DUAL-DIPLOMA PROGRAMS HUMANITIES ( H) - FALL 2011 COURSE DESCRIPTION COURSE NUMBER REFERENCE NUMBER

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1 DESCRIPTION AFST 280D Course required for Africana Major/Minor and is a 'w' writing emphasis course. This course introduces students to recent North African and Arabic youth culture, with a focus on their responses and participations in the modern popular culture. It explores the ways in which young North Africans and Arabs use, and are influenced by global popular culture. It will explore their attitudes, interests, aspirations, and creative and cultural expressions in film, television, print, and music. Collective and individual responses to the postcolonial nation state and globalization are among the themes we will examine. The course will compare cultural characteristics (shared and regional) as manifested in new identities, traditions, customs, social character, artistic and creative expression and even language. AFST The course explores African view of the universe and the principles that shape the spiritual and corporeal worlds. Far from dualism or a bicameral cosmos, Africans perceive of the universe as a single cosmos, with the spiritual as their ideal home, however. This African perception of the universe also reflects their view of what it means to be a human. Thus, students are introduced to holistic personality concepts, their influence on society, religion and the meaning of existence. Page 1 of 30

2 DESCRIPTION ENG ENG 227: British Literature I The emphasis of this survey of British literature from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries will be primarily on narrative poetry, both long and short. We will attempt to gain facility with Middle English by intensely studying selections from Geoffrey Chaucer s Canterbury Tales and Legend of Good Women in their original language. From there we will continue on to the English Renaissance and the first book of Edmund Spenser s Faerie Queene. We will conclude the course with extracts from John Milton s Paradise Lost. Along the way these long poems will be supplemented with mid-sized narrative poems by the Pearl poet, William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Andrew Marvell. We will also read a sampling of lyric chestnuts by John Skelton, Thomas Wyatt, George Gascoigne, Fulke Greville, Emilia Lanier, Ben Jonson, John Donne, Robert Herrick, and George Herbert. ENG A representative selection of Shakespeare's dramatic genres: comedy, history, tragedy and late romance. Emphasis on advancing the students' confident, competent reading of the plays and enlightened enjoyment of this playwright's work. Format: lecture/discussion; required attendance; two essay exams and one other assignment determined by discussion section instructors. Page 2 of 30

3 DESCRIPTION ENG 283A English 283A: Reading the Body This course seeks to analyze contemporary novels and short fiction with an emphasis on understanding how bodies work to reveal existing power structures, psychological disorders, cultural indoctrination, and issues that pertain to where race, class, and sexuality intersect. How do we learn to read a body as a text? How do we understand the body s relationship to power? How have culture, history, and mythology shaped the way we see and interact with bodies? This class will work with prominent feminist and post-colonial theories on desire and embodiment as they relate to texts from all over the world. Students grades will be based on several 2-3 pg. papers, two in-class essay exams, and active participation and attendance in class conversations. There will be no final exam. Potential authors of study may include Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee, Amitav Ghosh, Laura Esquivel, Susan Minot, Raymond Carver, Amy Bloom, Charles Baxter, Griselda Gambaro, Jane Smiley. Page 3 of 30

4 DESCRIPTION ENG 283R ENG 283R: Evolution, Lit, and Cinema Evolutionary Approaches to Literature and Cinema will introduce you to the theories and methods involved in the emerging synthesis between the evolutionary sciences and the humanities that has come into focus over the last fifteen years. Scholars in the developing field of evolutionary or adaptationist literary and cinema studies have crisscrossed traditional disciplinary boundaries in an effort to reframe our understanding of the nature, function, and centrality of storytelling in human affairs. Central questions of the course include: why do humans spend so much time and mental energy in the virtual worlds of fictional literature and film? Do stories function as more than entertainment? If so, what is this function? And how can looking into the entwined history of human biological and cultural evolution shed light on this question? These questions and more will be approached through recent evolutionary and scientific theory and methodologies in an effort to understand s Page 4 of 30

