This seminar will explore the place of automatism in understanding the arts of the twentieth century. As a result of the advent of hypnotism, a psychology developed that paid particular attention to the mind's potential "dissociation"-or fragmentation-into more or less independent parts. This could produce separate, or "split," personalities or it could result in less complete dissociations, such as we ordinarily experience in the form of "automatic" actions-activities we perform without consciously attending to them. The premise of this course is that "automatic" phenomena became key motifs of art and art theory during the twentieth century. We will focus on important writings in the history, historiography and theory of automatism (by J.L. Austin, Stanley Cavell, Michael Fried, Ian Hacking, William James, Morton Prince and Gertrude Stein) as well as on works of fiction and pictorial art that can be seen to engage with automatism (by Joseph Conrad, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, P.H. Emerson, Morris Louis, and Joan Miro). Requirements will include readings, presentations, short papers, a long paper and class participation. No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 15. Preference will be given to seniors and juniors, in that order.

Hour: PALERMO