This class will focus on the reading of theoretical texts regarding the question of critique in modernity. We will read texts by Kant, Foucault, Nietzsche, and Adorno and Horkheimer. Then we will discuss modernist art as critique: Surrealism and Expressionism, Atonal music, non-mimetic visual art, Brechtian theatre and the Nouveau Roman.
Course requirements: full and active participation, reading and writing assignments, final paper at the end of each semester.