5 DESCRIPTION ENG 300M Everything we need to know about life we can learn from children's literature. This course examines children's lit from its inception through to the present, focusing on the movement from orality to literacy and the formation of modern identity. We will begin with classic fairy tales, move through the nineteenth century, when the genre really got traction, and end with more contemporary works. This class will examine the texts from a variety of perspectives to flesh out alternative readings. In addition to the primary texts, students will read critical works that pertain to the subject matter. Students write two 5-page essays that include research and a comprehensive final examination. May include fairy tales by the Grimm Brothers, Perrault, Jacobs and Andersen; Kingsley, THE WATER-BABIES; Carroll, ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND; Kipling, THE JUNGLE BOOKS; Barrie, PETER PAN; Grahame, THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS; Lewis, THE LION,THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE and PRINCE CASPIAN; Baum, THE WIZARD OZ. Page 5 of 30

6 DESCRIPTION ENG 300N Apocalyptic Lit We have always feared the end of the world, the collapse of human society, and our own potential role in the ultimate extinction of the human race. The frightening possibilities are endless: we may wither away in the endless nuclear winter following a world war, we might fall prey to a pandemic of incurable disease, an asteroid could crash into the earth, or the polar ice caps could melt, causing tidal waves to wipe our our coastal cities. Together we will follow Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence -- the famed Four Horseman of the Apocalypse -- into the strange, desolate wastelands of speculative fiction in an attempt to discover what these scenarios can tell us about fears, our values, and our responsibilities to the world around us. Possible texts include The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood), The Children of Men (James), Closing Time (Heller), Cat's Cradle (Vonnegut), and The Road (McCarthy). ENG 300P Love & Death in Modern Literature Resolve for the purpose of debate that all art accurate about the human heart is inspired by night whispers between two powers: Eros (sexual love) and Thanatos (death); that, furthermore, tensions shuttling between these two weave the nest of our captiv-ity. Is there a counter-captivity leading to freedom? If so, who is its artist? Could it be you? Texts: Atonement; No Country for Old Men; One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest; The Things They Carried; Running With Scissors; The Virgin Suicides. Page 6 of 30

7 DESCRIPTION ENG 300R Arthurian Literature Examines the roles Arthurian legends have played in the writing and visual arts of the last millennium, from medieval poetry to modern cinema. First half of course focuses exclusively on medieval literature: Student read several anonymous works, as well as romances by Chretien de Troyes, Marie de France and Sir Thomas Malory. Second half of course is devoted to Victorian, modern and contemporary versions of the Arthurian legends, including Tennyson s IDYLLS OF THE KING and the Terry Gilliam film MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. Students focus throughout the semester on how Arthurian stories were reshaped in different eras in accordance with, or in reaction against, changing political ideologies and aesthetic ideals. ENG 300T Can we find love between innocence and violence? Through novel and film, we trace these images currently playing all across America. These stories raise the questions: Where do we look for compassion in this anxious world? - and - Can we build safety, identity, or maybe a sense of purpose here? Can we find real hope in our elaborate cultural dreams? We will look at the tensions between faith, heroism, childhood and the "show of strength" that stakes the claim of authority and/ or enforces privilege. How are "cultural purities" constructed and critiqued? How is violence justified and/or condemned? We will look at film and print fiction from before the dawn of the "New Age" through the Y2K, considering the role of art as potential "speaker" for a generative dreamspace (ex. Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, Lindsay Anderson's If..., Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, etc.) Format: Three papers (two 5-page, one 10-page) will constitute 80 percent of the grade, the other 20 percent determined by attendance and Page 7 of 30

8 DESCRIPTION ENG 300W Alternative Fictions Examines ways in which the production of narrative structures are influenced by alternative categorizations of gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, age and culture. How do video games, music videos, science fiction and graphic novels rework traditional narrative structures to tell a story? How do narrative structures differ from culture to subculture, and how do they change yet again when the alternative becomes the mainstream? How do alternative methods of storytelling change through translation from print to image, from image to music, from text to film? And what happens when an alternative protagonist replaces the usual leading character? Possible texts include WATCHMEN, BAKER STREET, HAROLD AND MAUDE, GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES, RESIDENT EVIL, CRUDDY, DREAM HUNTERS, BLOODSONG and THE WAKING LIFE. ENG 300Z Zombies may seem relatively new in terms of popular culture but have in fact been a social fear as early as the caveman. This class will examine how Zombies have been used through history as metaphors for social unrest, rampant consumerism, immigration, family dysfunction, blind complacency, class and religion. We will also discuss how zombies represent specific generational fears of nuclear contamination, contagion, disease, medicine, erosion of individual identity, science and big business. Page 8 of 30

