intensive study of the Christian tradition, with special attention give to themes, figures, and developments of major importance for the history and contemporary state of Christianity, such as the Trinity, Thomas Aquinas, and the Reformation.

A critical examination of Western and Middle-Eastern philosophy from the fifth through the fifteenth centuries. NOTE: General Honors Course.

The rise and development of Christianity is set against the backdrop of the theologies and conflict, the personalities and formative events that shaped the emerging Church. People and movements are analyzed in the light of the spiritual, social, political, and economic forces of the day.

Proceeding from the pontificate of Gregory the Great, major developments are traced, highlighting monastic, missionary, and restoration movements, papal growth and reaction, scholasticism and the quest for reform. The ensuing division and new alignments in the world of the Reformation are studied through the end of the sixteenth century.

A survey of developments in modern Christianity as well as a detailed analysis of selected thinkers such as Blaise Pascal, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Soren Kierkegard, and Simone Weil. Includes critical examination of proposals that reconstruct the meaning of Christianity in the face of challenges to religion arising in recent centuries.

The governments and politics of the major European nations, with a stress on the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the former Soviet Union. NOTE: General Honors Course.