HIS 337-01 - Wagnerism

4 credits (Fall)

The composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) wore many hats. He was a musical and theatrical innovator, a prolific writer, an anti-semite, a cosmopolitan, a staunch German nationalist, a radical leftist revolutionary, a vegetarian, a dabbler in buddhism, an anti-vivisectionist, a utopian, and a forefather of modern cinema. Scholarly analysis of his legacy falls roughly into three periods: the hyperbolic construction of “genius” which seemed to follow in the composer’s wake during his lifetime, a generation of scathing indictment beginning in the 1930s in response to his posthumous embrace by the Nazis, and a more recent tempering of opinions in which scholars reconsider Wagner’s lasting contributions to literature, painting, theater, modernism, medicine, and the politics of the left. In this seminar we examine some of Wagner’s extensive writings and creative works, familiarize ourselves with his most influential critics and their contexts, and develop individual research projects that illuminate some aspect of the Wagnerian legacy across the globe over the last century and a half. Wagnerism, then, serves as a lens through which to explore fundamental issues including the intersection of art and politics; cultural transfer; reception histories and aesthetic experience; the tensions inherent in nationalism, transnationalism, and cosmopolitanism; and the politics of commemoration and revision.

Prerequisite: HIS 100 and HIS 236, HIS 237, HIS 238, HIS 239, or HIS 241.
Note: Foreign language option available in German or French.
Instructor: Maynard