|
Undergraduate
Course Descriptions COML 057.401
Great Books of Judaism The study of four paradigmatic and 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.
This "reading workshop" is an introduction to the unprecedented range of language exploration in the poetry that emerged in the 20th century from Europe, Latin America and others parts of the world. The basic course text will be Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry, edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris. The anthology features poets such as Mallarmé, Rilke, Tzara, Mayakovsky,Vallejo, Artaud, and Césaire, along with a sampling of some of the most significant movements in poetry and the other arts: Futurism, Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism, "Objectivism," Negritude. We will also look at sound and visual poetry and also the new digital poetry that is emerging on the Intenet. In addition, there will be a few poets visiting the class — reading and discussing their work with the seminar. The "reading
workshop" is less concerned with analysis or explanation of
individual poems than with finding ways to intensify the experience
of poetry, of the poetic, through a consideration of how the different
styles and structures and forms of contemporary poetry can affect
the way we see and understand the world. No previous experience
with poetry is necessary. More important is a willingness to consider
the implausible, to try out alternative ways of thinking, to listen
to the way language sounds before trying to figure out what it means,
to lose yourself in a flurry of syllables and regain your bearings
in dimensions otherwise imagined as out-of-reach.
Careful consideration of works produced by and about British women between 1660 and 1800, including genres such as these: novels, letters, drama, poetry, and expository writing. Emphasis will be on the embeddedness of women's imaginative writing in relation to contemporary political and social events. Requirements: primary reading, library research, oral reports, class participation, and essays. Students in disciplines other than English are welcome.
The disintegration of European empires was of crucial political and cultural significance in the twentieth century, and its consequences continue to reverberate in innumerable ways throughout contemporary culture. In this course we will study the work of writers from former British colonies including southern Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Their works tell stories rooted in local experience and history, revise imperial narratives, challenge assumptions about identity and otherness, and scrutinize the politics of language. Authors from southern Africa (J.M. Coetzee, Tsitsi Dangarembga), South Asia (Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy), and the Caribbean (Jean Rhys, Jamaica Kincaid) will be among those whose work we'll discuss. We will also read some theoretical essays (by, for example, Edward Said, Franz Fanon, Benedict Anderson, and Paul Gilroy), investigate the lively contemporary debates within the diverse and contentious field known as postcolonial studies, and discuss the implications of an increasingly globalized social order. Requirements include lively class participation, an in-class presentation, two papers (6-8 pages), and a final exam.
In this course we will investigate the experience of war in the 20th century. We will read texts that deal with World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam and other anti-colonial wars (such as the Algerian struggle for independence and the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya), and possibly also the Bosnian conflict. Though our reading list will include some books that deal with the experience of combat, this is far from the sole focus of the course. We will also consider questions of resistance, complicity, conscience, and ethics; civilians’ struggle to survive in, or elude the violence of war; and the traumatic aftermath of conflict. Most importantly, since this is a literature course, we will consider the experimental and innovative narrative forms (including graphic novels and cinematic forms) that evolved over the course of the century to represent these catastrophes. Readings may include: Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory; Marianna Torgovnick, The War Complex: World War II in Our Time; poetry by Thomas Hardy, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Guillaume Appolinaire, Bertolt Brecht, and John Dos Passos; Pat Barker, The Ghost Road; Hemingway, In Our Time and other selected stories; selected stories by Christopher Isherwood; Rachel Seiffert, The Dark Room; Elise Blackwell, Hunger; Art Spiegelman, Mauss, Ian McEwan, Atonement, W. B. Sebald, Austerlitz and On the Natural History of Destruction; Joseph Heller, Catch-22; Graham Greene, The Quiet American; Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried and Going After Cacciato; Ngugi wa Thiong’O, A Grain of Wheat; J. M. Coetzee, Life and Times of Michael K, Joe Sacco, Safe Area Gorazde. Films may include: Forbidden Art; Apocalypse Now, The Battle of Algiers, The Fog of War.