9 DESCRIPTION ENG Introduction to Theory/ Criticism Introduces students to the major schools in literary and cultural theory. They read closely a number of important (and difficult) theoretical texts while thinking about what relation exists between the different intellectual projects called theory (deconstruction [Derrida], cultural criticism [Williams], psychoanalysis [Freud], Marxism, postcolonialism[ Said] and gender studies are only a few.) They also ask and ask again the more general question: What is theory, anyway? ENG 370R This course studies the works of major 19th and early 20th-century American Romantic writers. We will read and discuss Hawthorne's and Poe's short stories, Moby-Dick, Dickinson's poems, The Turn of the Screw, and Look Homeward, Angel. Grade will be based on two exams and one long paper (8-10 pages). ENG 380M The Binghamton Connection. Binghamton University has produced a wealth of talented writers. This course gives students a chance to study the work of a selection of these writers, and to consider the question of how these writers went from Binghamton student to successful author. We will be reading a diverse group of excellent writers from a variety of genres with the added appeal that they too were once BU students. Page 9 of 30

10 DESCRIPTION ENG 380N Crime Fiction Crime fiction represents one of the most potent (not to mention popular) forms of cultural analysis and social criticism in modern American history. In its investigation of the boundaries between right and wrong, legal and illegal, sane and insane, crime fiction has a unique ability to analyze the ways in which American society imagines itself, protects itself and destroys itself. Its popularity, coupled with its frequently counter-cultural status, gives it an inherently political dimension. While often denigrated as subliterary, crime fiction has enjoyed a recent elevation in status since the late 1980s, with writers like Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, Walter Mosley and James Ellroy now enjoying reputation and acclaim formerly reserved for "literary" authors such as Hemingway or Fitzgerald. This course examines how and why this "canon" of crime writers came into being, as well as how and why other crime writing has been neglected or forgotten. It investigates ENG 380P Contemporary literature for adolescents provides us with a unique view of the issues and concerns facing young adults during this developmental period. In this class we will read recently published YA works which may include Susan Collins s The Hunger Games, Scott Westerfeld s Peeps, Sonya Hartnett s Surrender and Thursday s Child, John Crowley s Little, Big, Marcus Zusak s The Book Thief, and John Knowles s A Separate Peace. We will read these texts in conjunction with an introduction to literary theory and criticism. Students will write 3 essays that yoke a theoretical approach with the texts of their choosing. Page 10 of 30

11 DESCRIPTION ENG 380W Existential Lit Existential Literature. This class will focus literature exploring the modern human condition, a state of being in which the individual confronts the horrifying possibility that human existence is, ultimately, meaningless. Divested of the comforts of religious faith and the assurances of human morality and absolute truth, the existentialist can either succumb to the anguish, anxiety and despair he or she feels or attempt to build a meaningful, satisfying life in spite of the absurdity of human existence. Through the fiction and drama of such writers as Dostoevsky, Camus, Sartre, Beckett, Heller, and Kafka, we will explore the ways in which the individual existentialist may approach his or her existence, and the lessons such literature can teach us as we seek meaning in our own lives. GRK Review and continuation of grammar, then a selection of ancient Greek literature read in the original with special attention to literary and cultural exploration. Reading, translation (oral, written) and analysis of texts; occasional oral reports; quizzing. Regular attendance and preparation indispensable. For majors and non-majors. Page 11 of 30

