Coverage of topics by instructor may be thematic, text-, or genre-based, within a chronological context.  Instructors should cover all the cultures and time periods listed in italics. Listings of sub-topics, individual readings, and historical figures are provided as examples of those which might be chosen by individual instructors.

1. The Renaissance: Early Renaissance, High Italian Renaissance, Northern RenaissanceHistorical, social and cultural contexts: humanism, the Florentine Renaissance, trade guilds, secular vs. Christian humanism, the printing press, religious corruption and reform,the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, Age of Exploration, Council of Trent, women and the Renaissance, the growth of science and empiricismRenaissance art and architecture:  linear perspective, Roman art & architecture, high renaissance style vs. mannerism, Northern and Venetian art, secular art, portraiture,Literature and philosophy:  secular humanism, political philosophy, sonnet, Elizabethan drama, essayMusic:  motet, madrigal, sacred and secular polyphony, Venetian style, Lutheran hymnody, ayres, anthems, counterpointThe Northern Renaissance and the ReformationRepresentative figures:  Gutenberg, Mirandola, the Medici, Savonarola, Erasmus, Machiavelli, Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Dufay, Palestrina, Josquin des Prez, Machaut, Julius II, Martin Luther, Henry VIII, Castiglione, Vasari, Cellini, Bramante, Raphael, Parmigianino, Titian, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Elizabeth I, More, Copernicus, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Durer, Grunewald, Altdorfer, Holbein, Hilliard, Bosch, Breugel, Byrd, Morley, Tallis, Weelkes
2. The Baroque Era and Early EnlightenmentHistorical, social and cultural contexts:  the Counter-Reformation, baroque duality, divine right monarchy, growth of parliament, English constitutional government, court of Louis XIVBaroque art & architecture: characteristics of baroque art & sculpture, chiaroscuro,  sacred vs. secular art, piazza of St. Peter’s, art & architecture of Rome, France, SpainLiterature and philosophy:  epistemology, materialism, rational analysis, social contract; French baroque tragedy and comedy; birth of the novel, picaresque style, metaphysical poetry, English epic poetryMusic:  birth of opera, concerto grosso, toccata, aria, recitative, cantata, fugue, oratorio. Birth of instrumental musicThe Age of Reason and the rise of science: astronomy, utilitarianism, rationalismRepresentative figures:  Louis XIV, Donne, Cervantes, Milton, Moliere, Racine, Corneille, Crashaw, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Voltaire, Galileo, Harvey, El Greco, Caravaggio, Gentileschi, Hals, Rubens, Bernini, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Poussin, de la Tour, Velasquez, Peri, Monteverdi, Lully, Vivaldi, Bach, Handel
3. Neo-Classical and Revolutionary Periods Historical, social and cultural contexts: Enlightenment philosophy, American and French Revolutions, enlightened despots, growth of parliamentary government, rediscovery of classical antiquity, declarations of human rights, Reign of TerrorRococo and Neoclassical art & architecture:  style and characteristics, landscape painting, portraiture, mythological themes, revolutionary subjectsClassical music:  symphony, growth of the orchestra, sonata formNeo-classical literature: satire, rational humanism, philosophical cynicismRepresentative figures:  Napoleon, Frederick the Great, Pope, Swift, Voltaire, Diderot, Hume, Rousseau, Franklin, Paine, Gibbon; Hogarth, Fragonard, Watteau, Boucher, Gainsborough, David; Haydn, Mozart
4. Romanticism and RealismHistorical, social, cultural contexts: major characteristics of romanticism; Darwinian revolution, nationalism, self-analysis, scientific advances, Industrial RevolutionRomantic art & architecture:  Spain, England, France, Germany, romanticism vs. realism; American school of art, luminismRomantic literature & philosophy: sturm und drang movement, transcendentalism, Faustian themes, the growth of the novel, realistic poetryRomantic music: scherzo, symphonic development, nocturne, Lieder, instrumental music, age of virtuosos, bel canto opera, German opera, tone symphonyRepresentative figures: Darwin, Marx, Goya, Ingres, Delacroix, Gericault, Daumier, Constable, Turner, Friedrich, Homer, Eakins, Courbet, Beethoven, Berlioz, Chopin, Lizst, Paganini, Schubert, Verdi, Wagner, Dvorak, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Goethe, English Romantic poets, Flaubert, Balzac, American Transcendentalists, Dickinson, Whitman, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky,
