|
The Novels of W. G. Sebald:
Disorientations of History and Memory |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Daniel Mendelsohn
|
|||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
LIT 303 |
CRN Number: |
90301 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Tue 12:30 PM
- 2:50 PM Olin 303 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English |
|||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
German Studies |
|||||||||
|
The four major works of fiction by W. G. Sebald (1944-2001)
are widely considered to be the last great literary achievement of the
twentieth century. In Vertigo, The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, and
Austerlitz, the author—who emphatically rejected the mainstream postwar
German literary current, and abandoned Germany for England, where he lived
until his death—created a unique and haunting body of work in which
leitmotivs of memory (and failure of memory), wandering and displacement, and
tensions between visual and verbal witnesses to the past entwine to form a subtle
but powerful interrogation of his major themes: the burden of German guilt in
the twentieth century, the nature of history and our place in it, and the
seemingly inevitable progress from civilization to decay. In this seminar we
will read the four major novels along with excerpts from the author’s
nonfiction essays and poetical work, as well as recent biographical and
critical texts. This course is part of the World Literature offering. |
|||||||||||
|
Irish Writing and the Nationality of
Literature |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Joseph O'Neill
|
|||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
LIT 3045 |
CRN Number: |
90306 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Mon 12:30
PM - 2:50 PM Olin 303 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English D+J Difference and Justice |
|||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
Irish and Celtic Studies; Written Arts |
|||||||||
|
Students will read so-called Irish writing as a means of
investigating the general notion that literary texts may possess the
attribute of nationality. How is ‘Irishness’ to be located in a text? What is
the function of the term ‘Irish’ when applied to a piece of writing? In what
ways does the idea of ‘nationality’ (or ‘ethnicity’ or ‘community’) connect
the literary, juridical, and political realms? What does artistic discourse
have to do with political ethics? What might a post-national literature involve?
Students may read artistic work by (inter alia). Jonathan Swift, Maria
Edgeworth, Oscar Wilde, Somerville and Ross, Bram Stoker, W.B. Yeats, James
Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, Flann O’Brien, Samuel Beckett, Brian Friel.
Theoretical work by (inter alia) Rudolf Rocker, John Rawls, Noam Chomsky, and
Benedict Anderson will be touched on. Students will produce two works of
creative writing for the midterm and final papers. This course fulfills the D
+ J requirement because it examines the formation of group identity, in
particular the concepts of sameness and otherness that underwrite the
formation of nationhood. |
|||||||||||
|
Extraordinary Bodies: Disability in
American Literature and Culture |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Jaime Alves |
|||||||||
|
|
Course Number: |
LIT 3048 |
CRN Number: |
90307 |
Class cap: |
10 |
Credits: |
4 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Tue 6:00 PM
- 9:00 PM Olin 205 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English D+J Difference and Justice |
|||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
Human Rights |
|||||||||
|
In this course, we will examine U.S. fiction, poetry, and
memoir to understand how writers of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries
represent the “normal” body, as well as a constellation of bodies presented
as extraordinary: bodies that differ from the average at birth or are
transformed by illness or war; bodies paraded as “freaks”; bodies that don’t
fit into established categories. We begin in the early nineteenth century,
when popular Enlightenment ideology suggested Americans could control their
own destinies, making and remaking their characters, and even their bodies,
at will. What ideas emerged here about the kind of self one should make, and
the kinds of bodies that should be discarded? How were those ideas proffered
in and shaped by literary imaginings? How have they persisted and changed
over time, especially in relation to ideas about American identity? Our
reading list takes us into the present day, and includes an introduction to
the major questions and scholarly perspectives under debate at the
intersection of Disability Studies and the study of literature. This course
is designated as Difference & Justice because we work with critical,
