Block I: Susan Ashley and Re Evitt, Identity and Self in Renaissance History,
Literature, and Art
Block II: Michael Grace and Dick Hilt, The Worlds of Music and Science in
the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and early Baroque.
The course as a whole meets Critical Perspectives: The West in Time (2 units).
Block I- Identity and Self in Renaissance History, Literature, and Art
During this block, we will examine the Renaissance through the lenses of
history, literature, and art. We will focus on the question of identity:
specifically, how people saw themselves and acted in the context of family,
neighborhood, state, and cosmos. Philosophical and literary texts as well
as painting, architecture, and sculpture will illuminate changing notions
of the self from the 13th through the 16th centuries. Authors and artists
the class considers include: Dante, Giotto, Petrarch, Chaucer, Fra Angelico,
Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Luther, Shakespeare, Raphael, and Bruegel.
Block II-The Worlds of Music and Science in the Middle Ages, Renaissance,
and early Baroque.
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, music was considered a “mathematical” art. Its principles were best understood through number, which served as link between music and the order of the universe which it sought to represent, or to “mirror.” On the other hand, music has always been an art in which composers and performers attempt to reflect their cultures and to express human feelings and move the hearts of their listeners without regard for number or mathematics. We will examine music from these two perspectives at important phases of its development, including 1) the Gothic Era of the 12th Century, 2) the era known as the Ars nova in the 13th Century, 3) the emergence of Humanism in the 15th Century, 4) the High Renaissance and Mannerism in the 16th Century, and 5) finally the dawn of a modern world in the early Baroque. We will relate music to readings as well as art history studied in Blocks 1 and 2.
During each of these historical eras our scientific world view
was also developing. In the middle of the 16th Century Copernicus argued that
the Sun rather than the Earth was the center of the universe, and by the early
17th Century, Galileo used his telescope to see the moons of Jupiter, the
mountains on our Moon, and Saturn’s “ears” (rings). The
science we take for granted today was new and exciting (or threatening) then.
We will explore some of the ways the “new science” influenced
the literature and life of the Renaissance. During our week at the Baca Campus,
we will see for ourselves astronomical phenomena that won Galileo a position
at the Medici court and later led to his conflict with the church. Throughout
the block, we will look for intersections between science, music, and literature.
The course will spend the second week of Block 2 at CC's Baca Campus in the
San Luis Valley.
A two-block course with two instructors in each block; with
separate grades given for each block.