Style

Students will examine the notion of style, which pervades our arts, how we fashion ourselves and carry out our actions. Appearance is a reality; style identifies whole cultures as well as the achievement of unique creators.

A team of faculty from art history, literature, and music and film will range across ancient Greece and Rome to the French Revolution to modern African-American culture to pose important general questions. Can style mean something in itself? Is content superior to "mere" form or fashion? Can styles be moral influences, good or bad? The innocent heading enshrines a host of contradictions: why do we change so much—and disagree so strongly—in our definitions? Why do we link styles to historical events, and define our own and other communities by their styles? Individual freedom versus social constraint, beauty versus function, innovation versus imitation, female versus male and feminine versus masculine identity, art versus fashion: this course will show that what is "merely a matter of style" may in fact be a matter of the greatest moment.

WATU affiliated; this course may be taken for WATU credit, to fulfill 1/2 the Writing Requirement. No prerequisite. Of interest also to students in Anthropology, Classical Studies, DOE, Fine Arts, History, and Womens Studies.