FRN 395-01 - Advanced Special Topic: In(ter)discipline: Literature and the Performing Arts

4 credits (Spring)

This seminar studies a period of anesthetic and social upheaval in France when disciplinary boundaries between literature and the performing arts were not nearly as clear as they are today. We will read literary works featuring other art forms (painting, dance, or music in a text); contrast different artistic renditions of a tale; consider theories of representation, performance, and reception that are applicable to both art and society; and learn about the rise of cultural institutions such as the library, the museum, and the theatre and their relationship to the public. We will seek to understand the role of performance and literature in French society at the birth of modernity. Authors, artists, and composers include Diderot, Noverre, Balzac, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Wagner, Debussy, Halévy, Wilde, Strauss, Loïe Fuller and Colette.

Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313.
Instructor: A. Lee