We are excited! Launching this course is like preparing to travel to an exciting, new adventure destination.

ID? Yup, a new course number(s) - GERM 390-1 / ARTHIST 390 / MEDREN 390 / WST290.

Flight booked? Yup, we've got a classroom time and seats for everybody in first class, that is to say, Seminar 1 in the Link.

Bags packed? Not quite, but the syllabus is being written. Oh, and the most important items are in the bag, which is to say that the course synopsis is done.

Who's coming along? The seats for faculty, faculty consultants, graduate students, and staff are now filled, but eighteen empty seats remain, all reserved for undergraduates only. We are eager to welcome you aboard!

Ann Marie Rasmussen
Professor, Department of Germanic Languages and Literature

Rivalrous Masculinity FALL 2012 Course Synopsis

A new, hands-on, interdisciplinary humanities course in which students will curate an exhibition focusing on changing images of masculinity from the Middle Ages to the present, specifically as portrayed in northern European and German-speaking lands. Students will encounter theories of gender and masculinity, and they will explore the similarities and differences in the humanistic modes of inquiry characterizing art history and literary studies. They will work with students at German universities via video-conferencing to deepen their knowledge of the questions that guide their own research throughout the semester. Students will apply what they are learning to finding and researching objects at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. They will produce research and finding aids on these objects and publish them in a virtual exhibition of their own design that meets the standards of academic publication.

The work done in this seminar is an essential part of a larger project that will curate an exhibition at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University scheduled to take place from February to May, 2014. Students enrolled in the fall 2012 seminar are integral members of the exhibition team. They will brainstorm framing ideas and images for the exhibition, offer design ideas, explore and write grants, and devise other supporting projects. Their virtual exhibition will serve as an introduction to the 2014 exhibition.

Students’ conceptualizing on-going research projects for subsequent semesters such as senior theses, Program Two majors, and independent study is encouraged and will be supported by the instructional team.

Assignments will take a number of different forms. These include readings, museum visits, library research, design, and time line work (Google Simile). This work will be accompanied by a variety of short writing exercises (free writing, close reading, response papers, research reports, class notes).

• Class Participation.
• Assignments and writing exercises. Presentations.
• Occasional reading quizzes.
• One short paper.
• One longer final paper.

All readings and discussions in English. A German language preceptorial for German majors and minors and for students wishing to improve their German language skills will accompany this course.