Introduction to the Study of Poetry

Professor: Elizabeth Frank  

Course Number: LIT 123

CRN Number: 10262

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

  Wed Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 101

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

This course explores the infinite richness of poetry in English: the dazzling variety of forms and voices available to us across nearly a thousand years of poetic “making.” Working both chronologically and thematically, we will be looking at lyric modes (for example, songs and sonnets), narrative forms (ballads and other kinds of storytelling), occasional poems (birth and death and marriage), epigrams, and dramatic monologues. We will consider Golden (Sweet) style poems and “plain style” poems, devotional poems and love poems, poems for children, pastoral poems, political poems, poems about “everything under the sun.” We will read Old English poems (in translation), anonymous medieval lyrics, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Keats, Yeats, Eliot, Auden, Stevens, Langston Hughes and poets of the Harlem Renaissance, Black Arts movement, and such women poets Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, and Margaret Walker . We will look at blues lyrics, rap and hip-hop lyrics and lyrics to “The Great American Songbook.” Weekly reading responses, one short paper, and one longer term paper.

Supernatural Tales of Japan: Ghosts, Gods, and Goblins

Professor: Phuong Ngo  

Course Number: LIT 154

CRN Number: 10259

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 101

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Crosslists: Asian Studies

Since ancient times, humans have been fascinated with the otherworldly: stories of divine, ghostly, and fantastical beings regularly appear across various traditions and continue to serve as an endless source of inspiration for the creation of new art and literature. This course will introduce students to a variety of texts from the Japanese tradition that explore encounters between the ordinary and the strange. Topics include gender, sexuality, kinship, fear, abhorrence, and longing. The materials covered span a wide range of genres and time periods, starting with creation myths in the Kojiki and accounts of the otherworldly in the earliest texts of the written tradition, such as the Nihon ryōiki, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, and The Tale of Genji, and ending with horror movies, novels, and comics in the modern period. Some questions we will attempt to answer are: What lies at the root of humanity’s perpetual fascination with the strange? How does the Japanese tradition differ from other traditions across time and space in its imaginations of sites of contest between the this-worldly and the other-worldly? What do these stories tell us about evolving social forms, codes, expectations, and the relationships among self, other, and community? All materials will be in English and no prior knowledge of Japanese is required.  This is a World Literature course offering.

How to Construct Meaning: Introduction to Chinese Narrative

Professor: Shuangting Xiong  

Course Number: LIT 156

CRN Number: 10260

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin Languages Center 120

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Crosslists: Asian Studies

This course serves as an introduction to “how to read” Chinese narratives. The way that stories are told can reveal a great deal about how people construct meaning. Although the approach of this class is largely aesthetic—meaning we will analyze narrative texts closely to look at the choices each author made when constructing character, plot, symbols, and meaning--we will also spend a lot of class time discussing some of the fundamental questions raised by narrative studies: what values give individual lives meaning? What is the relationship between the individual self and larger systems of order, such as the family, society, the state, and the cosmos? What distinguishes fiction from history? The course covers a broad historical range of texts, from the third century BCE to the present, to maximize our exposure to literary styles as they reflect changing cultural values in China. Texts to discuss include early historical narratives, biographical accounts, fantastic tales, vernacular fiction, classical novels such as The Dream of the Red Chamber (also known as The Story of the Stones), and modern fiction. We will also focus on how the Chinese narrative tradition differs from the realistic mode of western narrative but ultimately was made to reconcile with the demands of realism in the 20th century. In doing so, we will treat each text as an aesthetic text in its own right as well as a window onto changing cultural-philosophical values and mindsets. All readings are in translation; no prior knowledge of Chinese is required. This is a World Literature course offering.

