Dreaming

Catalog description

What does it mean to dream? What is a dream? How does the notion of dreaming differ across geographies and cultures? How might dreaming relate to ideas of memory, nostalgia, loss, and renewal? In what ways have writers, artists, and musicians represented dreams in their work? How does dreaming figure in our own lives - how might it connect us to one another, the past, and the world around us? Our approach to these questions will be both multisensory and multidisciplinary, in order to develop a pluralistic understanding of dreaming through the ages and around the world. We will gather diverse perspectives from anthropology, philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, and psychoanalysis, as well as drawing on theories from literature, music studies, and art history. Our theoretical reflections will be complemented by practical exploration - of seeing, reading, and hearing dreams in their myriad manifestations. Students will thus emerge from this course with a deepened appreciation of dreaming and its relationship to the human condition more generally.