Course:	LIT 241 Sex, Lies and the Renaissance
Professor:	Joseph Luzzi
CRN:	15713		Schedule/Location:	Mon Wed 10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin 204
Distributional Area:		FL Foreign Languages and Lit
Credits: 4					Class cap: 22
Crosslists: Art History; Historical Studies; Italian Studies

This new course will study how the Renaissance changed the world we live in today, as we learn how the period was a time of ongoing cultural experimentation and radical change that was only understood hundreds of years after it appeared. With topics ranging from Machiavelli's masterpiece on the relation between deceit and power in the Prince to the new paradigms for gender and sexuality in leading woman writers and artists including Vittoria Colonna and Artemisia Gentileschi, we will reconstruct the Renaissance in all its complexity and groundbreaking influence. Other topics will include the birth of the modern “artist” through the work of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Botticelli, and their pioneering biographer Vasari, and the emergence of new international institutions like the Medici banking empire and a highly political—and often sinister—papacy. We will also unpack the idea of “the Renaissance,” or age of “rebirth,” in the brilliant 19th-century historians, ranging from Burckhardt and Michelet to Pater and Ruskin. Overall, we will see how the Renaissance was much more than a mere moment in cultural history; it was and remains a mindset that continues to shape the way we make art and literature. This is a pre-1800 Literature course offering. All course work in English.

Course:	LIT 2451 The Art of Chinese Poetry
Professor:	Lu Kou
CRN:	15706		Schedule/Location:	Mon Thurs 1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 201
Distributional Area:		LA Literary Analysis in English
Credits: 4					Class cap: 22
Crosslists: Asian Studies

This course introduces students to the rich tradition of premodern Chinese poetry and poetics. We will learn the art of reading poetry, theories on poetic composition and criticism in Chinese literary tradition, and receptions of classical Chinese poetry and poetics in the global context. Our survey starts with The Odes in the first millennium BCE and ends at China’s last dynasty, the Qing (1644-1911), when literati found traditional poetic forms and language insufficient to describe their encounters with the modern world. The course will take a chronological approach, covering famous poets including Tao Qian, Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, and Su Shi; within the chronology, each class will focus on a specific theme, such as poetry and ritual, poetry and translation, or poetry and the everyday. The last one-third of the course will be devoted to discussions of non-Chinese readers’ (for example, Ernest Fenollosa, Ezra Pound, Arthur Waley, I. A. Richards, and William Empson) interpretations and appropriations of Chinese poetics in the 20th century when the East became a profession and the subject of academic enquiry for poets and scholars from Europe and America. Are there “epics” in Chinese poetic tradition? Is Chinese poetry non-mimetic? Is there an aesthetic or ethnic “essence” in Chinese poetry that will be misinterpreted, if not erased, during translation? Investigating the questions posed by these modern readers—their assumptions and implications—will generate fruitful discussions on issues important in fields of comparative literature, world literature, and Sinophone studies, such as “Chineseness,” “comparison” as a methodology, and application of western critical theories on non-western texts. This course encourages students to critically engage with the politics of difference in the East-West comparative paradigm. No background in Chinese language or literature is required. This course is part of the World Literature and Pre-1800 course offering.

Course:	LIT 249 Arthurian Romance
Professor:	Karen Sullivan
CRN:	15517		Schedule/Location:	Tue Fri 1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Aspinwall 302
Distributional Area:		LA Literary Analysis in English
Credits: 4					Class cap: 20
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 Welsh Mabinogion; to the French and German romances of Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde, Merlin and Morgan, and the Quest for the Holy Grail; to Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. 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.

Course:	LIT 3205 Love and Death in Dante
Professor:	Joseph Luzzi
CRN:	15732		Schedule/Location:	Mon 12:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 308
Distributional Area:		LA Literary Analysis in English
Credits: 4					Class cap: 15
Crosslists: Italian Studies

What makes Dante’s Divine Comedy so essential to our lives today, even though it was written seven centuries ago? This course will explore the fascinating world of Dante’s epic poem in all its cultural and historical richness, as we consider Dante’s relation to his beloved hometown of Florence, his lacerating experience of exile, and his lifelong devotion to his muse Beatrice, among many other issues. We will pay special attention to the originality and brilliance of Dante’s poetic vision, as we see how he transformed his great poem into one of the most influential works in literary history, both in Italy and throughout the world. Course/reading in English. This course counts as Pre-1800 Literature course offering.

Course:	LIT 353 Shakespeare's Tragedies
Professor:	Adhaar Desai
CRN:	15730		Schedule/Location:	Mon 3:10 PM - 5:30 PM Olin 309
Distributional Area:		LA Literary Analysis in English
Credits: 4					Class cap: 15
Crosslists: Theater and Performance

In this course we’ll read all ten of Shakespeare’s tragedies: “Titus Andronicus”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “Julius Caesar”, “Hamlet”, “Macbeth”, “Othello”, “Antony and Cleopatra”, “Timon of Athens”, “King Lear”, and “Coriolanus.” Our aim will be to think of these texts as platforms for sustained thought, as provocations to feeling, and as distorted mirrors of contemporary society. In them, we’ll find intricate examinations of agency, coercion, belonging, and hatred, and we’ll witness what happens when oppressive systems and volatile emotions collide. These tragedies remain flexible, durable mechanisms for exploding assumptions in topics as diverse as politics, gender, race, and economics. We’ll discover where they came from, how they were revised and rewritten, and how they have been reshaped over time by artists like Toni Morrison and Akira Kurosawa and in formats as diverse as fiction, film, graphic novels, children’s literature, and video games. Over the course of the semester, students will design a research project on a topic of their choosing and will be encouraged to think about these plays as literature, in performance, via adaptation, and as historical artifacts. This course is a Literature Junior Seminar course.