This course
will be a general overview of classical Indic literature, religious
life, political
In the past
two decades, films from the Middle East have gained exceptional
international reception. This course is designed to explore the
reasons behind this reception through a study of the prevalent social,
political, and historical themes and issues in Middle Eastern cinemas.
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 in some sense the property of men—and what happens when women inhabit the bodies of other women via spirit possession. Readings will draw on the Japanese tradition, 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.
Myths are traditional stories that have endured many years. Some of them have to do with events of great importance, such as the founding of a nation. Others tell the stories of great heroes and heroines and their exploits and courage in the face of adversity. Still others are simple tales about otherwise unremarkable people who get into trouble or do some great deed. What are we to make of all these tales, and why do people seem to like to hear them? This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as a few contemporary American ones, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations. We will also pay some attention to the way the Greeks and Romans themselves understood their own myths. Are myths subtle codes that contain some universal truth? Are they a window on the deep recesses of a particular culture? Are they entertaining stories that people like to tell over and over? Are they a set of cultural blinders that all of us wear, though we do not realize it? We will investigate these questions through a variety of topics including: the creation of the universe and the structure of the cosmos, relations between gods and mortals, religion and divination, justice, society, family, sex, love, madness, and death.
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 the 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.
This course offers an overview of the literary and cultural history of Medieval Rus' from its origins through the Late Middle Ages, a period which laid the foundation for the emergence of the Russian Empire. Three modern-day nation-states – Russia, Ukraine and Belarus – share and dispute the cultural heritage of Medieval Rus’, and their political relationships even today revolve around questions of national and cultural identity. The focus of the course will be on the Kievan and Muscovite traditions but we will also note the differences (and their causes) of the Ukrainian and Belarusian cultural histories. The course takes a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to the evolution of the main cultural paradigms of Russian Orthodoxy viewed in a broader European context. Students will explore the worldview of medieval Orthodox Slavs by delving into such topics as religion, spirituality, art, literature, education, music, ritual and popular culture. The legacy of the Rus’ Middle Ages has a continuing cultural influence in modern Russia. This legacy is still referenced, often allegorically, in contemporary social and cultural discourse as the society attempts to reconstruct and reinterpret its history. Similarly, the study of the medieval cultural history of Rus’ explains many aspects of modern Russian society, and, in particular, the roots of its Imperial political mentality. Those interested in the intellectual and cultural history of Russia, and Eastern Europe in general, will find that this course greatly enhances their understanding of the region and its people.
Welcome to a devil of a course. For centuries, but especially since the dawn of modernity, the legend of the devil's pact has served as a metaphor for the desire to surpass the limits of human knowledge and power at any cost. Starting with the sixteenth-century Faust Book which recounts the story of a scholar, alchemist and necromancer who sold his soul to the devil, and extending to the most recent cinematic, musical and literary versions of the devil's pact, this course offers an exploration of our enduring fascination with the forbidden. Should you decide to accept this bargain you will be assured of discussing the following issues: the meaning of evil and history of the devil; the infernal logic of political systems and ideology (Nazism and Stalinism); witchcraft, magic, and sexuality; the purported link between the devil and music the devil as cultural interloper; the devil and self-knowledge. Throughout the semester we will move at a leisurely pace—no need to rush at a breakneck speed. It's my conviction that knowledge is more tempting when you give yourself time. We'll want to linger over the issues that intrigue us, spend time with the films, music, and literary works that we encounter. Among the course's real temptations are: a (ma)lingering reading of Goethe's Faust, one of the classics of world literature; discussion of six outstanding films involving a devil's pact including Angel Heart and Rosemary's Baby; an unpublished feminist adaptation of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus that is set in Harvard and the halls of Congress; discussion of the novel Mephisto, which links the legend of the devil's pact with Hitler and the Nazi regime; a reading of Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, another classic of world literature set in Stalinist Russia; a session devoted to blues legend Robert Johnson who supposedly sold his soul to the devil; an encounter between the devil, coyote, and rock and roll in American Indian writer Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues; clips from other films and popular culture such as The Simpsons, South Park, and Bedazzled. The victim, I mean student, who signs up for this course is guaranteed an enticing blend of intellectual and cultural titillation, a substantial acquaintance with the wide-ranging popular legends of the devil's pact, and an opportunity to explore some of the burning questions of our time. All readings in English.
