PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NOT A COURSE FOR ERASMUS STUDENTS

We start on Tuesday, February 25.

Course outline:

25. 2. Introduction: the original connection between genius and melancholy. Pseudo-Aristotle, Problem XXX.1

3. 3. The sources of Problem XXX.1: the medical theory of the humors and Democritean moods

10. 3. Hippocrates visits the mad Democritus: Letter to Damagetes no. 17

17. 3. Acedia and Sadness: Thomas Aquinas’ synthesis

24. 3. Aquinas continued

31. 3. Genius and philosophy. Ficino in the wake of ancient wisdom

7. 4. Ficino as a melancholic. Doing philosophy in first person

14. 4. Dürer’s engraving Melancholia I: reading seminar (analysis of the chapter on Dürer in Saturn and melancholy)

21. 4. Michel de Montaigne. The study of melancholy

28. 4. Descartes and the melancholic seventeenth century

5. 5. Seminar by our guest, Dr. Serena Masolini, on acedia (the mortal sin of sadness)

12. 5. Sigmund Freud, “Mourning and Melancholia” and the historic turn towards melancholy as nostalgia