The Dean's Colloquium: Reading Charles Dickens

Professor: Deirdre D'Albertis  

Course Number: LIT 162

CRN Number: 10614

Class cap: 15

Credits: 2

Schedule/Location:

    Fri   11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Olin 201

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Crosslists: Victorian Studies

As part of the Bard Reading Initiative, the Dean invites students interested in the process of reading long narrative fiction to join this two-credit, weekly colloquium.   We will meet each Friday from 11-12:30 to investigate what happens when we read the fiction of Charles Dickens slowly, deliberately, and with attention to attention itself.  Our focus will be on two novels: Bleak House (1852-3) and Great Expectations (1861).  Originally published in serial form, each text presents us with questions of temporality and form.  How does a reader today navigate the complex multiplot structure of these extravagant fictional worlds? What challenges do we face in attending to narrators--Esther Summerson in Bleak House and Pip in Great Expectations--who are in many ways fundamentally unknown to themselves?  What is a plot, after all, and how might it both oppress and entice us as readers with expectations of our own? Curious readers who are interested in (re)discovering the pleasures particular to these questions are welcome: students will engage in frequent short writing assignments,  keep a detailed reading journal, and develop new strategies for working with these texts to be shared with others.

Hope in the Dark: Eurasian Fantasy and Folklore

Professor: Olga Voronina  

Course Number: LIT 164

CRN Number: 10261

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin Languages Center 115

Distributional Area:

FL  Foreign Languages and Lit   D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: Russian and Eurasian Studies; Written Arts

Resisting totalitarian regimes takes not only courage, but imagination as well. This course explores the Eurasian nations’ responses to war, oppression, famine, epidemics, and exile through the oral tradition (epic narratives, fairy-tales, nursery rhymes, and popular jokes), along with the works of fantasy literature which often absorb, amalgamate, and recontextualize these genres. How can a pauper whose livelihood depends on nomad’s luck idolize and worship a horse? How can grandmother’s song save the world from destruction? Can two species form a union to give the future humanity its power and purpose? To people who need to find a refuge from danger and hardship, answers to these questions really matter. They lie in the ability of language to construct reality, as demonstrated by a variety of works, from the Kyrgyz epic poem Manas to Chinghiz Aitmatov’s novel Farewell, Gul’sary; from the fairy tales of the Bering Strait to Yuri Rytkheu’s rendering of the Chukchi foundational myth in “When the Whales Leave”; and from tales and lullabies that originated in Belarus, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia, to Alindarka’s Children: Things Will be Bad by Alhierd Bacharevic – a recent fantasy of grief, frustration, horror, and all-conquering compassion. We will read these narratives as well as essays by Roman Jacobson, Jack Zipes, Marina Warner, Vladimir Propp, Mieke Bal, and Cristina Bacchilega to contemplate the energy of defiance concealed in storytelling traditions across national borders and the millennia. We will also study heroic and trickster archetypes in modern renderings of classical mythology; analyze the politics of myth; and survey the mechanisms of domination and oppression that inspire such fantastical tropes as metamorphosis, magic helpers, and otherworldly journeys. Finally, in our attempt to understand what makes works of Eurasian folklore and fantasy so mesmerizing and full of hope we will endeavor to write both analytically and creatively on and around some of them, develop performative responses, and/or practice translation. This course is part of the World Literature offering.

Narrative/Poetics/Representation

Professor: Alys Moody  

Course Number: LIT 201 A

CRN Number: 10346

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin 301

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

What does it mean to study literature today? How, precisely, do poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama differ from other forms of expression? How can we read those differences—the small, unexpected ways that works of literature can transform everyday life and everyday language—in connection with larger cultural, political, and aesthetic questions? And how can we use encounters with literary texts to reimagine or remodel our visions of self, community, and our mode of being in the world? Emphasizing the practice of close textual analysis and introducing students to foundational and emerging methods in literary studies, this course lays the groundwork for further investigations across a range of literary forms, national traditions, historical moments, and social identities. This course is a pre-moderation requirement for all prospective Literature and Written Arts majors.

Narrative/Poetics/Representation

Professor: Matthew Mutter  

Course Number: LIT 201 B

CRN Number: 10347

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Hegeman 200

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

What does it mean to study literature today? How, precisely, do poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama differ from other forms of expression? How can we read those differences—the small, unexpected ways that works of literature can transform everyday life and everyday language—in connection with larger cultural, political, and aesthetic questions? And how can we use encounters with literary texts to reimagine or remodel our visions of self, community, and our mode of being in the world? Emphasizing the practice of close textual analysis and introducing students to foundational and emerging methods in literary studies, this course lays the groundwork for further investigations across a range of literary forms, national traditions, historical moments, and social identities. This course is a pre-moderation requirement for all prospective Literature and Written Arts majors.