theoretical, and historical texts on disability as an intersectional identity
requiring intentional and sustained examination in order to bring into being
a more just and inclusive society. This course is cross-listed with the MAT
program for 4+1 students in literature. |
|||||||||||
|
The Author as Enchanter: Nabokov’s Last
Novels |
||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Olga Voronina
|
||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
LIT 314 |
CRN Number: |
90299 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Mon 12:30 PM
- 2:50 PM Hegeman 201 |
||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English |
||||||||
|
In his preface to Lectures on Literature, Nabokov famously alluded
to outstanding novels as “fairy tales” and called authors of merit
“enchanters.” His own literary career took a particularly magical twist in
1958, after the “hurricane ‘Lolita’” swept through the US literary market,
clearing the path for Nabokov to quit teaching American students how to read
literary “masterworks” and move to Switzerland so that he could continue
creating his own versions (and subversions) of the Great European Novel. This
course confronts the controversial notion of literary greatness by addressing
genre transformations in Pale Fire, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle,
Transparent Things, and Look at the Harlequins! as the works in which Nabokov
playfully re-imagined or sarcastically re-interpreted his Russian, European,
and American literary heritages. We will read and re-read these novels from a
comparative perspective as well as through the lens of poetry, fantasy,
folklore, and fine arts – the modes of artistic self-expression this
“enchanter” was professedly indebted to. |
||||||||||
|
Solar Readings |
||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Elizabeth Holt
|
||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
LIT 316 |
CRN Number: |
90300 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Wed 3:30 PM
- 5:50 PM Olin 303 |
||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English |
||||||||
|
This course takes up contemporary debates in the energy
humanities through a focus on the role of the sun in storytelling, narrative,
film, economic and environmental theory, installation art, poetry, and
theater. The course will begin by theorizing energy formations in relations
to culture and aesthetics, relying on After Oil's Solarities, taking
seriously the ways that petromodernity frames questions of labor,
decentralized energy formations, and differences in aesthetic form as we turn
toward the sun. Central to our work together will be the storytelling
technology of suspense in Thousand and One Nights, as Shahrazad's oral
storytelling is interrupted each morning by the rising sun. We will read this
comparatively with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, as well as in relation to
the history of the novel form and serialization. Finally we will work with
solarity in the poetry from Allen Ginsberg, Nazik al-Mala'ika, Mahmoud
Darwish, and Etel Adnan, the installation art of Olafur Eliasson, and longer
prose works from Ghassan Kanafani. This course works comparatively to
consider the differential impacts and aesthetics of cultural forms, and
thinks in particular about how centering the figuring of gender and labor
inflects solarity both before and after petroleum. This course is a
Literature Junior Seminar and is part of the World Literature Course
offering. |
||||||||||
|
Representing the Unspeakable |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Marina van Zuylen
|
|||||||||
|
|
Course Number: |
LIT 322 |
CRN Number: |
90302 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Fri 12:30 PM
- 2:50 PM Olin 101 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English D+J Difference and Justice |
|||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
Human Rights |
|||||||||
|
What do writers use to demonstrate conditions that defy our
comprehension? This seminar will focus on how literary works from diverse genres
find a language to describe emotions and experiences that usually cannot be
translated into everyday speech.We will examine how figurative tropes such as
description and metaphor, allegory and indirect discourse, can evoke powerful
states of physical difference, psychological and social negativity:
depression, failure, discrimination, loneliness. How do these tropes help
illuminate the distinction between the human and the non-human, between
success and failure? Readings will include: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,
Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in
the Night Time, Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go, Went, Gone, Coetzee’s The Lives of the
Animals, Theoretical texts will include: Foucault, Scarry, Manning, Rancière.