12 DESCRIPTION LAT Description: Review of grammar and introduction to Latin literature and development of proficient reading skills through topical passages of real Latin on the lives and experiences of women of all social classes in the Roman world. Format may vary by sections: Three hours of class each week, devoted to presenting and discussing prepared translations Latin to English. Grades based 60 percent on participation in class and 40 percent on the quality of polished, typed translations. Prerequisites: LAT 102 or placement by the instructor determined by consultation that confirms satisfactory prior acquisition of Latin grammar PHIL 142U PHIL 142U INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY PAYSON Political philosophers raise basic questions about how human beings ought to live in relation to one another, the relation of the individual to society, and how to evaluate the institutions and social practices that order our collective lives. In this course we will examine major concepts in political philosophy, such as equality and liberty, and use philosophical tools of analysis to understand and respond to political issues such as global poverty and reproductive rights. Special attention will be given to feminist critiques and applications of core political philosophical concepts. Page 12 of 30

13 DESCRIPTION PHIL PHIL 146 LAW AND JUSTICE BAR ON The central issue for this course is the relation of law and justice. The course investigates this relation by exploring a few of its aspects through the reading of both classical/canonical and contemporary philosophical/theoretical texts. In addition to gaining familiarity with the texts read in the course, students will become familiar with and develop their abilities as critical readers, and learn to recognize arguments, as well as develop their own. PHIL Critical introduction to major ethical theories and their implications for moral and legal issues of economic organizations and business practices, e.g., affirmative action, employee rights, corporate responsibility. COLI 381C Course examines the literary roots of psychoanalysis and the manner in which our persistent fascination with Freudian theories has shaped how we read literature and perceive art. Students will engage with Freudian psychoanalysis by reading Freud s writings on both psychoanalytic practice and on culture, some of the literary works that inspired these texts and a series of critical responses to both. Authors include Goethe, ETA Hoffmann, Kafka, Schnitzler, Thomas Mann, Derrida, Sebald and DM Thomas. Page 13 of 30

14 DESCRIPTION GERM 380X Course examines the literary roots of psychoanalysis and the manner in which our persistent fascination with Freudian theories has shaped how we read literature and perceive art. Students will engage with Freudian psychoanalysis by reading Freud s writings on both psychoanalytic practice and on culture, some of the literary works that inspired these texts and a series of critical responses to both. Authors include Goethe, ETA Hoffmann, Kafka, Schnitzler, Thomas Mann, Derrida, Sebald and DM Thomas. COLI 381A This course will examine Russian drama from its folk and religious roots to the present, within the broader context of Russian and European literary and theater culture. Like all cultural manifestations throughout their tumultuous history, drama has afforded Russians a forum for raising artistic, social, political and existential questions of the age. Playwrights studied will include Griboedov, Pushkin, Gogol, Ostrovsky, Chekhov, Gorky, Bulgakov, Evreinov, Petrushevskaya and Shvarts. In concert with our discussion of these pieces, students will investigate the evolution of the professional theater in Russia. Thus, we will trace the conventions and challenges that have shaped the path of Russian drama and theater through plays, commentary and performance. The course will be taught in English; however, students who read Russian are encouraged to read in the original. Page 14 of 30

15 DESCRIPTION JUST This course, subtitled "Under Crescent and Cross," offers an overview of Jewish life between the the medieval Islamic conquests and the Iberian expulsions of the late fifteenth century. It surveys the religious, cultural and economic experiences of Jewish communities in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe during an era when Jews sought to negotiate the tensions between self-government and their status as members of a minority faith. The main framework is comparative, focusing on the surprising similarities as well as profound differences in Jewish existence under Christian and Islamic rule. While the course fulfills a core requirement for Judaic Studies majors and minors, no previous knowledge of the material is required. Page 15 of 30