Narrative/Poetics/Representation

Professor: Daniel Williams  

Course Number: LIT 201 C

CRN Number: 10348

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin 107

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

What does it mean to study literature today? How, precisely, do poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama differ from other forms of expression? How can we read those differences—the small, unexpected ways that works of literature can transform everyday life and everyday language—in connection with larger cultural, political, and aesthetic questions? And how can we use encounters with literary texts to reimagine or remodel our visions of self, community, and our mode of being in the world? Emphasizing the practice of close textual analysis and introducing students to foundational and emerging methods in literary studies, this course lays the groundwork for further investigations across a range of literary forms, national traditions, historical moments, and social identities. This course is a pre-moderation requirement for all prospective Literature and Written Arts majors.

Middlemarch: the Making of a Masterpiece

Professor: Stephen Graham  

Course Number: LIT 2005

CRN Number: 10381

Class cap: 16

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin 306

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Crosslists: Victorian Studies

George Eliot's Middlemarch has long been widely considered to be among the greatest novels of all time; Virginia Woolf called it "one of the few English novels written for grownup people." We will read the eight books of Middlemarch slowly and intensively, over the course of the semester. We will trace the stages of conception, research, and composition of Middlemarch by consulting a selection of Eliot's personal letters, notebooks, and journals, forming, as best we can, an understanding of her mind and her process of literary creation.

Russian Laughter

Professor: Marina Kostalevsky  

Course Number: LIT 2117

CRN Number: 10383

Class cap: 20

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin Languages Center 206

Distributional Area:

FL  Foreign Languages and Lit   

Crosslists: Russian and Eurasian Studies

A study of laughter and its manifestation in Russian literary tradition.  Issues to be discussed relate to such concepts and genres as romantic irony, social and political satire, literary parody, carnival, and the absurd.  We will examine how authors as distinct as Dostoevsky and Bulgakov create comic effects and utilize laughter for various artistic purposes.  We will also examine some of the major theories of laughter developed by Hobbs, Bergson, Freud, Bakhtin and others. Required readings  include the works of major Russian writers starting with the late-eighteenth-century satirical play by Denis Fonvisin and ending with Venedict Erofeev's underground cult masterpiece:  a contemplation on the life of a perpetually drunk philosopher in the former Soviet Union. Conducted in English.

Rethinking European Literature II: From Shakespeare to Modernism

Professor: Joseph Luzzi  

Course Number: LIT 219

CRN Number: 10373

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Hegeman 204

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

This course will immerse students in the remarkable literary inventions in Europe beginning in the early modern period and continuing into the 20th century. Covering a wealth of literary forms ranging from poetry, the essay, and the novel to drama, philosophy, and epistolary and experimental fiction, we will begin with the groundbreaking theatrical work of Shakespeare and the "invention" of the novel in Cervantes and conclude with the avant-garde Modernism of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. In reflecting on the notion of "European literature," we will explore how later writers responded to cultural traditions forged in the ancient, medieval, and Renaissance periods, while also charting the new artistic pathways that revealed their "rethinking" of the literary forms they inherited. A major concern will be on how the novel eventually became the preeminent literary genre, and how writers responded to – and often shaped – the major historical issues of their ages, including social unrest, religious upheaval, and political revolution. Texts will include Shakespeare's Othello, Cervantes', Don Quixote, Sor Juana's Letter to Sor Filotea, Voltaire''s Candide, Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, Austen's Persuasion, Manzoni's Betrothed, Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Woolf's To the Lighthouse. While students are encouraged to take both semesters of Rethinking European Literature, they are also free to sign up for just one semester.

