By way of material primarily drawn from Italy and England during the 15th-17th centuries, this course considers how we as historians conceptualize bodies in relation to sensate, sensual experience and representation. Women shown desiring other women in cultural representations are one focus, but so too are such issues as the genre of pastoral, the effect of classicizing visual rhetoric (especially the nude), the fascination with metamorphosis, and the construction of sin. We will engage critically with new historicism and queer theory, and ponder the relationship between historical agency and pictorial representation, production and reception. Problems to be addressed include the possibility of “misreading” or re-reading allegory on more than one register, and how one might overcome a reductive divide between spirituality and sensuality. The interdisciplinary course draws upon visual material as well as poems, drama, opera, domestic artifacts, pornography, and medical writing. Given the thematic focus of the course, specialists in other periods and cultures are welcome. Estimated cost of materials: $50 or more, but less than $100.