Bard Offers Two Intergenerational Seminars This Fall
“The Emerging Market of European Literature” and “Historical Archaeology of Palatines in Mid-Hudson Valley” Are Seminar Topics
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—Bard College presents two Intergenerational Seminars this fall, which offer Hudson Valley residents and Bard undergraduates a chance to study together, providing an opportunity for a powerful exchange of ideas and experiences. Preregistration and payment of a $50 registration fee per seminar are required.
On three Mondays, October 29, November 5, and November 12, at 6:00 p.m., Joseph Luzzi, assistant professor and director of Italian Studies at Bard, presents “The Emerging Market of European Literature.” This seminar explores how the emergence of free-market economic practices altered the literary map of the Continent and shaped the idea of literature itself. Considered are major events that triggered this change, how writers of the age interpreted them, and how this free-market ethos was internalized and incorporated into the thought processes and literary forms in the modern age. Authors and themes under discussion include the idea of contract in William Wordsworth’s “Michael”; the Christian political economy of Alessandro Manzoni’s novel The Betrothed; and the relationship between economics and aesthetics in Adam Smith and John Ruskin.
On Tuesday, November 6; Saturday, November 10, or Sunday, November 11 (field trip); and Tuesday, November 13 at 7:00 p.m., Christopher Lindner, archaeologist in residence and director of the Bard Archaeological Field School, leads the seminar, “Historical Archaeology of Palatines in the Mid-Hudson Valley.” The seminar, exploring the history of German Americans in this area and how their heritage comes to light through archaeology, meets first to discuss preliminary research; the second meeting visits sites in Germantown and Rhinebeck; and the final meeting plans future projects. The influx of the Palatines, from the upper Rhine Valley in southwest Germany, was the largest migration in New York’s colonial era. The greatest contingent settled briefly in southwest Columbia County, from which groups moved to Rhinebeck and the Mohawk and Schoharie valleys, across the Catskills. Many of the latter then relocated near Harrisburg and became the Pennsylvania Dutch.
For further information and to register, call 845-752-2345.
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(10/10/07)