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