This course surveys art of America from the colonial era through the post-war 20th century. The student will consider broad stylistic tendencies in various regions and periods and examine specific artists and works of art in historical and social contexts, with emphasis on the congruent evolution of contemporary American multi-cultural identity. Overarching issues that have interested major scholars of American art and its purview include the landscape (wilderness, Manifest Destiny, rural settlement, and urban development); the family and gender roles; the founding rhetoric of freedom and antebellum slavery; and notions of artistic modernism through the 20th century. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: Understand the historical (geographic, political) formation of the present United States of America; Be familiar with renowned influential American artists from the 18th through the 20th century; Be conversant in common stylistic designations used in Western art of the 17th through 20th centuries; Recognize subjects and forms in American art through history that mark its distinction; Be able to engage specific images, objects, and structures from different critical perspectives to consider their functions and meanings. (Art History 210)

This resource allows you to explore a range of sources from the campaign for the abolition of slavery that began in 1787 - you will be able to look at minutes from the meetings of the Abolition Committee and to examine first hand, eye witness accounts of slavery. It will become clear that the issues of equality, justice and tolerance raised and explored by the resources are just as relevant today as they were two centuries ago. You might feel that the need for campaigns is also just as great. This resource therefore also outlines a series of activities that investigate what made the Abolition campaign so successful and what still makes a successful campaign today.

For those new to music history, a discussion of the meaning of the term "classical music", and an introduction to the Western art music of the second half of the eighteenth century.

In Origin of Species, Darwin provided a model for understanding the existence of objects and systems manifesting evidence of design without positing a designer, and of purpose and mechanism without intelligent agency. Texts deal with pre-Darwinian and later treatment of this topic within literature and speculative thought since the eighteenth century, with some attention to the modern study of "feedback mechanism" in artificial intelligence. Readings in Hume, Voltaire, Malthus, Darwin, Butler, Hardy, H. G. Wells, and Freud. This subject offers a broad survey of texts (both literary and philosophical) drawn from the Western tradition and selected to trace the immediate intellectual antecedents and some of the implications of the ideas animating Darwin's revolutionary On the Origin of Species. Darwin's text, of course, is about the mechanism that drives the evolution of life on this planet, but the fundamental ideas of the text have implications that range well beyond the scope of natural history, and the assumptions behind Darwin's arguments challenge ideas that go much further back than the set of ideas that Darwin set himself explicitly to question - ideas of decisive importance when we think about ourselves, the nature of the material universe, the planet that we live upon, and our place in its scheme of life. In establishing his theory of natural selection, Darwin set himself, rather self-consciously, to challenge a whole way of thinking about these things. The main focus of attention will be Darwin's contribution to the so-called "argument from design" - the notion that innumerable aspects of the world (and most particularly the organisms within it) display features directly analogous to objects of human design and, since design implies a designer, that an intelligent, conscious agency must have been responsible for their organization and creation. Previously, it had been argued that such features must have only one of two ultimate sources - chance or conscious agency. Darwin proposed and elaborated a third source, which he called Natural Selection, an unconscious agency capable of outdoing the most complex feats of human intelligence. The course of study will not only examine the immediate inspiration for this idea in the work of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus and place Darwin's Origin and the theory of Natural Selection in the history of ensuing debate, but it will also touch upon related issues.

" In the Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin gave us a model for understanding how natural objects and systems can evidence design without positing a designer: how purpose and mechanism can exist without intelligent agency. Texts in this course deal with pre- and post-Darwinian treatment of this topic within literature and speculative thought since the eighteenth century. We will give some attention to the modern study of feedback mechanisms in artificial intelligence. Our reading will be in Hume, Voltaire, Malthus, Darwin, Butler, H. G. Wells, and Turing."

Essay on the violin treatise.

The population of Britain grew rapidly during the Georgian period, from around five million people in 1700 to nearly nine million by 1801. It was a time of extreme luxury and extreme poverty, of burgeoning consumer culture and the birth of industrialisation; of spectacular entertainments from exhibitions of giants and exotic animals to public hangings. Explore the newspapers, books, illustrations, posters and political reports of the time to find out more.

Basic writing skills in music of the common-practice period (Bach to Brahms). Work includes regular written assignments leading to the composition of short pieces, analyzing representative works from the literature, keyboard laboratory, and sight-singing choir. It is recommended that entering students have some concert music listening or playing background. Enrollment may be limited.

This course examines the production, transmission, preservation and qualities of folk music in the British Isles and North America from the 18th century to the folk revival of the 1960s and the present. There is a special emphasis on balladry, fiddle styles, and African-American influences. The class sings ballads and folk songs from the Child and Lomax collections as well as other sources as we examine them from literary, historical, and musical points of view. Readings supply critical and background materials from a number of sources. Visitors and films bring additional perspectives.

Subject studies important examples of the literary form that, between the beginning of the eighteenth century and the end of the nineteenth century, became an indispensable instrument for representing modern life, in the hands of such writers as Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Burney, Austen, Scott, Dickens, the Brontes, Eliot, Hardy, and Conrad. The class alternates between eighteenth and nineteenth century topics, and may be repeated for credit with instructor's permission.

Medieval and early modern Russia stood at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. In this course we will examine some of the native developments and foreign influences which most affected the course of Russian history. Particular topics include the rise of the Kievan State, the Mongol Yoke, the rise of Muscovy, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, relations with Western Europe. How did foreigners perceive Russia? How did those living in the Russian lands perceive foreigners? What social relations were developing between nobility and peasantry, town and country, women and men? What were the relations of each of these groups to the state? How did state formation come about in Kievan and Muscovite Russia? What were the political, religious, economic, and social factors affecting relations between state and society? In examining these questions we will consider a variety of sources including contemporary accounts (both domestic and foreign), legal and political documents, historical monographs and interpretive essays.