5. Fin de Siècle and Early Modern EraHistorical, social and cultural contexts: la belle époque, social unrest, European colonialism, Victorian era, telephone & telegraph, steam, internal combustion, mass transportation, steel and coal, birth of social sciences (linguistics, sociology, anthropology, psychology) and archeological field work, artistic experimentation, rejection of tradition, changes in the role of womenArt & architecture:  Impressionism, post-Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Futurism; birth of photographyLiterature and Philosophy: realism and early modern unease; ennui, stream of consciousness style, psychological realism, determinism, naturalismMusic: symphonic poem, program music, tone poems, atonality, twelve-tone technique, SprechstimmeRepresentative figures:  Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Gauguin, Rodin, van Gogh, Munch, Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse; Gaudi, Sullivan; Nolde, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Strauss, Puccini, Mahler, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ravel, Freud, Proust, Dostoevsky, Ibsen, Wilde, K. Chopin,
6. ModernismHistorical, social and cultural contexts: European imperialism, birth of mass culture, rise of totalitarianism, World Wars I and II; the Holocaust; the Great Depression; Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance; the Atomic Age; the Cold War; technology and science; birth control and computersArt & architecture:  futurism, Dadaism, surrealism, analytical and synthetic Cubism, primitivism; Bauhaus, International Style; abstract expressionism, pop art, minimalism, op art; mobiles and ready madesLiterature and Philosophy: stream of consciousness prose; free verse, dada, Kafkaesque writing; existentialism, structuralism; theatre of the absurd; Beat poetryMusic and Film: film as art and as propaganda; montage;  experimental music; be bop, blues, jazz, progressive jazz; photography as art and propagandaRepresentative Figures:  Freud, Jung; Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Joyce, Woolf; Kafka, Mann; Braque, Picasso, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Chagall, Magritte, Dali, Miro, Duchamps, Kahlo; Riefenstahl, Eisenstein; Sartre, Camus, Beauvoir, Albee, Brecht, Beckett, Wiesel, Faulkner; Bergman; Wright, van der Rohe, Corbusier; “Beat” poets, Arthur Miller; Ellison, Wright; Warhol, Rauschenberg, Frankenthaler, Rothko; Moore, Calder
7. PostmodernismHistorical, social and cultural contexts: Civil Rights and human rights movements; women’s rights and gender issues; consumerism, multiculturalism, balkanization, Electronic/Computer Age, globalism and global culture, competing social, religious and political ideologies, “What is real?”; applied technology, the Green Revolution, ecological concerns; terrorism; genetic engineering; domination of mass mediaArt & architecture:  “plastic” architecture; eclectic architecture; photo-realism, neo-realism; abstract expressionism; popular art vs. “high” or elitist art; installations, monumental art; video artLiterature and Philosophy: mixed genres; neo-realism; multiple perspectives; multicultural themes; linguistic experimentation, confessional poetry; magical realismMusic and Film: experimental film and music; avant garde vs. neo-traditional music; aleatoric music, synthetic instrumentation; multi-cultural music and use of non-Western elements; rap, hip hopRepresentative Figures:  Achebe, Soyinka, O’Brien, Lessing, Ginsberg, Marquez:; Brooks, Morrison, Rushdie; Hopper, Stella, Oldenberg, Rothko; Hanson, Segal, Christo, Moore, Smith, Lin; Venturi, Gehry, Piano, Pei; Britten, Shostakovich, Rutter, Glass, ReichHonors courses include a focus on primary or original texts in translation from the each of the major literary and philosophical traditions from the early Renaissance through the Post-Modern era, as well as active student involvement in a seminar format with student-led and student-generated discussions presentations, and projects.