Practices of Classicism in the French Seventeenth Century

Crosslistings: ARTH 24420/45885, CDIN 24420/44420, CMLT 24420/44410, TAPS 25222/44420

This seminar has two goals. One is to combine the text-based tradition of French literary studies with the image-based, comparative tradition of art history—and, in so doing, to change the taxonomies of both. The other is to re-evaluate French Classicism by attending to practices of reading, writing, performing, looking and making. The seminar’s breadth is designed to appeal to all students interested in the theory and history of aesthetics, and the interleaving of visual and literary evidence. Looking will be no less important than reading, as we will conduct sessions with original objects in the Art Institute and in Regenstein Special Collections. Authors studied will include Corneille, Molière, La Fontaine, Pascal, and Descartes; among the artists, Poussin, Claude Lorrain, La Tour, and Callot. Critical readings will range from Leo Spitzer to Louis Marin and Foucault. 

The seminar will be conducted in English; all primary texts will be made available in both English translation and, for those with reading knowledge, in the French original. This seminar will travel to Paris during exam week (March 2027); airfare and lodging covered by university.

Prerequisites
Consent of instructors required for all students. For French credit, FREN 20500, 20501 or an introductory-level literature course taught in French is also required.