ECS 321 Professor Anson Rabinbach
"European Intellectuals and Politics in the Twentieth Century"
Who and what are intellectuals, and what purpose if any do they serve? The experience of intellectuals engaged in politics during the twentieth century has been at once exhilarating and sobering. Ever since the Dreyfuss Affair in France, European intellectuals have viewed themselves as combative writers and thinkers who take their rhetorical gifts into the public arena on behalf of rights violated and truths suppressed. This course will examine a number of general works and conclude with a consideration of intellectuals in contemporary society.
T 1:30 – 4:20

ECS 331 Professor Arnd Wedemeyer
"Communication and the Arts: Statecraft and Literature"
In response to Machiavelli, the Counter-Reformation developed the idea of a "reason of state"—knowledge of the means to maintain and extend domination –that survived and informed all transformations of modern politics, from absolutism to contractualism, liberalism to totalitarianism, the rise of the nation-state and the demise of socialism. Readings from Machiavelli to Marx, More to Melville relate the history of the state to the project of literature, but include recent accounts of theopolitical modes of representation (Kantorowicz), absolutist sovereignty (Anderson), the emergent public sphere (Habermas), transmutations of power (Foucault).
W 1:30 – 4:20

SPA 342/ COM 342 Professor Rubén Gallo"
"The Wireless Imagination: Radio and the Avant-Garde"
This seminar will explore the avant-garde's fascination with radio (or the "wireless" as it was called at the time) as the ultimate symbol of technological modernity. Poets from Marinetti to Apollinaire embraced radio's potential for producing a new language attuned to the spirit of Twentieth Century, and intellectuals from Mexico to the Soviet Union celebrated the new invention as a harbinger of a new world order marked by peace and unity. Readings include theoretical writings by Rudolf Arnheim, Bertold Brecht, Georges Duhmel, and Denis Hollier, as well as "radiophonic" poems by Marinetti, Apollinaire, Cendrars, Huidobro, the Mexican Estridentistas, and the Russian Futurists.

Our discussions will focus on the radical transformation of writing (especially poetry) brought about by the onset of wireless communications: Marinetti's ambition to create a poetry inspired by a "wireless imagination," the theory of "radiophonic" versus "radiogenic" texts, Khlebnikov's poetic vision of a "radio of the future" capable of transmitting sights and smells, etc.

*This will count towards credit for an ECS certificate.
T 1:30 – 4:20

• Course Offerings Fall 2002

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