Comparative Literary Studies Program Course Descriptions 2013-2014
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Comparative Literary Studies Program Course Descriptions 2013-2014 Fall 2013 CLS 206: Literature and Media: LaByrinths Lectures: TTh 11:00-12:20, Fisk B17 Instructor: Domietta Torlasco Expected Enrollment: Course Description: This course will trace a brief history of labyrinths through literature, architecture, cinema, and new media. From classical mythology to cutting-edge computer games, the figure of the labyrinth has shaped the way in which we ask crucial questions about space, time, perception, and technology. Whether an actual maze or a book or a film, the labyrinth presents us with an entanglement of lines and pathways that is as demanding as it is engrossing and even exhilarating. As we move from medium to medium, or pause in between media, the labyrinth will in turn emerge as an archetypal image, a concrete pattern, a narrative structure, a figure of thought, a mode of experience....Among the works which we will analyze are Jorge Luis Borges' celebrated short stories, Italo Calvino's experiments in detective fiction, Mark Z. Danielewski' hyper- textual novelHouse of Leaves, films such as Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941), Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), and Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010), and the more intellectually adventurous video games. Evaluation Method: 1. Attendance and participation to lectures AND discussion sessions (25% of the final grade). Please note that more than three absences will automatically reduce your final grade. 2. Two short response papers (15%). 3. Mid-term exam (25%). 4. Final 5-6 page paper (35%). CLS 211 / ENG 211:Topics in Genre: Intro to Poetry Lectures: MW 11:00-11:50, Harris 107 Discussion Sections: F 11:00, 1:00 Instructor: Susannah Gottlieb Expected Enrollment: 100 Course Description: The experience of poetry can be understood in it at least two radically different ways: as a raw encounter with something unfamiliar or as a methodically constructed mode of access to the unknown. The experience of poetry includes both of these models, and theories of poetry from antiquity to the present day have grappled with these two dimensions of the poetic experience. In order to understand a poem, a reader must, in some sense, enter into its unique and complex logic, while nevertheless remaining open to the sometimes unsettling ways it can surprise us. In this class, we will read some of the greatest lyric poems written in English, as we systematically develop an understanding of the formal techniques of poetic composition, including diction, syntax, image, trope, and rhythm. Students should come prepared to encounter poems as new and unfamiliar terrain (even if you've read a particular poem before), as we methodically work through the formal elements of the poetic process. Evaluation Method: Weekly reading exercises; two 5-7 page papers; final project; final exam. Reading List: Ferguson, Salter and Stallworthy, eds. The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th edition Course packet available at Quartet Copies CLS 274-1/ASIAN_LC 274-1: Chinese Lit in Translation Class Meetings: TTh 12:30-1:50, Parkes 223 Instructor: Peter Shen Expected enrollment: Course Description: As an introduction to the outlines of Chinese literature from its ancient roots to its "modern" flowering in the Song dynasty (A.D. 960), this course aims to provide insight into the humanistic Chinese tradition. We will work through masterpieces of prose and poetry in a roughly chronological manner. These include lyrical masterworks in the various poetic modes, fiction from early strange and supernatural Daoist-inspired stories to adventurous and sensual medieval tales, as well as exemplary essays, parables and jokes, vivid historical writings, and profound philosophical pieces. Close readings of texts will enable you to gain intimacy and familiarity with this long and rich literary tradition and, more importantly, will also equip you with the skills to interpret and reconstruct traditions though reading texts, composing papers and designing presentations. Although it is impossible to cover all ancient, early and medieval Chinese literature in one quarter, you will leave the course with an enhanced sense of the richness and the wonder of this literature, a basic blueprint of China's literary development, and hopefully an interest in roaming through it further. Conducted in English. Evaluation Method: • Attendance: 10% • Class Participation: 20% • Presentation: 10% • First-paper: 10% (4-5) • Second Paper: 20% (6-7) • Final Paper: 30% (10-12) Reading List: Stephen Owen, An Anthology Of Chinese Literature: Beginnings To 1911; a variety of handouts CLS 278: Modern HeBrew Literature Class Meetings: TTh 12:30-1:50, Fisk 114 Instructor: Marcus Moseley Expected Enrollment: 25 Course Description: The effeminate, neurotic, isolated, erotically disoriented, painfully sensitive and introspective Jewish young man made his first appearance in Hebrew literature as early as the 19th century and he remains with us to this day. So central was this figure in Hebrew literary discourse that