A multimedia tour through the great cultural achievements of the past five
hundred years, this course is a blend of art, music, and literary history.
Sound, images, and texts are carefully woven together as students explore
crucial questions. How and why do literature and the arts record the
cultural memory and felt experience of a civilization?  What does it mean to
be an individual? How does an individual relate to society? How does our
modern sensibility relate to both our classical and romantic heritage? What
is utopia?  What is dystopia, its nightmarish opposite?  By examining how
the arts meditate on these issues, this course traces the origins of modern
consciousness from the Italian Renaissance through modern times.  Studies
range through a wide selection of  masterpieces from Brunelleschi   through
Frank Lloyd Wright. Since the focus is on themes and ideas, no previous
exposure to literature or the arts is required.  Visits to the outstanding
I.U. Art Museum and attending a concert at the internationally renowned
School of Music will be required.