Topics in Early Modern Literatures and Cultures (410-0-1)

Topic

Premodern Literary Theory

Instructors

Caroline Egan

Meeting Info

Kresge 3535 Span & Port Sem Rm: Thurs 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

Premodern Literary Theory

The colonial Latin American world has given rise to major modern theoretical frameworks that continue to shape literary and cultural studies (for instance, transculturación, coloniality, hybridity and so on). But how should we understand the role of the corpus of premodern theories that shaped literary and cultural production in the early modern Iberian transatlantic? This seminar engages with the question of premodern theories in the transatlantic world by providing a grounding in key ancient and medieval understandings of (for example) style, mimesis, the sublime, aesthetic form, and sensory experience. Furthermore, this seminar seeks to problematize assumptions about theory itself by studying writers such as Aristotle and Maimonides alongside verbal and visual arts from the premodern and colonial Americas-for instancethe khipu (knotted cords used for recordkeeping in the Andes) and the huehuetlatolli ("speech of the elders," examples of the Nahua rhetorical tradition). The class will be taught in English.

Class Materials (Required)

Leitch, Vincent B., ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: Norton, 2001.
ISBN-13: 978-0393974294

Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. P.G. Walsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999. ISBN-13: 978-0199540549

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Please contact the department of Spanish & Portuguese to request a permission number, spanish-portuguese@northwestern.edu.