STUDENTS: If you run into any problems enrolling for classes please contact Mandy.Walker@Colorado.edu stating your full name, the class in which you are trying to enroll and the error message you are receiving. If you are enrolling in a lecture class that also has a recitation, please include the applicable recitation section number.
If you are trying to register for HUMN 3660 – The Postmodern, you will likely get a message that the class is full even though there are spaces in the recitation you want. This is a known systems issue. Please go ahead, waitlist yourself for the class and email Mandy.Walker@Colorado.edu. We are actively monitoring this and will move you into the lecture/recitation if there is space.
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HUMN 1010: Introduction to Humanities
Giulia Bernardini/Alexandra Eddy
Humanities 1010 is a 6 credit hour course that meets six times a week (three literature discussion classes and three lecture-demonstrations in art and music). The course provides an analytical and comparative study of works in literature, music, and visual arts from Antiquity to the 17th century. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: historical context or literature and the arts.
Music: A chronological study of Western classical music from Classical Antiquity through the Renaissance, with primary focus upon developments in the art of Western musical composition in its natural context: the intellectual tradition of Western civilization. We will study significant individual Western classical compositions both as artistic structures and as expressions of human thought and experience, and will note similarities between early Western music and the music of other cultures, times, and places. No prior knowledge of music is necessary.
Art: The art lectures will begin by studying the art and architecture of ancient Greece. We will then look at the artistic production and architectural innovations of ancient Rome, before moving on to Romanesque and early Gothic architecture and architectural sculpture. The semester ends with a survey of major Renaissance, High Renaissance, and Reformation works in painting, sculpture, and architecture. Students are expected to complete weekly readings from Gardner’s Art Through the Ages and occasional additional readings.
Literature: The literature section includes works such as Homer’s Odyssey, Greek tragedy, Plato’s Symposium, Dante’s Inferno, Boccaccio’s Decameron, selections from Montaigne’s Essays, and Shakespeare’s King Lear. When registering for Humanities 1010, students should sign up for a literature section. These sections meet three times a week, MWF.
HUMN 1701: Nature and Environment in German Literature and Thought
Critically examines titles in German literature and thought. Nature and environment are used to explore alienation, artistic inspiration, nihilism, exploitation, sexuality, rural versus urban, meaning of the earth, cultural renewal, identity and gender. This “green” survey of German classics spans Romanticism’s conception of nature as unconscious spirit to the politics and values of contemporary Germany’s Green party. Same as GRMN 1701. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: ideals and values.
HUMN 2000: Methods and Approaches to Humanities
Paul Gordon/David Ferris
Humanities 2000 will be team-taught by various members of the Humanities faculty who will each offer a separate “mini-course” on one of the essential issues or methodological concerns which students can expect to encounter in their future coursework for the Humanities major. Although the subject of each mini-course may be expected to vary from year to year, topics proposed by faculty in the past include: word/image studies; rhetoric; translation; the canon; gender studies; cultural studies; literature and the other arts; literary theory; philosophy and literature; etc. Prerequisite HUMN 1010 or 1020. Restricted to Humanities majors.
HUMN 3093: Topics in Humanities: Modern Media and the Parisian Avant-Garde, 1848-1914
Giulia Bernardini
From 1848 to 1914, France experienced intense socio-political tension and transformation. Against a backdrop of imperial and republican struggles for power, its cities grew into sprawling urban centers populated by a working class inspired by the ideals of socialism, and by a growing bourgeoisie with expendable income and leisure time. At the frontline of society was the avant-garde: the painters, musicians, and authors whose self-imposed task it was to translate this new state of modernity into their chosen media. This class will study the Parisian avant-garde – its artistic personalities and movements – to investigate the notion of the artist as cultural commentator and to inquire how it built the foundations for twentieth century modernism. Though we will focus primarily on the visual arts, works of literature and music will also be used to enrich our understanding of this era. Restricted to sophomores/juniors/seniors.
HUMN 3093: Topics in Humanities: The Arabic Novel
Haytham Bahoora
Focusing on the novel genre in the Arabic literary tradition, this course will examine both the aesthetic qualities of the genre as an artistic form and the ways it has depicted and intervened in the modern social, political, and cultural movements and events that have shaped the Arab world in the 20th century. Our theoretical anchor will be the inconclusive and often contentious debates on the question of modernity, and in particular, modernity in the colonial and post-colonial worlds. Our readings will be organized specifically around the following historical events and themes: colonialism and post- colonialism, discourses of progress and development, urbanization and representations of the peasantry, debates on tradition, gender and the role of women in society, and the role of religion in public life. Authors include Naguib Mahfouz, al-Tayyib Salih, Abd al-Rahman Munif, Sonallah Ibrahim, Edward Said, and Frantz Fanon. Same as ARAB 3330.
HUMN 3104: Film Criticism & Theory
This course surveys and engages with the major film theories. It also examines the role and function of film criticism. Students will screen at least one film each week, read pertinent theoretical and critical writings, participate insightfully in discussions, and write analytically and creatively about topics discussed and gestured toward in class. Same as FILM 3104.
HUMN 3210: Narrative
This course will examine narrative as a central form of representation in the twentieth century by analyzing the effects of form on how we understand and construct our world. Two questions will guide this examination: “what kind of relation (if any) is there between narratives and reality (or ‘life’)?” (posed by Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan); and, “what kind of notion of reality authorizes construction of a narrative account of reality?” (posed by Hayden White). With the aid of different theories of narrative, we will attempt to answer these questions by closely analyzing how narrative structure informs perception, experience, and representation as well as how this has changed over the course of the past century.
