See the FALL 2011 SCHEDULE OF CLASSES.
121 – International Short Story
(AL) Staff
Lec. 1 MWF 10:10-11:00
Lec. 2 MWF 9:05-9:55
Lec. 3 MWF 1:25-2:15
Lecture, discussion. Reading and analysis of a variety of short stories from the Russian, Czech, German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, American, and Latin American traditions from the early 19th century to the present. We will analyze fantastic tales, character sketches, surprise endings; main types of the short story as a special genre marked by compassion and intensity of effect. All works read in translation. Course requirements to be announced.
122 – Spiritual Autobiography
(ALG) Staff
Lec. 1 TuTh 2:30-3:45
Lec. 2 MWF 11:15-12:05
Lec. 3 TuTh 9:30-10:45
Spiritual Autobiography is writing about the self or selves in confrontation with the unknown, during times of personal or social crisis, loss, and rebirth. (Spiritual in this sense does not necessarily refer to institutionalized religion - in fact, a spiritual crisis may happen through the failure of religion). We will read autobiographies from several traditions and many time periods – medieval Christianity, 11th century Japan, 20th century Black America, the slums of Modern Brazil, China just before WW II, etc. Some possible readings: The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, The Book of Margery Kempe, The Education of Henry Adams, Black Elk Speaks, Carlo Levi's Christ Stopped at Eboli, Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Daughter of Han, Chogyan Trungpa's Born in Tibet, Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, and others.
131 – Brave New World
(ALG) Staff
Lec. MWF 10:10-11
RAP course
This course studies texts in the Utopian and Dystopian traditions, prophetic projections of Modernist totalitarian worlds, and Postmodern worlds of fragmentation, diversity and abandonment. It will address issues of interest in the current cultural crisis, for example: What is the role of war in maintaining social cohesion? Is individualism still tenable in a world of seven billion people? Is freedom an absolute condition? And what role do art and culture play in the era of global Consumerism?
Tentative Readings: Huxley, Brave New World and Island; Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep; Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale; Butler, Parable of the Sower; Stephenson, Snow Crash; Toth, The Mole People; Lethem, Amnesia Moon etc. Requirements: Attendance in lecture and section. A weekly quiz. Two seven-page papers. No prerequisites. WARNING: THIS IS A HEAVY READING COURSE.
133 – Intro to Science Fiction
(ALG) Staff
Lec. 1 MWF 11:15-12:05
Lec. 2 MWF 1:25-2:15
This course provides an introduction to science fiction in the twentieth century. Through reading novels and short stories from the 1920s to the present, the course will examine science fiction in social, critical and literary contexts in the United States, Europe and Japan. We will also consider SF in terms of its sites of production and consumption, the affinity and interest groups that have helped to shape it, and international influences and interconnections. The course will also include discussion of editing, writing, and publishing science fiction, and science fiction in other media.
141 – Good & Evil: East-West
(ALG) Staff
Lec. 1 TuTh 2:30-3:45 –
Lec. 2 MWF 11:15-12:05
Lec. 3 MWF 10:10-11:00
Lec. 4 MWF 12:20-1:10
An introduction to the imaginative presentation of good and evil in Western and Eastern classics, folktales, children's stories, and 20th century literature. Cross-cultural comparison of ethical approaches to moral problems such as the suffering of the innocent, the existence of evil, the development of a moral consciousness and social responsibility, and the role of faith in a broken world.
231 – Comedy
(AL) Staff
Lec. 1 TuTh 4:00-5:15
Lec. 2 TuTh 4:00-5:15
Our course begins with the premise that contemporary American comedy is informed by the histories of ethnic American groups — African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and U.S. Latinos/Latinas — along with issues of race, class, sexuality and citizenship. American comedians, independent filmmakers, feminists and transgendered comics deploy the language of comedy to invoke serious social matters in contemporary American life: racism, heterosexism, homophobia, class biases against the poor and the undocumented, misogyny, war and other burning issues of the day. We will thus consider that the ends of comedy are more than laughter. Comedy confronts political issues that are constitutive of and threatening to the U.S. body politic.
