HUM 407 - Romanticism and Impressionism
Welcome to the course.
This syllabus defines course objectives, learning activities, requirements, and grading policies. If anything is still unclear, come see me in the office—my hours are conveniently located right after class, and my office is in HUM 530.
Here are my Teaching Policies and Mark Policies.
Course Objectives
This course’s objective is to teach you enough, in one semester, to enable you to keep learning about the culture of Paris and Italy from 1750 to the present, for the rest of your life. Each of the course’s extremely varied learning activities (lectures, slide lectures, selections from great films, museum visits) have been selected because they were keys that would make it possible for you to open the greatest number of doors later.
This course’s second, very practical objective is helping SFSU students break the “glass ceiling” after they graduate. Everyone knows about the obstacle that race is, in American life. The forbidden topic in American life is “class.” This is still a “class” society. At some point certain people get hired or promoted—and others bump their head against the “glass ceiling” without knowing why. Nobody wants to explain that you’re supposed to be able to recognize a reference to certain classic movies, books, and painters, or that you’re supposed to have been to London or Europe at least once. The museums are no longer about art, they’re social clubs for the white collar class. If you’re not a member, at least you’re supposed to have been. “Class.”
Now, what in the world does that have to do with whether you can do the job? These little social tests are absolutely superficial—and absolutely real. This course, like my HUM 130 Masterworks and HUM 375: Biography of a City: London, aims at helping you compete after getting your degree. This is a very practical course for SFSU students. I’ve taught here 29 years, have written countless job recommendations, and I know what I’m talking about.
Therefore class topics were selected with this special methodology in mind: HUM 407 equips you to have the very fullest experience of Paris and Italy when you visit, even for just a ten day vacation trip to Europe. Many HUM 407 students are preparing for a semester or a year of Study Abroad in London or Europe. The good news about preparing to break the glass ceiling is that it’s exciting and enjoyable.
People who have taken 407 have tended to be people who planned to visit Paris and Italy, and wanted to get the most out of their visit; and people thinking about studying abroad for a semester, or even for a year, in Europe. You can go from Paris to Venice in under two hours for around a hundred dollars, even during high travel season; and Paris to Rome in two hours for as little as $46. Paris to London (about as far as SF to Stockton) takes two hours on the bullet train. http://www.cheapoair.com/fpnext/Air/Listing/s/1Trains to Paris | Cheap Eurostar Tickets | Train Deals to Paris | Paris from £69 | Eurostar
In this course students research and compose a detailed ten page Travel Project in which you compose a day by day itinerary, all costed out, of what you'd do on a trip to London. It's aimed at showing relatives that if they fund your trip, not a penny would be wasted. It's described below with samples.
You’ll notice that in our course, a discussion of a cultural topic is frequently linked to a place in Paris or Italy that you can visit later and tells you what to look for when you’re standing there. A chance to practice meditation with me in a museum to learn mysticism will open up how to look at the Impressionists, whose works fill Europe’s museums.
The course objective, therefore, is to equip you to understand and hopefully enjoy everything you’ll see. When you’re standing in front of Notre Dame, everything you’ve learned in class will come flooding back, not just as a chapter in a book, or a lecture in a classroom, but as something that really happened, and you’re standing right in it. That’s when half the learning will take place, when you’re there.
But I combine that kind of education with the fuller humanistic education which enables you to understand the full culture that you're encountering, through its art, architecture, literature and film. To go to Europe knowing nothing of the comic books about Asterix le Gaulois, the films of Francois Truffaut and Sophia Loren, the courtesans of l’ancien regime led by Madame Pompadour, Napoleon and the French Revolution, Delacroix and Goya, Rousseau’s cult of Nature and the mysticism of Monet and the Impressionists, or the harsh realism of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, is not to know Europe. You wouldn't understand what you're looking at or the culture of the people you were talking to.
The written centerpiece of the course is the long Travel Project, in which you’ll plan for yourself, in detail, an ideal ten day visit to Paris or Italy or both. (If you are planning to Study Abroad in a different European city, you can petition to do that city instead, but you must get my permission first. No other destinations accepted, since this course educates one for Europe.)
