Few places have been home to as much intellectual, aesthetic and scientific productions as
the city of Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century.  As the politically archaic Habsburg
Empire approached its twilight, the inhabitants of its capital city produced some of the most
important and innovative ideas, art, music, and literature of the twentieth century.  Freud,
Klimt, Mahler, Schoenberg, Hofmannsthal, and Musil are all names closely associated with
this time and place.  In this course students will delve into the extremes and paradoxes that
exemplified turn-of-the-century Vienna.  Our aim will not be to simply look at this volatile
period through a historical lens, but to enter into it via the fascinating and revolutionary
cultural objects it produced.  Students will work to develop theories of cultural creativity that
will help us reproduce Vienna as it was in the years around 1900.