a new term was coined for him, the Talush (“uprooted man”). Who was this man? Whence, why, and how did he make his appearance on the literary stage? How, when and why did the Talush appear in female guise? What is the secret of this pathetic figure’s longevity in the Hebrew literary imagination? This course examines these questions from a variety of perspectives: literary-historical, sociological, psycho analytic, gendered etc. It also provides a splendid introduction to Modern Hebrew Literature from the 19th to the 21st centuries. The professor is intimately acquainted with the Hebrew original of all the texts to be taught in English translation. No prior knowledge of Jewish history, Judaism, or Hebrew is required. Reading List: We shall read classic texts by M.Y Berdichevsky, Y.H Brenner and S.Y Agnon alongside excerpts from contemporary bestselling novels by Amos Oz, Zeruya Shalev and others. A further advantage of this course is that the professor is intimately acquainted with the texts in the original Hebrew and may thus critique and correct the English translations. CLS 279 / JWSH_ST 279: Modern Jewish Literature in Translation Class Meetings: MWF 10:00-10:50, Kresge 2-315 Instructor: Marcia Gealy Expected Enrollment: 20 Course Description: This course studies selected works of modern Jewish literature in the context of their historical background. We will focus on certain themes and stories in the Bible and in Jewish folklore as well as on particular events and movements in European, American, and Israeli history as a way of better understanding this literature. Though most of this literature dates from the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a study of eighteenth and nineteenth century intellectual and religious currents such as the Enlightenment, Jewish Mysticism, Zionism, and Socialism will help us to understand the literature in its changing historical and social context. Thus while some writers saw modern Jewish literature as a means of educating the masses to modern secular needs, others saw it as a means of reshaping older forms and religious values, while still others saw it as a means of reflecting timeless humanistic concerns. Among the writers we will read are Sholom Aleichem, I. B. Singer, Anzia Yezierska, Primo Levi, Ida Fink, Ava Schieber, Philip Roth, and Amos Oz. Readings include: 1. Oxford Book of Jewish Stories, ed. Stavans 2. Singer, I.B. Collected Stories 3. Levi, P. Survival in Auschwitz 4. Fink, A Scrap of Time I. 5. Schieber, Ava, Soundless Roar 6. Roth, P. Goodbye Columbus (and five short stories), Oz, Amos, Panther in the Basement. CLS 304 / ENG 369: Studies in Theme: Borders in African Literature Class Meetings: MW 12:30-1:50, Parkes 224 Instructor: Evan Mwangi Expected Enrollment: 30 Course Description: The course studies the representation of borders in African literature. We will be concerned with analyzing how borders, migrations, and global capital intersect under proliferating administrative and epistemic violence in Africa. We will revisit debates about African literature that touch on boundaries and border-crossing. Should texts written in languages originating from outside the boundaries of the continent be considered African literature? Should scholars consider as legitimate boundaries imposed on Africans by colonial powers? Should foreign critics comment on African literature? Gender concerns will be highlighted. Evaluation Method: Two 6-page papers, weekly Blackboard postings, regular self-evaluation, peer critiques, class participation, pop quizzes (ungraded), and 1-minute papers (ungraded). Take-home final exam. Texts include: Essays on borders and violence written by Frantz Fanon, Simon Gikandi, Achile Mbembe; Creative works such as Wale Okediran ’s The Boys at the Border, Chris Abani’s Song for Night, Nuruddin Farah’s Maps and Sefi Atta’s “Yahoo Yahoo”. CLS 312/ITALIAN 351/RTVF 351: Authors and Their Readers: Visconti & European Cinema Class Meetings: T/TH 2-3:20, Kresge 2-420 Instructor: Domietta Torlasco , Permission of Instructor necessary Expected Enrollment: 20 Course Description: Luchino Visconti (1906-1976) is unanimously considered one of Europe's greatest film directors. His body of work spans decades, including cinematic masterpieces like Obsession (1943), Senso (1954), Rocco and His Brothers (1960), The Leopard (1963), and Death in Venice (1971), as well as a number of trailblazing theater and opera productions. A master of the melodramatic imagination, Visconti was always ahead of his times in showing the harrowing effects of love, passion, and betrayal as they take place in historically and socially specific contexts, from the working class environment of Rocco and His Brothers to the aristocratic setting of The Leopard. All of his films distinguish themselves for their intellectual rigor, audiovisual splendor, and emotional force. This course will follow the developments of Visconti's extraordinary cinematic style while situating it in the wider context of European literature and cinema, with a special focus on French poetic realism (Jean Renoir, Marcel Carne'), 19th century melodrama, and authors like Thomas Mann and Albert Camus, whose works Visconti adapted with unmatched sophistication.