91115 |
GER / LIT 199
Kafka: Prague, Politics and the fin-de siecle |
Franz Kempf |
. T . Th . |
10:10 - 11:30 am |
OLINLC 118 |
ELIT |
See German section for description.
91294 |
LIT 2015
American Indian Fictions |
Geoffrey Sanborn |
. . W . F |
10:10 - 11:30 am |
OLIN 301 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed: American
Studies, Human Rights By
the time that D'Arcy McNickle, the first major American Indian novelist, began
publishing his work, Indians--the currently preferred self-description of the
people sometimes referred to as "Native Americans"—had been stock
literary figures for over three hundred years. In works ranging from Mary
Rowlandson's captivity narrative and Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly to the Leatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper and the southwestern
novels of Willa Cather, white American writers had collectively generated a
simultaneously fixed and ungrounded notion of "Indianness." On
the one hand, Indians could not belong to the nation because they existed
outside of time, beyond change. On the other hand, their Indianness, the
imaginary essence of what they were, could be repeatedly sought out,
appropriated, and refigured by white people in need of a respite from
modernity. As the critic Philip J. Deloria has written, the figure of the
Indian in white American culture "gave the nation a bedrock, for it fully
engaged the contradiction most central to a range of American identities--that
between an unchanging, essential Americanness and the equally American liberty
to make oneself into something new." In this course, we will read the
tradition of fiction–about-Indians and Indianness in relation to the tradition
of fiction–by-Indians that has sprung up in its wake. Authors include
Rowlandson, Brown, Cooper, Melville, Helen Hunt
Jackson, Cather, Black Elk, McNickle, N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Leslie
Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, and Sherman Alexie. Class
size: 20
91212 |
LIT 202
Metrical Verse |
Benjamin La Farge |
M . W . . |
3:10 -4:30 pm |
OLIN 309 |
ELIT |
Students will learn how to read and write metrical verse by writing exercises in the principal meters (Accentual/Syllabic, Accentual, Syllabic, Anglo-Saxon Alliterative , Haiku, etc.) and the principal forms (the ballad, the sonnet, blank verse, nonsense verse, the ode, the dramatic monologue, the villanelle, the sestina, the pantoum) that make poetry in the English language one of the richest traditions in the world. A particular concern will be the relation between meter and the speaking voice; an additional concern will be the kinds of trope that distinguish classical (figurative) from modernist (elliptical) poetry. Class size: 15
91114 |
LIT 2021
Mark Twain Seminar |
Elizabeth Frank |
. . W . . . . . Th . |
3:00 -4:20 pm 1:30 -2:50 pm |
ASP 302 |
ELIT |
In this course on one of the United States’ wittiest and most renowned literary figures, students will do individual research and make class presentations on Mark Twain’s major works, including, but not restricted to Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, Life on the Mississippi, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, Letters from the Earth and The Mysterious Stranger. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor and one U.S. sequence course or a course in either American Studies or American history. Class size: 20
91270 |
LIT 2036
Rise of the Black Novel |
Charles Walls |
. T . Th . |
1:30 -2:50 pm |
OLIN 306 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed: Africana Studies, American Studies If we go beyond the pedestrian assumption that early black literature merely provides a forum for the expression of human suffering and for the correction of dehumanizing cultural representations, then we are left with difficult questions about the development of black literary production, which themselves may need reframing: why, for instance, in the mid-nineteenth century did prominent black men and women of letters begin to write novels? What special qualities make the novel useful for cultural/political interventions? Tentatively answering these questions, we will place the narratives of both black and white writers in the context of abolitionism, radical theology and moral theory, the Haitian Revolution and slave rebellion, and mid-nineteenth century theories of the imagination. Our main task is to articulate the special role that the novel plays in the development of a radical black literary tradition and in a nation headed toward civil war. Likely writers include Stowe, Douglass, Emerson, Melville, Jacobs, Delany, Brown, Wilson, and Webb. Class size: 15
91846 |
LIT 2037 Childhood
and Children’s Literature in Japan |
Mika Endo |
. T . Th . |
1:30 – 2:50 pm |
RKC 102 |
FLLC |
Cross-listed: Asian Studies This
course examines the ubiquity of the child figure in literary and cultural
production in modern Japan. By examining key representations of society’s
youngest members as well as works intended for children themselves, we will
explore 1) ways that the experience of Japanese modernity was articulated
through the lens of the child and 2) the critical reception of children’s
literature and culture as it developed into an independent field of production.
