GERM 240Nature, Aesthetics, Thought

Catalog

How have understandings of nature shaped art and philosophy in modern times, and how have art and philosophy shaped our ideas about nature? This course examines the role of nature as both a subject and an object of artistic and philosophical production in European culture from roughly 1800 to the present. Focusing primarily on material from the German-speaking world, but also drawing upon other cultural and linguistic contexts, the class will explore how the natural world is something that has not only been represented and thought about, but that has also actively shaped these processes of representation and theorization. Materials will include works by figures such as: Plato, Aristotle, Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Coleridge, Hegel, Emerson, Nietzsche, Kandinsky, and Rilke.