Stalin and Power

Professor: Jonathan Brent  

Course Number: LIT 2205

CRN Number: 10384

Class cap: 20

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

    Fri   3:10 PM - 5:30 PM Olin 201

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Crosslists: Historical Studies; Russian and Eurasian Studies

This course will investigate Stalin's rise and seizure of absolute power and they way his power was reflected in society and Soviet literature. Through our readings of primary source materials, we will attempt to understand Stalin's actions from the inside; that is, from the point of view of the political, social, historical context in which he and other Bolsheviks saw themselves, rather than from the perspective of western historiography about them and their actions. What did they think they were doing? Why? What was Stalin's role in this process? How did he see that role? How central to the history of his rise to power was the Revolution of 1917? Did historical and cultural realities, both pre- and post-Revolution create an inescapable matrix of choices in which they found themselves? What choices did they have and why? In short, the question is: how did the catastrophic tragedy of the Great Terror of 1936-37, the Gulag system, and Stalin's assumption of absolute power happen and what did it mean for the great masses of Soviet/Russian citizens? Readings will concentrate on historical documents from Soviet political and governmental organs, including top secret and still classified KGB documents; novels; diaries; transcripts of conversations with Stalin; Stalin's personal letters; and contemporary reflections. Readings will include Vasily Grossman's great novel, Life and Fate; Walpurgis Night by Venedikt Erofeev; Sofia Petrovna, by Lidia Chukovskaya; along with other works that help us understanding the meaning and extent of Stalin's power and the way it shaped and was shaped by the life of the people.

Life in the Medieval Church

Professor: Karen Sullivan  

Course Number: LIT 2241

CRN Number: 10385

Class cap: 20

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin Language Center 208

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Throughout the Middle Ages, Christians interpreted and reinterpreted the accounts of the lives of Jesus Christ, the Apostles, and the martyrs of the early Church and strove to imitate these lives in their own daily existence. In the course of this ever-renewed return to the sources, Christians struggled to adapt these early models of sanctity to a world radically different from that of their predecessors. Should one remove oneself from the corruption if the world or remain within it and attempt to reform it? Should one attach oneself to the wretched of the earth, sharing in their poverty and misery, or seek power in order to bring society into conformity with God's will? Should one study classical literature and philosophy, in the hope that they will strengthen one's faith, or avoid these fields, in the fear that they will weaken it? What should the role of women be in the spiritual, intellectual, and institutional fabric of Christianity? The history of the Church in the Middle Ages is largely the history of changing answers to these questions, as late antique models of sanctity give way to monasticism; as challenges to the Church arise both from within, in the form of the Gregorian and other reforms, and from without, in the form of heretical sects; as the mendicant orders, with their scholastic training, gain intellectual and, ultimately, political power within ecclesiastical institutions; and, finally, as practitioners of the anti-scholastic “modern devotion” (devotio moderna) come to prominence on the eve of the Renaissance. Readings will be drawn from biblical, patristic, Benedictine, Cistercian, Dominican, Franciscan, and other sources.  This is a pre-1800 Literature course offering.

The Canterbury Tales

Professor: Marisa Libbon  

Course Number: LIT 2401

CRN Number: 10386

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Hegeman 102

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Crosslists: Medieval Studies

What in the world can storytelling accomplish? This question drives Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and will likewise guide our semester-long exploration of it. An instant classic after Chaucer’s death in 1400, the Canterbury Tales inspired “fan fiction” almost immediately and has since been enshrined as an essential work within the English literary canon, counting writers from Shakespeare to T. S. Eliot among its later readers and admirers. At odds with (or perhaps partly responsible for) its current “insider” and canonical status, though, is the fact that the Tales remains one of the most radically experimental works written in English. By turns beautiful and dirty, politically risky and calculatedly evasive, local and global, poetry and prose, the Tales tests, negotiates, and worries over the ways in which language—written, spoken, read, overheard—constructs reality. It challenges gender and class norms; queries and queers the relationship between tale and teller; and calls into question institutional authority and social hierarchy. Following Chaucer’s lead, we’ll grapple with how literature does (and sometimes does not) influence social change. Put otherwise, what’s the point of telling stories?  This course counts as pre-1800 offering.

Palestinian Literature in Translation

Professor: Elizabeth Holt  

Course Number: LIT 245

CRN Number: 10370

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin Languages Center 208

Distributional Area:

FL  Foreign Languages and Lit   

This course is a survey of Palestinian literature, from the early Arabic press in Palestine to contemporary Palestinian fiction.  We will read short stories, poetry and novels by authors including Adania Shibli, Ghassan Kanafani, Emile Habiby, Samira 'Azzam, Anton Shammas, Mahmoud Darwish, Sahar Khalifeh, Fedwa Tuqan, and Elias Khoury.  All literary texts will be read in translation. This course is part of the World Literature course offering.