This seminar will be particularly attentive to our struggles (linguistic,
psychological, existential) toward those who inhabit states we don't
immediately relate to. Whether Temple Grandin's autism diagnosis or the
silence of the exile in Erpenbeck's fiction, this class will dwell on the
relationship between solitude, difference, and discrimination. |
|||||||||||
|
Innovative Contemporary Fiction |
||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Bradford Morrow
|
||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
LIT 333 |
CRN Number: |
90231 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Mon 12:30 PM - 2:50
PM Olin 204 |
||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English |
||||||||
|
What makes some fiction groundbreaking and evergreen, while
other novels and stories remain firmly situated in traditional and
conventional forms of the past? Is how a story is written as important as the
story it tells? And if so, what critical tools does a reader need in order to
understand that all but electric nexus between pioneering form and engaging
content? What are some of the narrative strategies used by innovators in
recent fiction, strategies that are often invisibly at play beneath the
surface of storytelling? In this course we will devote much time to very
close readings of key novels and short story collections by some of the
foremost innovators of the past couple of generations, with an eye toward
exploring the diverse visions and unique styles employed as well as the
cultural, political, and societal issues they chronicle. Particular emphasis
will be placed on reading and analyzing books and stories by some of
fiction’s most unflinching practitioners, including Carmen Maria Machado, Richard
Powers, Cormac McCarthy, Zadie Smith, Jamaica Kincaid, Angela
Carter, Kazuo Ishiguro, Kelly Link, William Gaddis, Can Xue, along with
others who have revitalized and revolutionized our understanding of narrative
forms. Please note: Students will also have the unique opportunity to
interact with several leading contemporary writers who will join us in person
in class to discuss their work and answer questions about their personal
approaches to the art of fiction. Among the visiting writers expected to join
us in class and give a public reading are Joyce Carol Oates and Richard
Powers. |
||||||||||
|
Readings in Ecocriticism |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Alex Benson |
|||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
LIT 339 |
CRN Number: |
90297 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
2 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Thurs 3:30 PM
- 4:50 PM Olin 303 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English |
|||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies |
|||||||||
|
(2-credit course that meets once a week for the full
semester.) This course is designed both for humanities students interested in
environmental problems and for students in environmental studies with an
interest in the humanities. Each week, discussion will focus on a key essay
or book chapter in the field of ecocriticism (and in adjacent fields
including ecopoetics, ecofeminism, animal studies, science studies, and
political ecology). While these readings will be drawn from across the
field’s development since the mid-twentieth century, our discussion will
consistently ask about their relation to contemporary issues of climate
change, mass extinction, and environmental justice in the Anthropocene. We
will also connect our readings with areas of particular interest to enrolled
students, whether they intend to write senior projects about poetic meter or
pollution metrics. |
|||||||||||
|
Gender and Sexuality in Chinese
Literature and Culture |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Shuangting Xiong
|
|||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
LIT 342 |
CRN Number: |
90298 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Tue 3:10 PM
- 5:30 PM Olin 310 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English D+J Difference and Justice |
|||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
Asian Studies |
|||||||||
|
This course examines literary and cinematic representations
of gender and sexuality in premodern and modern China. The first half of the
course will examine views toward gender, sexuality, sexed bodies, desire, and
family in traditional Chinese culture as informed by Confucian, Daoist, and
Buddhist thought. The second half of the course turns to the twentieth
century that saw remarkable transformations in gender roles, both in China
and in the world at large. In particular, the status of women changed dramatically,
but encountered challenges both old and new as well. This part of the course
will explore how literature and film have sought to represent these
monumental changes in the course of Chinese modernity. We will learn to think
and write critically about how gendered concepts inform the cultural values
and aesthetics of premodern and modern Chinese narrative. In addition to
gender, we will also look at changing ideas about sexuality, including
same-sex sexuality and non-binary gender identity and expression. In doing
so, we hope to reflect on our own beliefs and attitudes toward gender,
sexuality, sexed bodies, desire, and family. As this is a course on gender
and sexuality, we will likely explore material that some might find
sensitive, or even offensive. Students are encouraged to discuss possible
concerns regarding material to the Professor. No prior knowledge of Chinese
is required. This course is a Pre-1800 and World Literature Course offering. |
