Aims: 

This course aims at offering students knowledge and skills of a special academic background in the area not just of theatre studies but more widely in the humanities, promoting interdisciplinarity and critical thinking.  The students are introduced to modern and contemporary theories of artistic creation developed in the twentieth Century and are familiarized with the work of key modern and contemporary theorists and philosophers of literature, drama and culture. The goal of the course is to present and reflect on some basic problematics involved in thinking about art creation today, at the level of its production as well as its reception.

By the end of this course students

• will have become familiar with key contemporary issues and basic approaches to the study of  art and culture
• will have developed critical thinking and analytical skills  as well as a philosophical attitude to the study of art
• have realised the cultural and political significance of art at large
• have practiced in research and writing in the humanities

will also have read primary texts by major contemporary thinkers and theorists of culture and art