Arthurian Romance

Professor: Karen Sullivan  

Course Number: LIT 249

CRN Number: 10380

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 201

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Crosslists: Medieval Studies

In this course, we will be studying the major works of the Arthurian tradition, from the early Latin accounts of a historical King Arthur; to the French and German romances of Lancelot and Guinevere, Merlin and Morgan, and the Holy Grail; to Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur; to nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first century reimaginings of these legends. Throughout its history, Arthurian literature has been criticized for the effects it has upon its readers. The alternate world presented by these texts—with their knights errant, beautiful princesses, marvelous animals, enchanted forests, and decentralized geography—can seem more attractive than our own mundane world, and, in doing so, it is feared, can distract us from this world and our responsibilities within it. Over the semester, as we chart the birth and growth of Arthurian romance, we will be considering the uncertain moral status of this genre and its consequences for us today. This course is a Pre-1800 Literature course offering. 

Shakespeare

Professor: Adhaar Desai  

Course Number: LIT 2501

CRN Number: 10382

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Reem Kayden Center 100

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Before William Shakespeare was ever an icon, an industry, or required reading in high schools throughout the world, he was merely one of dozens of poets and playwrights working in London around the turn of the seventeenth century. This course attempts to recover an unfiltered view of Shakespeare's works by thinking of him as a writer who paid close attention to the world around him, cobbled ideas from other writers together, and consciously experimented with the limits of what it is possible to communicate through writing and performance. We will discover how Shakespeare's works are embedded in theatrical and literary traditions, how they fit into a context undergoing tremendous social, political, artistic, and intellectual upheaval, and why they still resonate with so many people today. Through careful investigations of Shakespeare's techniques, we will also discover how he engages philosophical and social issues relating to politics, sexuality, gender, and race that remain pressing. The class will cover representative texts that span Shakespeare's career, including *Richard III,* *A Midsummer Night's Dream,* *The Merchant of Venice,* *Coriolanus,* and *The Winter's Tale.* Open to all students. This is a pre-1800 Literature course offering.

Asian/American Lives

Professor: Hua Hsu  

Course Number: LIT 256

CRN Number: 10263

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

  Wed Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 305

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Asian Studies

For over fifty years there has existed something called the “Asian American.” The term was the modest contribution of a community of Asian students in California’s Bay Area who had been inspired by the self-fashioning initiative of the civil rights and Black Power movements of the 1950s and 1960s. Ignoring the arbitrariness and historical divisions implicit in the term “Asian”—and defiantly rejecting longstanding terms of derision such as “Oriental” or “Asiatic”—these students conceived of the Asian American as a new (and newly empowered) citizen, and the moment itself represented a turning point in the history of Asians living in the United States. The decades since have brought confusion—albeit a productive kind of confusion. Nowhere have the parameters of Asian American identity been contested more thoroughly than in discussions of literature. During this semester-long course, we will conduct a survey of the literary works produced by Asians in the United States, from poetry carved on the walls of immigration detention centers and travel reportage to experimental fiction, film, graphic novels, zines and memoir. Throughout this course, we will also pay close attention to how different generations of Asian Americans have negotiated their own racialization, the slippery qualities of this category of identification—even those who wrote before the category existed. We will pursue twin narratives: one which accepts these texts as acts of imagination and aspiration, experience and experimentation; and the other tracing the subtler lines of criticism and self-revision implicit to a body of literature encircled by such fraught boundaries.

Marx as Literature

Professor: Alys Moody  

Course Number: LIT 261

CRN Number: 10371

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     5:10 PM - 6:30 PM Olin 204

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: German Studies; Politics

Karl Marx's magnum opus, Capital, is both a tremendously influential theory of the world we live in today and a famously strange text. Wildly interdisciplinary, it combines genres, styles, and methods in order to develop a multifaceted account of the structures and operation of capitalism. In this course, we will slowly and carefully read volume 1 of Capital in its entirety, with a literary critical eye for understanding how questions of form, style and genre shape this transformative and influential account of the modern world. Students will be encouraged through assessment and class discussion to develop their own direct engagement with this work, finding their bearings not in generalized preconceptions about Marxism or communism, but in close, faithful, and creative engagement with the text itself. This in turn will offer the basis for a reading of Marx that is able to explore and test his ideas in our own world. We will consider how Marx understands capitalism to produce injustice and inequality, and what he has to say about the class structure of our society. No previous knowledge of Marx, Marxism, or Capital is expected and both Literature and non-Literature students are welcome.