Course organization
Since we have two main cultures, Paris and Italy, for clarity we will zig zag back and forth to follow topics as they unfold.
I cannot specify exactly which day we will study a topic until I have read your Surveys and your personal biographies (each new group of students has different interests) but once I have, I will give you an order of topics. I reserve the right to cut topics or even books, depending on your interest and what’s working this year.
What we don’t study: although courses in History and Political Science would deal with history and politics of the 19th century, this is Interdisciplinary Humanities and we study cultures, expressed in their literature and arts. Remember our goal: to prepare you to have the fullest experience of what you see when go there. This isn't a poly sci course. There is more art and architecture than literature, since that’s what you’ll experience on your trip. We'll certainly look at the historical context. It's not wrong to have those other important interests, but they're fully addressed in other departments. You can already take courses on those topics there. And you should. This course complements those. I do lots of painting, and we also do opera, which is a main art form in Italy and performed everywhere—particularly in the summer, when it is performed outdoors and in churches for free.
We also take cuisine very seriously in this course, as an expression of national culture. France and Italy take cuisine far more seriously than America, with its puritanical heritage, does.
A probable order, then, depending on what the survey shows about your interests (films listed are usually selections):
the film Roman Holiday (Audrey Hepburn): the American romance of Europe, and still a good introduction to Rome’s centro citta.
Michelangelo, the Renaissance and the rebirth of European classicism
Paintings as humanist dramas: Poussin
Venice and the courtesan concept: the film Dangerous Beauty
L’Ancien Regime, decadence, and Rococo: Watteau, Boucher and Madame Pompadour. Selections from skeptics Voltaire and Rousseau.
The French Revolution, and J.L. David. David film selections. Selections from Abel Gance’s silent classic, Napoleon. (1927)
Romanticism is at the heart of the social upheaval which followed and saw the spread of Romantic individualism all through Europe, its cult of freedom and personal liberation, and the rise of the "Hero as Artist."
Goya paintings: the Revolution as “the monster stalking the world”
Post-Revolution reaction and despair: Delacroix,Verdi’s opera based on Victor Hugo’s play, Rigoletto
Madame Bovary
Leoncavallo and Pagliacci.
Finally, at length, the great Impressionist mystic painters, particularly Monet, and their younger admirer Van Gogh.
Imagine. All that is going to be clear to you by the time you finish this course? You will work hard, but you will be able to enjoy a lot of new things—and crush people in conversation. That’s how you break the glass ceiling, the confidence you unconsciously show when you know your stuff.
Creating experiences which further learning
You’ll notice that SFSU’s course evaluations very intelligently do not say, “were there interesting lectures,” but “did the professor create experiences which furthered your learning.” This course uses every means of creating experiences—trips, slides, films, the works. We even use cuisine to explore and understand British culture. Do you know what to order in a pub? What if you're offered "pickle" or Ploughman's Lunch?
Caution: you do not have to take Prof. Leonard's course. Since the professor’s family is originally from #7 Raven Row, in the Cockney East End of London, he could claim that his methods show that influence, but actually he teaches in the world's oldest continuous teaching tradition—the Funny Jewish Professor (If you're not familiar with this tradition: I am not here to amuse you. You are here to laugh at my jokes.) Take a look at two modern masters of this tradition, Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor. Would you find this interesting—or too intense, or obscene or unpleasant? Is this really the course for you? You do not have to choose this course.
Lenny, film, starring Dustin Hoffman, 1974, trailer
Many students in class have taken Leonard's other classes, sometimes all his classes, and they help him do his skits and shtick, the way Jimmy Kimmel’s “second bananas” standing on the side of the stage help him. They get extra credit for their help. Some of them have written gags for him to use. If you, however, are new to this ancient teaching method, and don’t want to participate in helping the professor create a “learning experience” involving humor, just tell him, and avoid sitting in the front row. If you have no sense of humor at all, you won’t enjoy this class, and should look for another.
I'm sending you this advance notice to help you make an informed decision. There's a lot of work in this course. The museums are our labs and they cost money, like books or your science lab fees. And there are Old School rules. No screens visible in class. No recordings of any kind can be made or you will be removed as "disruptive" and get an F. Take notes longhand. Wait for the break to use the bathroom (or to secretly answer your BFF's call). No teaching by email. All this and more is posted in my course policies, which you are required to read. Choosing to stay in the course means you agree to abide by them.