234 – Myth, Folk and Children’s Lit
(AL) Moebius, 428 Herter Hall
Lec. 1: MW 11:15-12:05 - Moebius
Dis. 1: F 11:15-12:05-staff
Dis. 2: F 11:15-12:05-staff
Dis. 3: F 12:20-1:10-staff
Dis. 4: F 1:25-2:15-staff
Dis. 5: F 1:25-2:15-staff
Dis. 6: F 12:20-1:10-staff
Lecture, discussion. Reading of significant sample of world folktales and myths as the basis for study of story, with special emphasis on stories for children, from those in picture books to juvenile novels. Attention to the development of critical perspectives towards stories, as well as to interpretation of meaning in individual tales and children's books. Readings: various folktale collections (German, Scandinavian, African, Hungarian); Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and eight other books for children, some chosen by the student. Requirements: two papers, midterm, final, occasional feedback sheets.
356 – American Literature European Context
Lenson, 427 Herter Hall
TuTh 1:00-2:15
Aim: This course studies American literature and culture in the light of European historical, aesthetic, and social developments. This year¹s version will investigate America as a traditional locus of revolution, rebellion, and dissent. For at least the first century and a half of its existence, the United States embodied in the world¹s eyes a kind of laboratory for radical possibilities. Reading works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, we will try to answer the big question: How did America evolve from a brash rebel to the thing rebelled against. Note: This reading list is subject to substantial change and abridgment. The first segment will consider texts pertaining to the revolutions of the later eighteen and early nineteenth centuries Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, William Blake, Karl Marx, and Henry David Thoreau. The second part will watch the development of these ideas in fiction and poetry, reading Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The third will examine the Naturalist tradition evolving from Emile Zola through Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, and John Dos Passos. In part four, we will see whether latter-day rebels against the American status quo owe anything to their ideological predecessors. Here we may read Albert Camus, Martin Luther King, Ralph Ellison, Malcolm X, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Leslie Marmon Silko, Robert Stone, and/or Cormac McCarthy.
382 – Cinema and Psyche
(AT) Portuges, 320 Herter Hall
Lec. M 4:40-7:05 Portuges
Dis. 1 Tu 2:30-3:45 – staff
Dis. 2 Tu 2:30-3:45 – staff
Dis. 3 Tu 1:00-2:15 – staff
Dis. 4 Tu 1:00-2:15 – staff
Lecture, Discussion. An exploration of the intersections between cinema and psychological interpretation, the course concerns the psychodynamics of reading visual texts produced in different cultures, languages, and national traditions. This semester's focus is on comparative representations of childhood, family, gender, and war in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the West. Among our considerations are the following: how do individual directors represent history and national identity? in what ways do spectators from different cultural milieux and historical moments understand those representations? what are the psychological consequences of encountering powerful images from cultures other than one's own? How do psychoanalytic perspectives enable us to 'read' the cinematic constructions of childhood experience, especially when portrayed in situations of trauma and wartime upheaval? Based on close reading of films, theoretical and critical essays, and interviews, our work aims to examine the often-unconscious resistances and 'mis-readings' that accompany the increasingly international world of cinema. Requirements: Attendance; a brief oral exercise; mid-term paper, final paper.
383 – Narrative Avant-Garde Film
Lec. A M 3:35-7:00
Dis. 1 F 1:15-2:15
Lec. B W 3:35-7:00
Dis. 1 F 1:15-2:15
Lecture, discussion. Explores modern origin of experimentation in film in avant-garde modes such as Expressionism, Surrealism and contemporary results of this heritage. Trying to determine if film is the most resolutely modern of the media. Emphasis on the ways in which Avant-garde films can problematize themselves through the ploys of telling a story. By means of a self-consciousness of story-telling which undermines viewer identification, the drive for closure, the demand for origins and order, and even cause and effect, these avant-garde films restore to playfulness its strength and ambiguity. Requirements: one 5 page paper for midterm; final paper or project; attendance.
391A – International History of Animation
N.C. Couch, 325 Herter Hall
Tu 6:00-9:00p.m.
This course traces the history of animation from the late 19th century to today, including short and feature-length films from the United States, Europe and Japan. Topics will include the Fleischer, Disney and UPA studios, directors from Emil Cole to Hayao Miyazaki, and experimental animators including Oskar Fischinger and John Canemaker. Animation for television, including Jay Ward's Rocky and Bullwinkle and Matt Groening's The Simpsons will also be considered.
