Unit Syllabi

Day I	Day II	Day III	Day IV
Day V	Day VI	Day VII	Day VIII

Unit IV The Fin-de-Siecle Metropolis, 1870-1900

We will have presentations of student webs, essays and historical fictions on relevant days. If your semester project overlaps with the daily topic please be prepared to give a five minute presentation of your work.

We will also plan a trip to the Neue Galerie on 86th Street to see fin-de-siecle Viennese art and eat Viennese pastry. (Please remind Mr. Meyers to set up the field trip)

Day One: The Commune and the Fin-de-Siecle
How does the Paris Commune recapitulate the turbulent politics of 19th century Paris? How does it show the final ascendance of the bourgeoisie? How does the century end? What is the signifiance of the name that comes to identify this period ("Fin-de-Siecle"), even as is is occurring?

• Chronology of the Paris Commune
• Karl Marx, Address of the International Working Men’s Association, 1871

Topical Web Sites:
Images of the Civil War in France: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/photos.htm
Images of the Paris Commune: http://www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/images/index.htm
Policial Caricatures of the Commune:
http://www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/images/caricatures/index.htm
The Communist Manifesto: http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/pariscommune/Pariscommunearchive.html
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864iwma/1871-cwf/index.htm
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/coldoffthepresses/tracutenberg/pariscommune.html

Day Two: The Hapsburg Myth, Viennese Kaffé Kultur and Austrian Liberalism
How is the Café in Vienna symbolic of the Fin-de-Siecle?

• Janik and Toulmin, “Hapsburg Vienna” from Wittgenstein’s Vienna, 33-67
• Segel, The Vienna Coffehouse Wits, p. 1-18
• Schorske, 3-22
• readings from Franz Grillparzer, Arthur Schnitzler and Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Topical Websites:
The Vienna Coffeehouse: http://www.tourist-net.co.at/coffee/coffee3e.htm
Interview with Carl Schorske: http://www.austriaculture.net/AKFindeSiecle1617.html
Hofmannsthal on the Wewb:
http://artemis.austinc.edu/acad/cml/tcates/1997-98/ci11d/von%20hofmannsthal/links.htm
Vienna 1900: http://faculty.washington.edu/vienna/wienhist.html
Coffeehouse Wits of Vienna 1900: http://faculty.washington.edu/vienna/wienlit.html

Day Three and Four: On the Boulevards: Impressionism in Painting
How does Impressionism reflect the life of the bouelvards? What aspects of modern Paris inspire/concern/trouble the Impressionist painters?

• Robert Herbert, “Paris Transformed” in Impressionism: Art, Leisure and Parisian Society, 1-32
• In-Class Slides of Impressionism and the Boulevards

Day Five: Paris Art Nouveau and Vienna Secession in Architecture
The architects of the 1890s were the first to label themselves as “modern.” How were these architects self-consiously modern in their approach to history and ornament?

Choose one of the three readings:
• Hitchcock, 383-404 (Art Nouveau in Paris), 469-476 (Secession)
• Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture , 292-306 (Art Nouveau/ Horta), 316-322 (Secession/Wagner)
• The Vienna Sezession

• In-Class Slides of Art Nouveau and Secession

Identify:
Art Nouveau, Gustav Eiffel, Eiffel Tower, Paris Exhibition of 1889, Viollet-le-Duc, Jugenstil, Arts and Crafts Movement, R. N. Shaw, Charles Rennie Mackintosh,Victor Horta, Biedermeier Style, Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, Viennese Secession, J. M. Olbrich, Gustav Klimt

Topical Websites:
An introduction to Art Nouveau art in Austria:
http://www.austria-tourism.at/jugendstil/jugendstil.html.en
Vienna Secession: http://faculty.washington.edu/vienna/wienarch.html

Day Six: The Secession and Ringstrasse Modernism
How do Otto Wagner and the Secessionists define themsleves in opposition to existing styles? How do they challenge the eclectic approach to style?