The Power of Feeling: Black Music, Literature and the Creation of an Aesthetic

Professor: Donna Grover Marcus Roberts

Course Number: LIT 264

CRN Number: 10568

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 204

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Music

This course asks this question: in what ways is an aesthetic a response to the conditions of the time?  For enslaved people spirituals detailed a transitory experience marked by suffering that culminated in a celebratory experience of freedom or ascendance into heaven.  While the blues narrated the cost of personal autonomy through songs filled with love, anger, hurt and the celebration of survival.  Jazz takes from both of these forms in order to detail the experience of newly formed  communities  and mediate the divergent cultures that sought out opportunity in urban areas.  Literature shares a symbiotic relationship to these musical movements detailing social and political upheavals  that also contribute to an aesthetic.   By  reading such literary artists such as Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston and James Baldwin along side notable musical artists such as Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington, we will not only understand  conditions and the aesthetics  they joined to create but will also confront our present political, social and artistic situation and how that is mirrored in our current consumption and creation of art.

The Land of Disasters: A Cultural History of Catastrophic 'Japan'

Professor: Chiara Pavone  

Course Number: LIT 267

CRN Number: 10362

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin Languages Center 115

Distributional Area:

FL  Foreign Languages and Lit   

Crosslists: Asian Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Experimental Humanities

In a famous speech given shortly after the occurrence of the Great Tōhoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster in 2011, writer Murakami Haruki affirmed that "To be Japanese means, in a certain sense, to live alongside a variety of natural catastrophes." This course's main objective will be to explore and dispute the origins and genealogy of this – widespread and undisputed – claim. Each class will introduce literary works and media tracing Japan's history of natural and man-made disasters, explore different methodologies in disaster research (including disaster anthropology, sociology, post-colonial theory and ecocriticism), and engage critically with issues shaping the perception and representation of disasters – such as the proximity of narrators and narratees to the epicenter of the catastrophe, minority populations' vulnerability to hazards and systemic discrimination, authority and biases in the process of memorialization. The course will offer some critical instruments to answer the question through the close reading of literary works, films and visual artifacts; and by situating these pieces in a larger cultural and technological history that extends well beyond the borders of the modern Japanese nation.  This course is part of the World Literature offering.

Reading Youth in Korean Film and Literature

Professor: Soonyoung Lee  

Course Number: LIT 275

CRN Number: 10372

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin Languages Center 118

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Crosslists: Asian Studies

This comprehensive course delves into the multifaceted representations of youth in Korean society, spanning from the colonial era to contemporary times. Through an interdisciplinary lens that incorporates literature, film, and popular culture, we examine the significant role that the concept of "youth" has played in shaping modern Korean history. We will unpack how various historical and social forces have contributed to the construction of "youth" as a cultural and social category. Special attention will be given to the interplay between gender and these constructions, exploring how they influence and are reflected in diverse youth cultures. By engaging with a range of intersectional cultural contexts—including music, media, literature, and film—students will gain a nuanced understanding of the complexities that shape youth identities and cultures in Korea.  This course is part of the World Literature offering.

Like Family: Domestic Worker Characters in Fiction

Professor: Marina van Zuylen  

Course Number: LIT 282

CRN Number: 10377

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin 205

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists: Human Rights

This course will delve into the idea that female domestic workers (maids, nannies, cooks), often portrayed as invisible and powerless, can also wield considerable influence and authority over their employers, affecting the structure of everyday life. Far from only being consigned to the margins of storytelling, mere backdrop to the narrative, our examples will show these workers in different light. Starting with excerpts from the comedic tradition where the "servant" uses role reversals to subvert traditional social hierarchies (Terence, Cervantes, Molière, Kundera), we will then tackle the ethical and social implications of figures that are both part of and excluded from the household. Self-destructive loyalty (Flaubert, A Simple Heart, Ishiguro, Remains of the Day), skewed hierarchies (Szabo, The Door, du Maurier, Rebecca), Class warfare (NDiaye, The Cheffe, Slimani, The Perfect Nanny), cultural upheavals (Faizur Rasul, Bengal to Birmingham). This course is part of the World Literature offering.

