An investigation of visual arts and design in Europe circa 1905-1940. The course follows European artistic and intellectual developments from the radical dissolution and reassembly of the visual field offered by the Cubists in the first decade of the century to the Surrealists’ explorations of unconscious desire on the eve of World War II. The period covered is one of extreme dislocation, including the breakup of the Victorian social order, the horrors of World War I, the Russian Revolution, the promises of new technology, the chaos of economic panics, and the deadly rise of totalitarian governments around Europe. Against that background, artists used their media to investigate the nature of representation, propose new expressions of male and female sexuality, adapt popular and consumer culture into the fine arts, combat social norms, celebrate the machinery of the modern world, advocate revolution, resist (and promote) Fascist authoritarianism, and model utopian societies. The course will primarily examine painting and sculpture, but will also introduce students to developments in industrial and graphic design, architecture, photography, and film of the era.
Days: MO WE  02:00-03:20 PM

This course introduces students to some classics of twentieth-century drama, fiction, and poetry by Irish writers. These include W. B. Yeats’s poetry, several plays associated with the Abbey Theater, and short fiction by James Joyce and Elizabeth Bowen. Though often classified as “British Literature,” we’ll be reading these works as literature which is engaged with shaping modern Ireland as the former colony gains independence. We’ll pay special attention to questions of language and genre as we examine how these writers, working in conjunction with those who strove to restore Irish (Gaelic) as a spoken language, undertook to create an other-than-English literature in English.  We’ll also explore the theme of ambivalent identity that recurs throughout these works.
Days: MO WE  04:00-04:50 PM

Topics include the French experience in the Great War, resistance and collaboration during the Second World War, empire and decolonization, immigration, French responses to “Americanization” and globalization.
Days: TU TH  02:00-03:20 PM