As we revisit major trends of Japan’s twentieth century, we will think about
the historical conditions that made it seem possible and necessary to invest
material and intellectual resources toward the construction of a culture for
children. These issues will be considered through an interdisciplinary
examination of a broad range of texts, including short fiction, fairy tales,
animated films, manga, and other forms of media such as Japanese kamishibai (paper theater). The major focus of this course is on
Japanese cultural production through writers such as Higuchi Ichiyo, Kawabata
Yasunari, Oe Kenzaburo, and Yoshimoto Banana, but it will also include some theorists
and writers outside Japan. Conducted in English.
91633 |
LAT 207 Latin
Literature |
Benjamin Stevens |
M . W . . |
8:30 -9:50 am |
OLIN 102 |
FLLC |
See Latin section for description.
91259 |
LIT 2117
Russian Laughter |
Marina Kostalevsky |
. T . Th . |
3:10 -4:30 pm |
OLINLC 120 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed: Russian & 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. Class size: 22
91220 |
LIT 214
Cairo Through its Novels |
Dina Ramadan |
M . W . . |
1:30 -2:50 pm |
OLIN 204 |
FLLC |
Cross-listed: Environmental & Urban Studies, Human Rights; Middle East Studies Cairo, “the City Victorious,” has long fascinated its writers, captivating their literary imaginations. This course will offer a survey of the modern Egyptian novel, a survey that simultaneously maps the changing cityscape of Egypt’s bulging metropolis, allowing for an examination of the developments and transformations of both during the course of the 20th century. Once considered the center of the Arab world, Cairo has witnessed repeated shifts in its regional and global position and importance over the last century. However, it continues to play a lead role in much of Egyptian literary (and cultural) production. From Naguib Mahfouz’s iconic alley to Sonallah Ibrahim’s apartment building, to Hamdi Abu Golayyel’s multifamily tenement, students will engage with novels that demonstrate a vast range of literary representations by Cairo’s writers, from its shifting centers, to its ever expanding margins. Through close readings of these texts, we will consider the socioeconomic and political conditions that have impacted and radically restructured the city during its recent history, and the ways in which such changes are manifested in its novelists’ stylistic and aesthetic choices. Literary texts will be supplemented by theoretical and historical material. This course will be accompanied by a film series. Taught in English. Class size: 22
91277 |
LIT 2153
Infernal Paradises: Literature of Russian
Modernism |
Olga Voronina |
M . W . . |
10:10 - 11:30 am |
OLIN 303 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed: Russian & Eurasian Studies Dominated by utopian thinking, the twentieth century witnessed both the creation and deconstruction of many visionary projects, some of which combined political endeavors to change the world with attempts to facilitate, subdue, or subjugate artistic self-expression. In this course, we explore the theme of utopia as an intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual concept with a great capacity for social transformation. Focusing on works by Chekhov, Bely, Blok, Mayakovsky, Tsvetaeva, Zamyatin, Pasternak, Bunin, Nabokov, and Akhmatova, the course aims to demonstrate continuity of the Russian literary tradition while revealing how innovative creative forms and resonant new voices contributed to an unprecedented artistic revival, the one that flourished under the harsh conditions of censorship, totalitarian oppression, and forced isolation between the Russian culture and its western counterpart. Class size: 22
91288 |
LIT 2156
Romantic Literature |
Cole Heinowitz |
M . W . . |
11:50 -1:10 pm |
OLIN 201 |
ELIT |
This course offers a critical introduction to the literature produced in Britain at the time of the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic wars. The term traditionally used to categorize this literature, “romantic,” is interestingly problematic: throughout the course we will question the assumptions built into this term instead of assuming that we know what it means or taking for granted a series of supposed characteristics of “romantic” literature and art. We will also explore the extent to which key conflicts in British culture during the “romantic period,” including the founding of the United States, independence movements in the Americas, the development of free trade ideology, and the debates over slavery and colonialism, are still at issue today. The centerpiece of this course is the close reading of poetry. There will also be a strong emphasis on the historical and social contexts of the works we are reading, and on the specific ways in which historical forces and social changes shape and are at times shaped by the formal features of literary texts. The question of whether “romantic” writing represents an active engagement with or an escapist idealization of the important historical developments in this period will be a continuous focus. Readings include canonical and non-canonical authors: William Blake, William Wordsworth, Helen Maria Williams, Thomas Beddoes, Anna Letitia Barbauld, Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Lord Byron, John Clare, and Laetitia Elizabeth Landon. Class size: 22
91501 |
LIT 226
Poetry:Texts, Forms, Experiments |
