Intellectual history can inform us about those creative individuals who created works, in either art or science, that have changed the way we think about reality. This history can also inform us about the way in which the artists, who have shaped to a wide extent the history of art, were inspired by new findings in science.

In this seminar we will focus on 20^th-century innovations in arts and science. We shall trace ideational as well as artistic sources of inspirations for such creative artists as Picasso, Braque and Duchamp in the plastic arts; Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard in the theater; and Italo Calvino in literature. Of special interest will be those ideas that were developed in other areas of thought at large, and in science in particular, and that found their way to art and changed its nature.