Norway

In this course, the art of the later Middle Ages from approximately 1300 to the 1530s is studied from a perspective where the art works are seen as manifestations of the visual culture of the period. Rather than approaching them as works of art in the conventional sense, the course focuses on the way the objects have made sense to their original beholders by virtue of the visual and material qualities that constitute their essential characteristics. It reviews medieval theories of vision, visuality, and materiality, and discusses the perception, reception, and use of images in various cultic settings, i.e., from Norwegian stave churches to convents on the European continent, as well as in secular contexts. The discussions concern art works of various media, with some extra attention given to manuscripts, relics/reliquaries, and polychrome sculpture. The course is taught as a combination of lectures and seminars which take place either at campus or in museum collections. 

The course offers an overview of Stone Age technologies, concentrating on, but not exclusively limited to, lithic (stone) technology. The curriculum places the manufacture and use of lithic artefacts in relation to the social and evolutionary contexts of hunters and gatherers. The course also concentrates on developing a more general understanding of technology from an evolutionary standpoint, and the role of technological innovations have had in shaping human societies. The course discusses topics including the biological and social bases for the development of human technology; how technological knowledge was and is culturally transmitted; how lithic tools were manufactured at various points in the past; how lithic tools were used and what they represent in the scheme of human survival strategies; why technologies change and the cultural and social contexts of these changes; how to identify and create lithic material; how to recognize the main stages of lithic production; how to recognize the various types of raw material types used in the manufacture of stone tools; and how to situate knowledge of technological traditions into broader models of social change and human evolution. Instruction regarding the essential attributes of flakes, blades, knapping debris, cores, and various tool types is emphasized. The course also touches on other forms of human technology such as fire, art, boats, and organic materials, which have been critical human technologies for hundreds of thousands of years. This course has a very prominent practical component where students put into operation what is discussed in the lectures. In the laboratories prepared bags of selected materials and accompanying work sheets are distributed. Seminars are meant to be informal and invoke lively discussions of the selected material, the associated technologies, and their social links. Fundamentally, this course challenges students to understand the basis of modern society as an extension of human environmental adaptation and modification in the past, and how deeply coded and important the human technological brain is.

This course is an examination of modern and contemporary English literature through the lens of multiculturalism. The focus of the course changes from semester to semester, foregrounding different sets of literary texts by writers concerned with issues of race, identity, and the multicultural dynamics of the English-language world. Possible topics include: race and sexuality, First Peoples’ literature and cultures, jazz and African American literature, cultural politics, immigration and literature, Asian American literature, and Hispanic literature and culture. Students read a variety of literary genres, including novels, plays, and creative non-fiction, by writers who are concerned with issues of colonialism, race, language, and identity within multicultural societies. Some of the important questions the course addresses are: what are the concerns of so-called “ethnic” writers in contemporary cultures of the English-language world, what is the relationship between identity politics and literature, and how can we use critical race analysis as a part of literary study?

The content of the course may vary on occasion, but its point of departure is the heritage of Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Freud, and Husserl. All these thinkers had a major impact on the European continent and together they animated the currents that have influenced European philosophy ever since: phenomenology, existentialism, and post-structuralism represented by amongst others Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida. A common collective term for this tradition is “continental philosophy,” even though not all philosophers on the continent have embraced this tradition and even though it has many adherents outside of the continent. The course accentuates the historical connections of continental philosophy and highlight the points in common with British and American philosophy. The course recommends students have completed previous courses on the history of philosophy as a prerequisite.