Committee on Social Thought SPRING 2018 Course Schedule - 3

31927. Reading Thucydides REDFIELD, James 9:30a-10:50a F 305 xGREK 40917

TR Grad Seminar.

An exploration of the text in translation or, if possible, in Greek. Undergrads by consent only.

30927. Knowledge on a Platter: Comparative DASTON, Lorraine & 9:30a-12:20p F 305 xHREL 30927/SALC 30927/

Perspectives on Knowledge Texts in the DONIGER, Wendy MW KNOW 31415/CHSS 30927

Ancient World Graduate seminar. Consent is required.

Course taught the first five weeks of the quarter (3/26/18-4/28/18) twice a week.

In various ancient cultures, sages created the new ways of systematizing what was known in fields as diverse as medicine, politics, sex, dreams, and mathematics. These texts did more than present what was known; they exemplified what it means to know – and also why reflective, systematic knowledge should be valued more highly than the knowledge gained from common sense or experience. Drawing on texts from Ancient India, Greece, Rome, and the Near East, this course will explore these early templates for the highest form of knowledge and compare their ways of creating fields of inquiry: the first disciplines. Texts include the Arthashastra, the Hippocratic corpus, Deuteronomy, the Kama Sutra, and Aristotle’s Parva naturalia.

31224. Aeschylus’s Oresteia: Drama and Democracy SLATKIN, Laura 2-4:50p F 305 xGREK 41217

TR Open to undergrads with the

Permission of the instructor

Course taught the first five weeks of the quarter (3/26/18-4/28/18)twice a week.

The Oresteia: Aeschylus’s prizewinning trilogy explores (among other things) the fortunes of the house of Atreus, the making of the polis, matters of state, gender trouble, questions of kinship, revenge and its impasses, institutions of justice. Ancient Greek theater in the early-mid 5th c. BCE both maps and recons with the constitutive tensions in the polis between residual (but still influential) aristocratic norms and practices and the newly dominant (but still developing) democratic ethos and ideals – its practices institutionalized in the assembly, the magistracies, and the courts. Aeschylus’s Oresteia both represents and contributes to that debate (in antiquity and in current scholarship). This trilogy helps us understand crucial aspects of the society that produced it but also invites us to reflect on the ways ancient literature informs how we think about ourselves and our predicaments now – political, familial, existential. And the Oresteia further invites us to think about the uses and possibilities of theater, then and now. We will supplement our reading of the play with commentary grounded in literary interpretation and cultural poetics, as well as philosophy and political theory. Although no knowledge of Greek is required for this course, there will be assignment options for those who wish to do reading in Greek.

35004. Goya and Manet POP, Andrei 11a-12:20p CWAC xARTH 24720 & 34720

TR 152

Edouard Manet (1832-1883) is often regarded as the first modernist artist, but his practice was deeply rooted in the copying and emulation of Renaissance and Baroque painters, particularly Spaniards. Indeed, many of his subjects, and some of his techniques, from the use of firm outline to muted to muted opaque tones with minimal modeling, are conspicuous in Francisco Goya (1746-1828), a Spanish court painter and moralist whose paintings and prints were received in the late nineteenth century, and in the twentieth, as prefiguring both modernists form and various crises of artistic meaning. This seminar proposes a binocular focus on the two artists, in their individual historical contexts and in dialogue, in order to understand the tension between tradition and innovation in modern art.

36002. Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell WARREN, Rosanna 1:30-4:20p F 305 xENGL 36222

W Grad and undergrad

An intensive study of these two poets, whose work differs radically, but whose friendship nourished some of the most enduring and original poetry of the American 20th century. Close attention to the poems, in the light of recent biographical work and new editions.

37319. Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil MEIER, Heinrich 10:30a-1:20p F 505 xFNDL 25703/PHIL 37319/

MW

Undergrads with consent only

Course taught the first five weeks of the quarter, (3/26/18-4/28/18)* twice a week.

In this seminar I shall present my reading of Beyond Good and Evil, the first book after Thus Spoke Zarathustra in which Nietzsche speaks in his own voice again. Beyond Good and Evil contains Nietzsche’s most comprehensive discussion of philosophy, religion, morality, and politics. In Ecce homo, Nietzsche calls it the first of his “no-saying” books. The seminar will pay special attention to Nietzsche’s view of the philosopher and to the distinction between the philosophers and “the nobles” (die Vornehmen), a distinction which is crucial for understanding the book, its different addressees, and Nietzsche’s intention.

