The History of Obscenity, 1500 to the present

HIST 102.303
Monday, 2:00 - 5:00
Instructor: Sarah L. Leonard
PHF Mellon Fellow, History

This course will examine the philosophical, social, and legal history of obscenity in Europe from 1500 to the present. Using primary sources and recent work by historians, we will study the evolution of the term "obscenity" and related concepts of blasphemy, obscene libel, and pornography. Particular attention will be paid to the intersections between obscenity and the growth of modern political and cultural forms. Beginning with the Renaissance and the Reformation, we will see how Humanism sparked new interest in human nature and sexuality. These were topics that could now be explored via the new technology of the printed book. During the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, obscenity was linked to the growth of democratic theory, as political and social critiques of the Old Regime were often couched in the language of sexual transgression. Following the Revolutionary period, we will consider how notions of obscenity transformed with the growth of the modern nationalism and the unprecedented violence of twentieth-century warfare. Finally, we will study recent feminist debates about the definitions and effects of modern pornography.

Back to Top

The Text and the Citizen: Reading and Writing as Politics 1750-1914

HIST 206.301
Wednesday, 2:00-5:00pm
Instructor: Jennifer S. Milligan
PHF Mellon Fellow, History

This course will examine the relationship of reading and writing to the making of modern Western nations and citizens ca. 1750-1914. We will examine the development of the critical public sphere in Europe, the US, and Latin America; the forging of national literary canons and traditions; the search for the roots of languages and language groups; literacy campaigns in the metropole and colonies and the development national curricula; the building of archives and libraries, and the regulation of public access to such institutions; and the importance of writing and reading to the sense of the self as a potential citizen or political actor. Readings will include primary sources (such as novels, political speeches and memoirs, treatises such as Fitche's Addresses to the German Nation, scientific and philosophical writings on the nature of the mind and text, and excerpts from contemporary textbooks and manuals) and current debates over the relationship between text, nation, and self in the nineteenth century. We will examine the idea of transparency -- of language, text and political representation - in order to examine the entwined fates of the nation and self in the period. technologies, etc.

Back to Top

Amazon.com in the Eighteenth Century: Bestsellers and Book Traffic, 1700-1800

ENGL 016.303
Tuesday & Thursday, 3:00 - 4:30
Instructor: Jennifer Snead
PHF Mellon Fellow, English

For better or worse, the Internet has had a profound impact on the publishing industry, challenging traditional notions of intellectual property, publication, distribution, audience, and the material nature of printed matter itself (to name just a few). Has the beginning of the twenty-first century witnessed the end of print culture as we know it? To get a better understanding of these contemporary issues, this course explores English print culture in America and Great Britain at its beginnings during the eighteenth century. How did writers in England and its American colonies understand their authorship and their audiences? How were books printed, sold, and distributed? Who bought them, who read them, and in what ways? We'll read a variety of eighteenth-century writers from both sides of the Atlantic as well as current scholarship on copyright, the book trade, and reading audiences during this time period. We will also visit Van Pelt Library's rare book room, and the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Rosenbach Museum and Library (both in Center City). Readings will include but not be limited to works by Addison, Franklin, Pope, Wheatley, Cook, Finch, Johnson, Equiano, Ashbridge. This course is affiliated with Writing Across the University and counts towards ½ of the College writing requirement.

Back to Top

Cybermonks and Hypertext

SLAV 106.301
Tuesday & Thursday, 3-4:30
Instructor: Robert Romanchuk
PHF Mellon Fellow, Slavic Languages and Literatures

Did the medieval readers of the Eastern Roman Empire invent hypertext? Are bestsellers in the form of dictionaries, crossword puzzles, hourglasses, tarot decks and menus as post-modern as mtv2 or as pre-modern as the 2nd Sophistic? Reading the delirious and delicious novels, plays and stories of Milorad Pavic forward and backward, in books and on cd-rom, you will rediscover the startlingly contemporary reading habits of the medieval monk and the late antique origins of the most up-to-date "hyperfiction."

Back to Top