16 DESCRIPTION AAAS PHIL 373/AAAS 375/COLI 321P/PIC 280F/WOMN 312A NEGOTIATING CONTEMPORARY ASIA ALLEN Is Asia a narrative of one s own making? Can it ever be? Contemporary Asia, not as simply given, but as constantly in formation through multilayered narratives of continent, nation, diaspora, colonization and globalization, is the focus of the course. How is contemporary Asia produced, if it is, by the poetics and politics of how we know, remember, imagine? by the tensions, upheavals, and shifts of power and meaning that these activities engender? Where cultural, economic, and artistic interpretations of Asia offered by new generations produce a plurality of Asias, what sorts of differences does that make? The class will emphasize recent transnational feminist, queer, and diasporic theory and cultural interpretation, film, new media technologies, and activist practices by writers and visual artists such as Amitava Kumar, Rey Chow, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Deepa Mehta, Myung Mi Kim, Shirin Neshat, Gayatri Spivak Page 16 of 30

17 DESCRIPTION AFST 180E This is a 'w' writing emphasis course and required for the Africana Major/Minor. E. A. Wallis Budge defined African religion as the worship of the souls of the dead, commonly called Ancestor Worship. And, concerning the nature of African religion and piety of black peoples, a Greek historian wrote over 2,000 years ago, that blacks were the first to be taught to honor the gods and to hold sacrifices and processions and festivals and other rites by which men honor the deity; and it is generally held that the sacrifices practiced among the Ethiopians...are those which are the most pleasing to heaven. Following these descriptions, the course examines the origin, nature, and phenomenon of African religion, and how contemporary generations continue to follow the religious beliefs and practices of their ancient ancestors. Prerequisite: ANTH 166. ANTH 280L Writing Emphasis 'W' Course: E. A. Wallis Budge defined African religion as the worship of the souls of the dead, commonly called Ancestor Worship. And, concerning the nature of African religion and piety of black peoples, a Greek historian wrote over 2,000 years ago, that blacks were the first to be taught to honor the gods and to hold sacrifices and processions and festivals and other rites by which men honor the deity; and it is generally held that the sacrifices practiced among the Ethiopians...are those which are the most pleasing to heaven. Following these descriptions, the course examines the origin, nature, and phenomenon of African religion, and how contemporary generations continue to follow the religious beliefs and practices of their ancient ancestors. This is a writing emphasis course 'W' and required for the Africana Major-Minor. Page 17 of 30

18 DESCRIPTION COLI 280L This is a 'W' writing emphasis course: INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN LITERATURE Introduction to the major forms of literary activity on the African continent. Begins with an examination of the oral literature, then moves to a study of modern African creative writing through readings of some published fiction, drama and poetry, paying close attention to the ways in which the writers relate to the oral traditions. AFST 386F Course required for the Africana Major/Minor: Common themes found in writings and cinema by women in North Africa include the questioning of tradition, recovery of identity, re-description of stereotypes and resistance to further servitude/colonization. The themes beg immediate questions, such as recovery of identity from what? Redescription of which stereotypes? Resistance to which servitude and colonization? These questions are springboards to criteria that may be used to examine representative North African (Maghribi) artistic and literary production such as poems, essays, fiction and cinema. Relations of the female self and other are expressed in formal properties as well as in the subject and contents of written as well as cinematic texts. We will examine those texts in the light of the contemporaneous themes as well as vehicles of the culture of that area. Readings are in English and films have English subtitles. Page 18 of 30

19 DESCRIPTION WOMN 380E This course aims to give an overview of the Civilization and Culture of the Arab peoples in Africa and elsewhere, starting with their origins and continuing through the present. A selection of texts-in English-dealing with and pertaining to different aspects and areas of Arabic life and culture will be read and discussed. The texts have been selected with the intent to compare and analyze approaches in those written by Arab writers and those written by non-arab writers. Among the topics to be covered are-but not limited to: The origins of the Arabs; pre-islamic Arab society; Arab-Islamic society and the Islamic Empire; Arabs in Africa and Europe, Arab-African (Amazigh) Epires, Arabic-Islamic culture in Africa and its contribution to world culture; decadence and fall of the Arab-Islamic Empire; European Infiltration and Colonialism (18-19 C); Independence and the creation of Nation-States. We will also analyze and discuss modern concerns and problems of the area focusing on the Maghrib, the Sahel and West Afri HIST 181B Examines the political, historical and cultural developments that have together shaped Russian civilization and national identity, including Russia's interactions with other cultures from early, pre-tsarist times to the 20th century. Considers as artifacts of Russian culture folklore, literary and philosophical texts, art, architecture, music, dance, film, rituals and social conventions. No knowledge of Russian necessary. Taught in English. RUSS 131B Examines the political, historical and cultural developments that have together shaped Russian civilization and national identity, including Russia's interactions with other cultures from early, pre-tsarist times to the 20th century. Considers as artifacts of Russian culture folklore, literary and philosophical texts, art, architecture, music, dance, film, rituals and social conventions. No knowledge of Russian necessary. Taught in English. Page 19 of 30

