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JUNIOR SEMINARS
The
Junior Seminars in criticism are intended especially for moderated junior
literature majors. The seminars will introduce students to exciting current
thinking in the field, emphasizing how particular methods and ideas can be
employed in linking literary texts to their contexts. Intended too is a deep
exploration of writing about literature at some length, in the form of a 20-25
pp. paper, developed over the course of most of the semester.
|
91541 |
LIT 3043 Melville |
Alexandre
Benson |
. . W . . |
10:10 - 12:30 pm |
HEG 200 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed: American Studies This seminar offers
an intensive reading of Herman Melville’s prose and poetry, from his first
novel, Typee, to the posthumously published Billy
Budd. We will follow the mutations of a career that produced both hugely
popular adventure novels and commercially disastrous narrative experiments
(including Moby-Dick; or, the Whale, to which we will devote extended
attention mid-semester). At the same time, we will track the topics of concern
that persist across this body of work: labor, rhetoric, sexuality, the sublime,
faith, and revolt. Class size: 15
|
91400 |
LIT 3071 Literature
and Philosophy |
Nancy
Leonard |
. . . Th . |
1:30 -3:50 pm |
OLIN 310 |
HUM |
Cross-listed: Philosophy This seminar will
explore two ideas that have become increasingly important in thinking about
texts: genealogy, a historical concept, and unsayability,
a philosophical one. We will read
Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals and selected essays, Michel
Foucault’s Discipline and Punish and
additional essays, and Giorgio Agamben’s The Signature of All Things: On Method,
in the first half of the term. James’s The
Turn of the Screw will be in dialogue with the theory of genealogy, and
students will be encouraged to explore it through original research. The
genealogical approach allows us to examine connections between past and present
which escape simple questions of cause and effect, influence and intention. James’s text will also suggest unsayability, and thus provide a bridge to the second half
of the course. Here we will probe the unsaid—the concept of what language does
not and cannot say—in literature and philosophy, taking it over and over to
texts by writers as varied as Blake and Beckett, Dickinson and Kierkegaard, Celan and Faulkner, and philosophers like Derrida,
Heidegger, and Cavell. At least one classic narrative film will also be
screened. Preference given to moderated literature majors but other Upper
College students admitted by permission of the instructor (email [email protected]). Class size: 15
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|
91431 |
LIT 3110 James
Joyce's Ulysses |
Terence
Dewsnap |
. T . . . |
3:10 -5:30 pm |
OLIN 310 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed:
Irish and Celtic Studies Participants in
this seminar pool their ideas about text and context. Recent Joyce
criticism will be emphasized. Prior knowledge of Joyce and his early
writings, notably Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,
is required. Class size: 15
|
91429 |
LIT 3138 Cavafy: A
Modernist in the Ancient
World |
Daniel
Mendelsohn |
. T . . . |
1:30 -3:50 pm |
OLIN 107 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed:
Classical Studies,
Gender and Sexuality Studies
The
Alexandrian poet Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933), at once
an impassioned amateur of the Greek past (Classical, Hellenistic, and
Byzantine) and yet a pioneer in the forthright representation of homoerotic
desire in the present, is widely considered the greatest poet of modern Greece.
Although scholars have long divided his work into two discrete groups—the
“historical” and “erotic” poems—this course, by means of close readings of a
large portion of the poet’s work from the 1890s to the 1930s, will reevaluate
the relationship of history and sexuality in the poet’s canon. Emphasis will be
given to those poems whose focus on illicit desire is reflected in settings
that are “marginal” both geographically (locales at the fringes of the ancient
world) and temporally (periods of historical transition, e.g., from paganism to
Christianity, from the Hellenistic kingdoms to Rome, from Late Antiquity to
Byzantium.) All works will be read in translation, with selected readings from Cavafy’s contemporaries, such as Pound, Eliot, and HD,
whose work also invoked ancient civilization in the service of a modernist
project. Class size: 15
|
91862 |
LIT 315 Proust: In
Search of Lost Time |
Eric
Trudel |
M . W . . |
1:30 -2:50 pm |
OLIN 309 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed: French Marcel Proust’s In
Search of Lost Time tells of an elaborate, internal journey, at the end of
which the narrator discovers the unifying pattern of his life both as a writer
and human being. Famed for its style and its distinctive view of love, sex and
cruelty, reading, language and memory, Proust’s modernist epic broke new ground
in the invention of a genre that lies between fiction and autobiography.
Through a semester devoted to the close reading of Swann’s Way and Time
Regained in their entirety and several substantial key-excerpts taken from
all the other volumes, we will try to understand the complex nature of Proust’s
masterpiece and, among other things, examine the ways in which it accounts for
the temporality and new rhythms of modern life. We will also question the
narrative and stylistic function of homosexuality, discuss the significance of
the massive social disruption brought about by the Great War and investigate
why the visual arts and music are seminal to the narration. Additional
readings from Barthes, Beckett, Benjamin, Deleuze, de
Man, Kristeva and Lévinas
among many others. Taught in English. Class
size: 15
|
91854 |
LIT 3205 Dante &
the Modern Imagination |
Joseph
Luzzi |
. . W . . |
10:10 - 12:30 pm |
HEG 300 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed: Italian; Medieval Studies This new course
will explore the fascinating reception of Dante's Divine Comedy over the
centuries in multiple literary traditions, national cultures, and artistic
media. We will spend the first few weeks of the course developing a reading of
Dante's epic poem, then trace its presence in such phenomena as: Petrarch and
Boccaccio's debates about poetry; Milton's epic imagination; the founding of
the American Dante Society at Longfellow's Harvard; the cinematic Dante of
Antonioni and other auteurs; the “illustrated” Dante
from Doré to Rauschenberg; selected instances of
Dante in the non-Western world; even Dante in American pop culture today.
