691D – Comparative Literature Proseminar: A Discipline & Its Discontents
Moebius, 428 Herter
Th 4-6:30
The professional seminar considers both practical matters and theoretical and historical concerns for new and current graduate students in Comparative Literature. Within the practical, we will consider the institutional roles and functions of Comparative Literature alongside World Literature, Translation Studies and Cultural Studies Programs worldwide within the dynamic setting of the “humanities.” We will discuss practical matters such as the writing and presentation of conference papers, using databases and electronic resources, working with bibliographic software and visual presentations, the politics of the job market and publishing. Within the historical sphere, we will examine the origins and evolution of Comparative Literature as a discipline, and within the theoretical, we will consider some of the leading debates within the field over the past twenty-five years, from Postmodernism, Deconstruction and Gender and Sexuality studies to Translation Studies and Globalization, Culture and Empire in the 21st century. Guest faculty may speak on their teaching experience within the discipline, on their fields of research, and on their views of problematic aspects within the discipline itself. Several short position papers will be required throughout the semester, and a final presentation and paper based on ongoing research in the student’s current area of study within the discipline.
691I – Literary Double
Lenson, 427 Herter
TuTh 2:30-3:45
This course studies reduplication as a persistent trope in Euro-American thought and fiction. Both phases of our study devolve from German Romanticism, in particular the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann and the international school he inspired. In the first part, the doubling of the self is considered as a dark countercurrent to Romantic theories of an integral and transcendental self. Here a character comes face to face with a simulacrum of him or herself, an occurrence derived from Germanic folk tales where the sighting of "another self" was an omen of impending death or madness. Full of political, metaphysical, mystical, and psychological implications, the literature of the individual double forces a confrontation between human nature and supernature, questions the certainty of personality, and obfuscates the boundary between self and Other.
The second phase studies the reduplication of worlds. This too derives from Hoffmann, and ramifies into questions about the origins of science fiction and utopianism. Here a “pass” or thin point between worlds reveals heterocosmic alternative realities whose putative existence may be invoked to problematize conventional epistemologies and undermine Capitalism and empiricism.
Reading: Selections from E.T.A. Hoffman and Edgar Allan Poe; Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Nikolai Gogol, “The Nose;” Feodor Dostoevsky, The Double; selections from Sigmund Freud; Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Vladimir Nabokov, The Eye; Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves; others. Requirements: a seminar presentation and a term essay of 15-20 pages.
693C – Folkloristics
Rothstein, 741 Herter Hall
Th 1-3:30
An introduction to the systematic study of folklore, its methods and materials.
CL 693D: Truth in Representation.
James Hicks, 303 Herter Hall
Tu 4-6:30 in 342 Herter Hall
In recent years, the posterkiddies for post-everything have been
generally and widely lambasted for shallow relativism and nihilism, not to
mention other sorts of indecorous behavior. I've never really believed it.
I don't think anyone ever writes anything really without believing it's
true. In other words, at some level, all fiction, all film, and all
history, is realist. This seminar will sample the recent critical debate on truth,
representation and relativism; we will look at a selection of scientists,
critics, writers, and artists as well, in order to describe a variety of
dances on the head of this pin. Ours will be a cross-disciplinary
investigation of the claims on truth - or the will to truth - across a
variety of narrative representations, e.g. in scientific (Oliver Sacks) or
psychoanalytic case studies (Freud), in war reporting (Mathew Brady, Paul
Fussell, Semezdin Mehmedinovi?), in stand-up comedy (Richard Pryor), in film
(Haneke) and theater (Beckett), in the graphic novel (Joe Sacco), as well as in more traditional literary texts (Kafka, Woolf, Ondaatje, Saer, Danticat).
695A – International Film Noir
Levine, 328 Herter Hall
W 3:35-7:35
Lecture. Often referred to as the only indigenous American film style, "film noir" in its very appellation reveals that its major effects (for certain modern conceptions of cinema) lay elsewhere. We will examine film noir in its American heyday (1945-1957) and how it came to be a major propelling force in the new European cinema of the 1960's (Godard, and the Cahiers du cinema). How film noir displaces American social mores and their constitution of "reality" within the imaginary and symbolic fields, and within the symptomatic concretization of those fields that is normative (dominant) cinema. How film noir both makes film different and allows already latent difference to be manifested. How film noir takes shape in the U.S. as expression of the inexpressible (and the ‘unheimlich”) or, at least, of the allusion to it; which in the lens and on the screen of directors such as Godard and Fassbinder becomes pseudomorphic, presenting a critique of American imperialism both public (political) and private (psychic) – the American way of death and love (or, as the title of one work would have it, Love & Napalm: Export USA). Films by: American directors such as Aldritch, Ray, Fuller, Kubrick, Welles; Foreign agents such as Lang, Ophuls, Siodmak, Sirk, Von Sternberg; European directors such as Godard, Fassbinder, Wenders. Prerequisite: 2 prior film courses or permission of instructor.
751 – Theory and Practice of Translation
Tymoczko, 411 Herter Hall
Th 1:00-3:30
A many-sided consideration of the theoretical issues and practical problems raised by translation. Consideration will be given to recent research on the role of translation and translated texts in the history of literature and culture, with special attention to the politics of translation. Practical aspects to be discussed include translation of genre and form (including poetry, dramatic literature), language register and tone, metaphor and imagery, word play. Lecture/discussion with workshop elements. Readings: translation theorists; philosophers, linguists. Requirements: one historical analysis, one translation project, class participation. Prerequisites: proficiency in a language other than one's native tongue.
895A – Dissertation Research Seminar
Portuges, 320 Herter Hall
Tu 4:00-6:30
Seminar format. Designed primarily as a writing seminar/workshop for advanced graduate students in the humanities and arts as a forum for individual and collaborative writing and research, including drafting of the dissertation prospectus and chapters; preparation of abstracts and proposals for publication of journal articles; academic conference presentations; job letters and resumes; and submission of proposals for fellowships, grants, and doctoral research funding. Students are encouraged to share information on funding sources and professional academic opportunities, present their own work, and critique others' presentations.
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