MUSEUM AND ‘THE OTHER’ - J. Berlo
AH 477
W 1400-1640
Morey 205
An examination of how museums have represented Native Americans, Africans, African-Americans, and Aboriginal Australians in a more than a century of public exhibits. From Franz Boas’s displays in the American Museum of Natural History in New York in the 1890s to the Native-run National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, DC and its critique today, pivotal moments of inquiry will include Indian Art of the United States (NY 1941) and Into the Heart of Africa (Toronto, 1990). Contemporary Native American and African American artists have led the critique of the Euro-American culture of representation. We will consider their issues and exhibits, too. Seminar format.
MARX AND MARXISM - J. Creech
CLT 482A
R 1400-1640
Morey 501
It is not overstated to say that the works of Karl Marx have provided the transformational impulse to many of the changes of the 20th century. Who was this person, Karl Marx? Why is it that in this post-Cold War world his writings continue both to inspire and threaten contemporary readers? How have those inspired by Marx further developed his ideas to constitute the discourse of Marxism? In this course we will begin with discussions of key works by Marx. We will then move on to examine some significant contributions to Marxism. Additionally majors and minors can sign up for GER 211 where significant texts will be read and discussed in German.
UTOPIA AND LITERATURE - J. Tucker
ENG 557
W 1400-1640
Morey 403
Utopia” commonly refers to an ideal society; this course presents “utopia” as a verbal construction, an occasion of sociological modeling, and as a mode and attitude as well as an object or state. The course addresses literary representations of utopias throughout the tradition of literature in English. Topics for discussion include the relationship between utopia and dystopia (including “critical dystopias”), utopian literature’s influence on modern science fiction, the politics of utopias, and intersections with the history of intentional communities. Primary texts include works by Thomas More, H.G. Wells, Edward Bellamy, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, George Schuyler, Ursula K. LeGuin, Samuel R. Delany, Joanna Russ, Kim Stanley Robinson, Octavia Butler, and more. Supplementary readings include works by Fredric Jameson, Tom Moylan, Darko Suvin, Dick Hebdige, and more. Course requirements include an in-class presentation on a supplementary reading and a seminar paper on one or more primary texts.
Core Visual Studies Courses:
WOMEN , CLOTH AND CULTURE - J. Berlo
AH 459/WST 425
M 1400-1640
Morey 205
Why is it that throughout history and across different cultures, women are often associated with "soft goods" (cloth) rather than "hard goods" (sculpture)? We will focus on case studies that analyze women's varied roles in the production and use of cloth, from indigenous societies of Africa and the Americas, to colonial encounters in those regions, to modern artistry and the structures of globalized industry. Topics may include: raffia cloth made by royal women in Central Africa, textiles of Maya weavers of Guatemala, 19th century American quilters, Massachusetts "mill girls" of the 1830s, feminist artists of the past fifty years, and women and textile factory work in Asia today.
Critical Theory and Visual Courses:
SEMINAR IN CONTEMPORARY ART: The 60’s - R. Haidu
AH 415/CRN 10873
TR 0900-1150
Hylan 105
The social, political and economic events of the 1960s––including the war in Vietnam, decolonization in Africa, and the accelerated growth of a global economy––played a crucial role in the transformation of art practices, as did the simultaneous development of psychoanalytic, sociological, and linguistic frameworks for understanding society and the individual. In this course we will consider individual artists’ work, international artistic movements, and the incorporation of film, video, and performance into art practices. Readings will include critical essays on art as well as broader cultural analyses.
FILMS OF JEAN-LUC GODARD - S. Willis
AH 554/CLT 411J/ENG 464
T 1400-1640
RR Lib 428
Screening: T 1940-2200
RR Lib 428
This course will survey the career of Jean-Luc Godard from Breathless (1959) to In Praise of Love (2001. Through close analysis of his films and range of critical responses we will explore numerous issues that Godard places before us as spectators and critics. While Godard is perhaps most famous, even notorious, for his commitment to politically engaged cinema, his interests in history and aesthetics remain central across this divers corpus. Although he is known for his experiments in style and medium, he also remains committed to traditional film history and art history. We will explore the complex relationships his films establish between image and word, between sound and image, between stillness and motion. Our analyses will examine the central importance of literature and art history, as well as of popular culture, to the individual films and the corpus as a whole.
