COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND LITERARY THEORY (AS) {COML}
SM 003. (GRMN003) Censored! A History of Book Censorship. (M) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Wiggins. Although its pages may appear innocuous enough, bound innocently between non-descript
covers, the book has frequently become the locus of intense suspicion, legal legislation, and various
cultural struggles. But what causes a book to blow its cover? In this course we will consider a range of specific
censorship cases in the west since the invention of the printed book to the present day. We will consider the role
of various censorship authorities (both religious and secular) and grapple with the timely question about whether censorship
is ever justified in building a better society. Case studies will focus on many well-known figures (such as
Martin Luther, John Milton, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Goethe, Karl Marx, and Salman Rushdie) as well as lesser-known
authors, particularly Anonymous (who may have chosen to conceal her identity to avoid pursuit by the Censor).
SM 004. (RELS004) Conflicts/Interpretation. (C) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Dunning. Examination of how and why interpreters clash in their readings of such topics
as myth, history, scripture, selfhood and the meaning of life.
005. (SAST004) India's Literature: Love, War, Wisdom, Humor. (M) Patel. This course introduces studnets to the extraordinary quality of literary production
during the past four millenia of South Asian civilization. Selecting for discussion only a few representative works
in translation from pre-modern India [(rangingfrom the earlist Sanskrit and Tamil texts, through to the mediaval
literatures of South Asia's regional Languages -(Kannada, Gujarati, Bengali, MArathi, Telegu, Panjabi,Malayalam,
Oriya etc)] and up to the Hindavi romance traditions of the 16th century),the course will also broadly investigate
the processes of masterpiece - making in South Asia, both through the lens of indegenous aesthetic formulations as
well as from diverse contemporary perspectives of literary analysis. In doing so, the goal will be to come to
some understanding of the immensely rich and complicated networks of language, literary form and the cultural life that
have historically informed and continues to inform the production of literature of South Asia. Our semester covers seminal
genres that also serve as the organizing principles for the course: the hymn, the lyric, the epic, the gnomic,
the dramatic, the political, the prosaic, the tragic and the comedic. No background in South Asia studies or South Asian
languages is requiredl.
021. (CLST321, ENGL021) Medieval Literature and Culture. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. This course introduces students to four hundred years of English literary culture,
from approximately 1100 to 1500. This period was marked by major transformations, not only with respect to government,
law, religious practice, intellectural life, England's relation to the Continent (during the 100 Years
War), the organization of society (especially after the Black Death), the circulation of literary texts, and the status of
authors. Topics may include medieval women writers, manuscript production, literatures of revoltd, courtly culture, Crusades,
cross-Channel influences, and religious controversy.
055. (ENGL055, GSOC055) 19th-Century Novel. (A) Staff. During the nineteenth century the novel became the dominant literary form of
its day, supplanting poetry and drama on both sides of the Atlantic. In this introduction to the novelists of the period,
we will read the writers who secured the novel's cultural respectability and economic prominence. Likely authors will
include Austen, the Brontes, Collins, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy, Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, Thackeray, Scott, and Stowe.
The course will explore the themes, techniques, and styles of the nineteeth-century novel. It will focus not only
on the large structural and thematic patterns and problems within each novel but also on the act of reading as a historically
specific cultural ritual in itself.
057. (JWST151, NELC156, RELS027) Great Books of Judaism. (A) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Stern.
The study of four paradigmatic classic Jewish texts
so as to introduce students to the literature of
classic Judaism. Each text will be studied historically--"excavated" for
its sources and roots--and holistically, as a canonical
document in Jewish tradition. While each text will
inevitably raise its own set of issues, we will deal
throughout the semester with two basic questions:
What makes a "Jewish" text? And how do
these texts represent different aspects of Jewish
identity? All readings will be in translation.
059. (ENGL059) Modernisms and Modernities. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This class explores the international emergence of modernism, typically from
the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. We will examine the links between modernity, the
avant-garde, and various national modernisms that emerged alongside them. Resolutely transatlantic and open to
French, Spanish, Italian, German, or Russian influences, this course assumes the very concept of Modernism to necessitate
an international perspective focusing on the new in literature and the arts -- including film, the theatre,
music, and the visual arts. The philosophies of modernism will also be surveyed and concise introductions provided to important
thinkers like Marx, Nietzsche, Sorel, Bergson, Freud, and Benjamin.
062. (ENGL062) 20th-Century Poetry. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Bernstein. From abstraction to beat, from socialism to negritude, from expressionism to
ecopoetry, from surrealism to visual poetry, from collage to digital poetry, the poetry of the twentieth century
has been characterized by both the varieties of its forms and the range of its practitioners. This course will offer a broad
overview of many of the major trends and a few minor eddies in the immensely rich, wonderfully varied, ideologically and
aesthetically charged field. The course will cover many of the radical poetry movements and individual innovations,
along with the more conventional and idiosyncratic work, and will provide examples of political, social, ethnic,
and national poetries, both in the Americas and Europe, and beyond to the rest of the world. While most of the poetry covered
will be in English, works in translation, and indeed the art of translation, will be an essential component
the course.
065. (AFST065, ENGL065) The 20th-Century Novel. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Barnard. This course traces the development of the novel across the twentieth-century.
The course will consider the formal innovations of the modern novel (challenges to realism, stream of consciousness,
fragmentation, etc.) in relation to major historical shifts in the period. Authors treated might include: Conrad,
Lawrence, Joyce, Forster, Woolf, Cather, Faulkner, Hemingway, Achebe, Greene, Rhys, Baldwin, Naipaul, Pynchon, Rushdie,
and Morrison.
077. (ENGL077, SAST124) Literature and Empire. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Loomba. Since the sixteenth century English has been, among other things, an imperial
language, and ideas about empire and imperialism have shaped not only many of English literature's central texts
but also the development of English literary study as a discipline. This course is an introduction to the way imperial contact
and changing ideas about empire and decolonization have shaped literature in English from the sixteenth to the twentieth
centuries. We will consider historical and cultural materials to offer contexts for literary production
of texts from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. The course also will serve as a comprehensive introduction to the
way literary and cultural representations of Europe have been influenced by changing ideas about empire and imperialism.
Different versions of the course will vary in the historical and cultural material they cover as they offer a context
for literary production.
SM 080. (ITAL080) Intro to Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Nineties. (A) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Kirkham. The course will consist of a broad and varied sampling of
classic Italian films from WWII to the present. We
will consider the works which typify directors and
major trends through five decades of filmmaking and
will trace a certain stylistic and thematic development
from WWII on, pointing out both the continuity of
the tradition, and exceptions to it, in an attempt
to define the art of Italian film. Units will include "Neorealism:
The Cinematic Revolution,"Self-Reflexivity and
Meta-cinema," "Fascism and War Revisite
and "Postmodernism, or the Death of the Cinema." One
of the aims of the course will be to make us aware
of the expectations that Hollywood has implanted
in us:that films be action-packed wish-fulfillment
fantasies. Italian cinema will challenge us to re-examine
and revise the very narrow conception that Americans
have of the cinematic medium. Classes will include
close visual analysis of films using video clips
and slides. Students will be required to attend weekly
screenings of the films. The films will be in Italian
with English subtitles. There will be 12 in all,
including works by Fellini, Antonioni, De Sica, Visconti,
Pasolini, Rossellini, Scola, and Benigni.
090. (AFRC090, ENGL090, GSOC090) Women and Literature. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only.
Barnard. This is a topics course. If the topic is "Gender,
Sexualitiy, and Literature," the following description
applies. This course will focus on questions of gender difference and of sexual desire
in a range of literary works, paying special attention
to works by women and treatments of same-sex desire.
More fundamentally, the course will introduce students
to questions about the relation between identity
and representation. We will attend in particular
to intersections between gender, sexuality, race,
class, and nation, and will choose from a rich vein
of authors: Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, Mary
Shelley, Lord Byron, the Brontes, Christina Rossetti,
George Eliot, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, Gertrude Stein, Zora Neale Hurston, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Nella Larsen,
Radclyffe Hall, Willa Cather, Elizabeth Bishop, Jean
Rhys, James Baldwin, Sylvia Plath, Bessie Head, Audre
Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Cherr_e Moraga, Toni Morrison,
Michael Cunningham, Dorothy Allison, Jeanette Winterson,
and Leslie Feinberg.
(ENGL094) Introduction to Literary Theory. (M) Staff. This course introduces students to major issues in the history of literary
theory, and provides an excellent foundation for the
English major or minor. Treating the work of Plato and
Aristotle as well as contemporary criticism, we will
consider the fundamental issues that arise from representation,
making meaning, appropriation and adaptation, categorization
and genre, historicity and genealogy, and historicity
and temporality. We will consider major movements in the history of theory including the "New" Criticism of
the 1920s and 30s, structuralism and poststructuralism, Marxism and psychoanalysis, feminism, cultural studies, critical
race theory, and queer theory. (ENGL095) Introduction to Cultural Studies. (C) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prioronly. Staff. This course will combine readings in diverse but related fields
to explore both the concept of "culture" as it has
emerged in different disciplines and the ways in which culture
(both as created world and as the meanings we attach to it)
informs our notions of society and of personal indentity. Starting
from an analysis of different disciplines (in particular, history,
anthropology, and literary studies) by concentrating on clearly
defined topics which are intended to suggest new ways of thinking
about how our personal and collective experience is organized
and transformed.
096. (ENGL096, GSOC096) Theories of Gender and Sexuality. (M) Humanities & Social Science Sector. Class of 2010 & beyond. Staff. What makes men and women different? What
is the nature of desire? This course introduces students to
a long history of speculation about the meaning and nature
of gender and sexuality -- a history fundamental to literary
representation and the business of making meaning. We will
consider theories from Aristophanes speech in Platos Symposium
to recent feminist and queer theory. Authors treated might
include: Plato, Shakespeare, J. S. Mill, Mary Wollstonecraft,
Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne
Rich, Audre Lorde, Michel Foucault, Gayle Rubin, Catherine
MacKinnon, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, bell hooks,
Leo Bersani, Gloria Anzaldua, David Halperin, Cherr_e Moraga,
Donna Haraway, Gayatri Spivak, Diana Fuss, Rosemary Hennesy,
Chandra Tadpole Mohanty, and Susan Stryker.
L/R 100. (ENGL100) Introduction to Literature and Literatures. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Todorov. This course introduces students to the study of comparative literature
as a rigorous intellectual discipline. There are no prerequisites,
and this class has been designed for students who are considering
majors in related fields and those who seek a broader, theoretically
rooted understanding of reading and enjoying literature. Our
readings will include both literary and theoretical texts;
we will be reading novels, essays, poems, and plays that come
from a range of periods and of literary traditions.
101. (FOLK101, NELC181, RELS108) Introduction to Folklore. (M) Humanities & Social Science Sector. Class of 2010 & beyond. Staff. This course examines the notion of style, the shapes for the arts, and also
for how we present our selves and our actions. Pervading every aspect of art and life, the innocent heading "style" enshrines
a host of contradictions. Individual freedom versus social constraint, beauty versus function, innovation
versus imitation, feminine versus male identity, art versus fashion: ranging from the ancient world to modern America,
a team from art history, literature and music show how what is "merely a matter of style" may in fact be a
matter of the greatest moment.
103. (FOLK103, HIST093, THAR103) Performing History. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. St.George. From medieval processions to the Mummer's
Parade, from military reenactments to Mardi Gras, communities
do more than "write" or "read" history
in order to feel its power and shape their futures. Drawing
upon traditions in theater, spectacle, religion, and marketing,
they also perform their history--by replaying particular characters,
restaging pivotal events and sometimes even changing their
outcomes--in order to test its relevance to contemporary life
and to both mark and contest ritual points in the annual cycle.
This course will explore diverse ways of "performing history" in
different cultures, including royal passages, civic parades,
historical reenactments, community festivals, and film.
L/R 104. (CINE104, ENGL104) Study of a Period. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Staff. This is an introduction to literary
study through a survey of works from a specific historical
period--often the 20th century, but some versions of this course
will focus on other times. (For offerings in a given semester,
please see the on-line course descriptions on the English Department
website.) We will explore the period's important artistic movements,
ideas, and authors, focusing on interconnectedness of the arts
to other aspects of culture. This course is designed for the General Requirement; it is also intended to serve as a first
or second course for prospective English majors.
110. (ENGL087, HIST246, THAR110, URBS212) Theatre, History, Culture I. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Schlatter. Theatre, History, Culture I. This course will explore the
forms of public performance, most specifically theatre, as
they emerge from and give dramatic shape to the dynamic life
of communal, civic and social bodies, from their anthropological
origins in ritual and religious ceremonies, to the rise of
great urban centers,to the closing of the theaters in London
in 1642. This course will focus on the development of theatre
practice in both Western and non-Western cultures intersects
with the history of cities, the rise of market economies, and
the emerging forces of national identity. In addition to examining
the history of performance practices, theatre architecture,
scenic conventions and acting methods, this course will investigate,
where appropriate, social and political history, the arts,
civic ceremonies and the dramaturgic structures of urban living.
111. (ENGL097, THAR111) Theatre, History, Culture II (Cities at play from the Renaissance
to the Rise of Realism.). (C) Staff. This course examines theatre and performance in the context of the broader
urban, artistic and political cultures housing them from the
Renaissance to the mid-19th century. Encompassing multiple
cultures and traditions, it will draw on a variety of readings
and viewings designed to locate the play, playwright, trend
or concept under discussion within a specific socio-historical
context. The evolution of written and performed drama, theatre
architecture, and scenography will be examined in tandem with
the evolution of various nationalisms, population shifts, and
other commercial and material forces on theatrical entertainments.
Readings consequently will be drawn not only from plays and
other contemporary documents, but also from selected works
on the history, theory, design, technology, art, politics or
society of the period under discussion.
SM 115. (ENGL111) Experimental Writing Seminar. (C) Bernstein. Students wishing to take this course must submit a writing sample as part of the selection process. May be repeated for
credit with a different instructor. This is a nontraditional "poetry
immersion" workshop. It will be structured around a series
of writing experiments, intensive readings, art gallery visits,
and the prodcution of individual chapbooks or web sites for
each participant, and performance of participants' works. There
will also be some visits from visiting poets. The emphasis
in the workshop will be on new and innovative approaches to
composition and form, including digital, sound, and performance,
rather than on works emphasizing narrative or story telling.
