Department of French and Italian

At a time when European philosophers debated the distinction between material bodies and lively bodies, between organic machines and ensouled beings, artists and performers innovated new techniques for bringing stage objects to life through mechanical or human manipulation.

This graduate seminar in French seventeenth-century theater will focus on works from the canon (Corneille, Molière, Racine), a few marginal works from ballets and operas, and selected comparative works from theater outside of France (Shakespeare, George Villiers), to explore how early modern theories of the body and of mechanics were in dialogue with dramatic productions and performances. Topics or objects of study will include theater machines, scenography and architecture, costumes, puppetry, automata, ventriloquism, dance and choreography, and music.