THEORIZING DOCUMENTARY - J. Middleton
ENG 555/AH 556
R 1525-1805
Morey 403
This graduate seminar provides an introduction to the vibrant field of contemporary documentary studies that finds its home in the annual international Visible Evidence conference. It examines theoretical approaches to documentary film and video and reality television since the publication of Bill Nichols’ landmark study Representing Reality. We will explore perspectives on reality-based film and media rooted in cultural studies, feminism, Marxist theory, queer theory, critical race studies, and phenomenology. The course includes texts by Bill Nichols, Jane M. Gaines, Vivian Sobchack, Brian Winston, Michael Renov, Alexandra Juhasz, Cynthia Fuchs, Abé Mark Nornes, and others.
Electives:
FILMS OF THE 1930’S - G. Grella
AH 464/ENG 464
W 1815-2200
Morey 321
The course will deal with a selection of American films from the richest and possibly most important decade in the history of Hollywood. We will screen and discuss a variety of genres, from horror to documentary, concentrating on the films themselves, their place in the history of cinema, their relevance to social, political, and cultural issues. Supplementary reading will include texts on the period and on films of the time. Two or three papers will be required, along with a final examination. Possible films include "King Kong," "Frankenstein," "Our Daily Bread," "Public Enemy," "Golddiggers of 1933," "Dinner at Eight," etc. Applicable English Clusters: Media, Culture, and Communication; Modern and Contemporary Literature.
WORD AND IMAGE - P. Duro
AH 521/ENG 442
W 1400-1640
Morey 506
The connection between word and image is foundational to the study of both art and literature. Whether the interaction is one of collaboration or hostility, study of the relationship between verbal and visual languages reveals their mutual interdependence on a multipicity of levels. From consideration of the so-called 'sister arts' of painting and poetry and the role of titles, captions and illustrations to the interaction of the verbal and the visual in graphic novels and ekphrastic criticism, word and image cannot be separated. This course will address a selection of readings and topics designed to introduce the student to a broad range of themes and issues within word and image studies.
FRENCH IN FILM: AFRICA, CARRIBEAN, QUEBEC - J. Papaioannou
CLT 411M/FR 488
TR 1105-1220
B & L 269
The aim of this course is to examine the polyvalent character of French-speaking cinema that is termed as “Francophone.” We will explore issues of the universal application of “Francophone family” that mainly includes African, Caribbean, and French Canadian films, and will investigate the case of French-speaking Europe other than France. We will closely examine the aesthetic and theoretical questions that each Francoophone cinema raises in search of a cinematic discourse along with questions of production, distribution, and exhibition. Weekly film screenings. Knowledge of French is encouraged but not necessary. The course will be taught in English.
TOURIST JAPAN - J. Bernardi
CLT 414A/JPN 419A
TR 1105-1220
RR Lib 428
Japan's image as a foreign destination, focusing on 1900-1970: Japan defining itself and being defined by others through visual and material culture; the value of material culture in historical practice and theory.
SPANISH FILM - C. Schaefer
CLT 416B/SP 488
MW 1525-1640
RR Lib 428
Devoted to the critical analysis of recent Spanish cinema within its cultural contexts. Beginning with the early post–Civil War period, the focus is on film as the narrative representation of radical changes and transitions in Spanish society. Considers the translation of other media (literary, theatrical, etc.) into film and the problematic relationship between historical “reality” and the aesthetics of cinematic representation. Emphasis on films from the democratic transition to today. Includes films by directors such as Buñuel, Erice, Saura, Trueba, Garcia Sanchez, Almodovar, de la Iglesia, Amenabar. Class taught in English. Written work in Spanish for Spanish credit.
FILM AS OBJECT - J. Bernardi
CLT 430/ENG 458/FMS 443/JPN 407
R 1400-1640
RR Lib 428
The tangible object at the origin of the onscreen image: the social, cultural and historical value of motion pictures and national film cinemas through an understanding of "Film" as an organic object.
BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY - J. Hwang
CLT 452/FMS 446/GER 452
MW 1230-1345
RR Lib 428
The city in film and literature is never just a physical space - discourses of modernity and urban life are mapped onto real and imagines urban spaces. In this course we will explore how the relationship between the spaces of the city and the stories told about and through them shape our understanding of urban life. Some of the texts we will examine are Fritz Lang’s M, Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story, and Lloyd Bacon’s 42nd Street
GERMANY YEAR ZERO: POST-WAR GERMAN LIT 1945-89 - J. Creech
CLT 456/GER 456
This upper-level seminar will acquaint students with literary developments in German-speaking countries after the end of World War II. The survey of texts from East and West Germany, and Austria, will address questions of Vergangenheitsbewältigung and social critique in the 1950s, the politicization of literature in the 1960s, the Neue Innerlichkeit of the 1970s, and literary postmodernity of the 1980s. All texts and discussions will be IN GERMAN.
