Literature
 

• Course
• Academic director
• Textbooks
• A typical day

Junior/Senior • 3 weeks (July 13–August 2) • 3 credits

If you’ve ever thought that great achievers—such as famous statesmen, artists, heroes, and scientists—also exhibit a touch of madness, you’re not alone! For thousands of years philosophers have contemplated the close kinship between madness and genius and have engaged in lively discussions about whether creativity is ingenuity, inspiration, or insanity.

In this program you’ll read and analyze philosophical and medical treatises, novels, poetry, and historical accounts from antiquity to the present day and learn about authors from Germany, France, Britain and the U.S. Readings will include texts by European and American writers such as Aristotle, Plato, Ficino, Shakespeare, Goethe, Kant, Foucault, Freud, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Buechner, Nietzsche, Wagner, Elinek, the Bronte Sisters, Tolstoj, Ibsen, Kafka, and Thomas Mann.

You’ll trace the history of social and artistic transgression, watch related films, and debate when and why our culture decided to call a madman a genius and a genius mad. Twice a week, you'll also listen to guest lecturers from select Humanities departments, such as Comparative Literature, Medieval Studies, History, Anthropology, Art History, Romance Studies, German Studies, and Philosophy. You'll even take occasional field trips to the Johnson Art Museum and the Cornell University Library archives.

To be eligible for this program, you must have completed your junior or senior year of high school by June 2008.

Course

You'll be enrolled in Genius and Madness in German Literature (GERST 2250). This course meets Mondays through Fridays, 9-11:45 a.m., and Mondays through Thursdays, 1:30-3:30 p.m.

Academic director

"I have always thought of teaching as a great learning experience: my ideal is to create an atmosphere of lively discussions, thought-provoking questions, and not-so-easy answers. I truly enjoy the manifold interpretations a literary text affords when wonderful students discover the art of reading and unveil the hidden meanings of a work of art. I love to share the excitement of sudden realizations: when together we make connections between ideas that stem from different centuries; when together we make connections between different disciplines (such as medicine and literature); when together we notice when a piece of literature breaks with its culture and starts a new tradition. For me, a teacher is like a detective who with the help of the students follows clues and signs in order to decipher the mysterious world of literature. All we need is curiosity, attention to details, and enthusiasm."

Anette Schwarz is an associate professor of German studies. Before coming to Cornell in 1997, she taught at Yale University where she received a prestigious award for interdisciplinary teaching and curriculum development. Her research focuses on the relationship between emotions and literature and she has published on the history of melancholia and the uncanny and is currently working on a book about philosophies of the tragic. All of her teaching is interdisciplinary in nature and she enjoys reading German literature in the wider context of other European literatures.

Required textbooks

A typical day in the Genius and Madness in Literature program