Joan Retallack |
. . . Th . |
1:30 -3:50 pm |
OLINLC 210 |
PART |
This course is designed for any students who wish to explore poetic forms, as well as those who are considering (or on their way to) moderating into Written Arts. (Those already moderated are also welcome if there is room.) We will be asking what poets need to know in today’s world, not only about poetry per se, but also about the many models and metaphors from other disciplines (philosophy, science, music, etc.) that have always inflected the poetries of their times. We will explore a broad range—historically and varietally—of ways to compose with words that have and haven’t been called poetry. (Just what determines whether or not a piece of writing is a poem?) We’ll also pay attention to technologies that are currently expanding the genre, looking at various kinds of digital poetries. This is a hybrid class: part seminar, part workshop. Students will produce a mid-term and a final portfolio of work, as well as present work designed for performance—both individually and collaboratively. There will be readings from a required booklist and handouts throughout the semester. The class is required to attend poetry readings (generally scheduled on Thursday evenings) and other events related to the course during the semester. Interested students must email Professor Retallack, mail to: [email protected]. Class size: 18
91251 |
LIT 230
Innovative Novellas and Short Stories |
Justus Rosenberg |
M . W . . |
10:10 - 11:30 am |
OLIN 201 |
ELIT |
An in-depth study of the difference between the short story, built on figurative techniques closely allied to those employed in poetry which allows the writer to achieve remarkable intimacy and depth of meaning in the space of a few pages and the novella that demands the economy and exactness of a short work while at the same time allowing a fuller concentration and development of both character and plot. We explore the range and scale of the artistic accomplishments of such masters in these genres as Voltaire, de Maupassant, Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov, Sholem Aleichem, Thomas Mann, Isaac Babel, Camus, Kafka, Colette, Borges. In addition to writing several analytical papers, students are asked to present their own short story or draft for a novella by the end of the semester. Class size: 18
91249 |
LIT 2331
Classic American Gothic |
Donna Grover |
. T . Th . |
11:50 -1:10 pm |
OLIN 301 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed: American Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies The gothic novel is considered to be the stronghold of ghost stories, family curses and heroines in distress. Its use of melodrama and the macabre often disguise the psychological, sexual, and emotional issues that are in fact more horrifying than the contents of a haunted house. The gothic novel in America has often confronted topics pertinent to American identity and history. In this course we will examine how many American authors used the gothic genre to actually engage with social, political and cultural concerns. We will read novels and short stories that span the 19th and 20th century by authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa May Alcott, Henry James, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Harriet Jacobs, Edith Wharton, William Faulkner, Shirley Jackson and James Baldwin. Class size: 18
91280 |
LIT 2404
Fantastic Journey and the Modern World |
Jonathan Brent |
. . W . . |
4:40 -7:00 pm |
. |
ELIT |
Cross-listed: Russian & Eurasian Studies; Related
interest: STS The modern world has been
characterized in many ways, as a time of unimaginable freedom, as well as
existential angst, exile, loss of the idea of home, loss of the idea of
positive heroes; a triumphant embracing of the “new” and the future, as well as
the troubling encounter with machines and the menace of
totalitarianism. It was a time when barriers of all sorts began to
crumble—barriers between past and present, foreground and background, high and
low culture, beauty and ugliness, good and evil. Artists and writers
responded in many different ways across the world. The writers we will read in
this class represent the fulcrum of creativity in America, Central or Eastern
Europe and Russia. Each lived at a different axis of modernity—where East
met West, where the Russian Revolution provided a vibrant but terrifying image
of liberation, where modern technological innovation produced endless
possibilities of satirization of both the old world and the new, where ethnic
and genocidal violence was developing under the surface of this innovation into
the foreseeable European Holocaust. These writers have something powerful and
unique to say about the advent of the modern period in the fantastic parallel
worlds they created where machines take on lives of their own, grotesque
transformations violate the laws of science, and inversions of normality become
the norm. Through their fantastic conceptions a vision of modernity
emerges which questions the most basic presumptions of western civilization—in
art, morality, politics, the psyche and social life—a vision for which the West
still has no satisfying response. All readings are in English. We will read The Marvelous Land of Oz (L. Frank Baum), The Metamorphosis (Kafka), RUR
(Capek), War with the Newts (Capek), Street of Crocodiles (Schulz), Sanatorium Under
the Sign of the Hour Glass (Schulz), Envy
(Olesha) The Bedbug (Mayakovsky).
