We will try to understand decadence, and Venice as a symbol for decadence, from several angles. We will try to understand Venice through works of visual art and literature that made it a symbol of decadence, as well as consider the physical decay of Venice and its place in today’s environmental crisis. Finally, we will look at how Venice is looking to become a better city by limiting modern tourist decadence. January is the perfect time to visit the city because it is low season for tourism, allowing us to experience the beauty of the city.

In his novella Death in Venice, Thomas Mann suggested the oppressive problem of decadence for modern culture. What Mann called decadence at the beginning of the 20th century has perhaps become normal life for us today, such that we are no longer aware of modern decadence as a falling away from anything. Can we recover this awareness? What is “decadence”, and is there a way to find meaning amid a decadent culture? Or, since much great art and literature that has been branded “decadent”, is decadence in fact really something to avoid?

It is understandable that Mann chose Venice as the setting for his book. After Venice’s empire began to slip away in the 1400’s, the city has been forever sinking, and its elegant buildings rotting. Its decadence has long been part of its appeal. Since the days of the grand tour (16th-19th century), a lady or a gentleman from Northern Europe on their way to get an education in Rome would make sure to stop in Venice, as much for its loose living as for its scenery. Its foggy canals, courtesans, and gothic shadows made it the passionate, romantic alternative to classical harmony and clarity. Its unclassical art was typified by a hazy picturesque or by excessive, voluptuous color. As the enlightenment gained ground, Venice was a center both for liberalism and an escape. Once a meeting point for rationalism, liberty, and commerce, it became the city of sentimentalism and idleness.

In the early 20th century, amid the decay of Venice’s power, its elegant cafes became the place for modernists to reflect on the incoherence they detected in European humanism. Venice continues to be the world capital of contemporary art. At the same time, Venice has always also been in physical decline. The salty moisture in the air, and the annual flooding known as acqua alta eats away at the buildings as the city slowly falls ever deeper into the sea. Its submerged piazzas called attention to rising sea levels across the globe. Despite desperate attempts to save it, Venice lives on borrowed time. The coronavirus essentially shut down Venice’s tourist business and brought to the fore new questions about the city. Why did Venetians (or anyone) want hordes of tourists rushing through their city? Might the city not be a better place if they could get rid of the crowds of people taking selfies in front of gondolas in the summer? Could they survive without it? We will study our theme through a combination of (1) seminars on three classic texts, plus one opera, and a recent book in urban studies (the readings are short so as to allow us time to see Venice), (2) excursions with preparatory lectures that explore the art, architecture, history and culture of Venice, (3) exploration of the lagoon of Venice and its natural environs by boat.

As well as Venice we will explore Padua, an intellectual center attached to Venice, home of an ancient university with a vibrant present. We will also visit Trieste, which like Venice has a multicultural history, and was also an important center for “decadent” artists and authors, like Joyce, Rilke, and Svevo. We will hike the beautiful sea cliffs of the Carso close to the town of Duino. You will be living in dorm accommodations right in the heart of Venice, which is beautiful in January. The off-season is usually the only way to really see the city. There are many, many fewer tourists, it is really the very best time to visit. The dorm is a modern building built within the walls of a ruined medieval church with a particularly important place in Venetian history. It has two large courtyards and a basketball court/soccer field.

The student fee includes, among other things, airfare, watertaxis to/from the airport in Venice, housing, all tickets for transport around Venice and all museums, churches, etc., groceries for three meals per day (breakfast and dinner) which will be in a communal kitchen, as well as occasional meals out at restaurants, and a couple of receptions.

Excursion Components

1. There will be daily trips to explore museums, churches, and palaces, of the Medieval, Renaissance, and modern city. These include excursions to the Palazzo Ducale, the Museo Correr and the Marciana Library, the Basilica San Marco, Basilica dei Frari, San Giovanni e Paolo, Madonna dell’ Orto, the Ghetto, S. Zaccaria, S.M. della Salute, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Naval History, the La Fenice opera house, the Accademia, the Museo Fortuny, and many other places in Venice.

2. We will also take a day trip to nearby Padova and visit the Capella Scrovegni, the beautiful city center, and other places of cultural interest there.

3. We will also visit Trieste, like Venice, a meeting point of cultures, and another home for modernists in the area. While Venice united Byzantium and Europe, Trieste was the center of Austrian, Italian, and Eastern European influences, and like Venice, an important center for Jewish life. There James Joyce wrote Dubliners and where Italo Svevo wrote his novels, and we can visit the Rivoltella Museum of Modern Art, as well as see the impressive city center and the Molo Audace.

4. In addition to our other cultural excursions, we will go on a few nature excursions. We will visit Duino where the poet Rilke lived, and hike the cliffside path over the castle where he composed his famous elegies. For two days we will take sailboats from one end of the lagoon to the other, from the port of Chioggia to St. Mark’s square (an unforgettable way to arrive in Venice). This will give us a way to reflect through immediate contact on some of the environmental questions that circulate around Venice today, while also understanding the local culture outside of the more touristed areas. You will learn a lot of Venice’s history by understanding how the laguna shaped the life of the city. Meeting our skippers (who are highly skilled sailors, prize winners in multiple regattas around Italy) and learning about how to sail are a little outside the theme of the course, but a lot of fun!

