This is a workshop in translating poetry into English, preferably from a Germanic, Slavic, or Romance language (including Latin, of course), whose aim is to produce good poems in English. Students will present first and subsequent drafts to the entire class for regular analysis, which will be fed by reference to readings in translation theory and contemporary translations from European languages. Advanced knowledge of the source language is required and experience with creative writing is welcome.

Limited to 12 students. Spring semester.  Professor Maraniss.

(Offered as EUST 265 and SPAN 382.) An exploration of forbidden behavior in diverse cultures from ancient times to the present. The course delves into the moral dilemma of the accepted and the rejected by analyzing concentric circles of power. Interdisciplinary in nature, the material will come from theology to government, from jurisprudence to medicine, from pedagogy to finances, from pornography to literature, from activism to computer hacking.

(Offered as SPAN 234 and EUST 244.)  In less than fifteen years Spain became a new member of the European Union, organized the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and dismantled a dictatorial regime. However, the Spanish transition to democracy faced many contradictions, and cultural products produced and consumed in that period reflected the struggles to construct a democratic society. Among the topics this course will examine are censorship, sexual liberation, urban culture, women and workers’ rights, and historical memory.

(Offered as HIST 232 [EU] and EUST 242). This class explores the intellectual history of Europe’s “Age of Extremes” by focusing on its feuding political ideas and their chief advocates: the public intellectuals. Liberalism, Conservatism, Communism, and Fascism – all were created by intellectuals, and all relied on intellectuals for their ideological struggle over Europe.

(Offered as MUSI 222 and EUST 222.)  One of three courses in which the development of Western music is studied in its cultural-historical context. As practical, in-class performance and attendance at public concerts in Amherst and elsewhere will be crucial to our work. Composers to be studied include Beethoven, Rossini, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Berlioz, Wagner, Verdi, Musorgsky, and Brahms. Regular listening assignments will broaden the repertoire we encounter and include a wide sampling of Classical and Romantic music.

(Offered as HIST 228 [EU] and EUST 218).  This course surveys the troubled history of the modern German nation-state, with a focus on culture, society, and politics.  Particular attention is paid to how, in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, liberal ways of thinking that emerged from the Enlightenment clashed and sometimes merged with traditions of Prussian militarism and absolutism.  The course also emphasizes how German Social Democracy, the world's largest and best organized workers' movement, destabilized the nation-state while laying the foundation fo

Napoleon Bonaparte’s legacy in French domestic and international politics and military strategy profoundly influenced nineteenth-century Europe. But so did the legends surrounding him, created before his great defeat and exile, and nurtured after his death in 1821. In painting, caricature, and sculpture, literature, music, and film, the legends--positive and negative--of Napoleon have served many ends. The cultural complexity of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe becomes clearer when one understands the motives behind and results of these representations of Napoleon.