Required Reading and First Assignments
Student Survey
To begin, all students are to complete an assessment survey of their preparation and their needs. You aren't expected to have read or seen many of these works, so although the survey looks long, it's quick to complete. Instructions are on it. Click here for the survey
DEADLINE: one week from our next class.
My IT expert set it up so that there's a record of everybody who submitted the survey, although your name is not paired with your answer. Otherwise I wouldn't know who didn't bother to do it.
READING ASSIGNMENTS:
Get the Kindle version of Break Your Writer's Block, a writer's guide prepared for SFSU by Prof. Leonard. Do not get the older print version. The Kindle version is cheaper, anyway, and I've updated it. To read a Kindle book, you don't need an actual Kindle device from Amazon. You can read it on a physical device, like your iPad, your smartphone, or your Mac or PC at home. You can even use any computer on campus or elsewhere if you use Amazon's Cloud Reader. You just need an Amazon customer account.
In class, though, we use only print editions, no eBooks. They’re on the shelf together in the bookstore, and listed on the University’s page for this course, as well as mentioned below.
The University of Chicago Press has raised the price of the paperback version of my book on the figures in this course to nearly $25. I am substituting an inexpensive Kindle “course reader,” replacing it for $10. I was able to insert into the course reader lecture notes on John Constable, a central figure in this course. It’s called From Humanism to Mysticism, and it will be used with the museum visit.
Download these five amazing three-buck Kindle books put out by Delphi:
Collected Works of Michelangelo
Collected Works of Renoir
Collected Works of Mone
Complete works of Vincent Van Gogh
French Masters (free, an anthology produced by Delphi at my request for our course)
Strongly recommended: a free ebook version of John Stuart Mill’s essay “On Liberty” to consult. Here's one from The Gutenberg Project, but any will do.
Museum Fieldwork Assignment
The Impressionists and Mysticism in Art
This year we'll go to the Asian Art Museum to practice the mysticism which will lead us to Constable. Why the Asian Museum? There are no decent Constables in San Francisco, but there are great mystical Asian paintings in America’s greatest Asian Museum, and mysticism is the same all over the world. Here's the museum's location. Download these pages and bring to museum, if you don't have them on an iPhone or other device that you can bring. You'll need them there. Bring From Humanism to Mysticism (or Into the Light of Things, if you already bought it) and a pen.
Family and friends welcome. If you buy a membership, you can take a person in free with you and you get a bonus on your paper. Get there fifteen minutes early in case you're stuck on line for tickets. There's a free coat check as you enter. You can't bring backpacks up, they knock into stuff. There's a fine inexpensive snack bar so the best bet is come early and eat lunch there.
Enter the museum, check your coats. Bring From Humanism to Mysticism (or Into the Light of Things, if you already bought it) and a student ID to get a discount on your ticket. Extra credit for buying memberships. This is not a class trip. Attendance at the museum when I lecture there is optional, but writing the paper is not.
We'll learn what mysticism is by doing it, an art which no longer creates objects, but experiences — experiences through which we see all the reality around us freshly.
For godssake, so you don't wander around in a daze, do yourself a favor and read at least the section labeled The Blissful Hour: 4'33" in Part IV, Chapter C of From Humanism to Mysticism (or Into the Light of Things, if you already bought it) before we do 4'33". Okay? Good. See you.
Prof L.
Travel Project
Each of my courses prepares you, ideally, to keep learning about its subject all your lives. A trip to Europe, even just for a few weeks, is an essential part of that learning. In this class, we'll help you take the first steps towards it. Listen in class, but to start, see my Travel Projects page.
What is this professor like?
I'm a working author and have to have a professional website. You can browse through my books here on my website and decide if my interests are similar to yours.
An old, but accurate, interview which shows how the professor's interests fit together: David Carrier Interview
Dated, but accurate -- lists books about Prof. Leonard's work, including ones critical of him. Note: 2015 was Prof. Leonard's 43th anniversary as a college professor. About Dr. Leonard