There will be 4 short papers for the course & one final paper. Class
size: 15
91300 |
LIT 2483
Urbanization in the 19th Century Novel: Bright Lights, Big Cities |
Stephen Graham |
. T . Th . |
11:50 -1:10 pm |
OLIN 201 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed: Environmental & Urban Studies The nineteenth century metropolis became too vast for individual comprehension; it became the task of visionary writers to invent the modern city and to discover its distinctive narratives. This course will examine nineteenth-century literary constructions of the urban space, mostly although not exclusively in the form of novels, the major emphasis being on Paris and London. Texts will include Dickens, Our Mutual Friend; Balzac, Lost Illusions; Baudelaire, selected poems; Trollope, The Way We Live Now; Flaubert, Sentimental Education; Mayhew, London Labor and the London Poor; Gissing, New Grub Street; and Thomson, City of Dreadful Night. Class size: 22
91213 |
LIT 2501
Shakespeare |
Benjamin La Farge |
. T . Th . |
1:30 -2:50 pm |
OLIN 309 |
ELIT |
A careful reading of nine masterpieces, plus a selection of his sonnets, by the greatest writer of the English language. The plays, representing the full range of his genius in comedy, tragedy, romance, and royal history, will be chosen from among the following: Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Othello, Measure for Measure, King Lear, Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest. Class size: 15
91311 |
LIT 2505
Early English Literature Reanimated: The Further Adventures of the Body and Soul |
Lianne Habinek / Maria Cecire |
M . . . . . . W . |
11:50 -1:10 pm 11:50 -1:10 pm |
RKC 103 OLIN 301/303 |
ELIT |
This course examines literary, historical, and critical accounts of the tension between body and soul in “pre-modern” English literature, and takes up the debate in its modern instantiations. In addition to traditional texts and scholarship, students will have the opportunity to work with pop culture materials and to respond by creating their own cultural products that address this theme. We will cover topics such as the relationship between the spiritual and physical, gender performativity and cross-dressing, racial-religious identity, and the idea of the hero. Early texts include the 14th c. Debate of the Body and Soul and works by Chaucer, Malory, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Swift. This class will meet twice weekly, once with the full class of up to 40 students, and once in sections with either Profs. Habinek or Cecire. Class size: 40
91274 |
LIT 288
Modern Drama in Translation: Brecht in the Global
South |
Florian Becker |
M . W . . |
11:50 -1:10 pm |
OLINLC 115 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed: German Studies This course will examine the global circulation of paradigms of modern Western drama, looking specifically at the case of Bertolt Brecht. From the 1960s to the present, many African and Latin American dramatists and practitioners have reworked Brecht’s plays and techniques to give theatrical shape to the realities of imperialism and decolonization, the impact of Cold War politics and international corporations, the emergence of new ruling classes, and the persistence of political oppression and economic exploitation. What is it about Brecht that these authors have found relevant or useful? How have they—and the local performance practices on which they draw—transformed Brecht’s formal innovations to “re-function” them for their own projects? And what happens to these projects if one no longer believes that a revolution led by the dispossessed multitude is just around the corner? We will focus these questions on radically different adaptations of four of Brecht’s most famous plays—The Threepenny Opera, The Measures Taken, The Good Person of Setzuan and Mother Courage—by authors such as Wole Soyinka from Nigeria, Ngugi wa Thiong’o from Kenya, Athol Fugard, Barney Simon, William Kentridge and The Junction Avenue Theatre Company from South Africa, Daniel Veronese from Argentina, and Teresa Hernández from Puerto Rico. No previous knowledge of African or Latin American history is expected. Students who read German are invited to enroll in a tutorial to study Brecht’s plays in the original. Conducted in English. Class size: 22