This course will examine Shakespeare and the history of the senses with a focus on the visual cultures of the Renaissance. We will explore aspects of knowledge and sensation in Shakespearean drama with regard to Reformation iconoclasm and the image on stage, Renaissance skepticism and the problem of perception; scientific practice and the status of observation; cultural issues integral to the arts of gesture, ekphrasis, and anamorphosis, the physiology of looking in medicine and poetry; visual dimensions of memory, emotion, and intellection; and the status of looking in terms of historical conditions of the theater, the book, and print culture.

Each seminar member will decide, in the first two weeks of class, upon a play and a research topic to focus in on. While vision and visual culture will be our starting point, members may decide to pursue projects related to various aspects of the senses and the sensorium. Importantly, each member will then construct an "archive" of research materials (containing excerpts from 6 primary and 4 secondary readings that are especially relevant to your project), pre-circulate the archive to the entire class one week before delivering a class presentation, and submit a substantial research paper at the end of term. This seminar structure is designed to enable participants to develop a substantial research paper over the course of the term, to get substantial feedback from class members (who will have read your archive in advance of your presentation), and to give serious thought to issues of archival research, historical contextualization, and the construction of an original argument