Topics will vary. Comparative studies in literary, cultural, or historical issues that cut across the literatures of the Romance languages.

In this seminar, we will investigate the social, political and institutional history several of the most important of these academic institutions by reading both primary and secondary sources, with the aim of better understanding both their social practices and their intellectual productions. In the process, students will be introduced to the study of rare books and manuscripts produced within these institutions. In particular, we will ask how examining the materiality of these academic productions could help us better understand why and how linguistics and literary criticism began to emerge in the early modern period. We will also discuss the question of the extent to which the discursive practices and scholarly paradigms originally developed within early modern academies might continue to shape linguistic, literary and cultural studies to this day.

Repeat Rules