Permission of the instructor is required. Send a brief email
stating why you wish to attend the workshop (writing samples
not required).
118. (CINE118, GSOC118, GSOC418, NELC118) Iranian Cinema: Gender, Politics, Religion.
(M)Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Minuchehr.
Post-Revolutionary Iranian cinema has gained exceptional international
reception in the past two decades. In most major national and
international festivals, Iranian films have taken numerous
prizes for their outstanding representation of life and society,
and their courage in defying censorship barriers. In this course,
we will examine the distinct characteristics of the post-revolutionary
Iranian cinema. Discussion will revolve around themes such
as gender politics, family relationships and women's social,
economic and political roles, as well as the levels of representation
and criticism of modern Iran's political and religious structure
within the current boundaries. There will be a total of 12
films shown and will include works by Kiarostami, Makhmalbaf,
Beizai, Milani, Bani-Etemad and Panahi, among others.
125. (ENGL103, FOLK125, NELC180) Narrative Across Cultures. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Allen. The purpose of this course is to present a variety of narrative genres
and to discuss and illustrate the modes whereby they can be
analyzed. We will be looking at shorter types of narrative:
short stories, novellas, and fables, and also some extracts
from longer works such as autobiographies. While some works
will come from the Anglo-American tradition, a larger number
will be selected from European and non-Western cultural traditions
and from earlier time-periods. The course will thus offer ample
opportunity for the exploration of the translation of cultural
values in a comparative perspective.
126. (GRMN242) Fantastic & Uncanny in Literature. (A) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Weissberg. What is the "Fantastic"?
And how can we describe the "Uncanny"? The course
will examine these questions, and investigate the historical
background of our understanding of "phantasy," as
well as our concepts of the "fantastic" and "uncanny" in
literature. Our discussions will be based on a reading of Sigmund
Freud's essay on the uncanny, a choice of Friedrich Schlegel's
and Novalis' aphorisms, and Romantic narratives by Ludwig Tieck,
E.T.A. Hoffman, Edgar llan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others. All of the texts will be available
in English/in English translation, and no knowledge of a foreign
language is required.
127. (CINE125, GSOC125, RUSS125) The Adultery Novel In and Out of Russia. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Platt. All readings and discussions in English. The object of the
course is to analyze a series of 19C and 20C novels (and a
few short stories) about adultery. Our reading will teach us
about novelistic traditions of the period in question and about
the relationship of Russian literature to the European models
to which it responded. The course begins with a novel not about
families falling apart, but about families coming together
- Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. We then will turn to what
is arguably the most well-known adultery novel ever written,
Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Following this, we investigate a
series of Russian revisions of the same thematic territory
that range from "great literature" to pulp fiction,
including Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and other works by Tolstoy,
Chekhov, Leskov and Nagrodskaia. As something of an epilogue
to the course, we will read Milan Kundera's backward glance
at this same tradition in nineteenth-century writing, The Unbearable
Lightness of Being. In our coursework we will apply various
critical approaches in order to place adultery into its social
and cultural context, including: sociological descriptions
of modernity, Marxist examinations of family as a social and
economic institution, Freudian/Psychoanalytic interpretations
of family life and transgressive sexuality, Feminist work on
the construction of gender.
150. (HIST149, RUSS193) War and Representation in Russia, Europe and the U.S. (C) Humanities & Social Science Sector. Class of 2010 & beyond. Platt. Representations of
war are created for as many reasons as wars are fought: to
legitimate armed conflict, to critique brutality, to vilify
an enemy, to mobilize popular support, to generate national
pride, etc. In this course we will examine a series of representations
of war drawn from the literature, film, state propaganda, memoirs,
visual art, etc. of Russia, Europe and the United States. We
will pursue an investigation of these images of conflict and
bloodshed in the larger context of the history of military
technology, social life, and communications media over the
last two centuries. Students will be expected to write two
papers, take part in a group presentation on an assigned topic,
and take a final exa. The goal of the course will be to gain
knowledge of literary history in social and historical context,
and to acquire critical skills for analysis of rhetoric and
visual representations.
167. (CLST267, ENGL029) Ancient Novel. (C) Staff. The ancient Greek and Roman novels include some of the most enjoyable
and interliterary works from antiquity. Ignored by ancient
critics, they were until faidismissed by classical scholars
as mere popular entertainment. But these narraenormous influence
on the later development of the novel, and in their sophistiplayfulness,
they often seem peculiarly modern -- or even postmodern. They
areimportant source for any understanding of ancient cultur
and society. In thiswill discuss the social, religious and
philosophical contexts for the ancient nwill think about the
relationship of the novel to other ancient genres, such asepic.
Texts to be read will include Lucian's parodic science fiction
story abothe moon; Longus' touching pastoral romance about
young love and sexual awakeniHeliodorus' gripping and exotic thriller about pirates and long-lost children; Golden Ass,
which contains the story of Cupid and Psyche; and Petronius'
Satyrihilarious evocation of an orgiastic Roman banquet.
186. (CINE221, EALC186) Screening Modern Korea: Korean Film and Culture. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Kim. The Jury Award for
Best Feature Film at the 2005 Philadelphia Film Festival was
awarded to a South Korean film The Road directed by Pae Chang-ho.
Hong Sang-soo's the Tale of Cinema was invited to compete in
the 2005 Cannes Film Festival where Park Chan-wook's Old Boy
won the Grand Prix a year ago. To date, the remake rights for
over ten Korean films have been sold to US film companies.
As this short list shows, Korean films have not only been gaining
wide popularity amongst the general audience in Korea and its
neighboring countries in Asia, but have also received critical
acclaim from critics and scholars, in particular through international
film festival circuits. Korean cinema, in fact, is experiencing
a "renaissance" in the 21st century. We will take
the recent surge of success behind Korean cinema as a way to
explore our object of study: Korea and the cinema. We will
situate Korean cinema in broader (and at times narrow) cultural,
social, and aesthetic contexts to investigate transnational
media production and circulation, globalization, consumer culture,
commercialization, Hollywoodization, and construction of national,
ethnic, gender identities, etc. The course will focus on the
works of prominent filmmakers of Korea's past and present,
such as Shin Sang-ok, Im Kwon-taek, Kim Ki-duk, and Lee Chang-dong,
as well as paying special attention to genres of Korean film such as the melodrama, slapstick comdey, and erotica.
No prerequisites. All films with English subtitles.
187. (EALC017, GSOC187) Possessing Women. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Chance. A man from Tennessee writes *Memoirs of a Geisha*. A Japanese
novelist tells the story of the "comfort women" who
served the Japanese army. A tenth-century courtier poses as
a woman writing the first woman's diary. Poets from Byron to
Robert Lowell, through Ezra Pound to Li Po, have written as
though they were women, decrying their painful situations.
Is something wrong with this picture, or is "woman" such
a fascinating position from which to speak that writers can
hardly help trying it on for size? In this course we will look
at male literary impersonators of women as well as women writers. Our questions will include who speaks in literature for
prostitutes--whose bodies are the property of men--and what happens when women inhabit the bodies of other women
via spirit possession. Readings will draw on the Japanese traditions, which is especially rich in such cases,
and will also include Western and Chinese literature, anthropological work on possession, legal treatments of prostitution,
and film. Participants will keep a reading journal and write a paper of their own choosing.
SM 191. Classics of the Western World I. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Staff. This course will approach selected classic works of Western culture up to the
Middle Ages with two purposes in mind. First, we will try to see how our notions of authority, agency, will and history
have been shaped by these texts, in particular by epic and tragedy; further, we will consider how such concepts
in turn have been complicated by the author's recognition of the power of desire and shifting definitions of gender
and identity. Second, we will look at how we identify a "classic" in our culture, and will try to understand
what sort of work it does for us. Texts to be read will include: Homer's ILIAD and ODYSSEY; Euripides' BACCHAE; Sophocles' OEDIPUS THE
KING; Aeschylus' PROMETHEUS BOUND; Aristophanes' FROGS; Virgil's AENEID; THE CONFESSIONS OF ST
AUGUSTINE, and Dante's DIVINE COMEDY. All works will be read in translation.
SM 192. Classics of the Western World II. (C) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This class provides a survey of works drawn from the Western literary canon
from the Renaissance to the 20th century. Work may be drawn in part from the following authors: Montaigne, Shakespeare,
Webster, Moliere, Milton, Behn, Laclos, Rousseau, Sterne, the Romantic poets, Austen, Dickens, Bronte, Wilde,
Woolf and Joyce.
193. (ENGL099, FOLK241) Great Story Collections. (M) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. The Great Story Collections moves backwards in time from Chaucer's CANTERBURY
TALES and Boccaccio's DECAMERON through the 1001 NIGHTS and Persian mystical story collections to
the Indian PANCHATANTRA, exploring the development of the literary story collection and its connections
with oral narrative traditions of the present and the past.
197. (RUSS197) Madness and Madmen in Russian Culture. (M) Humanities & Social Science Sector. Class of 2010 & beyond. Vinitsky. This course will explore the theme of madness in Russian literature and arts
from the medieval period through the October Revolution of 1917. The discussion will include formative masterpieces
by Russian writers (Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Bulgakov), painters (Repin, Vrubel, Filonov),
composers (Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, and Stravinsky), and film-directors (Protazanov, Eisenstein), as
well as non-fictional documents such as Russian medical, judicial, political, and philosophical treatises and essays
on madness.
The problem of madness has preoccupied Russian minds since the very beginning
of Russia's troubled history. This subject has been dealt with
repeatedly in medieval vitae and modern stories, plays, paintings,
films, and operas, as well as medical, political and philosophical
essays. This issue has been treated by a number of brilliant
Russian authors and artists not only as a medical or psychological
matter, but also as a metaphysical one, touching the deepest
levels of human consciousness, encompassing problems of suffering,
imagination, history, sex, social and world order, evil, retribution,
death, and the after-life. Therefore it is illuminating for
a deeper understanding of Russian culture to examine how major
Russian authors have depicted madness and madmen in their works,
how these works reflected the authors' psychological, aesthetic
and ideological views, as well as historical and cultural processes
in Russia.
L/R 200. (CLST200, FOLK200) Greek and Roman Mythology. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Staff. An introduction to classical mythology through close analysis of selected texts.
Topics include: the definition of myth; its social, political, and religious contexts; the variety of methodologies
available for its study (e.g. comparative anthropology, structuralism, psychoanalysis); the literary development of myths,
divine and heroic; the Roman adaptation of Greek myths;and the relationship of myth to historical, philosophical,
and scientific modes of thought. No prior background is required. Students come to the study of mythology from
a variety of disciplines. This course should be particularly useful to those interested in literature, the fine arts,
anthropology, folklore, and religion.
SM 203. (COLL228, ITAL203) Introduction to Italian Literature and Culture. (B) Staff. Readings and reflections on significant texts of the Italian literary and artistic
tradition exploring a wide range of genres, themes, cultural debates by analyzing texts in sociopolitical contexts.
Readings and discussions in Italian.
204. (CLST204, CINE204, GSOC202) Hollywood "Classics". (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. What do Bruce Willis and Homer have in common?
Why do so many films seem so familiar? Is popular culture meaningless?
If so, why all the controversy over The Lion King, Braveheart,
or Murphy Brown? This course will answer all this and more. It will provide an introduction into both classical
literature and the interpretation of popular culture; but it
will not entail sitting through hours of The Last Days of Pompeii,
Spartacus, Helen of Troy, or other films your parents remember
fondly. Students will read a number of well-known texts from
antiquity, one or two 20thcentury works, and view 8-12 (mostly) recent popular films. By examining the
texts and films first within their cultural contexts and then
against one another, we will address a number of different
themes and issues that will also expose students to different
reading tactics. Topics include: the myth of the hero, the
evolution of detective fiction, the politics of children's
literature and film, narrative strategies, and the uses of
tradition. Texts include: Homer's Odyssey, Sophocle Apuleius'
Golden Ass, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Euripides' Hipp Chandler's
The Big Sleep, short stories by Raymond Carver, critical essays.
Probable films include: Die Hard, either Terminator 2 or Aliens,
Angel Heart, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and Mighty Aphrodite.
211. (ASAM212, SAST212) Topics in Indian Film. (M) Majithia. This is a topics course. The topic may be "Global Fiction and Film.". The spread of globalization or the acceleration
of transportation and information technologies, alters our
notions of time and space. described variously as colonial,
postcolonia and global recent film and literature from South
Asia suggest models for understanding the following process:
imperialism, nationalism, displacement, hybridity, migrancy
and travel. the resulting increase in the traffic in texts
re defines genres, canons, high/low cultures as well as popular
and mass culture. The new reprentationas and circulations of
fictions, films and adaptations produce novel ways of thinking
about community, borders and belonging. while the class will
focus on South Asian texts, we will draw on film, literature
and theretical frameworks from other contexts to consider the
licenses and limits of comparison for this study.
212. (NELC201) Modern Middle Eastern Literature in Translation. (B) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Allen, Gold. This course is team-taught by four professors with specialities
in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish literatures; all four
attend all the sessions of the course. The course deals with
the modern literature within each tradition and focuses on
poetry, the short story and the novel (among which have been
in recent year: Al-Tayyib Salih's SEASON OF MIGRATION TO THE
NORTH, Yehoshua's THE LOVER, Hedyat's THE BLIND OWL, and Kemal's
MEMET MY HAWK). The readings are all in English. The course
is conducted in a seminar format. Students are expected to
participate in classroom discussion of the materials assigned
for each session, and evaluation is partially based on the
quality of that participation. A short paper is assigned on
the poetry and the short stories, and there is a final examination.
SM 213. (RELS218, RUSS213) Saints and Devils in Russian Literature. (A) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Verkholantsev. Despite the title, Russian 213 is not simply about saints
and devils in Russian culture. Our primary goal is to trace
cultural continuity and understand the dependence of the 19th
and 20th century Russian literature and art on cultural paradigms
and categories of pre-modern Russia. In Russia, where culture
and conscience had been nourished by Eastern Orthodoxy and
Indo-European paganism, the 19th-century search for spirituality
was invariably connected with Orthodoxy and religious pursuits.