20 DESCRIPTION COLI 380T Description: Explores the diversity of theatrical literature from ancient times to the present. Students develop a basic understanding of the dramatic experience and become familiar with theatrical practice in a variety of cultures. Investigates the following traditions: ancient Greece and India; medieval and early-modern China and Japan; early-modern and modern Europe; and contemporary Africa and the Americas. Also considers how the study of theater history stimulates and informs the work of contemporary theater practitioners. Format may vary by sections: Emphasizes the development of writing and editing skills appropriate to the subject matter. A minimum of 10 pages of finished, carefully prepared critical writing is required. Prerequisites: N/A Corequisites: N/A Books may vary by sections: N/A Notes may vary by sections: THIS IS APPROPRIATE FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS. Simultaneously taught: *denotes primary course Page 20 of 30

21 DESCRIPTION THEA Description: Explores the diversity of theatrical literature from ancient times to the present. Students develop a basic understanding of the dramatic experience and become familiar with theatrical practice in a variety of cultures. Investigates the following traditions: ancient Greece and India; medieval and early-modern China and Japan; early-modern and modern Europe; and contemporary Africa and the Americas. Also considers how the study of theater history stimulates and informs the work of contemporary theater practitioners. Format may vary by sections: Emphasizes the development of writing and editing skills appropriate to the subject matter. A minimum of 10 pages of finished, carefully prepared critical writing is required. Prerequisites: N/A Corequisites: N/A Books may vary by sections: N/A Notes may vary by sections: THIS IS APPROPRIATE FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS. Page 21 of 30

22 DESCRIPTION ENG 380Z Flash Fiction is well-suited to our fast-paced lifestyle and Internet publication. This genre lies somewhere between prose and poetry: it is tight and precise, compressed and highly charged. Like all great literature, the best stories often speak obliquely of the human condition and linger in the mind long after the story has been read. This course is an introduction to this genre. We will read, talk, and write about a variety of very short stories and do some "flash" writing, too. Attention to language that reading and writing flash fiction demands makes us better at any kind of writing we do. PHIL 111A PHIL 111A/colli 180P/just 280P Philosophy Of Religion (LEC) FRIEDMAN This reading-intensive introductory course will explore the many philosophical (and some methodological) questions which emerge from a study of religious thought. Topics will include the nature of religious subjectivity, divinity, prayer, sacrifice, and faith. We will study some central biblical and non-western stories and narratives and literary, philosophical, and theological responses to them. Students will practice techniques of textual exegesis and directly engage texts. In addition to the content of this course, students will practice the process skills of reading and writing critically. Students will be expected to read the texts carefully and to come to class prepared to ask and answer questions. The course will require at least 100 pages of reading each week. Page 22 of 30

23 DESCRIPTION ENG 380I Course explores the works and lives of writers, artists and intellectuals who fled Nazi Germany and attempted to establish lives and careers in exile. Themes include the problem of political and cultural resistance, the loss of the mother tongue, exile as metaphor, the Jewish-German experience, exiles in Hollywood, and the lasting legacy of German exiles and émigrés in the United States. Texts include works by Thomas Mann, Klaus Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Mascha Kaléko, Anna Seghers, Joseph Roth, Hans Erich Nossack, Paul Celan, W.G. Sebald, and Hannah Arendt. AAAS This course presents an introduction to the literature of 20th-century China, surveying major developments in fiction (short stories) and poetry. We will trace the development of modern Chinese literature in the colloquial language from 1) its origins during the May 4th Era ( ), when authors reacted against traditional literature and the classical language, into 2) the Mao-dominated decades of cultural production in China ( ), when literature was forced to serve political goals in the form of socialist realism, and through 3) the reaction against so-called Maospeak that began in the late 1970s. In addition to reading and interpreting representative Mainland Chinese works from the teens through the 1990s, we will also read samples of literature from Taiwan (ROC) and Hong Kong. In addition to analyzing the relationship between literature and its historical context, students will also be introduced to some theoretical approaches used in the study of Chinese literature and culture. Page 23 of 30