Course/reading in English with option of section/course work in Italian for
qualified students. This course counts
as pre-1800 offering.Class size: 15
|
91509 |
LIT 3227 Dostoevsky
Presently: Poetics, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology |
Marina
Kostalevsky |
. T . Th . |
4:40 -6:00 pm |
OLINLC 120 |
ELIT |
Cross-listed:
Russian and Eurasian Studies
(World
Literature offering) Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
remains one of the most widely read authors in the world. He also remains an
inspiration for the immensely productive output of scholarship and artistic
renditions through different media. In this course we will read and analyze
such Dostoevsky texts as his novels The Idiot, Demons, The
Brothers Karamazov;
his shorter prose works Poor Folk, The Dream of a
Ridiculous Man, The Meek One,
Bobok;
and his journalistic pieces from A Writer's Diary (which today might
be considered the first blog ever). Also, we will pay special attention to the
present state of research on Dostoevsky, starting from the classic studies by
Mikhail Bakhtin, Joseph Frank, and some others, to the
latest works by Russian, American, European, and Japanese scholars of Dostoevsky.By looking at Dostoevsky through the lenses of
poetics, philosophy, politics , and psychology, we will try to understand what
makes this 19th century Russian writer our contemporary. Taught in English. Interested students should contact the
Professor before registration. Class size: 15
|
91545 |
LIT 3228 Cosmopolitanism, Secularism, and Modernity in North African Fiction |
Nuruddin
Farah |
. T . . . |
3:10 -5:30 pm |
OLINLC 208 |
FLLC |
Cross-listed:
Africana Studies, French Studies, Middle-Eastern Studies, Human Rights
(World
Literature offering) Born out
of cross-cultural currents going back to Roman times, North African literature
is unique in its multiplicity of world views, its secularity, and its
commitment to an anti-colonial stance. The authors are multi-lingual, the
writing is as emblematic of its layered triple identity – at once African,
Mediterranean and Arab - as it is reflective of its modernity. We will read, in
English translation, a handful of the most notable 20th century
authors from the Maghreb region. As signposts, we’ll be guided in our analysis
by these notions: cosmopolitanism, secularism, and multiculturalism. The
authors are Albert Camus, Kateb Yacine,
Albert Memmi, Taher Ben Jelloun, Mohammed Dib, Aissa Djebar, Abdulwahab Meddeb,Leila Sabber
and Alham Mosteghanemi. We
also envisage watching a number of films based on the texts or made by the
authors themselves. Class size: 15
|
91544 |
LIT 3308 Reading and
Writing the Hudson |
Susan
Rogers |
. T . . . . . . Th . |
10:10 - 11:30 am 8:30 - 11:30 am |
ASP 302 Field Station |
PART |
Cross-listed:
American Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies “To those who
know it, the Hudson River is the most beautiful, messed up, productive,
ignored, and surprising piece of water on the face of the earth,” writes Robert
Boyle in The Hudson: A Natural and
Unnatural History. In this course
students will get to know the Hudson in all of its complexity through reading a
range of works and through writing personal essays of place. Readings will range from history to natural
history, literature to environmental policy.
In addition, each student will be required to undertake independent
research into some aspect of the river from the brick or whaling industry to
gardens or villas of the valley. This
research, combined with personal experience of the valley, will be used to
develop extended creative nonfiction essays.
These personal essays will be read and critiqued in a workshop
format. This course is open to all
students interested in creative nonfiction writing from a researched,
inter-disciplinary perspective. Students will be required to take a swim test
and a canoe course in order to participate in the canoe/kayak outings. Class
size: 15
|
91543 |
LIT 3640 Memorable 19th
Century Continental Novels |
Justus
Rosenberg |
M . . . . |
3:10 -5:30 pm |
OLIN 101 |
ELIT |
(World
Literature offering) This course offers an in-depth examination of continental
novels that are part of the literary canon, such as Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Balzac’s Cousin Bette and Thomas Mann’s The Buddenbrooks,
which collectively provide a realistic picture of the major artistic, social,
political, and philosophical trends and developments in 19th century
Europe. We explore these writers’
portrayals of the rising middle class, the corrosion of religious beliefs and
romantic notions, the position of women in society, the birth of radical
ideologies, the debate between materialism and idealism as philosophical
concepts, and analyze the diversity of their narrative strategies. Our readings are enhanced by selected screen
adaptations of some novels. Class size:
15
|
91427 |
LIT 405 Senior
Seminar I: Literature |
Deirdre
d'Albertis |
M . . . . |
4:45 -6:30 pm |
OLINLC 115 |
|
Literature
Majors writing a project are required to enroll in the year-long Senior Colloquium. Senior Colloquium is an integral part of the
8 credits earned for Senior Project. An
opportunity to share working methods, knowledge, skills and resources among students,
the colloquium explicitly addresses challenges arising from research and
writing on this scale, and presentation of works in progress. A pragmatic focus on the nuts and bolts of
the project will be complemented with life-after-Bard skills workshops, along
with a review of internship and grant-writing opportunities in the discipline.
Senior Colloquium is designed to create a productive network of association for
student scholars and critics: small working groups foster intellectual
community, providing individual writers with a wide range of support throughout
this culminating year of undergraduate study in the major. Class
size: 25