LST 540 - Music, Art, and Magic in Western Culture

What does artwork mean, and how does it convey that meaning? What technical, cultural, and historical tools are available to help us construct a viable interpretation? How do these tools foster an understanding of the work that reconciles its original context, message, and meaning with our own – potentially quite different – time, place, and experience? And what can we do if the interpretive tools necessary to decipher an artwork have been lost or excluded from modern academic discourse? In this class we will explore questions of meaning and intention in selected works of visual and musical art via the interdisciplinary lens of Western Esotericism.

Credits: 3