24 DESCRIPTION COLI 380H th-Century Chinese Literature in Translation AAAS 352/ COLI 380H 01 (4 Credits) CONTENT: This course presents an introduction to the literature of 20th-century China, surveying major developments in fiction (short stories) and poetry. We will trace the development of modern Chinese literature in the colloquial language from 1) its origins during the May 4th Era ( ), when authors reacted against traditional literature and the classical language, into 2) the Mao-dominated decades of cultural production in China ( ), when literature was forced to serve political goals in the form of socialist realism, and through 3) the reaction against so-called Maospeak that began in the late 1970s. In addition to reading and interpreting representative Mainland Chinese works from the teens through the 1990s, we will also read samples of literature from Taiwan (ROC) and Hong Kong. COLI 321L This course will study detective fiction and film as they appear in authors of four distinct U.S. groups: Anglo American, African American, Hispanic American and women. We will read figures such as Poe, Chandler, Highsmith, Paretsky, Elmore, Elroy, Himes, Mosley, Anaya, Rivera, Lator. Six films will also be included, such as "The Maltese Falcon," "Chinatown" and "Strangers on a Train." Our purpose is threefold: to reveal the way in which detective fiction and film emitting from distinct groups inform one another, leading to a very complex "genre"; to examine the concept of knowledge that the detective genre underscores and undermines; and to study matters of sex and race insofar as they are presented in the texts studied. Format: Lecture/discussion. Page 24 of 30

25 DESCRIPTION COLI Structure and meaning of fairy tales. Oral vs. literary fairy tales. Different approaches to interpreting fairy tales: anthropological, psychological, sociohistorical, structuralist. Lectures approximately once a week; discussion; take-home midterm and final exams; two 10-page papers COLI 331M An examination of 19th/20th century art, literature, and theory. With a focus on "century cities" Paris, London, Vienna, Berlin, New York, Mahagonny, the seminar will explore urban spaces, Modernist literature and cultural practices. In class we will discuss selections from Nietzsche, Simmel, Benjamin, Baudelaire, G. Stein, Hofmannsthal, Musil, Andreas-Salome, Th. Mann, Rilke, Worringer, Kandinsky, Benn, Woolf, Kafka, Keun, and Brecht. There will be special attention to the relationship of visual and verbal modernism, literature and the arts, gender and modernism, modernism/ eurocentrism, amd modernism/postmodernism. Format: Seminar, lectures and discussion. Requirements: Regular attendance and participation in the seminar discussions. Undergraduates: two short papers and a final take-home examination; Graduates: in-class presentations and a substantial final research paper. Page 25 of 30

26 DESCRIPTION ENG 380F This seminar explores works by key writers and filmmakers from Europe, the US and North Africa, who have created new narratives, poetic and visual languages, and a new consciousness about women in the modern world. We will examine novels, stories, and films with focus on different places and social contexts and will discuss the following questions: What are successful literary and visual strategies to represent the complexity of modern women s lives? What kind of choices do women have in the modern world, the modern city, and the global world? How can they succeed or fail or both in pursuing happiness and fulfillment? What conflicts do they have to work through, what different practices and decision-making processes emerge from their lives? The seminar includes novels and stories by Lou Andreas- Salomé, Nella Larsen, Virginia Woolf, Anita Loos, Irmgard Keun, Leila Abouzeid, Ingeborg Bachmann, and the films A Doll s House, The Hours, Julia, and How to Make an American Quilt. Page 26 of 30

