This course engages with large disciplinary and interdisciplinary questions in the Romance languages and literatures, history, and the arts and humanities by investigating relationships between verbal and visual languages in all shapes and forms. Taught with object lessons in the Bancroft and the Berkeley Art Museum, the class will explore topics including, but not limited to, visual narratives; emblemata; iconography and iconology; ekphrasis in prose, lyrical, and dramatic works; visual poetry; metaphors, topoi, and motifs in the shared Romance language tradition; visual and musical elements in drama and opera; in general the multiple relationships between word and image in the tradition of Christian art and writing since Augustine, and their modern reformulations proposed by authors such as Italo Calvino with their involvement in experimental literature, linguistics, and the classical / medieval / early modern traditions of European literatures.

Depending on linguistic and foreign language preparation and preferences of the students, the class can either stay in the ancient, medieval, and early modern / Renaissance worlds, or occasionally include modern (19th-20th to contemporary) examples across the fields and Romance languages, e.g. imagery in poetry by Ungaretti, Apollinaire, and Montale.

This course is designed to connect with other and further studies in adjacent fields - including but not limited to Medieval Studies, Renaissance & Early Modern Studies, critical theory, and interdisciplinary studies. No previous art history preparation required.