ARTH 149. The Classical in Art and Literature

(Cross-listed as INTP 091)
Layers of representation, interpretation, and theoretical frameworks filter our view of Greco-Roman antiquity, and continually reconfigure the meaning of the "classical." This seminar will examine the histories, texts, and works of art through which the classical tradition continues to anchor, undermine, legitimize, modernize, or mythologize art and literature. We will consider the ways that the history and theory of art, translations, opera, dance, feminism, psychoanalysis, anthropology, philosophy, and literature have employed and reshaped Greco-Roman texts, subject matter, and aesthetic structures. Topics and authors may include: Greek mythology in contemporary art and fiction, The figure of Oedipus (Sophocles, Freud, Girard, Stravinsky, Pasolini), Classicism in the history of art and architecture (Michelangelo, Palladio, Jacques-Louis David, Thomas Jefferson, Picasso), Constructions of the classical as western vs. eastern, Postmodernism and the Classics (Irigary, Foucault, Derrida), and Classical myth in opera (Gluck, Strauss).
Humanities.
1 credit.
Catalog chapter: Art and Art History: Art History
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/art

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