The interest in Russian history kindled a fascination with
medieval Russian literary and artistic productions. Writers
and artists turned for inspiration to medieval themes and genres.
In "Saints and Devils," we will examine the literary
images of the holy and the demonic in works from various periods
and we will learn about the historic trends that have filled
Russia's national character with religious and supernatural
spirit. All readings and films are in English and include such
authors as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Leskov, Bulgakov,
and Nabokov, as well as films by Tarkovsky and Eisenstein.
215. (NELC233) Arabic Literary History. (A) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Allen. This course provides a survey of the
genres and major figures in Arabic literary history from the
6th century up to the present day. Selected works are read
in translation; poetry is discussed first, then belles-lettrist
prose. Selected suras from the Qur'an are read as the centerpiece
of the course. Each set of texts are accompanied by a collection
of background readings which place the authors and works into
a literary, political and societal context. This course thus
attempts to place the phenomenon of "literature" into
the larger context of Islamic studies by illustrating the links
between Arab litterateurs and other contributors to the development
of an Islamic/Arab culture on the one hand and by establishing
connections between the Arabic literary tradition and that
of other (and particularly Western) traditions.
SM 216. (COLL225, GRMN216) Intro to Literature. (B) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Staff. Prerequisite(s): GRMN 215 or the equivalent. Develops students' basic skills of literary interpretation. Exposure to various
reading techniques (e.g. close reading, reading for plot, etc.) and to literary terminology and its application. Readings
will include selections from prose, drama and lyric poetry.
SM 218. (COLL221, FREN221) Perspectives in French Literature. (A) Staff. This basic course in literature provides an overview of French literature and
acquaints students with major literary trends through the study of representative works from each period. Students
are expected to take an active part in class dicussion in French. French 221 has as its theme the presentation of love and
passion in French literature.
SM 219. (COLL221, FREN222) Perspectives in French Literature. (A) Staff. This basic course in literature provides an overview of French literature and
acquaints students with major literary trends through the study of representative works from each period. Special emphasis
is placed on close reading of texts in order to familiarize students with major authors and their characteristics
and with methods of interpretation. They are expected to take an active part in class discussion in French. French 222
has as its theme the Individual and Society. Students who have taken 221 may also take French 222 for credit.
SM 220. (HIST220, RUSS220) Russia and the West. (C) Humanities & Social Science Sector. Class of 2010 & beyond. Verkholantsev. This course will explore the representations of the West in eighteenth- and
nineteenth- century Russian literature and philosophy. We will consider the Russian visions of various events and aspects
of Western political and social life - Revolutions, educational system, public executions, resorts, etc. - within the
context of Russian intellectual history. We will examine how images of the West reflect Russia's own cultural concerns,
anticipations, and biases, as well as aesthetic preoccupations and interests of Russian writers. The discussion will
include literary works by Karamzin, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Leskov, and Tolstoy, as well as non-fictional documents,
such as travelers' letters, diaries, and historiosophical treatises of Russian Freemasons, Romantic and Positivist
thinkers, and Russian social philosophers of the late nineteenth century. A basic knowledge of nineteenth-century European
history is desirable. The class will consist of lecture, discussion, short writing assignments, and two in-class
tests.
SM 221. (ENGL221) Topics in Medieval Literature. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This seminar explores an aspect of medieval literature intensively; specific
course topics will vary from year to year. Topics in the past have included the medieval performance, medieval women, and
medieval law and literature.
SM 222. (ENGL222, GSOC221) Topics In Romance. (M) Staff. This seminar explores an aspect of epic or romance intensively; specific course
topics will vary from year to year.
SM 223. (COLL222, LALS221, SPAN221) Early Hispanic Literature and Culture. (A) Staff. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 219. This course engages in an in-depth study of Spanish and Colonial Spanish American
culture(s) from the Pre-Roman period through the 17th century. Among the topics included are: Islamic Spain,
the Spanish Reconquista, the Inquisition, the Origins of the Spanish Language, Sephardic Culture in Spain,
the Pilgrimage Route to St.James, Picaresque Literature, Golden Age Spanish Drama, pre-Columbian Civilizations,
the Conquest of the New World, and the establishment of colonial rule in Spanish America.
SM 224. (PHIL225, STSC108) Philosophy of Science. (M) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Science studies. Class of 2009 & prior only. Domotor, Akhundov. A discussion of some philosophical questions that naturally arise in scientific
research. Issues to be covered include: The nature of scientific explanation, the relation of theories of evidence,
and the development of science (e.g., does science progress? Are earlier theories refuted or refined?).
SM 225. (COLL222, LALS222, SPAN222) Modern Spanish and Spanish American Culture.
(C) Staff. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 219. This course engages in an in-depth study of certain
key moments and texts in Spanish and Spanish American culture
from the 18th century to the present. Among the topics dealt
with are: the "failed" Enlightenment of Spain and
Spanish America, the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, Carribean
antislavery narrative, the revolt against Spanish rule and
the creation of new nations in Spanish America, indigenismo,
The Spanish Civil War, dictatorships, the Cuban Revolution.
SM 226. (CINE232, COLL223, LALS240, SPAN223) Russian Short Story in the 20th Century.
(A) staff. Discover the fascinating world of twentieth-century Russian literature
through the short but captivating texts by some of its greatest
masters. Daring explorations of taboo topics, excellence of
style, and, of course, reflections of life and death issues
Russian literature is famous for--these are but few of the
topics to be discussed in this course. From Anton Chekhov,
Russia's greatest short story writer, through the Symbolists,
Babel, Nabokov up to post-totalitarian writing, we will explore
this unique literary tradition. No knowledge of Russian is
required.
228. (HEBR250, JWST256, RELS220) Studies in Hebrew Bible. (C) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Tigay.
Prerequisite(s): HEBR 154 or the equivalent. The aim of this
course is to introduce students to the critical methods and
reference works used in the modern study of the Bible. To the
extent possible, these methods will be illustrated as they
apply to a single book of the Hebrew Bible that will serve
as the main focus of the course.
SM 230. (CLST330, ENGL231) Topics in Renaissance Studies. (M) Staff. This course explores an aspect of renaissance literature intensively; specific
topics will vary from year to year.
231. (GRMN245) Literature and Culture in Central Europe. (M) Staff. It is difficult to imagine a current century without the remarkable
contributions of Central European culture. Central Europe is
the birthplace fo Freud and psychoanalysis, Schoenberg and
twelve-tone composition, Kafka, Kraus, and Musil. It is also
a combustible world theater for raging conflicts among political
ideologies, nationalisms, and world views. This course examines
the many legacies of Central Europe to the present. Through
literature, cinema, and other arts, it explores a unique history
that extends from the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, through
two world wars, to communism and beyond. Readings are in English and include representative works
from Albanian, Austrian, Bosnian, Czech, Hungarian, and Polish
fiction.
SM 234. (ITAL232) The World of Dante. (M) Kirkham. Freshman Seminar. The masterpiece of Italian literature read in the context of Dante's cultural
milieu (the Aristotelian cosmos, contemporary politics, medieval intellectual ideals, the esthetic of order,
symbolism, allegory, numerology and his literary heritage from Virgil to the early Italian vernacular poets. Illustrated
manuscripts and the visual tradition of the poem will be shown in slide presentations. Lecture/discussion format.
SM 239. (ASAM241, ENGL241, GSOC241) Topics in 18th Century Literature. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This course explores an aspect of 18th-century literature intensively; specific
course topics will vary from year to year.
240. (FOLK240) Fairy Tales: Forms and Interpretation. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. The term "fairy tale" or "Maerchen" is associated with both
oral and literary traditions. This introductory course will explore the genre "Maerchen" from ancient times to the present, touching
on issues of definition, context, orality and literacy, authenticity, and interpretation.
L/R 241. (CINE352, GRMN256, RELS236) The Devil's Pact in Literature, Music and Film.
(A) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Richter. All readings and discussions in English. For centuries the pact with the devil has signified humankind's to surpass the
limits of human knowledge and power. From the reformation puppet play to the rock lyrics of Randy Newan's Faust,
from Marlowe and Goethe to key Hollywood films, the legend of the devil's pact continues to be useful for exploring
our fascination with forbidden powers.
L/R 242. (RELS003) Religion and Literature. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Matter. A consideration of how great works of literature from different cultural traditions
have reclaimed and reinterpreted compelling religious themes. One religious tradition will be emphasized each
time the course is taught.
L/R 245. (CINE112, ENGL102, GSOC102) Study of a Theme. (M) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Staff. This is a topics course. This is an introduction to literary study through the
works of a compelling literary theme. (For offerings in a given
semester, please see the on-line course descriptions on the
English Department website). The theme's function within specific
historical contexts, within literary history generally, and
within contemporary culture, are likely to be emphasized. This
course is designed for the General Requirement; it is also
intended to serve as a first or second course for prospective
English majors.
SM 248. (AFRC385, ASAM202, ENGL259, GSOC285) Topics in Modernism. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This is a topics course. An exploration of literary modernism which may include novel, poetry, criticism,
drama and film. Topics may include "Culture of the 60's," "Race in American Literature and Film," "Madness
and Modernism," or "Modernist Heroes."
250. The "Whodunit". (M) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters. Class
of 2009 & prior only. Staff. What makes detective fiction perhaps the most popular fictional
genre at the close of the twentieth century? How can we explain
the adaptability of detective fiction for exploring social
issues, such as race, class, and gender? The course will begin
with an interrogation of genre, exploring the fluid criteria
which make a text a "detective story." This basis
will permit an analysis of the transformations which have occurred
in the genre throughout the centuries. Explicitly literary
issues such as narrativity, textuality, and signification will
be explored, as well as the "existential" detective
novel (the detective story as a search for identity) and congruences
with psychonalysis. Among the authors will be Sophocles, Poe,
Conan Doyle, Chandler, Christie, P.D. James, Paretsky, Thomas
Harris, Borges, and Auster. Films may include Clouzot's Diabolique
and The Crow, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, and Seven.
SM 252. (LALS252, SPAN250) Spanish Literature in Translation. (B) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Staff. This is a topics course. The
topic may be "Latin American Travel Narratives or "Caribbean
Writers in the U.S.".
L/R 253. (GRMN253, GSOC252, HSOC253, STSC253) Freud. (C) Humanities & Social Science Sector. Class of 2010 & beyond. Weissberg. No other person of the twentieth century has probably influenced scientific
thought, humanitistic scholarship, medical therapy, and popular culture as much as Sigmund Freud. This seminar will study
his work, its cultural background, and its impact on us today.
(GRMN244, URBS244) Metropolis: Culture of the City. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. MacLeod. An exploration of modern discourses on and of the city. Topics include: the
city as site of avant-garde experimentation; technology and culture; the city as embodiment of social order
and disorder; traffic and speed; ways of seeing the city; the crowd; city figures such as the detective, the criminal,
the flaneur, the dandy; film as the new medium of the city. Special emphasis on Berlin. Readings by, among others, Dickens,
Poe, Baudelaire, Rilke, Doeblin, Marx, Engels, Benjamin, Kracauer. Films include Fritz Lang's Metropolis
and Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run.
(GRMN255) Mann, Hesse, Kafka. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Jarosinski. Based on considerations of the cultural tradition and the intellectual currents
of the twentieth century, the course presents a survey of the achievements of Mann, Hesse, and Kafka. The extensive
study of representative works focuses on the problems of the artist in the modern age.
SM 257. (JWST153, NELC158, NELC458, RELS223) Jewish Literature in the Middle Ages.
(C)Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Stern. Readings in medieval Hebrew literature, with special attention to poetry, narrative,
and the interpretation of the Bible, and to the varieties of Jewish experience that these literary works touch upon.
All reading in translation.
259. (FOLK296, NELC254) Jewish Literature in the Rabbinic Period. (C) Stern. An introduction to the different types of Jewish literature written in the first
six centuries C.E. Primary attention to the literature of Rabbinic Judaism (Midrash, Mishnah, Talmud), but readings will
also include some non-Rabbinic and sectarian documents. All readings will be in translation.
SM 261. (ENGL255, GSOC255) Topics in 19th C.Novel. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. Considering works of nineteenth-century fiction, primarily British, this course
focuses on a specialized group of novels to examine a particular author or a particular theme in depth. Past offerings
have included: "Readings in Dickens,"and "Magic, Mystery, and Madness," which studied works by Bronte, Le Fanu,
Wilke Collins, Conan Doyle, Stevenson, or "Evolutionary Fictions and Facts."
SM 262. (GSOC260) Advanced Topics in Narrative. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Krishnan. We will explore how novels work, asking what they do to us and for us. Why are
some narrators unreliable, withholding or confused while others "know" everything? Critical works
may include THE POLICTICAL UNCONSCIOUS; Mary Poovey, UNEVEN DEVELOPMENTS; E.Said, CULTURE AND IMPERIALISM; E Sedgwick, THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE CLOSET. Novels may include Austen, PERSUASION;
Woolf, MRS DALLOWAY; Joyce, PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN; Kincaid, AUTIOBIOGRAPHY
OF MY MOTHER.
SM 263. (ENGL265, GSOC266) Topics in 20th C. Novel. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This course explores an aspect of the 20th-century novel intensively; specific
course topics will vary from year to year.
264. (CLST141, THAR141) Ancient Theatre. (C) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This course will introduce you
to the "roots" of the western dramatic tradition by
surveying a number of well-known tragedies and comedies from
Greco-Roman antiquity. Although the syllabus varies slightly
from year to year, students can expect to read such influential
works as Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" and Aristophanes' "Clouds." In
addition to reading the plays themselves, students will gain
insight into the reception of dramatic performances in the ancient
world. Individual authors and works will be presented within
their historical contexts and we will attend to matters such
as staging of drama, the evolution of theatrical performance,
and interpretation of ancient drama as social and/or political
commentary.
