Supernatural Tales of Japan: Ghosts,
Gods, and Goblins |
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Professor:
Phuong Ngo |
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Course Number: LIT 154 |
CRN Number: 10259 |
Class
cap: 22 |
Credits: 4 |
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Schedule/Location: |
Tue Thurs 11:50 AM
- 1:10 PM Olin 101 |
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Distributional Area: |
LA Literary
Analysis in English |
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Crosslists: Asian Studies |
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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. |
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How to Construct Meaning: Introduction
to Chinese Narrative |
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Professor:
Shuangting Xiong |
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Course Number: LIT 156 |
CRN Number: 10260 |
Class
cap: 22 |
Credits: 4 |
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Schedule/Location: |
Mon Wed
3:30 PM - 4:50 PM Olin Languages
Center 120 |
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Distributional Area: |
LA Literary
Analysis in English |
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Crosslists: Asian Studies |
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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. |
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Hope in the Dark: Eurasian Fantasy and
Folklore |
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Professor:
Olga Voronina |
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Course Number: LIT 164 |
CRN Number: 10261 |
Class
cap: 22 |
Credits: 4 |
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Schedule/Location: |
Mon Wed
10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin Languages
Center 115 |
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Distributional Area: |
FL Foreign
Languages and Lit |
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Crosslists: Russian and Eurasian Studies; Written
Arts |
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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. |
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The Land of Disasters: A Cultural
History of Catastrophic 'Japan' |
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Professor:
Chiara Pavone |
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Course Number: LIT 267 |
CRN Number: 10362 |
Class
cap: 22 |
Credits: 4 |
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Schedule/Location: |
Mon Wed
11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin
Languages Center 115 |
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Distributional Area: |
FL Foreign
Languages and Lit |
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Crosslists: Asian Studies; Experimental
Humanities |
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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. |
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Palestinian Literature in Translation |
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Professor:
Elizabeth Holt |
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Course Number: LIT 245 |
CRN Number: 10370 |
Class
cap: 22 |
Credits: 4 |
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Schedule/Location: |
Tue Thurs 1:30 PM
- 2:50 PM Olin Languages Center 208 |
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Distributional Area: |
FL Foreign
Languages and Lit |
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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 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. |
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Reading Youth in Korean Film and
Literature |
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Professor:
Soonyoung Lee |
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Course Number: LIT 275 |
CRN Number: 10372 |
Class
cap: 22 |
Credits: 4 |
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Schedule/Location: |
Tue Thurs 1:30 PM
- 2:50 PM Olin Languages Center 118 |
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Distributional Area: |
LA Literary
Analysis in English |
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Crosslists: Asian Studies |
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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. |
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Like Family: Domestic Worker
Characters in Fiction |
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Professor:
Marina van Zuylen |
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Course Number: LIT 282 |
CRN Number: 10377 |
Class
cap: 22 |
Credits: 4 |
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Schedule/Location: |
Tue Thurs 3:30 PM
- 4:50 PM Olin 205 |
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Distributional Area: |
LA Literary
Analysis in English |
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Crosslists: Human Rights |
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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. |
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Light Writing: Literature and Photography in
the French Tradition |
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Professor:
Gabriella Lindsay |
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Course Number: LIT 285 |
CRN Number: 10379 |
Class
cap: 22 |
Credits: 4 |
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Schedule/Location: |
Tue Thurs 5:10 PM
- 6:30 PM Olin 201 |
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Distributional Area: |
LA Literary
Analysis in English D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: Experimental Humanities; French
Studies |
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What happens when photographs and texts are brought
together? In the French-speaking world, there is a particularly strong
tradition of writers and artists using photographic images and text to create
new forms of meaning, unsurprising perhaps, given French claims on the
invention of a photographic process in the early 19th century. This seminar
will consider the relationship between literature and photography by engaging
closely with photo-textual and theoretical works translated from French,
focusing on the themes of autobiography, historical memory and postcoloniality. We will examine questions of
documentation, experimentation, selfhood, violence, colonialism, memory and
forgetting, perception, ethics, and the nature of representation. From Sophie
Calle and Hervé Guibert's photobiographical
blurring of fiction and reality to Malek Alloula's "album" of Algerian colonial
postcards and Patrick Chamoiseau and Rodolphe Hammadi's photo-poetic
history of Guianan work-camps, we will think about
how words and photographic images transform one another to create new
understandings of the self, individual and collective memory, loss and
history. Students will also have the opportunity to make photo-texts
of their own. Authors to be studied may include Roland Barthes,
Sophie Calle, Marie NDiaye,
Hervé Guibert, Hélène Cixous, Malek Alloula, Patrick Modiano, Patrick Chamoiseau, Rodolphe Hammadi, Marc Garanger, Leïla
Sebbar. This course is conducted in English and
does not assume any prior knowledge of French, photography, or literature in
French. This course fulfills the World Literature requirement. By
engaging with the representation of colonial violence and colonial memory,
the class also counts for the Difference and Justice distributional area. |
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Radical Reading:
Nganang's Historical Fiction |
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Professor:
Ursula Embola |
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Course Number: LIT 369 |
CRN Number: 10388 |
Class
cap: 14 |
Credits: 4 |
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Schedule/Location: |
Tue 3:10 PM - 5:30 PM Olin 304 |
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Distributional Area: |
LA Literary Analysis in English |
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Crosslists: Africana Studies; Human Rights |
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"Radical
Reading: Nganang's Historical Fiction" is a reading-intensive course
that introduces students to contemporary texts in English translation penned
by award-winning Cameroonian-American author Patrice Nganang. Students taking
this course will develop an appreciation of the historical, cultural, thematic,
and aesthetic preoccupations expressed within Nganang's trilogy of historical
fiction novels centered on Cameroon's development into a West/Central African
nation over the course of the 20th century. A key question that sits at the
heart of this course is the following: "How is the literary genre of
historical fiction employed by Nganang in the work of crafting a Cameroonian
national identity, and how is that work complicated by the specificity of the
Cameroonian multicultural, multilingual, and postcolonial situation?"
The course seeks to use Literature as a means of decolonizing African history
and is designed to provide students with exciting and challenging new
learning experiences which they can easily apply to other areas of their
academic journeys. This course is part of the World Literature offering. |
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