- to introduce students to the major issues surrounding the
relationship between literature and the visual arts, with 
special emphasis on the relevance of texts under discussion to 
the contemporary world; 
- to examine these issues in the context of specific works of
literature and visual art;
- to develop students' critical abilities in the analysis of
visual and literary artworks; 
- to improve students' communication skills through oral
presentations and expository writing assignments. 

Students' performances will be assessed through presentations,
tests, papers, and a final examination.

The topics vary with the individual instructor, with the 
emphasis typically falling on a specific period, problem, or 
theme. Special emphasis will be placed on the relevance of 
the texts under discussion to the contemporary world. Examples
include: Renaissance painting and poetry; representations of 
nature in Eastern and Western literature and painting; 
representation, reproduction, and simulation in modern and 
postmodern visual and verbal artworks; gender and the
representation of the body in 18th-century painting and 
prose. The following is a sample syllabus of readings for
a single semester:

Horace's Ars Poetica and the Classical Tradition of Mimetic 
Art
Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience and the Romantic
Tradition of Expressive Art
Balzac's "Unknown Masterpiece" and the Conventions of Realism
Pirandello's The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio and the 
Recording Arts
Robbe-Grillet and Magritte's La Belle Captive and surrealism
Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49 and Magic Realism
Spiegelman's Maus and the Graphic Novel
DeLillo's Mao II and Postmodernism

Students are required to abide by the University of Georgia academic honesty policy.