Probably no other person of the twentieth century has influenced scientific thought, humanistic scholarship, medical therapy, and popular culture as much as Sigmund Freud. This seminar will try to study his work, its cultural background, and its impact on us today. In the first part of the course, we will learn about Freud's life and the Viennese culture of his time. We will then move to a discussion of seminal texts, such as excerpts from his Interpretation of Dreams, case studies, as well as essays on psychoanalytic practice, human development, neuroses, and culture in general. In the final part of the course, we will discuss the impact of Freud's work. Guest lecturers from the medical field, history of science, psychology, and the humanities will offer insights into the reception of Freud's work, and its consequences for various fields of study and therapy.
This 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). Weekly screenings with subtitles.
This course examines literary and cinematic portrayals of childhood images and memories. While Israeli works constitute more then half of the course's material, American & European film and fiction play comparative roles. The works are placed against a backdrop of national or historical conflicts, yet the foci of many stories is individual trauma (such as loss or abuse) or longing for an idealized time. We look at how authors and directors strugglewith their desire to retrieve fragments of past events and penetrate a child's psyche. We study how they use symbols, metaphors, color, light, close-ups and flashbacks to reconstruct memory. There will be 5-6 film screenings.
The purpose of this course is to explore the mutual relationship between oral and written literatures as they manifest themselves historically in different societies, cultures and languages. Under certain circumstances both modes of literary creativity occurs and have social and literary impacts upon each other. The course will examine the situations and the ways in which literary authors resort to their respective traditional oral literatures and the literary representations of orality in literacy. We will consider the historical, ideological, cultural, and literary aspects of the interrelationship between the spoken and the written word. Students of the ancient civilzations, classical and medieval as well as modern literatures will be able to conduct research related to their special interests, and at the same time will gain comparative perspectives on oral and written literatures.
Dramatic changes in the undercurrents of Israeli society have often been foreshadowed in the writings of the period. "I Want to Die in my Bed", a young Yehuda Amichai's anti-war poem, led the rebellion of Israeli authors who rejected their predecessors' ideological focus in the 1950s and 60s. In order to gain distance from their Zionist father-figures, the short stories of A.B. Yehoshua and Amos Oz turned to anti-heroic and absurdist modes. We will study this "Statehood Generation," whose members have become the central pillars of Israeli literature (Amichai, Oz etc.), and will compare them to the 'rebels' of today. The class will be conducted in Hebrew and the texts read in the original. There will be 3-4 short papers and a final exam.
Literary historian Cathy Davidson has said that literature is not simply fictional writing, beautiful writing, or profound writing, but rather "a complex social, political, and material process of cultural production." In this course we will seek to understand what this claim about literature might mean and how we might study such a complex process. We will approach this task by surveying the history of literary theory, from Plato and Aristotle to the present, paying particular attention to contemporary critical theory. We will address questions such as: What is literature? How do we determine the meanings of a text? What are the relationships among an author, a text, a reader, and a context? What role does a text play in representing or even producing ideas of race, class, nation, and gender? Students will learn to read texts closely and carefully—that is, to read for a text's figures, themes, meanings, contexts, and structures. In addition, students will learn to ask and write about a text's social, political, and material aspects. We will read literature as well as critical studies of literature, examining the insights of New Criticism; Formalism, Structuralism and Post-structuralism; Marxism; Psychoanalysis; Deconstruction; Feminism and Queer Theory; Cultural Studies; Post-colonial Studies; and Critical Race Theory.
|