E Nicholson 3 pm Cultural Foundations II Syllabus Spring 2017 1 - per unione Ripristinato .doc - 1 CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS II Class code CFU -

1 Class code CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS II CFU - UF9101092 Instructor Details Name: Eric Nicholson NYUHome Email Address: [email protected] Office Hours:Tues. 1:30-3:00 P.M., and by appointment Villa Ulivi Office Location: Santa Maria Novella Villa Ulivi Office Extension: 330 For fieldtrips refer to the email with trip instructions and trip assistant’s cell phone number Class Details Semester: Spring 2017 Full Title of Course: Cultural Foundations II Meeting Days and Times: Tues./Thurs. 3:00-4:15 pm Classroom Location:Sala Montughi, Villa Sasset Prerequisites Cultural Foundations I Class DescriptionThrough close reading, discussion, viewing (and some performance), we will explore major literary, visual, and architectural works produced in Asia and Europe, from ca. 500-1700 A.D. As the second part of the Cultural Foundations sequence, this course will focus ontransitions: first, from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages, then through the “12thcentury renaissance” in Europe and the “Classic” cultures of China and Japan to a time of crisis and change in the fourteenth century.In turn, we will study the emergence of the modern world, during the period often called “The Renaissance,” ca. 1400-1600 A.D., followed by 17th century upheavals preceding the major Revolutions of the late 18th-early 19th centuries. Although we will chart predominant trends, we will also consider exceptions and challenges to “the rules”: these will include secular and vernacular expressions counterpoised to Christian and Latin culture, the advocacy of women’s voices, their poetic writings, and cultural agency in a patriarchal society, and even apparent celebrations of adultery, questionings of authority, and social role reversals.We will also aim to compare representations of both the natural world and of civilization, as produced in important centers ranging from Cordoba to Kyoto and yes, Florence. The course will also extend last semester’s inquiry into artistic representations of basic social and individual issues.In this regard, we will consider how Greco-Roman culture persisted or was deliberately revived and transformed in the medieval and Renaissance periods.Again, we will assess how the texts and art works portray and interrogate subjects such as the individual’s relation with the community; personal identity and mortality; love, gender, and sexuality, etc.In the context of Page1of10

2 the changes noted above, we will discuss new topics, including the rise of the individual artistic “master” or even “genius”; humanism, skepticism, and the notion of the world as theatre; mercantile and international economics, early industrial technologies, experimental science, and their impact on artistic and literary expression; colonialism, the international slave trade, and experiences as well as depictions of migration, exile, and social-cultural alienation vs. integration.