Kafka & Brecht: Myth & Theater

Professor: Thomas Bartscherer  

Course Number: LIT 283

CRN Number: 10378

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin Languages Center 115

Distributional Area:

LA  Literary Analysis in English   

Crosslists: German Studies

What is distinctive about modern storytelling? If it differs in important ways from earlier modes of storytelling, why is that? Has human nature changed? Has the world changed? Both, or neither? In this course, we will consider these and related questions by closely studying selected works from two of the greatest 20th century storytellers: Franz Kafka, a writer of prose fiction, and Berthold Brecht, primarily a playwright and director. Kafka was, in the words of Walter Benjamin, "a latter-day Ulysses" whose "real genius was that he tried something entirely new." Brecht, meanwhile, was in his own words working toward "a radical transformation of the theatre," a rejection of the "dramatic" in favor of the "epic" theater. We will consider how both writers revisit and radically re-imagine central figures and forms in the long arc of literary history. We will follow their tracks, also reading key selections from Greek and Hebrew literature. How do Kafka's Poseidon and Prometheus compare to those we find in Homer and in later version of these myths? Why are Kafka's Sirens silent? Why does Brecht advocate for "non-Aristotelian" drama and does he realize this vision in plays like The Mother and Mother Courage? How does his Antigone differ from her ancient Greek predecessor? All texts will be in English. Some readings will be paired with film screenings and, if possible, attendance at a staged production or reading.

Introduction to American Studies

Course Number: AS 101

CRN Number: 10179

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Professor:

Peter L'Official

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 202

Distributional Area:

MBV  Meaning, Being, Value  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists:

Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Literature

The Courage to Be: Achilles, Socrates, Antigone, Mother Courage, Barbara Lee

Course Number: CC 108 A

CRN Number: 10330

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Professor:

Thomas Bartscherer

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Henderson Comp. Center 106

Distributional Area:

LA MBV  Literary Analysis in English Meaning, Being, Value   

Crosslists:

Human Rights; Literature

Courage To Be: The Freedom to Write

Course Number: CC 108 C

CRN Number: 10332

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Professor:

Jana Mader

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 205

Distributional Area:

MBV SA  Meaning, Being, Value Social Analysis  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists:

Human Rights; Literature

Courage To Be: Black Contrarian Voices

Course Number: CC 108 D

CRN Number: 10333

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Professor:

Thomas Williams

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin 203

Distributional Area:

HA MBV  Historical Analysis Meaning, Being, Value  D+J Difference and Justice

Crosslists:

Africana Studies; Human Rights; Literature

Ancient Literary Criticism

Course Number: CLAS 329

CRN Number: 10110

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Professor:

Daniel Mendelsohn

Schedule/Location:

 Tue      12:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 305

Distributional Area:

FL  Foreign Languages and Lit   

Crosslists:

Greek; Literature; Written Arts

Class Matters: Vocabularies of Contempt from Balzac to Ernaux

Course Number: FREN 321

CRN Number: 10114

Class cap: 15

Credits: 4

Professor:

Marina van Zuylen

Schedule/Location:

    Fri   12:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin Languages Center 118

Distributional Area:

FL  Foreign Languages and Lit   

Crosslists:

Literature

An Epic Introduction to Sanskrit

Course Number: REL 214

CRN Number: 10270

Class cap: 22

Credits: 4

Professor:

Nabanjan Maitra

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 310

Distributional Area:

FL  Foreign Languages and Lit   

Crosslists:

Literature

Materials and Techniques of Poetry

Course Number: WRIT 230

CRN Number: 10401

Class cap: 12

Credits: 4

Professor:

Michael Ives

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin 302

Distributional Area:

PA  Practicing Arts   

Crosslists:

Literature