Anatomies
of Change
Winter Quarter 2004-05
“Interdisciplinarity is not the calm of an easy security; it begins effectively … when the solidarity of the old disciplines breaks down.”
Roland Barthes, from Work to Text
Winter Faculty: |
Spring Faculty: |
Drama Department |
English and Interdisciplinary Studies |
Office: Mem. Aud. 146 |
Office:
250-251A |
Hrs: Th. 1-3 p.m. |
Hrs: T/Th 1:30-3:30 |
Phone: 3-2683 |
Phone: 3-0813 |
Emphasis will be given to how literary, philosophical, and visual forms, and conceptions of the self, the divine, and the physical universe in classical and early modern texts have persisted and responded to profound historical pressures well into twentieth century modernism. In the wake of these changes, modes of interpretation have given way to what has become the heightened interdisciplinarity of the humanities. We will explore how the texts themselves provide the terms for interdisciplinary methods of interpretation. Our consistent objective will be to develop analytical and interpretive skills crucial to the critical assessment of ideas in the humanities and beyond.
Winter quarter will focus on transformations between Classical and Contemporary texts. We will look at the relationships between myth and history as well as among epic, lyric, and tragic forms to consider how certain elements persist over time but change radically in response to historical concerns and realities. The goal of the course will be for you to understand the multiple approaches to the interpretation of texts that characterize interdisciplinary humanities.
| Lectures: | Tues/Thurs 11:00-11:50 a.m. Building 370, Room 370 |
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| Evaluation: | Paper (4-5 pages) | 20% | Th Feb 3, 11 am |
| Paper (6-7 pages) | 30% | Th Mar 3, 11 am | |
| Final Exam | 25% | M Mar 14, 3:30-6:30 pm | |
| Participation | 25% |
Texts:
Aeschylus, Oresteia (Chicago)
Aristotle, Poetics (UMP) (U New Mexico)
Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape (Grove)
Carson , If not Winter, Fragments of Sappho (Vintage)
Euripides, Medea and Other Plays (Viking Penquin)
Euripides, The Bacchae (Farrar, Strauss, Girous)
Gilgamesh (Norton)
Momaday, The Way to RainyMountain
Moraga, The Hungry Woman ( West End)
Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy (Random)
Sophocles, Antigone, Oedipus, Electra ( Oxford)
Soyinka, Death & the King's Horseman