SM 265. (ENGL276, THAR140) Topics In Theatre History. (B) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. The purpose of this course is to introduce students
to the basic materials and methods of theatre history and historigraphy,
as applied to a particular topic, organized around a specific
period, national group, or aesthetic issue. This course is concerned
with methodological questions: how the history of theatre can
be documented; how primary documents, secondary accounts, and
historical and critical analyses can be synthesized; how the
various components of the theatrical event--acting, scenography,
playhouse architecture, audience composition, the financial and
structural organization of the theatre industry, etc.--relate
to one another; and how the theatre is socially and culturally
constructed as an art form in relation to the politics and culture
of a society in a particular time and place.
SM 266. (COLL227, HEBR259, HEBR559, JWST259) Introduction to Modern Hebrew Literature.
(M)Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Gold. The content of this course changes
from year to year; and, therefore, students may take it for credit more than once. This course is designed as a first course in Hebrew and Israeli literatures
in their original forms: no re-written or reworked texts will be presented. It aims to introduce major literary works,
genres and figures, Texts and discussions will be in Hebrew. Depending on the semester's focus, fiction, poetry or other
forms of expression will be discussed. This course is meant to provide methods for literary interpretation through
close reading of these texts. Personal, social, and political issues that find expression in the culture will also be
examined. Past topics include: "Poems, Song, Nation;" Israeli Drama," "The Israeli Short Story;" Postmodernist
Israeli Writing;" and "Israel through Poets' Lenses."
SM 267. (CLST315, ENGL256, THAR275) Topics In Modern Drama. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. COML 267 is a topics course.
The topics for the semester may be "Feminism, Performance and the Rhetoric of Violence," "Sexuality
on Stage," "Feminisim in Performance: Writing Performance," or "Dramaturgy.".
269. (CINE250, GRMN257) Nazi Cinema. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Richter/MacLeod. Cinema played a crucial role in the cultural life of Nazi Germany.
As cinema enthusiasts, Goebbels and Hitler were among the first
to realize the important ideological potential of film as a mass
medium and saw to it that Germany remained a cinema powerhouse
producing more than a 1000 films during the Nazi era. This general
requirement course explores the world of Nazi cinema ranging
from infamous propaganda pieces such as The Triumph of the Will
and The Eternal Jew to entertainments by important directors
such as Pabst and Douglas Sirk. More than sixty years later,
Nazi Cinema challenges us to grapple with issues of more subtle
ideological insinuation than we might think. The course also
includes film responses to developments in Germany by exiled
German directors (Pabst, Wilder) and concludes with Mel Brooks'
The Producers. All lectures and readings in English. Weekly screenings
with subtitles.
270. (CINE250, GRMN258) German Cinema. (M) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. MacLeod. An introduction to the momentous
history of German film, from its beginnings before World War One
to developments following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and
German reunification in 1990. With an eye to film's place in its
historical and political context, the course will explore the "Golden
Age" of German cinema in the Weimar Republic, when Berlin
vied with Hollywood; the complex relationship between Nazi ideology
and entertainment during the Third Reich; the fate of German film-makers in exile during the Hitler years; post-war
film production in both West and East Germany; the call for
an alternative to "Papa's Kino"and the rise of
New German Cinena in the late 1960's.
SM 271. (ENGL261) Topics in 20th Century Literature. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. The course explores an aspect of 20th-century literature intensively; specific
course topics will vary from year to year.
SM 272. (FREN250) French Literature in Translation. (M) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Moudileno. This is a topics
course. The content of the course will vary from semester to semester. All works read
in English.
279. (CINE252, DTCH280) Experiments in Modern Flemish and Dutch Fiction and Film.
(M) Staff. The course will be taught in English. In this seminar, we will study innovative
twentieth-century Flemish and Dutch fiction and film against
a cultural and historical background. We will mainly read
postwar novels and discuss their context and importance.
In our readings of concrete texts, we will pay special attention
to new, experimental forms of narrative and their implication
for the understanding of the text, as well as to the adaptation
of these new forms to the movie screen.
SM 280. (CINE240, HIST322, ITAL322) Italian Cinema. (M) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Kirkham. A close look at Italian cinematic production,
with emphasis on the nature of the artistic medium and its
relation to political reality. Film screenings (in Italian
with subtitles and open to the public) in the evening. Topics
will vary: the history of Italian cinema/literature and film
/politics and society/a major director. Please consult each
semester's offerings.
282. (CINE329, ENGL279, JWST102, JWST279, NELC159) Modern Jewish Literature in Translation. (A) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Gold. This is a topics course. Topic varies semester to semester. Past topics have included: Film and Literature:
Childhood in Times of Peace and War; War and Love: Heroism and Anti-Heroism in Israeli Writings; Film & Literature:
War & Love in Israel; The 'Other' in Modern Hebrew Literature; Holocaust in Lit and Film.
283. (FOLK280, JWST260, NELC258, RELS221) Jewish Folklore in Literature. (M) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in History & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior
only. Ben-Amos. The Jews are among the few nations and ethnic
groups whose oral tradition occurs in literary and religious
texts dating back more than two thousand years. This tradition
changed and diversified over the years in terms of the migration
of Jews into different countries and historical, social,
and cultural changes that these countries underwent. The
course attempts to capture thei historical and ehtnic diversity
of Jewish folklore in a variety of oral liteary forms. A
basic book of Hasidic legends from the 18th century will
serve as a key text to explore problems in Jewish folklore
relating to both earlier and later periods.
288. (AFRC288, ENGL288) Topics in American Poetry. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. Sometimes limiting itself to the works of one or two authors, sometimes focusing
on a particular theme such as "American Poetry and Democratic Culture," this course devotes itself
to the study of twentieth-century America poetry.
SM 290. (ENGL290, GSOC290) Topics Women in Literature. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. The advanced women's studies course in the department, focusing on a particular
aspect of literature by and about women. Topics might include: "Victorian Literary Women"; "Women,
Politics, and Literature"; "Feminist Literary Theory"; and similar foci.
SM 291. (ENGL294) Topics Literary Theory. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This course explores an aspect of literary theory intensively; specific course
topics vary from year to year.
SM 292. (CINE202) Topics Film Theory and Criticism. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Katz, Corrigan, Decherney, Beckman. This topic course explores aspects of Film Practice intensively. Specific course
topics vary from year to year. See the Cinema Studies website at <http://cinemastudies.sas.upenn.edu/> for a
description of the current offerings.
SM 294. (ANTH294, GSOC294) Reading Global Feminist Theory. (M) Staff. Resistance to local and global patriarchies, imperialism and capitalism constitute
the historical context of Third World feminisms. Women's struggles against these practices constitute their identity
in such a way that the very category of women becomes determined in terms of the intersection of class, race, nation
and culture specific politics and histories. In this course we shall focus on the historical development of women's liberation
movements in South Asia, Middle- East and certain parts of Africa. We shall examine the ways in which women's
movements in these parts of the world have led to a necessary convergence of anti-racist, anti-imperialist struggles
along with oppositions to patriarchy and capitalism. We shall also examine the political and philosophical implications
of Third World feminisms for some specific feminist trends developed by women of the First World.
SM 296. (CLST296, ENGL229) Classical Background. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This advanced seminar will examine the classical backgrounds to English poetry,
in particular the Biblical and Greco- Roman antecedents to Renaissance lyric verse and verse drama (such as, preeminently,
Shakespeare). Different versions of this course will have different emphases on Biblical or Hellenist
backgrounds.
SM 300. (HIST322, ITAL300) Topics in Italian History, Literature, and Culture.
(M) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Kirkham. This is a topics
course.
302. (CLST302) Odyssey and its Afterlife. (B) Murnaghan. As an epic account of wandering, survival, and homecoming, Homer's Odyssey has
been a constant source of themes and images with which to define and redefine the nature of heroism, the sources
of identity, and the challenge of finding a place in the world.
SM 310. (GSOC310, ITAL310) The Medieval Reader. (M) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Kirkham. Through a range of authors including Augustine, Dante, Petrarch, Galileo, and
Umberto Eco, this course will explore the world of the book in the manuscript era and contrast it with our own assumptions
about reading. Lectures/discussion in English.
SM 332. (ENGL356) Topics In Modern Drama. (A) Staff. Benjamin Franklin Seminar. Major texts in the modern drama from the time of Ibsen through World War I.
Plays by playwrights Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov and Shaw, Zola, Hauptmann, Wedekind, Maeterlinck and Gorky. The plays
are generally considered as scripts for performance and the dramatic technique of each playwright wi ll
be considered in the relation to contemporary dramatic and theatrical movements.
SM 333. (ENGL223, ITAL333) Dante's Divine Comedy. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Brownlee. In this course we will read the Inferno, the Purgatorio and the Paradiso, focusing
on a series of interrelated problems raised by the poem: authority, fiction, history, politics and language. Particular
attention will be given to how the Commedia presents itself as Dante's autobiography, and to how the autobiographical
narrative serves as a unifying thread for this supremely rich literary text. Supplementary readings will include
Virgil's Aeneid and selections from Ovid's Metamorphoses. All readings and written work will be in English. Italian
or Italian Studies credit will require reading Italian texts in the original language and writing about their themes
in Italian. This course may be taken for graduate credit, but additional work and meetings with the instructor will be
required.
343. (HIST343) Nineteenth Century European Intellectual History. (A) Breckman. Starting with the dual challenges of Enlightenment and Revolution
at the close of the eighteenth century, this course examines
the emergence of modern European thought and culture in the
century from Kant to Nietzsche. Themes to be considered include Romanticism, Utopian Socialism, early Feminism, Marxism,
Liberalism, and Aestheticism. Readings include Kant, Hegel,
Burke, Marx, Mill, Wollstonecraft, Darwin, Schopenhauer,
and Nietzsche.
344. (HIST344) 20th Century European Intellectual History. (B) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Breckman. European intellectual and cultural
history from 1870 to 1950. Themes to be considered include
aesthetic modernism and the avant-garde, the rebellion against
rationalism and positivism, Social Darwinism, Second International
Socialism, the impact of World War One on European intellectuals,
psychoanalysis, existentialism, and the ideological origins
of fascism. Figures to be studied include Nietzsche, Freud,
Woolf, Sartre, Camus, and Heidegger.
SM 350. (GSOC350) Introduction to Criticism. (M) Staff. This course includes both a general survey of classic writings in Western aesthetics
as well as readings on the major trends in literary criticism in the twentieth century. A recurring theme will
be the literary canon and how it reflects or influences values and interpretative strategies. Among the topics covered are
feminist literary criticism, structuralism and poststructuralism, Marxist criticism, and psychological criticism. Authors
include Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Hegel, T.S. Eliot, Bakhtin, Sontag, Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, Virginia Woolf,
de Beauvoir, Showalter, Cixous, Gilbert and Guber, Kolodny, Marx, Benjamin, and Freud.
353. (COML505, NELC434) Arabic Literature and Literary Theory. (A) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Allen. This course takes a number of different areas of Literary Theory and, on the
basis of research completed and in progress in both Arabic and Western languages, applies some of the ideas to
texts from the Arabic literary tradition. Among these areas are: Evaluation and Interpretation, Structuralism, Metrics,
Genre Theory, Narratology, and Orality.
354. (CLST360, ENGL221, GSOC223) The Epic Tradition. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Copeland. Benjamin Franklin Seminar. This course looks
at a number of strands in the broad epic tradition: narratives
of warfare, quest narratives (both geographical and spiritual),
and the combination of the two in narratives of chivalry
and love. We will start with Homer, reading good portions
of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey",and
then see how Homeric themes are reprised in Virgil's narrative
of travel, conquest, and empire, the "Aeneid".
We will then look at St. Augustine's "Confessions",
which has some claim to being considered an "epic" of
spiritual discovery, and consider how Augustine reflects
back upon his classical narrative sources. From there we
will move to one medieval epic of warfare, conquest, and
empire, the "Song of Roland", which emerges from
the same kind of oral poetic culture that produced the ancient
Homeric epics. In the last part of the course we will read
some Arthurian romances, which take up certain themes familiar
from epic, but place them in a new context: the medieval
institution of chivalry, where the ancient warrior is replaced
by the medieval knight, where the collective battle is replaced
by the individual quest, and where the psychology of sexual
desire is now foregrounded as a motivation for heroic self-realization.
SM 355. (ENGL359) Topics in Modernism. (C) Staff. This course explores an aspect of literary modernism intensively; specific course
topics will vary from year to year. Past offerings have included seminars on the avant-garde, on the politics of
modernism, and on its role in shaping poetry, music, and the visual arts.
SM 356. (FREN356, GSOC356) Early Modern Women's Writing: Italy, England, France.
(C) DeJean. We will compare the three powerful traditions of women's writing that developed
in the 16th and 17th centuries: in Italy, in England and in France. We will read works by, among others, Veronica
Franc Fonte, Aphra Behn, Margaret Cavendish, Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette and Madeleine de Scudery. We will concentrate
on works in prose and, in particular, on the two genres whose development was shaped by women writers:
novels and treatises defending women's rights. We will think about what it meant to be a woman writer in these
countries and at this period. We will also try to understand the conditions that made it possible for these traditions
to develop. French and Italian workswill be read in translation.
357. (ANTH226, FOLK229) Myth in Ancient and Modern Society. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Ben-Amos. In this course we will explore the
mythologies of selected peoples in the Ancient Near East,
Africa, Asia, and Native North and South America and examinehow
the gods function in the life and belief of each society.
The study of mythological texts will be accompanied, as much
as possible, by illustrative slides that will show the images
of these deities in art and ritual.
SM 359. (COLL227, HEBR359, HEBR659, JWST359, JWST556) Studies Modern Hebrew Literature
- World Lit Course. (B) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Gold. This is a topics course. This course is designed as a first course in Hebrew and Israeli literatures
in their original forms: no re-written or reworked texts will be presented. It aims to introduce major literary works,
genres and figures, Texts and discussions will be in Hebrew. Depending on the semester's focus, fiction, poetry or other
forms of expression will be discussed. This course is meant to provide methods for literary interpretation through
close reading of these texts. Personal, social, and political issues that find expression in the culture will also be
examined. Past topics include: "Poems, Song, Nation;" Israeli Drama," "The Israeli Short Story;" Postmodernist
Israeli Writing;" and "Israel through Poets' Lenses."