I shall use the English translation by Walter Kaufmann, available in several paperback editions. Those who can read the text in German should know that I use the Colli/Montinari edition (Kritische Studienausgabe, Band 5, DTV 1999).

*The time may be changed after the first session to 10:00am-12:50pm.

38230. Victor Hugo: Les Miserables MORRISSEY, Robert 2-4:50p Wb 207 xFREN 36103 & 26103/

R FNDL 26100

In this course we read Les Misérables and discuss the work's message, structure and aesthetic vision. We will be particularly attentive to Victor Hugo's role as an observer of nineteenth-century French society as well as an actor in the political life of his times. All classes and texts in French; presentations preferred in French, but English will be acceptable depending on the concentration. Written work in French or English. PQ: FREN 20500.

40305. Oedipus and Hamlet: On the Philosophy of Tragedy PIPPIN, Robert & 3:30-6:20p Wb 408 xGRMN 40305

WELLBERY, David T

In this class we will consider closely attempts to understand tragedy philosophically. Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, two texts that have particularly attracted philosophical attention will serve as constant reference points, but other paradigmatic tragedies (Euripides Bacchae, Goethe’s Faust, Beckett’s Endgame) will also be considered. Among the philosophical contributions to be considered are works by Aristotle, Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Scheler, Schmitt, Benjamin, Murdoch, and Menke. Major issues to be dealt with: the structure of tragic plot; the tragic affects; catharsis; ancient and modern tragedy; tragedy and the tragic; the aesthetics of tragedy; tragedy and society; tragedy and the sacred.

40701. Many Ramayanas DONIGER, Wendy 3:30-4:50p S 208 xHREL 42501/SALC 42501/

TR FNDL 22901/RLST 26801

A close reading of the great Hindu Epic, the story of Rama's recovery of his wife, Sita, from the demon Ravana on the island of Lanka, with special attention to changes in the telling of the story throughout Indian history, up to its present use as a political weapon against Muslims and a rallying point for Hindu fundamentalists. Readings in Paula Richman, Many Ramayanas and Questioning Ramayanas; in translations of the Ramayanas of Valmiki, Kampan , Tulsi, and Michael Dutta, as well as the Ramajataka; Rama the Steadfast, trans. Brockington; the Yogavasistha-Maharamayana; and contemporary comic books and films.

50204. Destruction of Images, Books and Artifacts SOLOVIEVA, Olga & 10:30a-1:20p JRL 207 xCDIN 50204/SALC 50204/

In Europe and South Asia WILLIAMS, Tyler W CMLT 50204/RLVC 50204/

HREL 50204/ARTH 40204

This course offers a comparative perspective on European and South Asian iconoclasm. In the European tradition, iconoclasm was predominantly aimed at images, whereas in South Asian traditions it was also enacted upon books and buildings. The combination of these traditions will allow us to extend the usual understanding of iconoclasm as the destruction of images to a broader phenomenon of destruction of cultural artifacts and help question the theories of image as they have been independently developed in Europe and South Asia, and occasionally in conversation with one another. We will ask how and why, in the context of particular political imaginaries and material cultures, were certain objects singled out for iconoclasm? Also, who was considered to be entitled or authorized to commit their destruction? Through a choice of concrete examples of iconoclasm, we will query how religious and political motivations are defined, redefined, and intertwined in each particular case. We will approach the iconoclastic events in Europe and South Asia through the lenses of philology, history, and material culture. Class discussions will incorporate not only textual materials, but also the close collaborative study of images, objects, and film. Case studies will make use of objects in the Art Institute of Chicago and Special Collections at the University Library.

49800. Reading Course: Non-Social Thought STAFF ARR ARR CONSENT REQUIRED

Open only to non-Social Thought Graduate Students.

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49900. Reading Course: Social Thought STAFF ARR ARR CONSENT REQUIRED

Open only to Social Thought Graduate Students.

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59900. Dissertation Research STAFF ARR ARR

PQ: Admission to Candidacy or Consent of Instructor.

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