CLASS 4639 - [Ordering Knowledge: Pliny’s Encyclopedia and its Successors]

(crosslisted) COML 4639, STS 4631
(HB) (HA-AS)

Fall. Not offered 2017-2018. 3-4 credits, variable. Student option grading.

Co-meets with CLASS 7639/COML 6639/STS 7631.

V. Platt, C. Roby.

This course explores the organization of cultural and scientific knowledge in the form of so-called “encyclopedias”, beginning with Pliny the Elder’s Natural History and tracing its development in later western culture, including Diderot’s Encyclopédie. In particular, we will focus on the combination of natural science and art history that informs Pliny’s text, and the notions of enkyklios paedia (or “general education”) with which it has been problematically associated. The course will include sessions in the library’s Special Collections, focusing on Cornell’s prized collection of early printed editions of the Natural History. All works will be taught in translation; students may acquire an additional credit by attending sessions in which we will read Pliny in the original Latin.