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THR 395: 001 Theater as the Life of the Mind |
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This liberal arts course traces four themes from classic theater through the television, plays, and movies we are currently creating in the United States. We’ll read Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Beckett, Emily Dickinson, Beth Henley, Lessing, Lincoln, Saint Paul, Shakespeare, Sam Shepard, and Soyinka, going from the Oresteia to The Godfather and Sex and the City. The themes are: women and men, the doctrine of last and final things, escaping from cyclical tragedy, and finding good gifts. This course helps students become creative citizens of world culture through understanding the dramatic arts and their role in the creation and communication of value. (TR 12:00-1:15 pm) |
HNRS 240:003 The Great Conversation: Rx for Cultural Amnesia
The Great Conversation is the ongoing, lively, creative discussion among the noble living and the noble dead. “Noble” means simply someone willing and able to read widely and imaginatively.If we could speak with Aeschylus about his Oresteia (458 BC/BCE), we would learn that he has something priceless to offer us that we can use in our political decisions today, but only if we can grasp the imaginative dimension of his work.Being able to “speak” with him is to participate in the Great Conversation.If you don’t take part in the Great Conversation, you get cultural amnesia, a leading cause of ideology.This course helps the student join, as a living participant, in the GC, which has, historically, been a major source of creativity.We will read Aeschylus, Beckett, Boccaccio, Dante, Lessing, Lincoln, Machiavelli, Flannery O’Connor, Ovid, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Shakespeare, and Thucydides. (TR 12:00-1:15pm)