Graduate Certificate Program at Duke University
The Graduate Certificate in Philosophy, Arts, & Literature seeks to connect the study of specific works of art and specific art forms (such as literature, music, theater, painting, film, and so on) to questions concerning creativity, the nature of specific art forms, the relationship between knowledge and art, and between ethics and aesthetics. The Certificate aims to make students conversant with philosophical reflections on literature and the arts. The Certificate seeks to foster an understanding of the historical nature of different art forms, and of aesthetics and philosophy, and to encourage exploration of philosophy, art and literature from different historical periods.
The Certificate is designed to provide students with a firm grounding in the research skills required to enable them to intervene in contemporary debates within the field and to encourage them to consider their own field of study from an inter- or cross-disciplinary approach.
The Certificate is only associated with Duke University, which means that it can only be earned by students enrolled for a Ph.D. at Duke University. It is not possible to take it as a free-standing course of study. (One reason for this is that we don't have the resources to supply enough courses per year for someone to take it full time.)
Download a brochure about the program
Current Courses Offered at Duke Fall 2011
MUS 317D - The Enemy of Music: re-reading Rousseau in twenty-first century
Since the 1960s, scholarship has widely acknowledged the impact that Rousseau’s lifelong involvement with music had on his political and social thought, as well as his philosophy of language. Although preceded by other thinkers, Rousseau was the first to forcefully articulate a fundamental issue in Western art music: the place, legacy and eventually the legitimacy of the music’s linguistic substratum. Indeed, the history of Western art music could be entirely retold as the history of the complex relationships between language and voice: music is what is borne out from the will to escape from language. There is much to be gained from reconsidering Rousseau’s musical thought today, for we are still living in an age in which we conceive music and think about it along notions that Rousseau had identified with unprecedented clairvoyance. (Taught by Dr. Jacqueline Waeber)
Our seminar will explore Rousseau’s musical thought at the light of more recent cultural and philosophical productions, privileging the following themes:
- The function of music and aural envronment in society (from Kafka to China Miéville)
- The debatable notion of “authenticity” in folklore and rock music
- The Lacanian conception of voice as lost object (Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More)
- Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of “refrain” (ritournelle)
- Issues on musical meaning and music as language (Adorno, Music and Language; Jean-Luc Nancy, Listening)
- Music and memory, affect and expression (recent literature in neurosciences)
FR. 210, Lit 201.01, AMI 203.01, VMS 205.01 - Citizen Godard
The Honorary Oscar awarded in November 2010 to the Franco-Swiss director has enraged some in Hollywood and rekindled accusations of anti-Semitism. These virulent reactions indicate that is still difficult today to come to terms with the work of the enfant terrible of French cinema. This course explores the complex interactions of poetics and politics in Godard’ films. It covers the up-to-date filmography, from the French New Wave through the experimental phase of the Dziga Vertov group to the recent Histoire(s) du cinéma and Film socialisme, as well as includes his articles and essays. Drawing on various texts by the Jena Romantics, Brecht, Merleau-Ponty, Althusser, Benjamin and Blanchot, this seminar situates Godard's work within its own moving theoretical and political contexts of production, while investigating its aesthetic, philosophical and ethical implications. What are the possibilities and limitations of cinema as modern art? What are the relationships between image and language, film and ideology? How do the poetic and the historical interact within cinema? What is cinema in the digital era of instant communication? We will explore these questions through the concepts of montage, cinéma engagé, archive and cinematic memory. We will also study the impact of Godard’s work on philosophers such as Deleuze, Rancière and Badiou who envisage cinema as a “thinking form”. This seminar is taught in English. (Taught Wednesdays 4:25 pm-6:55 pm by Professor Anne-Gaëlle Saliot )
For a list of courses that will be offered in the near future, see the courses page.
QUESTIONS?
Contact the DGS:
Toril Moi, DGS and Director of the Center for Philosophy, Arts, and Literature
Email: toril@duke.edu
Address:
Professor Toril Moi
Center for Philosophy, Arts and Literature (PAL)
B184 Smith Warehouse, Bay 5, 1st Floor
Box 90403
114 S. Buchanan Blvd.
Durham, NC 27708
Website: http://www.torilmoi.com/