360. (ENGL394, FREN383, ROML390) Introduction to Literary Theory. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. In this course, we will examine
a broad corpus of texts from a range of modern literary-theoretical
schools, including formalism, structuralism, deconstruction,
reader-response theory, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism,
and post-colonialism. Through detailed readings of these
works, we will address such issues as: the nature of language
and its relationship to reality; the problems of identity
and ideology; the notions of cultural authority and difference;
and the politics of literature and "theory." Secondary
readings will be drawn from British, German, and French/Francophone
literary traditions. Taught in English.
SM 372. (FREN382) Italian and Anglo-American Fiction. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only.
Staff. This is a topics course. The titles may be "Italian
and Anglo-American Criticism, "Horror Cinema," or "Arcades
Project.".
SM 378. (AFRC293, ENGL293, GSOC226) Topics in Literature and Society. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This is a topics course. The titles may include "Vampires:The Undead," "Political
Theatre," "Writing Down Under," "Diaspora Culture," or "Caribbean Literature."
SM 380. (JWST255, NELC250, NELC550, RELS224) The Bible in Translation. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Tigay. Study of the Book of Genesis as a literary and religious work, in the light
of modern scholarship, archaeology, and comparative literature of religion.
SM 381. (CINE345, FREN380) Literature of the Twentieth Century. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This course, the theme of which changes from semester to semester, provides
an introduction to important trends in twentieth century literature.
SM 382. (CINE340, ITAL380) Italian Literature of the 20th Century. (M) Staff. Topics vary, covering a range of genres and authors. The reading material and the bibliographical references will be provided in
course reader. Further material will be presented in class.
Requirements include class attendance, preparation, and participation,
a series of oral responses, and a final oral presentation.
SM 383. (CLST396, ENGL394) Literary Theory Ancient to Modern. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Copeland. Benjamin Franklin Seminar. This is
a course on the history of literary criticism, a survey of
major theories of literature, poetics, and ideas about what
literary texts should do from ancient Greece to examples
of modern European and American thought. The course will
give special attention to early periods: Greek and Roman
antiquity, especially Plato and Aristotle; the medieval period
(including St. Augustine, Dante, and Boccaccio), and the
early modern period (where we will concentrate on Englsih
writers such as Philip Sidney and Ben Johnson). We'll move
into modern and 20th century by looking at the literary (or "art")
theories of some major philosophers, artists, and poets:
Kant, Wordsworth, Marx and Engels, Matthew Arnold, and the
painter William Morris, T.S. Eliot, and the philosopher Walter
Benjamin. We'll end with a very few samples of current literary
theory.
SM 385. (EALC255, FOLK485, THAR485) Japanese Theatre. (A) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Kano. Japan has one of the richest and most varied theatrical traditions in the world.
In this course, we will examine Japanese theatre in historical and comparative contexts. The readings and discussions
will cover all areas of the theatrical experience (script, acting, stage, design, costumes, music, audience). Audio-visual
material will be used whenever appropriate and possible. Requirements include short writing assignments, presentations,
and one research paper. Reading knowledge of Japanese and/or previous course-work in literature/theatre
will be helpful, but not required. The class will be conducted in English, with all English materials.
SM 392. (ENGL393, SAST323) Topics in Postcolonial Lit. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Loomba. Benjamin Franklin Seminar. This course explores an aspect of Postcolonial literature intensively; specific
course topics vary from year to year.
SM 395. (ENGL395) TOPICS CULTURAL ST.
SM 396. (ENGL270, LALS393, ROML396) Latin American Literature. (M) Staff. This is a topics course.
SM 401. (COLL224, RUSS401) Russian Poetics - World Lit. (A) Steiner. Prerequisite(s): RUSS 311. This course is taught in Russian. This course can be crosslisted with RUSS 401 or
402. Introduction to the analysis of poetic texts, based on the works of Batyushkov,
Lermontov, Tyutchev, Fet, Mandelshtam, and others.
SM 402. (COLL224, RUSS402) Pushkin. (B) Steiner. Prerequisite(s): RUSS 311. This course is taught in Russian. Consideration of the writer's lyrics, narrative poems, and drama.
417. (ARTH417) Islamic Art and Architecture. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Holod. Istanbul, Samarkand, Isfahan, Cairo and Delhi as major centers of art production
in the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. Attention will be given to urban and architectural achievement as
well as to the key monuments of painting and metalwork. The visual environment of the "gunpowder empires".
SM 418. (HIST418) Europe Intell Since 1945. (B) Breckman. This course concentrates on French intellectual history after 1945,
with some excursions into Germany. We will explore changing
conceptions of the intellectual, from Satre's concept of
the 'engagement' to Foucault's idea of the 'specific intellectual';
the rise and fall of existentialism;structuralism and poststructuralism;
and the debate over 'postmodernity.'
SM 432. (ARAB432, COLL226) Arabic Belle-Lettres. (A) Allen. Prerequisite(s): Proficiency in ARAB 035. Readings in Arabic texts taken
from a variety of literary genres from all periods. The course
aims to improve reading skills and vocabulary by introducing
students to extensive passages taken from Arabic literature.
SM 451. (COLL226, SAST451) Readings In Hindi. (M) Behl. Prerequisite(s): Two years of Hindi instruction. This course is designed
to introduce students to the different literary traditions
of premodern and modern Hindi. Readings include Braj and
Avadhi poetry, modern Hindi poetry, short and long narrative
fiction, and drama. Selections will be drawn from early authors
as well as from the developing literary traditions of modern
standard Hindi. Contemporary Hindi writers are included,
as well as some Hindi critical and commentatorial prose.
Depending on student and faculty interest, topics may change
from year to year; students may repeat the course for credit
with the permission of the instructor.
SM 475. Senior Seminar. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only.
Staff. Advanced study of changing topics in comparative literature
and literary theory.
Honors Thesis. (C) Independent Study. (C)Supervised study for Seniors.
SM 521. (GSOC537, ITAL537) Boccaccio. Kirkham. Boccaccio's life and work in the context of Italian and European culture and
society.
SM 682. (ENGL571, SPAN682) Seminar on Literary Theory. (M) de la Campa. This course begins with an overview of major statements on poetics and literary
theory from Plato to the 20th century. We will then study in detail more contemporary theoretical statements with a
view to acquiring a broad knowledge of modern literary criticism. Throughout the semester we will attempt to identify
topics and issues that are of particular relevance to students working within the Hispanic literary and critical tradition.
Among the authors studied will be Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, Dante, Castelvetro, Lessing, Arnold, Taine, Saussure,
Barthes, Derrida, de Man, Althusser, Butler and Latour.
SM 697. (SPAN697) Studies in Latin American Culture. Laddaga. The course will be an investigation of the most influential styles of conceptualizing
the relationship between artistic or literary productions and political practices in Latin America between the 1950s
and the present. We will pay special attention to the genesis and structure of the notion of "liberation," and
to its subsequent crisis. We will also try to determine th predicament of political art and literature in times of globalization.
We will read texts by, among others, Pablo Neruda, Julio Cortazar, Glauber Rocha Reinaldo Arenas, Osvaldo Lamborghini,
and Diamela Eltit, and analyze images o several artists, from Antonio Berni and Helio Oiticica, to Doris Salcedo
and Cildo Meireles.
Graduate Courses
SM 501. (CLST511, ENGL571, GRMN534, ROML512, SLAV500) Basic Issues in the History
of Literary Theory. (A) Staff. This course is an introduction to literary and cultural theory and to
some of the key problems of questions that animate theoretical
discussion among literary scholars today. These include questions
about aesthetics and cultural value, about ideology and hegemony,
about the patriarchal and colonial bases of Western culture,
and about the status of the cultural object, the cultural
critic, and cultural theory itself.
SM 503. (ITAL501) Italian Literary Theory. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. One topic may be "History and Language
of Italy.".
505. (COML353, NELC434) Arabic Literature and Literary Theory. (A) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Allen. This course takes a number of different areas of Literary Theory and, on the
basis of research completed and in progress in both Arabic and Western languages, applies some of the ideas to
texts from the Arabic literary tradition. Among these areas are: Evaluation and Interpretation, Structuralism, Metrics,
Genre Theory, Narratology, and Orality.
SM 506. (CINE500, ENGL461) Topics in Twentieth-Century Literature. (M) Staff.
SM 507. (GSOC507) Feminist Theory. (M) Staff. The course has four foci: I. the French intellectual background of the
1960's and how feminist theory in Europe and America has
appropriated, criticized and reinterpreted the prevailing
trends of the period. II. The contention that each gender
possesses psychological characteristics traditionally considered
as the prerogative of the opposite gender. III. The emphasis
on a female specificity. IV. The emphasis on cultural determinism,
an endeavor which usually involves a criticism of III, whose
various manifestations are sometimes hastily lumped together
under the term "neoessentialism".
SM 508. (ITAL562) World Views in Collision: The Counter-Reformation and Scientific
Revolution. (M)Kirkham. The exploration of the radical conflicts that developed in 16th and 17th century
Europe when Protestant reformers and scientific discoveries challenged the authority of the Catholic Church. Freedom
of thought, heresy, censorship, and Utopian ideals will be discussed with reference to such figures as Machiavelli,
Luther, Rabelais, More, Copernicus, and Galileo, who will be studied through their own writings, those of their contemporaries
(both enemies and advocates), and in recreations by 20th century playwrights.
SM 509. (RELS539) Kierkegaard. (C) Dunning. Critical examination of selected texts by Kierkegaard. Discussion of such issues
as the pseudonymous writings and indirect communication, the theory of stages of religious development, the attack
upon establishment religion, the psychological dimension of Kierkegaard's thought, and his relations to his predecessors,
particularly Hegel.
SM 512. (ANTH503, ENGL503, FOLK503) Issues Folklore Theory. (C) Abrahams. An introduction to folklore for graduate students, concentrating upon certain key issues in the theory and
history of the discipline.
SM 514. (CLST514, ENGL504) History of Language. (M) Copeland. This is a topics course. If the title is "Between Antiquity and Modernity: Literary Theory in the Middle Ages," the
following description applies. An introduction to the methods of historical linguistics through a study of
English from its prehistoric origins to the present day.
SM 520. (ITAL520) Medieval "Autobiography": Augustine to Petrarch. (M) Brownlee. The course will explore the development of a new authorial subject in 13th-
and 14th-century first-person narrative, culminating in Petrarch's Canzoniere adn Secretum. Our central focus will be
on the changing status of "confessional" and "conversionary" discourse in terms of selfhood and power. Of particular
importance will be radical shifts in the relation between confession and conversion among the various texts in our corpus.
We will start with St. Augustine's Confessions--the privileged model for medieval confessional narratives, which
also serves as the point of departure for the different "autobiographical" stances at issue in our various texts.
These will include Abelard's Historia calamitatum, Brunetto Latini's Tesoretto, Dante's Vita Nuova, and Petrarch's
Canzoniere, read in part as a dialectic between the fragmented and the coherent self. The poetics of the collection
will also be considered in this context. We will conclude with Petrarch's Secretum, a dramatic dialogue in which St. Augustine
(as a character) confesses and attempts to convert (without success) the character Franciscus (Petrarch). Taught
in English. Can also be taken by qualified undergraduates, with instructor's permission.
SM 524. (ITAL535) Petrarch. (M) Brownlee. This course will study Petrarch's lyric poetry with reference to its Italian
roots (Sicilian school, dolce stil nuovo) and European posterity: Renaissance and Baroque Petrarchism as well as impingement
on the Romantics.
SM 525. (PHIL525) Topics in the Philosophy of Science. (M) Weisberg. This is a topics course. Topics may be "Feminist Theory and Philosophy in Science" or "Naturalism and
Scientific Change.".
SM 526. (ENGL705, HIST526, SLAV526) In Defiance of Babel: The Quest for a Universal
Language. (M)Verkholantsev. The course explores the historical trajectory of man's attempt to discover or
create an ideal universal language as a medium for explaining the essence of human experience and a means for universal
communication.
SM 527. (HEBR583, HIST523, JWST523, RELS523) Studies in Medieval Jewish Culture.
(A) Fishman. Prerequisite(s): Unless otherwise noted, reading knowledge of Hebrew is required. Primary source readings from a broad array of medieval Jewish genres. Topic
will vary from one semester to another, for example: custom, gender, dissent.
SM 529. (FOLK532, NELC682) Proverb, Riddle, Speech. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Ben-Amos. Through readings and collaborative projects
this working seminar will explore the place of metaphor in
the genres of proverb and riddle and examine their position
in oral communication in traditional and modern societies.
Critical readings of former definitions and models of riddles
and metaphors will enable students to obtain a comprehensive
perspective of these genres that will synthesize functional,
structural, metaphoric, and rhetoric theories.
SM 531. Medieval Italian Literature. (M) Brownlee, K. This is a topics course. The topics may be "Medieval Italian
Literature" or "Discourses of Confession: Augustine
to Petrarch." If the course is the latter, the following
description will apply. The course will explore the development of a new authorial subject in 13th-
and 14th century European literature, culminating in Petrarch's
CANZONIERE. Related problems will be "confessional" and "conversionary" narrative
modes, and the poetics of the collection. Texts will include
Heloise and Abelard (HISTORIA CALAMITATUM), Brunetto Latini
(LIVRE DOU TRESOR and TESORETTO), LE ROMAN DE LA ROSE/IL
FIORE, and Dante's VITA NUOVA. Taught in English.
SM 532. (DTCH530, ENGL590) Topics in Dutch Studies. (M) Staff.
SM 533. (ITAL531) Dante's Divine Comedy I. (M) Brownlee, K. A close reading of the first two parts of Dante's masterpiece, the INFERNO and
the PURGATORIE, which focuses on a series of interrelated problems raised by the poem: authority, representation,
history and language. Particular attention will be given to the COMMEDIA'S use of Classical and Christian model
texts: Virgil's AENEID, Ovid's METAMORPHOSES, and the Bible.
SM 534. (GSOC534, ITAL534) Woman in Poetry. (M) Kirkham. Prerequisite(s): Reading knowledge of Italian. Conducted in English; undergradutes need permission. Poetry by women and about women.