|||||||||||
|
After Chinua Achebe: Reading contemporary African Literature |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor: |
John Ryle and Nuruddin Farah |
|||||||||
|
|
Course Number: |
LIT 346 |
CRN Number: |
90591 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location: |
Tue 3:10 PM - 5:30
PM Hegeman 300 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English |
|||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
Africana Studies; Anthropology; Human Rights; Written Arts |
|||||||||
|
Chinua Achebe, who taught at Bard for two decades, is among
the greatest of post-colonial African writers. The seminar will open with a
discussion of Things Fall Apart, his first and most celebrated work, a
historical novel set in the Igbo culture of Nigeria on the eve of European
colonization. Next, a consideration of Heart of Darkness, set in Congo and
written in the colonial era by the Polish-born British writer Joseph Conrad –
a controversial text that Achebe frequently criticized, but that some other post-colonial
African writers have defended. Over the course of the term we will explore
the work of a range of post-colonial African writers, their representations
of the cultural wealth of the continent and their engagement with the
languages and genres of European literature. The seminar will cover issues of
history and post-coloniality, nationhood, gender and representation, cultural
relativism, oral literature, and the challenge of translation. Class members
will write short weekly responses and a term essay on the work of one of the
writer discussed. We will be joined for discussions by other Bard faculty
and/or by the writers themselves. Texts to be discussed will be selected from
the work of the following: Amos Tutuola (Nigeria), Tayeb Salih (Sudan), Ngũgĩ
wa Thiong'o (Kenya), J.M.Coetzee (South Africa), Ousmane Sembene (Senegal),
Nuruddin Farah (Somalia), Mohamed Choukri (Morocco), Chimamanda Adichie
(Nigeria), Abdulrazak Gurnah (Tanzania), Leila Abulela (Sudan), Okot p’Bitek
(Uganda), NoViolet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) and Binyavanga Wainaina (Kenya). |
|||||||||||
|
Playing in the Dark: Toni Morrison's
Literary Imagination |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Peter L'Official
|
|||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
LIT 356 |
CRN Number: |
90304 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Thurs 12:30 PM
- 2:50 PM Olin 306 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English |
|||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
Africana Studies; American & Indigenous Studies |
|||||||||
|
“There seems to be a more or less tacit agreement among
literary scholars that, because American literature has been clearly the
preserve of white male views, genius, and power, those views, genius, and
power are without relationship to and removed from the overwhelming presence
of black people in the United States. This agreement is made about a
population that preceded every American writer of renown and was, I have come
to believe, one of the most furtively radical impinging forces on the
country’s literature. The contemplation of this black presence is central to
any understanding of our national literature and should not be permitted to
hover at the margins of the literary imagination.” This course takes Toni
Morrison’s book-length 1992 essay, Playing in the Dark (from which the
preceding quote is taken), as inspiration for an exploration of not only
Morrison’s own fiction, non-fiction, and work as a literary editor at Random
House, but also how to read—and read critically–within the fields of American
and African American literature. We will read Morrison’s work and that of her
contemporaries, predecessors, critics, and scholars, and we will ask and
answer many of the questions that Morrison herself leveled at American
fiction. This course is a Literature Junior Seminar—so it will devote
substantial time to methods of research, writing, and revision—and it
fulfills the American Studies Junior Seminar requirement. As befitting its
subject, this course examines issues of race and ethnicity, gender, language,
difference, identity, and technique. This course is a Literature Junior
Seminar—so it will devote substantial time to methods of research, writing,
and revision—and it fulfills the American Studies Junior Seminar requirement. |
|||||||||||
|
Romance and Realism: A History of Italian Cinema |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Joseph Luzzi |
|||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
LIT 366 |
CRN Number: |
90305 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Mon 12:30
PM - 2:50 PM Olin 101 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
FL Foreign Languages and Lit |
|||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
Film and Electronic Arts; Italian Studies |
|||||||||
|
The phrase rifare l'Italia (remake Italy) was a refrain for
many of the Italian filmmakers of the 1940s and 1950s who created works that
dealt in some way with their nation’s struggle to rebuild itself after two
decades of Fascism and years of world (and civil) war. In particular, the
famous postwar cinematic movement Neorealism revolutionized filmmaking by
employing documentary-style techniques to address the pressing sociopolitical
issues of the day. A focus of this course on the history of Italian film will
be the works and legacies of the vaunted Neorealist movement, whose directors
(Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti) trained or
influenced a generation of the so-called auteur filmmakers (Federico Fellini,
Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini). We will also study the
influence of Italian cinema on such major cinematic events as the American
Godfather films and the masterpieces of the French New Wave. Our course will
conclude with a consideration of major recent Italian directors who continue
to produce “art cinema” in the tradition of the Neorealist and auteur
masters. All course work/readings in English; films with English subtitles. |
|||||||||||
Senior Project Colloquium
|
Literature Senior Colloquium I |
||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Marisa Libbon
|
||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
LIT 405 |
CRN Number: |
90308 |
Class cap: |
20 |
Credits: |
1 |
||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Mon 5:10 PM
- 6:30 PM Olin 101 |
||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English |
||||||||
|
(To be taken concurrently with LIT 401) Senior Colloquium
is the capstone course in the Literature curriculum and, along with the
Senior Project, represents the culmination of your work in the major. The
course has several interrelated goals: 1) to facilitate and support every
stage of your work on the Senior Project; 2) to develop ways of sharing that
work and constructively exchanging ideas with fellow colloquium members as
well as other Literature students and faculty; 3) to actively engage with
related intellectual and artistic events (such as readings, panel
discussions, and lectures) in ways that connect your work on the Senior
Project with the work of prominent scholars and writers; 4) to cultivate an
honest, self-reflective relationship toward your own scholarship, thinking,
and writing; and 5) to document your research in a way that is generous
toward future readers and writers. |
||||||||||
|
Literature Senior Colloquium II |
||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Marisa Libbon
|
||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
LIT 406 |
CRN Number: |
90309 |
Class cap: |
10 |
Credits: |
1 |
||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Mon 3:30 PM
- 4:50 PM Olin 302 |
||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English |
||||||||
|
(To be taken concurrently with LIT 402) Senior Colloquium
is the capstone course in the Literature curriculum and, along with the
Senior Project, represents the culmination of your work in the major. The
course has several interrelated goals: 1) to facilitate and support every
stage of your work on the Senior Project; 2) to develop ways of sharing that
work and constructively exchanging ideas with fellow colloquium members as
well as other Literature students and faculty; 3) to actively engage with
related intellectual and artistic events (such as readings, panel
discussions, and lectures) in ways that connect your work on the Senior
Project with the work of prominent scholars and writers; 4) to cultivate an
honest, self-reflective relationship toward your own scholarship, thinking,
and writing; and 5) to document your research in a way that is generous
toward future readers and writers. |
||||||||||
Cross-listed Courses:
|
Parables of Abolition |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Kwame Holmes |
|||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
AFR 311 |
CRN Number: |
90310 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Wed 3:30 PM
- 5:50 PM Hegeman 300 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value D+J Difference and Justice |
|||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
American & Indigenous Studies; Experimental Humanities; Gender and
Sexuality Studies; Human Rights; Literature; Philosophy |
|||||||||
|
Asian Humanities Seminar |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Nabanjan Maitra
|
|||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
ASIA 310 |
CRN Number: |
90311 |
Class cap: |
12 |
Credits: |
4 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Tue 3:10 PM
- 5:30 PM Olin 302 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
MBV Meaning, Being, Value D+J Difference and Justice |
|||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
Literature; Study of Religions |
|||||||||
|
Plato’s Symposium: Desire, Sexuality,
And The Purposes Of Love |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Daniel Mendelsohn
|
|||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
CLAS 362 |
CRN Number: |
90090 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Thurs 12:30 PM
- 2:50 PM Olin 101 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
FL Foreign Languages and Lit |
|||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
Gender and Sexuality Studies; Literature; Philosophy |
|||||||||
|
The Romans and the Natural World |
||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Lauren Curtis |
||||||||
|
|
Course
Number: |
CLAS 363 |
CRN Number: |
90583 |
Class cap: |
15 |
Credits: |
4 |
||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Tue 3:10 PM
- 5:30 PM Olin 204 |
||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
FL Foreign Languages and Lit |
||||||||
|
|
Crosslists: |
Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies;
Literature |
||||||||
|
Dramatic Structure: How Plays Work |
|||||||||||
|
|
Professor:
|
Gideon Lester
|
|||||||||
|
|
Course Number: |
THTR 380 |
CRN Number: |
90420 |
Class cap: |
12 |
Credits: |
4 |
|||
|
|
Schedule/Location:
|
Wed 3:30 PM
- 5:50 PM Olin 306 |
|||||||||
|
|
Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English |
|||||||||
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Crosslists: |
Literature |
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