27 DESCRIPTION CLAS Today, the word tragedy conjures up images of disaster and suffering. In classical Athens, tragedy above all meant entertainment for a mass audience. But what beyond entertainment did tragedy entail? Is the suffering it depicted wholly foreign to modern sensibilities? Or shall we moderns find in ancient Greek and Roman tragedy something to identify with? In this course, students will pursue that and similar questions. By studying the tragic drama of ancient Greece and Rome in English translation, and by comparing it to select instances of ancient comedy and to more recently produced drama, they shall deepen their understanding of an art form that boldly explored human existence at the extremes. Ancient Tragedy will offer students a sophisticated but user-friendly introduction to ancient literature and culture. To bring its focus of study alive, it will have students read a select group of ancient texts - dramas as well as theoretical readings Page 27 of 30

28 DESCRIPTION LACS 380F ENG 380I: Identity, Sexuality, & Gender in Contemporary Caribbean Literature This course will center on Anglophone, Hispanophone, and Francophone Caribbean literature and films which expressly engage in conversations beyond the entrenched paradigm of compulsory heterosexuality and its reliable companions: sexism and homophobia. Readings and films will both explore and present possibilities for broader, more inclusive, more sophisticated theoretical and political readings of gender, sexuality, and gender-located power (and abuses of power) in Caribbean contexts. We will consider the ways in which cultural/historical memory, language, national origin and occasional physical displacement (ie. Migration or political exile) contribute to the construction, buttressing, and complications of Caribbean and Caribbean diasporic identities, as we simultaneously analyze how those identities are further complicated by possibly transgressive, politicized configurations of gender, class, and sexuality. LAT 380A Description: In this advanced Latin reading course, we will explore selections from several Roman comedies of Plautus that highlight disfranchised contributors (slaves, foreigners, women) to the satirical Greco-Roman world of comedy. Format: Translation and discussion daily; occasional student reports, reading of scholarly articles and small group performances in Latin and English. Video of Latin performance. Prerequisites: LAT 203 or higher course in Latin Page 28 of 30

29 DESCRIPTION SCHL 280A The UN General Assembly unanimously proclaimed the first decade of the 21st century to be a Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence. This course will challenge students to confront the issues of peace and nonviolence through a careful consideration of the works of many of the most important writers and activits. A partial list of the authors includes: Barbara Deming, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Daniel Berrigan, Dorothy Day, Joanna Macy, Hildegard Goss-Mayr, Cesar Chavez, Buddha, Thomas Merton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert Camus. By the end of the term students will be able to describe various philosphical foundations used in formulating ideas concerning peace and describe issues related to attitudes towards peace in the advanced world. FREN Overview of the development of French literature from the Middle Ages through the 17th century, within the context of French society, culture and institutions. Reading and analysis of short fiction, plays, essays and poems. Conducted in French. FORMAT: Readings and discussions in French; oral presentations; two short papers, two in-class examinations. Writing adjustments possible for non-majors. Among authors are Marie de France, Marguerite de Navarre, Montaigne, Madame de LaFayette, Racine, Molière and La Fontaine. An important gateway course to 400-level courses. Regular attendance mandatory. PREREQUISITE: ONE 300-level French course. Freshmen: AP score of 5 or I.B. French or permission of instructor. Students from other disciplines welcome. Page 29 of 30

30 DESCRIPTION LACS Introductory course in Spanish literature. Required for the major. Students participate in and contribute to sophisticated classroom discussions of the readings and prepare and present oral reports. Gain ability to recognize and explain the whole range of grammatical usage as well as ability to recognize basic rhetorical figures and tropes such as oxymoron, paradox, hyperbaton, etc. Expansion of basic vocabulary across the historical spectrum of national literatures. Read and understand works of literature -- poetry, prose, drama, essay --with a minimum of lexical, cultural and historical aids necessary for understanding. FORMAT: Students write four 2-to-3 page essays (with peer editing and revision.) Specific application of general writing skills to literary genres and topics, with emphasis on clarity of thinking as the means leading to accuracy of expression. Conducted entirely in Spanish. PREREQUISITE: SPAN 215, 212, 250, 251 or equivalent. Page 30 of 30