The Literature and Rhetoric Concentration

What is “literature”? Established as a special category in the eighteenth century, the specificity of the literary object has since been subject to debate: it cannot be defined by fictiveness or by a special use of language wholly distinct from “ordinary” expression. Nevertheless, the recognizability and importance of literature persists, and the methods used to understand and analyze it have been extended to the broader interpretation of culture, deriving their approaches from a range of disciplines, including history, sociology, linguistics and philosophy. This concentration introduces the manifestations of the literary object, its genres and styles and their development, as well as their relationship to other discourses and forms. In particular, it examines the connection between literary production and interpretation and the history of rhetoric, or the exploration of patterns of communication and their effectiveness. Cultivating an interdisciplinary knowledge of the origins, structure, and affiliations of literary art, the concentration provides the tools and background necessary for bringing the strategies and insights of literary hermeneutics to the scrutiny of cultural norms and values as systems of language. The literature concentration at Bard College Berlin includes the opportunity to take courses in the practice of a variety of kinds of writing, from journalistic reportage to creative writing, in workshops at foundational and advanced level.