Over the course of the semester we will analyze works of fiction to see how narrative functions, and we will look at narrative as a way of organizing thought that applies to interdisciplinary contexts including pop culture, art, identity studies, medicine, and law. Authors to be studied will likely include Woolf, Faulkner, Nabokov, Sartre, Morrison, Auster, and McEwan. We will also view and analyze Pan’s Labyrinth and will consult works from such theorists as Brooks, Bruner, Chatman, Herman, Kahneman, Lodge, Prince, Rimmon-Kenan, and White. Prerequisites HUMN 2000 or junior/senior standing.
HUMN 3240: Tragedy
Paul Gordon
In this course we will examine theories of tragedy (Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche) and apply those theories, in order to examine their potential efficacy, to various works of art. After a careful examination of Greek tragedy, beginning with Aeschylus and Sophocles and concluding with Euripides’ last play on The Bacchae, the only extant tragedy which deals with Dionysus and the “birth of tragedy,” we will examine the survival of tragedy in 19-th and 20th century works of art—specifically, the works of the William Butler Yeats, Ibsen (Hedda Gabler), Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard), and Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire). Restricted to sophomores/juniors/seniors.
HUMN 3660: Postmodern
David Ferris
This course will examine the event of the Postmodern and its effect within literature, film, architecture, culture, and critical theory. Beginning with works that signal and examine the onset of modernity, the consequences of postmodernity for our understanding of the modern as a sign of our intellectual, cultural, and social progress will be presented. Once defined in relation to the modern, our attention will turn to the problems and issues posed by the postmodern with respect to history, perception, and the concept of an era that is also our present. We will also examine various recent attempts to think beyond the postmodern. The course will include a broad selection of works from architectural theory to performance art.
HUMN 3702: Dada and Surrealist Literature
Juan Wang
Surveys the major theoretical concepts and literary genres of the Dada and Surrealist movements. Topics include Dada performance and cabaret, the manifesto, montage, the readymade, the Surrealist novel, colonialism and the avant-garde, and literary and philosophical precursors to the avant-garde. Taught in English. Same as GRMN 3702. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: literature and the arts.
HUMN 4004: Topics in Film Theory: Jung & Film
Jim Palmer
The basic themes of C. G. Jung’s archetypal psychology (shadow, anima/animus, character typology, and individuation) are studied and applied as tools of critical analysis to selected films and literary texts of the modern period. Same as FILM 3022.
HUMN 4060: Reading Theory
This course will examine the place of theory within 20th century critical discourse. It will explore the extent to which every theoretical text is constituted around a central difficulty in the concept of theory itself. Readings from Freud, Benjamin, Lévi-Strauss, Genette, Derrida, Butler, Bhabba, and de Man. Prerequisite: HUMN 2000 or junior/senior standing. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: critical thinking.
HUMN 4140: The Age of Dante: Readings from The Divine Comedy
Suzanne Magnanini
Focuses on close reading of Dante’s poetry with emphasis on the intellectual, religious, political, and scientific background of the medieval world. Taught in English. Prereq., junior standing or instructor consent. Same as ITAL 4140. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: literature and the arts.
HUMN 4155: Philosophy, Art and the Sublime
Paul Gordon
“Perhaps the most sublime utterance is that inscribed on the temple of Isis: “I am all that is, that was, and that will ever be; no mortal has lifted my veil.” (Kant) In this course we will examine theories of the sublime and apply those same theories to various works of art. Beginning with Longinus, we will then move to the beginning of modern discussions of the sublime in Burke and Kant before proceeding to the “golden age” of sublimity, 18-19th century German and English romanticism. After a study of sublimity in Goethe’s Faust we will then turn our attention to the writings of the English romantic poets (Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge), as well to the early 19th-century novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. After an examination of the sublime paintings of Turner (and his predecessors) we will move, in the final section of the course, to an examination of the survival of the sublime in the 20th century paintings and films of Barnett Newman, Georgia O’Keefe, Werner Herzog, and John Carpenter. Prerequisite HUMN 2000 or junior /senior standing. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: critical thinking; ideals and value.
HUMN 4811: Nineteenth Century Russian Literature
Vicki Hendrickson
The 19th century was a turbulent time in Russian society, and nowhere are the heated debates over the future and welfare of the country more acutely revealed than in the literature produced in that period. Such issues as “the women question,” the liberation of the serfs, radicalism, and nihilism all find expression through the various writers who dominated the literary scene – Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky, among others. This course is intended to introduce students to not only the social movements, but the cultural movements as well. Aside from the topics listed above, we will explore the sentimentalism and romanticism that reflected the Western influence on the Russian novel in the first half of the 19th century, and move on to the novels of realism exemplified by the literary giants of the second half of the century. Grades for the course will be determined by quizzes, short papers, and a final, as well as participation in class discussions. No prior experience with Russian language or literature is required. Same as RUSS 4811. Approved for the arts and sciences core curriculum: literature and the arts.
HUMN 4835: Literature and Social Violence
Cathy Comstock
Through discourse analysis of both literary and non-fictional texts about social violence, we will compare the understanding and effects made possible through different media. We will study gang culture, homophobia and AIDS, the effects of racism and poverty on neighborhoods and school systems, and the politics of hunger. We will also look at sources of great hope and positive action, including the ways in which both art and social action can make a transformative difference. All this is combined with the option of extra credit through service work in community agencies, since the personal experience with the effects of social violence can help us to understand the class materials-and our culture overall-more deeply. Restricted to sophomores/juniors/seniors. This course is approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: contemporary societies.