Excursions will give us opportunities to reflect on and discuss the cultural and physical decadence of present day Venice, its mass tourism and consumerism, and our own place as tourists within this complex set of problems. We will discuss the environmental and cultural difficulties created by the hordes of tourists that outnumber the residents in the high season (although we are going in low season to avoid this).

Required texts

• William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice.

• Mozart/Da Ponte, Don Giovanni.

• Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.

• Joseph Brodsky, Watermarks.

• Salvatore Settis, If Venice Dies (selections).

• James Joyce, The Dead.

Discussion Guidelines

• In the class discussion part of the course, we do not just state opinions, but we use our opinions as points of departure so as to find a deeper perspective than the one with which we came into class. We hope to come to understand what was wrong with our initial, more superficial perspective as we develop a deeper ones. Discussions are group inquiries in which we do close readings of texts that illuminate the issues under discussion.

• Your participation should reflect diligent preparation and a consistent effort to enter the conversation with comments that further the conversation. Comments will be evaluated for evidence of an attentive engagement with the text. Also, you are asked to read the text, and only the text (no introductions, secondary literature, etc.), before discussions so as to develop your own authentic view. You can say anything you think is important, but no opinion (or secondary source) is authoritative if it cannot stand up to scrutiny in discussion.

• In discussion you are expected to listen carefully (and respectfully) to others and to respond to their questions and comments, as well as raise your own questions and comments.

Evaluation Criteria and Assignments

• In addition to discussions, students stay involved in the work of the course through short assignments on each text. As well, as there is a final essay where they have an opportunity to take a longer view on the material.

• Students would be evaluated for their preparation of texts for seminars as measured:

  1. By class discussion: I evaluate students’ demonstrated familiarity with the text and level of engagement in the discussions, contribution to the forwarding of the conversation, the flexibility of their thought, as well as their ability to engage with the questions of others.

  2. On the basis of written responses submitted for each text read. Short response papers (half page to a page in length) are supposed to raise questions that can be used in seminar. Following collegiate seminar practice, I urge students to use these responses to present “questions of interpretation”. Questions of interpretation attempt to understand what the text is saying. They are attempts to read sympathetically and closely, and presume that what the author intends is not obvious and not gleaned by one or two readings. The teacher in the class is not the professor, but the text. These are questions that force students to address the text, as well as look for ways to make contributions to the seminar that will move the conversation forward. The written responses are just a first try, not your final opinion. You will learn in class something you would not see in your written response. The response would be sent in email to me the night before the class.

  3. For each text read, I will also sometimes ask students to submit short definitions for a set of terms which I select. These are terms that are important for a given text, words that the author uses in significant ways. This is a way to ensure that students look back over the reading for key terms in a thoughtful way.

  4. Students would also be evaluated on the basis of two essays (3-5 pages each). (1) The first essay will be a reflection on Venice’s urban social life. The first essay should address the question of what makes a good piazza and what makes a good city, in general. And how do Venice’s particularities change the meanings of piazza and city or present distinctive versions of them? You can focus on past and or present Venice. (2) The second essay is on Venetian culture/history and the lens of decadence in a text we study or in art/architecture that we study. You are encouraged to make sites, art, architecture in Venice a part of these essays, even if you write about a text. These are not intended to be research papers, but essays based on thoughtful and close readings. Prompts will be provided by the instructor for each text, and a few for art/architecture, but feel free to develop your own thesis/question/issue.

Grade Calculation

• 30% Participation

• 35% Essays

• 35% Daily Responses

Absence Policy, lateness policy etc.: Attendance is critical for a Jan Term course because each absence is approximately equivalent to missing a week of a regular semester. So, each absence will bring your final grade down by one notch (e.g., if you would have gotten a B+, but are absent once, you will get a B, and so on). Two absences may result in failure. More than two absences will result in failure.

Lateness will reduce your participation grade. Please try to arrive ready to sit through the whole class (we will have abundant breaks). Distraction during class time will directly hurt your participation grade.

By the end of this course, the students will be have:

1. An understanding of the problem of decadence in Western art, literature, and philosophy.

2. A familiarity with major issues in the history of Venice, such as carnival, prostitution, opera, grand tour, Jews in Venetian culture, confraternities (scuole), international commerce, maritime dominance, plague, liberalism and libertinism, and the 1000+ year reign of the Republic of Venice.

3. An understanding of distinctive aesthetic and stylistic characteristics in Venetian art and architecture, especially Renaissance to Rococo, and their contrast with developments in art elsewhere in the same period. Familiarity with major artists, styles, and periods of Venice 1400-1800. Also, an understanding of the history of art at the beginning of the 20 th century through the collections at the Guggenheim and the Museo Fortuny in Venice, and the Museo Revoltella in Trieste.

4. An awareness of the modernist presence in Venice and Trieste and attitudes towards decadence in residents in Venice and Trieste such as Wagner, Nietzsche, Svevo, Rilke, Joyce, Mann, Pound, Brodsky, and others.

5. An understanding of problems in urbanism reflected in contemporary Venice, and their more general significance for understanding the development of cities beyond Venice, especially the contemporary problem of tourist monoculture in historical cities and of environmental challenges present in Venice and the lagoon.

6. An understanding of the opposition between ethics and aesthetics, and a number of positions on this opposition.