SM 535. (RELS535) Varieties of Christianity before Irenaeus. (K) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Kraft. A survey of the known groups and perspectives that emerged in the first 150
years or so of the development of "Christianity" from its roots in Judaism and the hellenistic world(s),
with special attention to the primary sources (especially literary) and to modern attempts at historical synthesis.
SM 536. (GRMN535) Goethe's Novels. (M) MacLeod. With each of his major novels, Goethe intervened decisively and provocatively
in the genre and wider culture. This seminar will analyze three of Goethe's novels spanning his career: the epistolary
novel The Sorrows of Young Werther; the novel of adultery Elective Affinities, and the "archival" novel
Wilhelm Meisters Journeyman Years. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which these novels address questions of
modernization - technology and secularization, to name only two - through the lens of individuals who understand
themselves in relation to artistic media. We will also consider seminal scholarship on the novels (e.g. Benjamin,
Luk_cs)in addition to recent critical approaches.
SM 537. (ENGL537) Renaissance Epic. (M) Staff. Focusing centrally on Spenser and Milton, the course will also take up continental
Renaissance epics and epic theory: Ariosto, Tasso, Tonsard, D'Aubigny. The main emphasis of the course discussion
will be on the process of canon- formation, using the privileged status of epic to investigate the interconnections
between the social and literary procedures by which an elite list of texts gets constructed.
SM 538. (ENGL531) Renaissance Poetry. (M) Staff. The aim of this course is to provide opportunities for students to experience
at first-hand some of the literary forms, themes and characteristic sensibilities of ancient poetry of Greece, Rome and
Israel which provide meaningful contexts for a wide range of English poetry. The topics may be "Sonnets Cycles," or "Passages
from Chaucer to Shakespeare."
SM 539. (GRMN540) Memory. (M) Weissberg. In recent years, studies of memory (both individual and cultural) have rivaled
those of history, and have produced alternative narratives of events. At the same time, research has also focused
on the rupture of narrative, the inability to find appropriate forms of telling, and the experience of a loss of words. The
notion of trauma (Greek for "wound") may stand for such a rupture. Many kinds of narratives, most prominently the recollections
of Holocaust survivors, are instances in which memories are invoked not only to come to terms with traumatic
events, but also to inscribe trauma in various ways. In this seminar, we will read theoretical work on memory and
trauma, discuss their implication for the study of literature, art, and culture, read select examples from Holocaust survivors'
autobiographies (i.e. Primo Levi, EliWiesel), and discuss visual art (i.e. Boltanski, Kiefer) and film (i.e. Resnais,
Lanzmann, Spielberg).
SM 540. (ITAL540) Topics in Renaissance Culture. (M) Staff. Renaissance Italian society, art, intellectual and political history.
SM 543. (ENGL535) Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. If the title for the semester is "Readings in Renaissance Romance: Incest, Agency, and Female
Authority" the following description and crosslisting apply:Readings in the work of Shakespeare and other writers of the period. Specific
texts vary with instructor.
SM 544. (RELS538) Modern Christian Thinkers. (M) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Dunning. Close study of selected texts dealing with the relation between Christian ideas
and modern thought.
SM 546. (ENGL538) Major Renaissance Writers. (M) Staff. This is a monographic course, which may be on Spenser, Milton, or other major
figures of the period.
SM 547. (ENGL545) Eighteenth Century Novel. (M) Staff. A survey of the major novelists of the period, beginning with Defoe and a few
of the writers of amatory fiction in the early decades of the century and then moving on to representative examples of
the celebrated novels by Richardson, Fielding, and others of the mid-century and after.
SM 550. (ENGL550, GSOC550) Romantic Theory and Practice. (M) Staff. This course will explore the cultural context in which the so-called Romantic
Movement prospered, and will pay special attention to the relationship between the most notorious popular genres
of the period (Gothic fiction and drama) and the poetic production of both canonical and emerging poets.
SM 551. (ENGL551) British Romanticism. (M) Staff. This course attempts a concentrated survey of the early years -- primarily the
1790's --of the English Romantic period. Specific texts vary with instructor, but usually include works from Blake, Coleridge,
and Wordsworth.
SM 552. (ARTH550, CINE550, GRMN550) Topics in Film. (K) Richter. This is a topics course. The topics may be "Constructing the Field of German Film Studies," "Boccaccio
and Illustrations," or "Hollywood and Berlin.". From the early 20th century, German cinema has played a key role in the history
of film. Seminar topics may include: Weimar cinema, film in the Nazi period, East German film, the New German cinema,
and feminist film.
SM 554. (ENGL553, GSOC553) British Women Writers. (M) Wallace. This is a topics course. One topic may be "Premodern Women Writers.". A study of British women writers, often focusing on the women authors who came
into prominence between 1775 and 1825.
SM 556. (JWST356, JWST555, NELC356, RELS418) Ancient Interpretation of the Bible
and Contemporary Literary Theory. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only.
Stern. The purpose of this course is two-fold: first, to
study some of the more important ways in which the Bible
was read and interpreted before the modern period; second,
to consider the uses to which some contemporary literary
theorists have put these ancient modes of interpretation
as models and precursors for their own writing. The major
portion of the course will be devoted to intensive readings
of major ancient exegetes, Jewish and Christian with a view
to considering their exegetical approaches historically as well as from the perspective of
contemporary critical and hermeneutical theory. Readings of primary sources will be accompanied by secondary readings
that will be both historically oriented as well as theoretical, with the latter including Hartman, Kermode, Todorov,
and Bloom.
SM 557. (CINE556, ENGL556, GSOC556) Topics in 19th C. Literature. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. The titles may be "Nineteenth Century Fiction: England and Beyond" or "Nineteenth
Century Realism and the Occult.".
SM 560. (FOLK531, NELC684) Prose Narrative. (A) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Ben-Amos. The topics of discussion in the course are the following: the nature of narrative,
narrative taxonomy and terminology, performance in storytelling events, the transformation of historical experience
into narrative, the construction of symbolic reality, the psycho-social interpretation of folktales, the search
for the minimal units, the historic-geographic method in folktale studies, the folktale in history and the history of folktale
research.
SM 564. (ENGL564) Modern British Literature. (M) Staff. An introduction to British Literary Modernism. Specific emphasis will depend
on instructor.
SM 569. (AFRC569, ENGL569, GSOC569) Topics in American Literature. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. The titles can be "African-American and Chicano Feminism," "Literatures
of Jazz," or "Queer and 19th-century American Literature.".
SM 570. (CINE515, ENGL573) Topics in Criticism and Theory. (M) Staff. This course covers topics in literary criticism and theory. It's specific emphasis
varying with instructor.
SM 573. (AFRC570, ENGL570) Afro-American Literature. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. The topics may be "Afro-American Literature," "Afro-American Women Writers," "Three
Afro-American Writers: Ellison, Gaines and McPherson," or "Afro-American Autobiography." If the title is "Afro-American
Literature: Black Music Among the Discourses," the following description applies.
SM 575. (AFRC572, AFST572, ENGL572) Topics in African Literature. (M) Barnard. This course is concerned with the context, and as aspect of the content and
form, of African Literature. It is based on a selection of representative texts written in English, as well as a few in English
translation. It involves, first, a study of themes relating to social change and the persistence of cultural traditions,
followed by an attempt at sketching the emergence of literary tradition by identifying some of the formal conventions
established by the writers in their use of old forms and experiments with new.
SM 577. (ENGL589) 20th Century Poetry. (M) Bernstein. A study of the major figures of American poetry of the early 20th-century. T.S.
Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens and Robert Frost are usually included.
SM 579. (ARTH584, GRMN579) Winckelman. (M) MacLeod. Celebrity-scholar, literary stylist, cultural monument, pagan hero, self-made
man, homosexual codeword, murder victim: despite his humble origins in Prussia, Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-68)
enjoyed a meteoric career as an archaeologist and art historian in Rome and came to define a century. His developmental
view of culture and his celebration of Greek art challenged prevailing ideas and established new paradigms.
The seminar will pay careful attention to Winckelmann's most important writings, including "Reflections
on the Imitation of the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks" (1755), the "History of Ancient Art" (1764),
and his famous descriptions of statues such as the Belvedere Apollo and Laocoon group, while keeping in mind the context of mid
eighteenth century Rome. The lasting impact of Winckelmann's Greek subject matter, his aestetic theory, and his literary
style will be traced, with readings ranging from Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Walter Peter,
Rainer Maria Rilke, and Thomas Mann, to the troubling reincarnation of Winckelmann's statues in Leni Riefenstahl's
Fascist Olympic films. Finally, Winckelmann's central role in the field of queer studies wil be explored, via
a consideration of his representation of the male body
SM 580. (JWST525, RELS525) Judaism in the Hellenistic Era. (H) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. An examination of the varieties of Jewish thought current from ca. 300 BCE to
ca. 200 CE, and of the ways in which early Christians adapted and/or reacted to this Jewish heritage. Primary course
materials include Philo and Josephus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Paul and the Jewish "Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha." Online
course materials can be accessed through the instructor's homepage.
SM 581. (GRMN553, RELS508) Hermeneutics. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Dunning. A seminar on such problems as subjectivity vs. objectivity in interpretation.
Other topics include the nature of a "text," the role of the author's intention, and the relations between interpretation
and both history and language. Focus upon the hermeneutical theories of such thinkers as Gadamer, Hirsch, Ricoeur, Habermans,
and Steiner.
SM 582. (GRMN580, PHIL480) Topics in Aesthetics. (A) Staff. This is a topics course. The topics may be "Walter Benjamin" or "Aura and Reflection."
SM 584. (GRMN581, HIST490, JWST490, RELS429) Topics in Jewish-German Culture. (M) Weissberg.
SM 585. (ENGL592) 20th Century Literature and Theory. (M) Love. This is a topics course. One topic may be "Queer Theory and Histories.". This course treats some aspect of literary and cultural politics in the 20th-Century
with emphasis varying by instructor.
SM 586. (ARTH586) Twentieth Century Criticism & Theory. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Poggi. This seminar will examine the ideas of a number of influential theorists in
a variety of disciplines who have contributed to the ways in which we understand and evaluate art. A tentative and flexible
list includes: Kant, Denis, Fry, Greenberg, Schapiro, de Bord, Derrida, Lacan, Kristeva, Baudrillard.
SM 588. (ENGL591, GSOC591) Modernism. (B) Staff. This is a topics course. One topic may be "The Idea of the Model in Literature and Art.". This course examines shifts in the idea of beauty that came about through modernist
movements in the arts. We will begin with Kant and Burke then observe the growing dominance of the sublime
over the beautiful in the basic trends of 20-century modernism. In particular, will examine the symbols of woman, ornament,
form, and fetish as they weave in and out of twentieth-century aesthetics. With woman the predominant nineteenth-century
symbol of beauty, the "turn away from beauty" in modernism is inevitably connected to gender politics,
as current, much-heralded "return to beauty." We will observe contemporary artists and theorists wrestling with
the problem of how to reinstate the value of beauty without at the same time regressing to a pre-feminist mind-set.
SM 589. (FREN582) Fantastic Literatures in 19th and 20th Centuries. (M) Met. This course will explore fantasy and the fantastic in short tales of 19th- and
20th-century French literature. A variety of approaches -- thematic, psychoanalytic, cultural, narratological -- will be
used in an attempt to test their viability and define the subversive force of a literary mode that contributes to shedding
light on the dark side of the human psyche by interrogating the "real," making visible the unseen and articulating
the unsaid. Such broad categories as distortions of space and time, reason and madness, order and disorder, sexual transgressions,
self and other will be considered. Readings will include "recits fantastiques" by Merime, Gautier, Nerval,
Maupassant, Breton, Mandiargues, Jean Ray and others.
SM 590. (ENGL590) Recent Issues in Critical Theory. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. The titles may be "Post-Modern Criticism," "Media
and Cultural Theory," "Writing and Materiality," "Modern Social Imaginaries," or "Freud and
His Commentators."
SM 591. (RELS436) Life & Letters of Paul. (J) Staff. An attempt to understand Paul and his writings, although reference will be made
to other canonical and on-canonical traditions about Paul.
SM 593. (ITAL581) Modern and Contemporary Italian Culture. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. One topic may be "Futurism, Classicism, Fascism.". This is a topics course. One topic may be "Futurism, Classicism, Fascism."
SM 594. (ENGL595, SAST620) Post-Colonial Discourse. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. The topic may be "Asian American Lit," or "Post-Coloniality and Cultural Value.".
SM 595. (CINE680, FREN680) Studies in 20th Century French Lit. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. Topics may be "Representing the Social in Modern French Literature" or "Critical
Thought from Proust to Tournier" or "Georges Bataille.".
SM 597. (ENGL597) Modern Drama. (M) Staff. This course will survey several basic approaches to analyzing dramatic literature
and the theatre. The dramatic event will be broken into each of its Aristotelian components for separate attention
and analysis: Action (plot), Character, Language, Thought, Music and Spectacle. Several approaches to analysing the
dramatic text will be studied: phenomenological, social-psychological, semiotic, and others.
SM 598. (PHIL585) Aesthetics: Emotion in the Arts. (M) Guyer/Camp. Undergraduates need permission. This course will investigate historical and contemporary philosophical views
on the role of the emotions in the arts. Do we have genuine emotional responses to works of art - to fiction? paintings?
music? If so, what are the conditions under which we do and don't have such emotional responses? When are such responses
appropriate? In particular, does an appropriate aesthetic attitude require emotional distance from the object
of the artwork? Is it inappropriate to respond emotionally to morally depraved artworks? How do formal devices induce,
constrain, and otherwise alter our emotional responses to art? Readings will be drawn from philosophers including
Jean-Baptise Du Bos, David Hume, Edmund Burke, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Home Lord Kames, Arthur Schopenhauer,
Edward Bullough, R.G. Collingwood, Stanley Cavell, Tamar Szabo Gendler, Richard Moran, Kendall Walton,
and others.
SM 600. (LATN602) Graduate Latin Poetry. (M) Staff. Reading and discussion of authors and texts to be announced.
