Kristin Phillips-Court, a Professor of French and Italian, recently sat down with the College of Letters & Science to talk about her popular interdisciplinary class, “The Italian Renaissance: Authorship and World-making.”
Phillips-Court is the Fall 2011 recipient of the Honored Instructor Award from UW Housing. Her book, The Perfect Genre. Drama and Painting in Renaissance Italy, was the 2009 winner of the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Publication Award for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies.
This spring, Phillips-Court talked with the College of Letters & Science about “The Italian Renaissance: Authorship and World-making:"
Q: Can you give a basic overview of the class “The Italian Renaissance: Authorship and World-making”?
A: The course is structured as a lecture, but I incorporate discussion during every meeting, even with large numbers of students. I give students a list of topics and concerns for the day; I use Power Point only for images, therefore attendance is crucial for students who want to grasp the philosophical and ideological currents of thought that drove the passionate intellectual inquiry and artistic experimentation that characterize this time period.
I am dedicated to counteracting the binge-and-purge or “cramming” approach to testing and learning. My lectures build and complicate on earlier lectures, so that the attentive student can always see the big picture while apprehending the subtleties along the way.
Second, I ask them to provide short reactions to the reading in which they are asked to observe and comment freely, minding to be neither judgmental nor dismissive. I teach them what it means to be analytical, and how to discuss sensibility in an intelligent manner.
Q: Can you comment on the interdisciplinary nature of the course?
A: My two principle fields of training are in literature and art history, particularly painting, and my interest lies in the way intellectual history informs both. In other words, how different forms of artistic expression carry ideas or ethical content?
So I incorporate painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry and philosophy to ask students to answer the same question for themselves.
Why does Mona Lisa smile like that? Why does Botticelli’s Venus look like a sculpture? And then there’s Machiavelli...
Q: What majors typically enroll in this course? What do you think attracts students to it?
A: I want to create a collaborative atmosphere that takes advantage of both the experienced talents of seniors and the fresh enthusiasm of first-years, and everyone in-between. I do get seniors who are “finally” (i.e. reluctantly) fulfilling that lit credit… but they are the ones who tend to surprise themselves!
Otherwise I encounter English, Art History, Poli Sci and some history majors, and a surprising number of Economics majors. Students seem to come for different reasons, which is good.
Q: Do you have any additional comments that readers might find interesting about this course?
A: Well, first, Machiavelli is not evil; but students need to get there on their own in my class. Or debate me to the bitter end!
Second, only my friend Richard Ralston (UW Professor Emeritus) knows what I really think of the Mona Lisa…and so do the students who most recently took this class.
Q: So what do you think of the Mona Lisa?
A: It's a marvelous painting. I try to lead students to understanding what makes it so.
Story by Holly Hartung, College of Letters & Science