Topics vary semester to semester. Specific topics may satisfy different Core Program requirements.
Heidegger and the Ecstasy of Being
This course will be centered around an in-depth investigation of one of the most controversial and influential philosophers of the 20th Century: Martin Heidegger. Rejecting what he saw as the tradition of western metaphysics and its quest for absolute knowledge, Heidegger's phenomenological approach focused on an analysis of lived experience and the structures that make that experience possible. Fundamental to this analysis are the ideas of finitude and fallibility. Human beings, for Heidegger, are never closed and completed, secure in their knowledge and understanding of themselves, but beings who are fundamentally concerned with their own being, who seek to determine themselves from within the complex social, historical, and interpersonal contexts into which they were thrown. As such, philosophy, for Heidegger, becomes interpretation, the attempt to interpret and reinterpret oneself and one's place within a changing and complex world, always with the possibility of failure. The course will investigate this project of "existential hermeneutics" through an in-depth investigation of some of Heidegger's major writings. The first half of the course will focus on a close reading of the first half of Being and Time while in the second half we will look at Heidegger's post war essays, his turn to "poetic thinking" and the legacy of Heidegger's thought on 20th century Continental philosophy. We will investigate Heidegger's works from out of their historical context, including Heidegger's relation to National Socialism. Students who receive a grade of C or above on their final paper will pass their second-stage writing requirement. Not open to students who have taken CSLC 116.
Trivial Comedies for Serious People: New Comedy from Ancient Greece to Modern Ireland
Sleepless in Seattle…How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days…James Joyce’s Ulysses…Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days. What do these widely diverse artistic creations share in common? They all emerge, or so this course will contend, in response to the ancient dramatic form known as New Comedy, an artistic genre that was to succeed both Greek Tragedy and Greek Old Comedy, and more commonly known as Romantic Comedy. Thus, where many critics today seek to understand the masterpieces of Irish Literature from within Ireland itself, that is, from the largely immanent perspectives of power, politics, and culture native to the island, this class will consider the possibility that the great comic achievements of Irish authors such as Wilde, Synge, Joyce, Beckett, and McDonagh also developed in response to a genre that emerged far beyond Ireland’s national borders. In the first part of this course, we will interrogate the genre of New Comedy as it develops in the classical tradition through Euripides, Menander, Plautus, and Terence. In the second part, we will see how this legacy unfolds in the works of Dante, Shakespeare, and Restoration Comedy, in a tradition that carries over even into our own Netflix specials. In the third part, we will explore the complex, and often perverse, ways in which the genre manifests in the modern Irish tradition. Special attention will be paid throughout the course to the central role that female characters play in the unfolding history of this popular dramatic genre, from ancient to modern times. Students who receive a grade of C or above on their final paper will pass their second-stage writing requirement. This topic fulfills the Core Program Global Connections and Pre-1800 requirements.