TRANSLATION & WORLD LITERATURE - C. Post
CLT 484/LTS 406
TR 1105-1220
MEL 219
The focus of World Literature in Translation is to examine what makes a translation "successful" as a translation. By reading a series of recently translated works (some contemporary, some retranslations of modern classics), and by talking with translators, we will have the opportunity to discuss both specific and general issues that come up while translating a given text. Young translators will be exposed to a lot of practical advice throughout this class, helping to refine their approach to their own translations, and will expand their understanding of various practices and possibilities for the art and craft of literary translation.
RENAISSANCE LITERATURE - K. Gross
ENG 407
MW 1230-1345
Morey 501
This course will take up the richly varied literature of the English Renaissance, especially its poetry. Readings will range from love sonnets to heroic dramas, from social satires to religious hymns, from lyric comedies to mad-songs. The poetry of this period sends deep roots into classical and biblical traditions, even as it becomes increasingly exploratory, combining intricate verbal wit, intellectual play, and strength of dramatic voice. Readings will include the poetry of John Skelton, Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and John Donne. We’ll also be looking at Marlowe’s "Doctor Faustus" and Shakespeare’s "Twelfth Night," and prose by Sidney, Donne, and Francis Bacon.
SLAVERY & THE 20TH-CENTURY AFRICAN-AMERICAN NOVEL- J. Tucker
ENG 428
TR 1105-1220
Morey 505
Race-based slavery in America ended over a century ago, but our nation continues to grapple with the legacies of "the peculiar institution." For example, slavery has haunted the literary imaginations of African-American writers over the last century. This course surveys a range of African-American novels in order to analyze the ways in which these texts both portray and represent slavery's lasting effects on American culture, society, and politics. The course also analyzes these novels’ connections to—and discontinuities with—slave narratives and postmodernism. Readings include works by Steven Barnes, Arna Bontemps, Octavia Butler, Pauline Hopkins, Charles Johnson, Edward P. Jones, Gayl Jones, Toni Morrison, Margaret Walker, and more. Students will be evaluated on class participation, an in-class presentation, weekly reading responses, and two formal papers.
POETRY AND MEMORY - K. Gross
ENG 444
MW 1525-1640
Morey 501
Memory has always been central to the work of poetry, whether in poems that celebrate past heroism and past poetry, or in poems that mourn the dead. But the operations of a more private, personal memory, and how this shapes our inner lives and sense of the world, becomes particularly important in modern poetry after Romanticism. Poetry in this tradition—which will be the focus of this class—often dwells on the particulars of childhood, its pains and pleasures, what of
childhood vanishes or survives in other forms. This poetry also probes the seductions and disguises of memory, and its collaborations with imagination; it studies the collisions of personal and collective memory. It takes up things forgotten, even repressed, as well as remembered. Readings will include poetry by William Wordsworth, John Keats, Walt Whitman, Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, James Merrill, and W. S. Merwin, as well as prose by Saint Augustine, Sigmund Freud, Marcel Proust, and Vladimir Nabokov.
MACHINIMA: FILM & ARTISTRY IN VIRTUAL WORLDS - S. Higley
ENG 463
MW 1650-1805
Harkness 114
This course examines and participates in making machinima (machine/cinema). Its defining element is that it NOT shoot “real world” objects but use 3D immersive worlds for its imagery in motion, using software to film in “real time.” That definition blurs when we consider iClone, Maya, and other capture methods. Halo, Half-Life, WoW, the Sims, and Second Life are popular environments for machinima. Changing as we speak, it is generically ambiguous: does it imitate cinema or is it creating something else? This course examines a genre poised between old and new techniques, its history and applications, and ultimately focuses on the Second Life art machinima which adapts for its stories the cutting edge 3D art being created in a permissive virtual world--surreal environments meant to be experienced first by its immersed users (“avatars”). We will open accounts in Second Life, explore its art, make some machinima, analyze the work of experts, and talk about film theory and what virtually happened to us.
