COMPLIT 237T: Saved in Translation: An Intellectual Topography of the Mediterranean. Antiquity to the Present (ILAC 237)

Course Description

What we understand as "Western Culture" has its roots in the Mediterranean Sea basin, the sea "between lands", or Roman "Mare Nostrum". Much more than a border between North and South, East and West, the Mediterranean has for centuries been a bridge that has enabled communication between cultures, languages and ideas. This has required a sustained effort of translation over centuries, in multiple directions: from Greek to Arabic, from Arabic to Latin, from Greek to Latin, and from Latin to Italian, Catalan, French and the other languages in the Mediterranean basin. This course offers an intellectual topography of these relationships and shows how they have shaped basic concepts of the Western cultural tradition and, through the centuries, have been spread around the world. Special interest will be focused on Catalan and Iberian authors.