IDS 2039 - Paths of Innovation

Credits: 4
This course examines how artistic and scientific innovation emerged in different forms in Central Europe at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and spread to become prominent trends all over Europe and the Americas, with ideas that were to be underlying themes of the 20th century. The course gives particular attention to three great innovators who lived in three major cities of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: Franz Kafka in Prague, Sigmund Freud in Vienna, and Béla Bartók in Budapest. It considers not only the oeuvre of these intellectual giants, but also how they affected contemporary society and art, including literature, music, and the visual arts. It examines their lasting influence in art, society, and popular thinking, including the ‘Kafkaesque’ in literature and film; Freudian theories in psychology and art; and Bartók’s influence on
later composers and ethnomusicologists. In its final weeks, the course turns to contemporary innovators in and beyond Budapest.
Note: Offered at the Budapest campus only.