HAA 262G - Ego Documents in Early Modern Art and Literature

Joseph Koerner, Stephen Greenblatt

Jacob Burckhardt’s thesis that literary and artistic representations of “self” became more common and expansive during the Renaissance has been vigorously challenged, but it gets at something that happened in the registration of personal identity in the Italy in the 14^th century and then throughout the rest of Europe. This course revisits the prime textual and visual instances of Renaissance self-presentation—autobiography and portraiture—but expands the archive to “ego-documents” more generally: i.e., to written and material disclosures (and concealments) of the “I” of individuals, including letters, inquisitorial records, makers’ signs, coats-of-arms, ex-votos, collectors’ marks, iconoclastic defacements, and more. This interdisciplinary seminar will be conducted together with a course in the English Department taught by Professor Stephen Greenblatt.  Enrollment Limited.