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