SM 601. (CLST618, ENGL524) Medieval Education. (C) Copeland. An interdisciplinary course, it will utilize literary practices to "read" the
ways specific texts produce sexuality at the same time as it will examine the relation between discourses and the material
and political worlds in which those discourses are spoken. We will examine the role sexuality plays in the languages
of Imperialism and in the sexualization of political rhetoric. The course will explore theoretical approaches
to sexuality (and its discursive construction) proposed by Freud, Foucault, Sander Gilman, Gayle Rubin, Teresa
de Lauretis, Mary Douglas, and examine a broad range of "primary materials" from eighteenth-century
novels and pornography to nineteenth-century sexology to current feminist and political debates.
SM 603. (ANTH603) Language and Culture. (M) Agha. Anthropological study of languages and contributions of linguistics to study
of culture and culturally patterned behavior. Types of speech and cultural communities; linguistic and cultural
change (acculturation, pidginization, standardization, etc.) and its interpretation (genetic, typological, areal,
evolutionary).
SM 604. (FREN609) France and Its Others. (M) Richman. The purpose of this course is to examine the various modalities of interaction
between anthropology and literature in modern French culture. Our guiding thesis is that the turn toward other cultures
has functioned as a revitalizing element in the production of cultural artifacts while providing an alternative
vantage point from which to examine the development of French culture and society in the contemporary period. The impressive
innovations of "ethnosurrealism" in the twenties and thirties by Artaud, Bataille,
Caillois, and Leiris, have become acknowledged models for the postwar critical thought of Barthes, Derrida, and Foucault, as
well as inspiring a renewal of "anthropology as cultural critique" in the U.S. Key texts by Durkheim,
Mauss and Levi-Strauss will be considered both in their own terms and in relation to their widespread influence. The institutional
fate of these intellectual crossovers and their correlative disciplinary conflicts will provide the over-arching historical
frame for the course, from the turn of the century to the most recent debates.
SM 605. (ANTH605, FOLK605, MUSC605) Anthropology of Music. (C) Staff. Worlds of Music/Music Worlds This seminar will require in-depth reading, listening,
and writing about a grouof musical cultures often included in teaching about "World Music." In
other words, this seminar will require students to read a monograph a week, listen closely to related music, and write responsively
to this material. We begin with thinking about the musical "exotic" and move onto a series of musical
cultures from a wide range of places. The seminar will end with a discussion of the larger music, intellectual, and methodological
issues and challenges to thinking about worlds of music/music worlds as a comparative project. Those
who imagine they will have to teach a course on "World Music and Cultures" at the undergraduate or graduate
level, either sooner or later, will benefit from this class.
SM 606. (ENGL705, GREK602) Ancient Literary Theory. (M) Copeland/Rosen. This is a topics course. One topics may be "Ancient Texts and Post-classical Interpretation".
SM 607. (ENGL776) Contemporary Drama. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. Sometimes taught as a survey of modern and contemporary drama, this course can
also focus on a particular issue such as the politics of Western theatre, gender and performativity, or postmodernity
in the dramatic arts.
SM 609. (GREK609, RELS609) Ancient Divination and Semiotics. (M) Struck. This course will trace a history of signs, using Greek divination as the primary
focus. We will explore ancient and contemporary sign theories and their usefulness in illuminating ancient practices
of divination -- or the reading of signs thought to be imbedded in the world. Participants in the seminar will be expected
to contribute an expertise in one (or more) of three general areas: Greek literature, Greek and Roman religions, and
contemporary theory in the humanities. The course is open to graduate students without Greek as well as classicists
-- though please register appropriately. The particular areas we cover will to some extent be determined by the interests
of the participants, but will surely include: divination by dreams, entrails, and oracles as attested by literary and (to
a lesser extent) archaeological evidence; Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic and Neoplatonic theories of signs; and contemporary
semiotics as articulated mainly by Saussure, Barthes, and Eco. Ancient authors will include: Homer, Xenophon, Sophocles,
Plutarch, Cicero, Artemidorus, and Iamblichus.
SM 610. (SOCI602) Proseminar in Classical Sociology. (D) Collins. An overview of the German, French and Anglophone traditions in sociological
theory. The major focus will be on the works of Marx and Engels, Weber, Simmel, Durkheim, Mead, and DuBois. The works
of Nietzsche and Freud will also be considered.
SM 619. (ARTH617) Islamic Civilization and Visual Culture. (M) Holod. A one-semester survey of Islamic art and architecture which will examine visual
culture as it functions within the larger sphere of Islamic culture in general. Particular attention will be given to
relationships between visual culture and literature, using specific case studies, sites or objects which may be related
to various branches of Islamic literature, including historical, didactic, philisophical writings, poetry and religious
texts. All primary sources will be available in English translation.
SM 620. (ENGL748, FREN660) Studies in the Eighteenth Century. (A) DeJean. This is a topics course. The titles may be "Self and Subject in 18th C. France," "Sources
of European Modernity," "Post-Colonial Discourse," "Feminist Theory in Comparative and Historical Perspectives," "European
History," "Fate of the Subject in 20th Century Thought," "Reading History in Literature/Literature in History," "Studies
in 18th Century," or "Geography and the Novel.".
Topics of discussion will vary from semester to semester. One possible topic
is "Masterpieces of the Enlightenment." We will read the most influential texts of the Enlightenment, texts that shaped
the social and political consciousness characteristic of the Enlightenment--for example, the meditations on freedom
of religious expression that Voltaire contributed to "affaires" such as the "affaire Calas." We
will also discuss different monuments of the spirit of the
age-its corruption (Les Liaisons dangereuses), its libertine excesses and philosophy
(La Philosophie dans le boudoir). We will define the specificity of 18th-century prose (fiction), guided by a central
question: What was the Enlightenment? Another topic may be "The Enlightenment in Letters," or "Geography
and the Novel."
SM 622. (ENGL774) Postmodernism. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. If the title is "Postmodernism," the following
description applies: This course will consist of a series of genre-illuminating novels and major theories of the novel (by Sklovskij,
Lukacs, Booth, Bakhtin, Watts, and Frye). The aim is to experience the variety of the genre and its criticism,
and to discover the problems posed for the theorist by this anarchic literary type. The special focus will be on the postmodernist
novel. Other topics could be "Literature and Mass Culture," "Post-modern Poetry," "Textual
Conditions," or "Provincializing Europe."
SM 630. (FREN630, ITAL630) Introduction to Medieval Literature. (C) Brownlee. This is a topics course. The titles may be "Introduction to Medieval Literature" or "The Grail
and the Rose.". An introduction to French literature by close reading of key representative
works from hagiography, chanson de geste, romance, and lyric. The course will consider the creation and functioning of
these new generic forms in the French vernacular. Particular attention will be given to questions of authority, truth,
and language.
SM 631. (CLST630, ENGL715, FREN536) Medieval Allegory. (M) Brownlee/Copeland. For the Middle Ages, allegory represents a nexus of literary history and textual
theory, hermeneutics and theology, intellectual history and education, and theories of history and the transmission
of culture. Through medieval allegorical practices we see some of the deepest continuities with ancient hermeneutical
thought and also some of the most radical ruptures with the ancient past. Allegory, in other words, was as crucial and
charged a term for medieval culture as for contemporary thought. Allegory is at once a trope, that is, a specific and delimited
form, and an all-encompassing interpretive system. It will be the purpose of this seminar to try to articulate
the connections between that particular form and that general system by examining medieval allegory in its various literary
tnd philosophical contexts. Our focus will be the 12th through the early 15th centuries in both the vernacular
and Latin, with attention to late antique pihlosopihcal and theological foundations. We will also incorporate readings
from various modern perspectives on the history and theory of allegory. Readings will include theoretical perspectives
from neoplatonist and early Christian writers, 12th-century poetry and mythography (Alain de Lille, Bernardus Silvestris,
William of Conches), examples from later medieval theoological
writings, and substantial selections from the Roman de la Rose, Dante, Boccaccio, Gower,
Langland, and Christine de Pizan.
SM 632. (ITAL631) Dante's Commedia. (C) Brownlee. A close reading of the Inferno, Purgatorio and the Paradiso which focuses on
a series of interrelated problems raised by the poem: authority, representation, history, politics, and language. Particular
attention will be given to Dante's use of Classical and Christian model texts: Ovid's Metamorphoses, Virgil's Aeneid,
and the Bible. Dante's rewritings of model authors will also be studied in the context of the medieval Italian and
Provencal love lyric.
SM 634. (GRMN672) Reading Modernity. (J) Jarosinski. A study of modernism and Avant-Garde as concepts in literature, theater, and
criticism. It focuses on the crucial developments from Symbolism to Dadaism and Surrealism in their historical context.
Readings of representative authors, including Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Joyce, Eliot, Mann, Benjamin, Adorno.The
last part is devoted to the juxtaposition of Modernism and Postmodernism.
SM 637. (ENGL735, GSOC735) Shakespeare. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. The topic may be "Shakespeare's History Plays and Renaissance Historiography," "Hamlet
in History," "Historical Difference/Sexual Difference.".
SM 639. (COMM639, FOLK639) Issues in Cultural Studies. (M) Zelizer. This course tracks the different theoretical appropriations of "culture" and
examines how the meanings we attach to it depend on the perspectives through which we define it. The course first addresses
perspectives on culture suggested by anthropology, sociology, communication and aesthetics, and then considers the
tensions across academic disciplines that have produced what is commonly known as "cultural studies." The
course is predicated on the importance of becoming cultural critics versed in alternative ways of naming cultural problems,
issues and texts. The course aims not to lend closure to competing notions of culture but to illustrate the diversity
suggested by different approaches.
SM 640. (SPAN640) Studies in the Spanish Renaissance. (M) Staff. Topics of discussion will vary from semester to semester. Selections from the
works of Santillana, Mena, Rojas, Garcilaso, Juan and Alfonso del Valdes, Leon Hebreo, Juan de la Cruz, Luis de
Leon, and the "preceptistas."
SM 641. (ITAL640) Studies in Italian Renaissance. (M) Staff. Renaissance Italian society, art, intellectual and political history. Advanced
level course.
SM 645. (HIST645) History and Culture. (A) Staff. The aim of this course is to explore and test ways of (re)constructing past
cultural practices. The exploration begins with some basic concepts of culture and cultural change and their relationship
to social dynamics. Next we will try to identify and apply the most appropriate sources and methods for analyzing cultural "languages" (myth
or narrative, symbol, and ritual) and their "texts." We will look especially at
tools and insights that can be adapted from literary criticism and sociolinguistics, as well as from ethnography--always within the "discipline
of historical context" (E.P. Thompson). Emphasis will be documentary sources, published and unpublished,
but visual imagery and the material record in general, as well as oral traditions, will be included. Particular
attention will be paid to the interface between written and non-written texts, and the search for echoes of unrecorded voices.
The principal interpretive questions will revolve around two clusters of issues. One cluster involves evidence and standards
of verification; the other involves the ethics and rhetoric of cultural translation/representation.
SM 648. (ANTH648) Discourse and Power. (M) Staff. This is a seminar designed to explore the interface between social theory and
a discourse-centered approach to language and culture, with a specific focus on the concept of power. The theme
of the course is the dialectic between language/discourse and social relations. Some attention is given to the classical
concepts of power (from Weber), and the ways in which a linguistic/discourse analysis can illuminate these. However,
the main focus will be on more recent theoretical formulations (especially those of Bakhtin, Bourdieu, Foucault, Habermas,
and Gramsci) -- how a discourse- centered approach articulates with the concepts of "social space," "ideology," "discursive
formation," "hegemony," "communicative rationality," and so forth.
SM 651. (FREN650, GRMN651, HIST651) Studies in 17th Century. (C) DeJean. Topics for discussion will vary from semester to semester. "The Royal Machine: Louis XIV and the Versailles
Era." We will examine certain key texts of what is known
as the Golden Age of French literature in tandem with a number
of recent theoretical texts that could be described as historical. Our goal will be to explore the basis of "the new historicism," a
term that is designed to cover a variety of critical systems that try to account for the historical specificity and referentiality
of literary texts.
SM 652. (FREN652, GSOC652) Early Modern French Women Writers. (M) DeJean. Topics of discussion will vary from semester to semester. One possible topic
is: "The Female Tradition and the Development of the Modern Novel." We will discuss the most important women
writers--from Scudery to Lafayette-of the golden age of French women writers. We will be particularly concerned
with the ways in which they were responsible for generic innovations and in particular with the ways in which
they shaped the development of the modern novel.
SM 653. (ASAM510, CINE793, ENGL797, SAST610) Melodrama and Modernity. (C) Majithia. In this course we will focus on post colonial global modernity as they are imaged
through cinema. Foregrounding the concept of affect, we will consider topics such as: the role of mass affect
and mass culture; nationalism , community, sentimentality and nostalgia; film technology and film inductry development
as productive of a history of the senses; affect and the (gendered and racialized) subject and body, film genres and developement
of post colonial modernism; style; cinephilia and production of publics; representaions of popular religiosity;
and the relationaship between feeling and ideology.We will examine films that suggest particular affective states.
our study will be interdisciplianry and readings will draw on fileds of cinema, area studies as well as anthropology,
philosophy and history.
SM 654. (HIST656, SLAV655) History, Memory, Trauma. (M) Platt. This course will be devoted to study of the theory and practice of representation
of the past in major European traditions during the modern era, with special emphasis on three topics of broad
concern: revolution, genocide, and national becoming.The object of inquiry will be construed broadly, to include
all manner of historiographic, artistic, filmic, literary and rhetorical representation of the past. Each of the three
segments of the course will begin with examination of important theoretical readings in conjunction with case studies
in major European traditions that have been among the central foci of this theoretical work French Revolutionary history,
Holocaust, English nationalism). Next we will add analogous Russian cases to the picture (Russian Revolution,
Gulag memory, Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great as national myths).Finally, at the conclusion of each segment
students will bring theoretical tools to bear on the national traditions and contexts relevant to their own work. Our
readings in the theory and philosophy of historiography will will include works by: Anderson, Caruth, Guha, Hegel, LaCapra,
Putnam, Ricoeur, White and others.
SM 658. (FREN654, GRMN665) Early Modern Seminar. (M) DeJean.