391B – Dystopian Futures in Film and Fiction
Patai, 402 Herter
Lec. Tu 4:00-7:00
Dis. Th 4:00-5:15
Literature and film provide us with entertainment, pleasure, and stimulation. But dystopias – in addition to working at that level – express and address some of our most urgent fears and worries about our future. What does it mean to be human in an ever more technological society? How does society organize itself in a post-industrial age? What happens to individuals in a world whose culture is ever more homogeneous and driven by consumerism? What is the future of the human body? Are humans still linked to the natural world? What is the likely fate of our planet? What are the dangers of science and technology to a species whose emotions and wisdom may not keep up with its knowledge? What methods of social, economic, and political control will postmodern societies depend on? What space will exist for non-conformists? What is the role of religion in maintaining social order? These are only a few of the crucial issues to be explored in this course.
391D – War Stories
Hicks, 303 Herter Hall
TuTh 2:30-3:45
An inquiry into the representation of war in the late 20th century, this course will focus largely on a single armed conflict, the recent war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We will examine a variety of media: photography, cinema, theater, poetry, and narrative, as well as testimonials and documentaries. Our discussions will also respond to readings grounded in theory rather than context. Our focus throughout the semester will be relentlessly literary and critical: rather than ask questions such as “what happened” and “why?,” we will treat historical representation, even history itself, as a text, asking questions such as “who is speaking?,” “who is the audience”,” and “what are the rules for such discourse?”
391H – History of Literary Criticism
Petroff, 413 Herter Hall
TuTh 9:30-10:45
A seminar on literary criticism east and west, from the classical period to the Renaissance in Europe, as well as in ancient China and the medieval Islamic world. Commonalities in all our texts: what constitutes art and beauty in verbal expression? What is the purpose of literature? Who may have access to literature? What are sacred and canonical texts, and how shall they be approached? What is the connection between literature and truth, literature and morality? What are the proper techniques for composing good literature? What is the function of the study of rhetoric? Requirements: come to every class having done the readings and prepared to discuss them. Lead several seminar discussions on particular texts. 2 papers. Texts: Winterbottom and Russell, Classical Literary Criticism; An Introduction to Arabic Poetics; Princeton Handbook to Multicultural Poetics; The Art of Writing, Teachings of the Chinese Masters. Xeroxes from other texts: Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Averroes (Ibn Rushd), Dante, Boccaccio.
391T – Introduction to Translation
Tymoczko, 411 Herter Hall
Tu 4:00-7:00
Lecture, discussion. This course provides a theoretical foundation for both the study and the practice of literary translation, showing the centrality of Translation Studies to any discipline involved in the investigation of other cultures. We will survey contemporary developments in the field of Translation Studies and discuss the issues that emerge from both the reading and our own creative investigations. We will look particularly at the role translation plays in shaping literary systems, at the connections between translation and women's writing, at post-colonial translation practices and needs, at the relationship between translation and political power. Susan Bassnett's Translation Studies will be supplemented by short articles and other readings, as well as the students’ own research and translation. Requirements: class participation, short papers, and a final project.
393F – Polish Film
Bolibak, 741 Herter Hall
Tu 4:00-7:00
This course is an introduction to classics of Polish cinema. We will watch films by Poland’s best-known film directors to explore their key aesthetic, historical and philosophical concerns. Among directors whose works we will view are Roman Pola?ski, Andrzej Wajda, Wojciech Has, Jerzy Stuhr, Barbara Saas, Kazimierz Kutz, Andrzej Kondriatuk, Jerzy Skolimowski, Agnieszka Holland and Krzysztof Kie?lowski. Using the analytic language of literature, such as plot, character, setting, point of view, we will consider each film’s narrative content (story) as well as its formal features (its visual poetics). In our discussions of the films we will try to identify those qualities that give Polish cinematography its distinctiveness. We will also pay particular attention to the style of acting. Among the theoretical readings for the course will be writings by the avant-garde theater director Jerzy Grotowski, who had an enormous impact on Polish actors.
592A – Medieval Women Writers
Petroff , 413 Herter Hall
TuTh 1:00-2:15
A seminar on writing by and for medieval women in Europe, especially in England, the Low Countries, France and Italy. We’ll read both secular and religious texts as well as recent criticism, evaluate the study of medieval women writers in the last twenty years and speculate on new directions in the next decase. Texts will include Petroff, Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature and Body and Soul. Knowledge of one modern European language or Latin is required.
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