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.
SM 008. (ANTH008, NELC008) Tales in
Travel. (C) Musacchio.
This is a Critical Speaking Course.
No matter what the destination, whether Cairo or Paris, Bangkok
or New York, travel is captivating -- so much so that
many travelers, modern and ancient, have been compelled
to record their experiences.
Starting with ancient Egypt and progressing through to
the modern world, Tales of Travel will explore the travel
experience. By reading and discussing written records
of travel, this critical speaking course will focus on
using our understanding and appreciation of travel writing
as a medium for developing and improving oral presentation
skills.
055. (ENGL055, GSOC055) 19th-Century
Novel. (A) Shawcross.
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.
095. (ENGL095) Introduction to
Cultural Studies. (C) Distribution
Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only.
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. Love.
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, RELS108) Style.
(M) Humanities &
Social Science Sector. Class of 2010 & beyond.
Ramsey, Weber, Kuttner.
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. Conn.
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) Classical Athens to Elizabethan London.
(C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes.
Schlatter.
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)
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.
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, 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 Allan 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.
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
20th-century 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.
SM 207. (HIST201) European Conceptions of language. (M) Staff. This is a topics course.
211. (ASAM212, CINE215, SAST212) Topics in Indian Film.
(M) majithia.
This is a topics course. The topic may be "Global
Fiction and Film.".
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) 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. Majors are required to
take either French 221 or 222.
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. Majors
are required to take either French 221 or 222, but 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.
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) Keilen/Butler.
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. (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.
254. (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.
255. (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.
SM 261. (ENGL255, GSOC255) Topics
in 19th C.Novel. (C) Distribution
Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior
only. Auerbach.
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 Modern British Novel. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior
only. Staff.
This course approaces the modern British novel in a variety
of ways. Offerings include "Heart of Darkness," "Black
Mischief," "The Grass is Singing," "Things
Fall Apart;" some Gordimer stories, and her novel "The
Conservationist." Also, "Waiting for the
Barbarians."
264. (CLST141, THAR141) Ancient
Theatre. (C) May
be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters.
Class of 2009
& prior only. Rosen.
Development of the history and practice of Greek and Roman
theater is treated through reading English translations
of tragedy and comedy and examination of the physical
setting and staging of drama. Attention is paid
to the drama's relation to religion, the role of the
audience in theater.
SM 265. (ENGL276, THAR140) Topics
In Theatre History. (B) Distribution
Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior
only. Mazer.
This course examines the aesthetics of the theatre as a social
and cultural institution in Western Europe and America
from the Middle Ages through the nineteenth century.
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