Mar 28, 2024  
2022-2023 Academic Catalog 
    
2022-2023 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

ARH 295-01 - Special Topic: Art and Literature of Paris and Berlin

4 credits (Spring)
In what ways are these two European capitals paradigmatic of the experiences of urban modernity, cultural achievement, political struggle, and the intersection of individual personal experience and titanic historical forces? How do paintings, novels and movies express the individual experience of urban modernity, and how do they shape the individual’s expectations of those experiences? We will examine Paris in Impressionist paintings and also in Surrealism and the Naturalist novel; Berlin in Expressionist paintings and novels; divided Berlin in the Cold War in film and architecture and the Berlin Wall, and reunified Berlin.The goals of this course include learning to discuss modernist visual art, novels and literary criticism, film, architecture and urban planning by relating them as firmly as possible to their original context. It will also include familiarizing ourselves with the changing social history of European urban life in the last two centuries. 

Prerequisite: Second-semester standing.
Instructor: Mackenzie