Plato, Republic . Aristotle, Poetics . This course will provide students with an introduction to the theoretical and practical issues of cultural memory. We will pay particular attention to accounts of the transition from premodernity to modernity. There will be guest speakers from other departments on campus.
Students are encourage to bring their own research interests to class.
Students will write a term paper of twenty-five pages, in which they bring some of the material of the course to bear on their own research interests. Their task is to give an account of a particular theoretical constellation from the course in the first half of the paper and then to develop how these concerns connect to their own research in the second half of the paper. In addition, they will be asked to do an oral presentation that contextualizes one of the readings from the syllabus. This will include a handout for the class with a bibliography. There will be no final exam.