SM 662. (FOLK629, NELC683, RELS605) Theories of Myth. (M) Ben-Amos. Theories of myth are the center of modern and post-modern, structural and post-structural
thought. Myth has served as a vehicle and a metaphor for the formulation of a broad range of modern theories.
In this course we will examine the theoretical foundations of these approaches to myth focusing on early thinkers
such as Vico, and concluding with modern 20th century scholars in several disciplines that make myth the central
idea of their studies.
SM 669. (FREN670) Nineteenth Century Studies. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. "Modernity and Early Nineteenth-Century French Culture" may be one
topic.
SM 670. (ARTH670, GRMN670) German Literary Criticism. (M) Weissberg. Topics will vary. In the past, courses have concentrated on Walter Banjamin's
work, and "The Frankfurt School and After."
SM 674. (ARTH674, GRMN674) Topics in Aesthetic Theory. (K) Weissberg, MacLeod. This is a topics course. The topics may be "Benjamin and Arendt," "Walter
Benjamin," "Kant to Frankfurt School," "Literature and Visuality," or "Imagination and Ideology," or "Modernity
Style/Fashion."
SM 676. (GRMN676, GSOC676) Topics in Feminist Theory. (I) Weissberg. The course will concentrate on a selection of essays offering diverse theories
and practices of feminist criticism. The discussion will focus on the debate on "essentialism," the notion
of the "masquerade" and psychoanalytical criticism,
as well as the political implications of feminist scholarship. The following anthologies
will be used: Anne C. Herman and Abigail J. Steward (eds.), THEORIZING FEMINISM, Naomi Schor and Elizabeth
Weed (eds.), THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE, and Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (eds.), FEMINISTS
THEORIZE THE POLITICAL.
SM 681. (PHIL680) History of Aesthetics. (M) Guyer. This course will examine the transformation of aesthetic theory in the post-Kantian
period, with particular attention to changes in the concept of the aesthetic itself and in conceptions of the place
of the discipline of aesthetics in philosophy as a whole.
SM 685. (EALC755) Literary Criticism and Theory in Japanese Literature. (M) Kano. While the focus of this seminar will shift from year to year, the aim is to
enable students to gain 1) a basic understanding of various theoretical approaches to literature, 2) familiarity
with the histories and conventions of criticism, literary and otherwise, in Japan; 3) a few theoretical tools to think
in complex ways about some of the most interesting and controversial issues of today, such as nationalism, imperialism,
colonialism, postmodernism, and feminism, with particular focus on Japan's position in the world. The course
is primarily intended for graduate students but is also open to advanced undergraduates with permission of the instructor.
The course is taught in English, and all of the readings will be available in English translation. An optional discussion
section may be arranged for those students who are able and willing to read and discuss materials in Japanese. This course will be taught in English and all texts will be read in English
translation.
SM 687. (ENGL539, SPAN687) The Spanish Connection. (M) Fuchs. This seminar will examine the place of Spain in early modern English
culture.
L/R 688. (ARTH687) Twentieth Century Art: 1945-Now. (C) Poggi. Many people experience the art of our time as bewildering, shocking,
too ordinary (my kid could do that), too intellectual (elitist),
or simply not as art. Yet what makes this art engaging is
that it raises the question of what art is or can be, employs
a range of new materials and technologies, and addresses
previously excluded audiences. It invades non-art spaces,
blurs the boundaries between text and image, document and
performance, asks questions about institutional frames (the
museum, gallery, and art journal), and generates new forms
of criticism. Much of the "canon" of what counts
as important is still in flux, especially for the last twenty
years. And the stage is no longer centered only on the United
States and Europe, but is becoming increasingly global. The
course will introduce students to the major movements and
artists of the post-war period, with emphasis on social and
historical context, critical debates, new media, and the
changing role of the spectator/participant.
SM 690. (GRMN689) Theory and Practice of the Novel. (M) Wiggin.
SM 691. (LALS690, SPAN690) Studies in Latin American Literature. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. One topic may be "Literature and the Arts in the Age of Globalization.".
SM 692. (SPAN692) Colonial Literature of Spanish American. (M) Fuchs. Study of the historical context of the colonial period in Spanish America and
of major works in prose and poetry.
SM 700. (ENGL775) African Literature and Society. (C) Barnard. This team-taught course will introduce graduate students to issues in both Anglophone
and Francophone African Literature. The course is organized under the following headings: Reclaiming
the African Past, Colonial Relationships, National Consciousness, Gender and Power, Urban Perspectives, Elites and Dictatorships,
and, finally, Immigration,Exile, and Metissage. We will discuss novels by both established
and emerging writers, including Chinua Achebe,Ngugi Wa Thiong'O, Sembene Ousmane, Buchi Emecheta, Mariama Ba, Henri
Lopes, Bessie Head, Amadou Kourouma, Nozipo Maraire, and Zakes Mda. Some films and works in other genres
may also be included. Four or five lectures by visiting scholars and/or writers, representing the cutting edge
of new research and writing, will be considered as part of the seminar.
SM 701. (FREN619) Poetics of Narrative. (M) Prince. An investigation of such topics in the theory of narrative as plot, meta-narrative
signs, narrative grammars, narrative legibility, the narratee. Topics vary from term to term.
706. (ANTH704, EDUC706, FOLK706, URBS706) Culture, Power, Identities. (A) Staff. This course will introduce students to a conceptual language and the
theoretical tools to analyze the complex dynamics of racial,
ethnic, gender, sexual, and class differences. The students
will critically examine the interrelationships between culture,
power, and identities through the recent contributions in
cultural studies, critical pedagogy and post-structuralist theory and will explore the usefulness of these ideas for improving
their own work as researchers and as practitioners.
SM 714. (ENGL715) Medieval Literature. (M) Wallace. This is a topics course. The topic may be "Women and Writing,1220-1689," "Denationalizing
the English Middle Ages," or "Anglo-French Literatures."
SM 715. (FOLK715, MUSC705, GSOC705) Seminar in Enthnomusicology. (A) Muller. This semester we will explore by way of a series of journeys the historical
and contemporary shapes of tourism within the Caribbean with specific referenceto the ways that musicians and performance
practices have travelled and continue to move through the economic, political,geographic, and cultural spaces of consumption.
These journeys will be framed by matched sets of readings that illustrate not only the abiding issues
that have confronted Caribbean societies throughout the years, but also the changing terrain upon which solutions to
those issues have been sought and articulated. We will be traveling along routes that variously explore travel
writing, literature, folklore, travel and mobility theory, and ethnographic monographs, all with a view toward helping
us think through the issues at hand. Although we will be spending a good portion of our time thinking about the Bahamas,
we will also take time to consider music and tourism in places like Carriacou, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica.
Ultimately, these journeys will provide a framework within which to consider our own work. while the course readings
will be centered on Caribbean contexts, your final papers shoul.d address tourism and travel in ways that
inform your own interests and scholarly work.
SM 720. (MUSC720) Studies in Renaissance Music. (C) Staff. Seminar on selected topics in the music of the Renaissance.
SM 721. (HIST720) Research Seminar: European History. (M) Staff.
SM 725. (ENGL725) Topics in Chaucer. (M) Wallace.
SM 730. (ENGL730) Sixteenth-Century Cultural Relations. (M) Staff. This is an advanced course treating topics in 16th Century history and culture
particular emphasis varying with instructor.
SM 736. (ENGL736) Renaissance Studies. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. This is an advanced topics course treating some important issues in contemporary
Renaissance studies.
SM 750. (ENGL750) Romanticism in Italy. (M) Staff. This course is an advanced seminar on writings of the Romantic period, not restricted
to English Romanticism.
SM 755. (ENGL754) Victorian Literature. (M) Auerbach. This is a topics course. When the title is VICTORIAN LITERATURE the following
description will apply: Our seminar will explore in detail the intertextual relations among a series of
major nineteenth-century novels we should all have read and re-read, but perhaps haven't turned to recently. Through examining
a series of British novels from a non- domestic perspective, we shall locate the power and limitations of imperial
England. In a series of paired comparisons with non-British novels, we will explore the scope of the fictional world beyond
England's borders. Works we shall read will include Jane Austen's EMMA (and perhaps PRIDE AND PREJUDICE) with
Stendhal's THE RED AND THE BLACK (Theme: love, ambition, irony); Thackeray's VANITY FAIR with Tolstoy's
WAR AND PEACE (Theme: war, peace, and Napoleon); Emily Bronte's WUTHERING HEIGHTS and Thomas Mann's BUDDENBROOKS
(Theme: family sagas and evolution).
SM 760. (FOLK606) History of Folklore Studies. (A) Ben-Amos. A survey of the theoretical basis and the historical development of research
in international and American folkloristics.
SM 761. (ENGL761) British Modernism. (M) Staff. This course treats one or more of the strains of British moderism in fiction,
poetry, or the arts.
SM 766. (ENGL765) Topics in 20th Century English Literature. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. If the title is "Modernism and the Philosophy of Egoism," the following description
applies. "Modernism and the Philosophy of Egoism",
will aim to link the specific historical moment known as "Modernism" to
a longer debate hinged around the claims of the individual
subject fighting against all repressive systems, claims that
were often refused as being either "egoistic" or "anarchistic." From
Pascal's critique of the "Ego's self-love" to Max
Nordau's wholesale attack in the ideology of "egomania" (in
Degeneration), we'll see how the negative space carved for
the subject provides an a contrario definition of modernist
re-evaluations of the self. Starting from Lacan's rereading
of Cartesian subjectivity and Nietzsche's dramatization of
the artist as creator of values, we'll focus on Max Stirner's
The Ego and His Own, seen both as a text-book for later anarchism
and as Marx's and Engels's most subtle enemy (in the German Ideology). Stirner leads to Meredith's famous novel, The Egoist, whose
ethos in its turn underpins the feminist project of a Dora Marsden who chose to rename the radical magazine the New Free
Woman as The Egoist. We'll read Joyce, Pound adn Eliot in the context of the philosophy set forward by The Egoist,
and then launch into a discussion of "impersonality" (Rimbaud, Mallarme, Eliot) and of "masks" of
poetic "heteronyms" (pessoa, Pound Yeats), and conclude with Beckett's last texts, especially Not-I.
SM 767. (ENGL773) Modernism. (M) Staff. An interdisciplinary and international examination of modernism, usually treating
European as well as British and American modernists. The topics may be "The Hard and Soft in Modernism," "The
Technical Sublime," "Global Literature and Theory," or "Effects of Modernity."
SM 768. (ENGL768) Ghosts of Modernity. (M) Rabate. This is a topics course. If the title is "Ghosts of Modernity," the
following description applies. The graduate seminar would like to explore the archeology of modernity in order to understand how,
despite a desire to break up with the past and to launch the radically new, modernity appears as always haunted by specific
ghosts. One of the central issues will turn around the question of the rationality of critical discourse when it is
confronted with uncanny objects such as ghosts. From Freudian and Derridian theories to the history of postmodernity
(Lyotard), we shall revisit a few monuments of modernish mourning. We shall attempt to apprehend how an experience
of loss is as crucial for Surrealism as for Joyce, yet organizes different economies of libidinal investment.
The very mourning of form as such will provide a concept with which we can start rethinking the dividing line
vetween modernism proper and postmodernism which begins to assert itself with Beckett, Bernhard, and Michael
Palmer. The strong link between mourning and modernity will be shown central to all the movements that have
attempted an esthetic revolution.
SM 769. (ENGL769, GSOC769) Feminist Theory. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. The titles may be "Feminist Theory: Queering the Literary: Theories and Fiction" or "Incest and
the Problem of Narration." If the latter title, the following description applies.
This seminar will pursue the problems of narration in 20th century accounts
of incest. We will be reading novels, testimonials, memoirs, plays, and films that attempt to narrate what some theoreists
have regarded as the founding taboo of 'civilization' and hence the fundamentally un-narratable event. The
course will focus largely on questions of genre.
SM 772. (ENGL771) Literary Value and Evaluation: Textual Production. (M) Stallybrass. This is a topics course. If the topic is "Writing and Materiality" the following description
will apply. This course is based on library work and is intended
as a practical introduction to graduate research. It addresses
questions of the history of the book, of print culture, and
of such catagories as "work", "character",
and "author", as well as of gender and sexuality,
through a detailed study of the (re)production of Shakespearean
texts from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.
SM 773. (AFRC770, ENGL770) Afro-American Autobiography. (M) Staff. An advanced seminar in African-American literature and culture.
776. (LARP770) Topics in Landscape Architecture. (B) Hunt. This is a topics course. The topic could be "French Landscape Architecture:
Case Studies," "Renaissance Garden Theory," "Picturesque
as Modern," or "Lawrence Halprin: Theory, Practice,
Context and The Archival Record."
SM 778. (ENGL778, GSOC778) Twentieth Century Aesthetics. (M) Steiner. This course explores notions that have conditioned 20th century attitudes toward
beauty: among them, ornament, form, fetish, the artifact "women", the moves to 20th century fiction, art
manifestos, theory, and such phenomena as beauty contests and art adjudications.
SM 790. (ENGL790, GRMN690, GSOC790) Recent Issues in Critical Theory. (M) Staff. This is a topics course. Course varies with instructor. Recent versions have been "Critical Theory:
Legacies of the Frankfurt School;" "Auteurism and Artificiality in Film Studies;" "Hegel's Legacy;" "The
Stigma Archive."
SM 791. (ENGL797) Topics in 20th Century Culture. (M) Staff. Usually focusing on non-fictional texts, this course varies in its emphasis
depending on the instructor.
SM 795. (ENGL795) Poetics. (M) Perelman. Topics in poetics will vary in its emphasis depending on the instructor.
SM 797. (COMM622) Communicating Memory. (M) Marvin/Zelizer. This course considers the theoretical and empirical literature concerning the
construction of social memory in relation to media products and processes. Students will undertake individual research
projects investigating memory constructions in professional media routines and through ritual processes of
group maintenance.
998. Independent Study and Research. (C) Designed to allow students to pursue a particular research topic under the close
supervision of an instructor.
999. Independent Reading and Research. (C) May be taken for multiple course credit to a maximum of two for the M.A. and
four for the Ph.D. Designed to allow students to broaden
and deepen their knowledge of literary theory, a national
literature, and/or an area of special interest.
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