CHANGING GENRES OF EROTICA - D. Bleich
ENG 467/WST 467
TR 1525-1640
Morey 505
Recently the large-scale dissemination of erotic and pornographic literature and film has begun to affect the majority of the population in the West. There are two main issues in the course:1) the history of the changing genres of erotica and the social changes taking place because of its wide dissemination; and 2) the proposition that if societies were different little harm and much good would come from the inclusion of erotica in peoples reading and viewing habits: erotic materials, by removing sex from the realm of the forbidden and viewing it as a species of everyday life, can contribute to the education of both sexes and people of all sexual tastes and preferences.
GLOBAL & LOCAL: PREMODERN IDENTITIES - T. Hahn
ENG 480
MW 1525-1640
B & L 315
This course examines the ways in which writers and artists in the centuries on both sides of 1492 imagined the “contact zone,” that cultural ground on which Same and Other meet. From Marco Polo’s Travels we’ll move to reports of Alexander the Great in Iraq, Afghanistan, and India; Gerald of Wales’ on Ireland; the travels of the Spanish Jew Benjamin of Tudela and the African Muslim Ibn Battuta; and the wildly popular Mandeville's Travels. Beyond 1492, we will examine printed and illustrated travels, by Columbus and Vespucci to the West, and Vasco da Gama and others to the “East” Indies. Finally we will look at both sober and celebratory accounts of globalization in Las Casas’ Destruction of the Indies and Camoens’ Lusiads, alongside other “first accounts” in English. We will also study manuscript illuminations, prints, broad sheets, and maps that created and enforced a vivid presence for non-Europeans within European consciousness. Students will write a half dozen short response papers and a final essay.
SLAVE NARRATIVES AND NEO-SLAVE NARRATIVES - S. Li
ENG 545
W 1100-1340
Morey 403
Slave Narratives and Neo-slave Narratives will begin with an exploration of American slave narratives by such authors as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Louisa Picquet, William and Ellen Craft and others. We will consider issues of audience, national ideology and rhetorical tensions surrounding sexuality, violence and agency. The second half of the semester will be dedicated to examining how contemporary authors re-imagine the experiences of antebellum slaves as in Beloved, The Chaneysville Incident, Corregidora and Middle Passage. We'll consider the limitations and creative possibilities of the neoslave narrative for writers of various racial backgrounds.
WEIMAR CULTURE - J. Hwang
GER 478
MW 1525-1640
Meliora 208
During the Weimar period (1918-1933), Germany was the center of many innovations in the arts, literature, film and architecture. Looking at various movements such as Expressionism and New Objectivity, this course will explore the connections between social change and art. The texts and discussions will be in German; German 200 or its equivalent in a prerequisite.
MODERNITY AND MODERNISM - C. Applegate/R. Westbrook
HIS 408
W 1400-1640
RRL 456
A study of selected topics in the history of modern thought and culture in Europe and the United States.
STUDIES IN GLOBAL HISTORY - TBA
HIS 501
Globalization was popularized by the media in the 1990s as a snapshot description of certain critical elements that characterize the observed reality of our modern world, integration and hierarchy, together with the repercussions (good and ill). The attempt by historians and other scholars to trace the long-run historical processes that gave rise to the current socioeconomic phenomena called globalization has given birth to a new field in historical scholarship called global history, with much conceptual and empirical debate. This course will expose our graduate students to this literature in a manner that will help them acquire the conceptual skill to research and write local, regional, and national history with a global perspective.
NOBEL PRIZE LITERATURE - B. London
LTS 401B
MW 1525-1640
Meliora 224
This course will provide an opportunity to sample an exciting body of contemporary literature, some written by authors already widely acclaimed at the time they received the Nobel Prize and some by writers suddenly catapulted into fame and international recognition. While a central focus of the course will be the literature itself, we will also look at some of the particular controversies and debates the prize has generated and at how receipt of the prize changed writers' lives and literary reputations. In the U.S., where less than 5% of the literature published each year is literature in translation, Nobel prize-winning literature is often the only modern literature Americans read in translation. We will therefore consider the question of translation and the role of the Nobel Prize in creating and promoting an international literature. We will also consider the special challenges this literature poses for its readers in speaking to both local and global audiences.
SPANISH AMERICAN CULTURES - R. Rodriguez
SP 406
MW 1400-1515
Lattimore 401
This course explores the ideas and events shaping the culture(s) of Spanish America, from pre-Columbian times to the present, with an emphasis on the concepts of discovery, conquest, mestizaje, and the formation of national cultural identity. Strong consideration will be given to contemporary issues. Texts will be drawn from literature, sociology, anthropology, history, the arts, and film. Several short essays, two exams. Class taught in Spanish.
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