FREN 2550

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  • Schedule of Classes - September 22, 2025 1:06PM EDT

FREN 2550
From Black Bile to Digital Depression:The History of Melancholy in Medicine, Philosophy, Art, Media

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

Throughout Western history, the nature of melancholy (aka depression, its modern counterpart) has both inspired and baffled philosophers, doctors, artists, and writers. Compared to other ailments, affects, or conditions, this mysterious sadness has provoked a proliferation of concepts, theories, therapies, and artworks. This seminar offers a comparative survey of discourses on melancholy/depression and their related ideological, social, aesthetic, and scientific issues, from the Ancient Greeks onwards. We will focus on the ways in which melancholy/depression has been theorized in medicine, theology, psychoanalysis, psychiatry, ethnography, philosophy, and ecology; on how its shifting forms are related to issues of politics, society, culture, race, and gender; and on the many modes through which it has been file and expressed in literature, visual art, music, and today's social media.


Distribution Requirements (KCM-AG), (ETM-AS)

Last 4 Terms Offered 2025SP

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Syllabi: none

  •   Regular Academic Session.  Combined with: COML 2552

  • 3 Credits Stdnt Opt

  •  7674 FREN 2550   SEM 101

  •  
    • MW
    • Jan 20 - May 5, 2026

    • Cordova, C

  • Instruction Mode: In Person