• Schorske, “The Ringstrasse and the Birth of Modern Urbanism,” 72-95
and one of the following:
•Adolph Loos, “Potemkin City”
• Otto Wagner, “Style,” from Modern Architecture , 73-80

Topical Websites:
Otto Wagner, THE DEVELOPMENT OF A GREAT CITY: http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/wagner.htm
Camillo Sitte, MODERN SYSTEMS. ARTISTIC LIMITATION OF MODERN CITY PLANNING: http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/sitte.htm

Day Eight The Dreyfus Affair in Art and Literature
How does anti-semitism explode the fissures in fin-de-siecle liberal French culture? What does the part played by artists and authors suggest about the changing role of the artist in modern culture?

Please explore Anya Rous' web page before reading the Nochlin
• Anya Rous, Role of the Artist as Celebrity via the Dreyfus Affair
• Linda Nochlin, “Degas and the Dreyfus Affair: Portrati of the Artist as Anti-Semite” in The Politics of Vision pp33-59

in class:
• The Dreyfus Affair
•Emile Zola, J'Accuse
• NYTimes, A Repentant france Honors Zola (1/14/98)

Topical Websites:
Law Without Honor: The Dreyfus Affair in Popular Culture: http://www.law.lsu.edu/library/lawhum/DREYFUSRESEARCJ.htm
The Dreyfus Affair and Modern Anti-Semitism:
http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/english/25.html
The Dreyfus Case: Human Rights vs. prejudice, intolerance and demonization: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/french/maison/COLL.html

Day Nine: Austro-Liberalism, Anti-Semitism and the Birth of Zionism
How does anti-semitism in Vienna expose the endemic weaknesses of Austrian liberalism?

• Schorske, 116-120; 133-175
• Quotes fromTheodor Herzl¹s Diaries and The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat), 1896

Topical Websites:
Theodor Herzl's Diaries as aBildungsroman: http://iupjournals.org/jss/jss5-3.html

Day Ten: Politics and Patricide: Freud and Psychoanalysis
How do Freud’s ideas concerning the unconscious emerge from the milieu of fin-de-siecle Vienna?

• Schorske, 181-203
• Sigmund Freud, Excerpts from Civilization and its Discontents
• Sigmund Freud on Psychoanalysis and Vienna from On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement

Topical Wesites:
College of Austin on Freud:
http://artemis.austinc.edu/acad/cml/tcates/1997-98/ci11d/sigmund%20freud/frontend.htm

Day Eleven: Impressionism and Modernism in Music
How does Impressionism in painting affect impressionist composers? How is the music of Ravel and Debussy “impressionist”? How is it modern?

• Leonard Bernstein, “The Delights and Dangers of Ambiguity,” 238-259 (Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun)
• Stephane Mallarmé, Afternoon of a Faun
• William Fleming, Arts and Ideas , 576-577 (Debussy’s Pelléas and Mélisande)
• In-Class Video: The Unanswered Question: The Delights and Dangers of Ambiguity
or
• In-Class Music: Ravel, La Valse

Identify:
tonal music (tonalism), chromaticism, atonal, twelve-tone scale, Debussy, Ravel, Mallarmé

To look up the musical terms go to:
Musical Glossary: http://www.hnh.com/newDesign/fglossary.files/bglossary.htm
The Classical Music Pages: http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/classmus.html
Glossary of Classical Music Terms: http://library.advanced.org/tq-admin/month.cgi
Impressionism and Debussy: http://www.oakland.edu/~stsai/debussy/

Day Twelve: Painting and the Crisis of the Liberal Ego: Gustav Klimt
How is Klimt modern and why did Freud hate modern art?

• Schorske, 208-273
• In-Class Slides: Klimt

Topical Websites:
Klimt at Austin College:
http://artemis.austinc.edu/acad/cml/tcates/1997-98/ci11d/Gustav%20Klimt/GKwebpage.html
Vienna 1900 Artists: http://faculty.washington.edu/vienna/wienart.html

Day Thirteen: Modernism(s) and Liberalism(s) in the Turn of the Century Metropolis

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