TRAGEDY (notes)
- What's so tragic about tragedy?
- week of 5 August
GREAT CHAIN OF BEING (notes)
- What is man's place on the Great Chain of Being?
- week of 12 August
MACHIAVELLI & HOBBES (notes, Leviathan cover image)
- If I call you a Hobbesian Machiavel, is that a compliment?
- week of 19 August
DUTCH MASTERS: VANITAS & STILL LIFE (PPT presentation, notes)
- Why are you staring at the clock?
- week of 26 August
DEMONS, DEVILS, & WITCHES IN RENAISSANCE CULTURE (PPT presentation, notes, Dante's Divine Comedy online text and layers of Hell)
- Demons and devils and witches, oh my!
- week of 9 September
MONTAIGNE (notes, Montaigne's tower)
- Would most of your problems be solved if you could sit quietly pondering death?
- week of 30 September
CERVANTES (Don Quixote cartoon video)
- Is chivalry dead?
- week of 14 October
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POMP IN FASHION, ARCHITECTURE, & ART (PPT presentation)
- Can one ever be too rich or too thin?
- week of 21 October
HOGARTH (BBC video about The Rake's Progress, Beer Street and Gin Lane, Four Stages of Cruelty)
- Just how base and absurd are human beings?
- week of 28 October
THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT (PPT presentation, passage)
- Was it the "best of times" or the "worst of times"?
- week of 11 November
MOZART (Amadeus film clip: Mozart's genius, Symphony 41: Jupiter)
- Is balance the key to beauty?
- week of 18 November
GOETHE's FAUST (notes)
- Being Romantic doesn't involve candlelight and seductive music?
- week of 9 December