Spring 2021 Undergraduate Courses
Please check Albert for accurate course locations, course modes and meeting patterns.
Spring 2021 Undergraduate Courses
Intro to CL: Reading the World
Instructor: Prof. Sanders
In her book Death of a Discipline—the discipline being Comparative Literature—Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak exhorts us to imagine “the open-ended possibility of studying all literatures, with linguistic rigor and historical savvy. A level playing field, so to speak.” There has always been this ambition in Comparative Literature, and various attempts have been made to realize it. The all-encompassing positivism of nineteenth-century American comparative philology was one endeavor to include all of the literatures of the world, as far as those scholars were able, given their knowledge. In its metropolitan form, however, Comp Lit has remained stubbornly Eurocentric. In Death of a Discipline, the ambition of studying all literatures is given a more specific direction, as Spivak advocates for an alliance between Comp Lit and Area Studies, which have, in the U.S. academy, set high standards for the learning of the languages of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. At the same time, Comp Lit has been influenced, at a theoretical level, by theories about the ethics of reading inspired by Derrida and Levinas—which, emphasizing otherness, have inspired a crossing of borders and languages beyond the historical confines of Comp Lit. Beginning with some of the founding “myths” of Comp Lit and their critiques (Erich Auerbach, Emily Apter, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Natalie Melas), we move on to resonating world-historical projects of the political imagination in W.E.B. du Bois and Frantz Fanon, and to authors whose works probe the limits of any single language and assert the difficult necessity of translation: Patrick Chamoiseau, J.M. Coetzee, Antjie Krog, Jacques Derrida, and others. We will attempt, practically, to critically engage the limits of US/ Europe-centered comparative study, by addressing the challenges of reading, for example, Southern African Zulu praise poetry and allied genres.
Poetics and Politics of Intelligence
Instructor: Prof. Paul
This course examines leading discourses and representations of intelligence in various fields—from philosophy, psychology, and the history of science, to political theory, literature and cinema. Classic and contemporary texts will present us with evolutionary, anthropological, political, national, linguistic, and literary definitions of intelligence, allowing us to explore the nature and limits of the faculty both for individual subjects and political communities across time. Selected readings will include figures from the history of philosophy (Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Taine, Bergson), psychology (Galton, Godard, Binet) history of science (Daston, Gould, Carson), critical theory (Bourdieu, Kristeva, Malabou), AI (Dreyfus, Kurzweil) and film (Epstein, Bresson). Literary readings may include work by James, Conrad, Valéry, Proust, Beckett and others.
Cities and Modernism
Instructor: Prof. Halim
This course is an interdisciplinary inquiry into modernism’s relation to the urban experience. Focusing particularly on the contrast between the European metropolis and the Middle Eastern capital, the course brings together theoretical, critical, architectural, cinematic and literary texts.
Junior Theory Seminar: Keywords in Comparative Poetics: Mimesis
Instructor: Prof. Zhang
The course is focused on a comparative study of the notion of mimesis (imitation) as it is first formulated in Aristotle’s Poetics. The course is comparative in nature in the sense that it seeks a contemporary understanding of this notion by observing the far-reaching relevance of the mimetic impulse and its framing and shaping power as they are expressed and demonstrated in different literary and artistic traditions, and across historical periods. Readings will be a mix of theoretical texts (for instance, the critical discourses on realism) and literary and artistic examples, from ancient Chinese poetry to contemporary global experimental theater.
Latin American Body Genres
Instructor: Prof. Lopez Seoane (Visiting Professor)
In her seminal analysis of contemporary cinema, Linda Williams introduced the term “body genres” to study melodrama, horror and porn, genres usually dismissed as low brow and that go to extremes in their representation of the body in states of distress and elation. This course deploys her insights to probe and interrogate the artistic genres that have dominated, and shaped, the cultural representation of key moments of Latin American history. Starting with the long cycle initiated by the conquest and closed with political independence (in which the dominant genres are the Epic and the War Film), we will move to a critical assessment of Revolutionary Porn, Latin Melodrama and State Horror as cultural forms that have not only spawned novels, films, paintings and performance, but also affected our understanding of complex social processes, historical conflicts and political trajectories.
Translation through Chinese Literature
Instructor: Prof. Foley
Rather than simply taking translation for granted as a necessary condition for accessing Chinese literature in English, this course will foreground the issue of translation and the particular challenges that arise when attempting to convey a Chinese work in English. Our examination will range from general theories of translation to the fraught notion of world literature that inevitably lurks behind literary translation, to the specific historical and ideological conditions that have affected the translation of Chinese literature, to a range of English renderings of a wide array of Chinese texts. Because students will also have the opportunity to produce their own critical translations in English, a rudimentary knowledge of Chinese is recommended.
Translating Knowledge Alphabets Across Media
Instructor: Prof. Apter & Prof. Galloway
How does translation work today? What effect do machines have on the delicate art form of translation? Co-taught by Professors Emily Apter (French & Comp Lit) and Alexander R. Galloway (MCC), this undergraduate course will focus on the problem of translation in natural and digital languages. We aim to redefine translation theory today in the light of new developments in artificial intelligence (AI), machine translation, biotranslation, aesthetic practices, and forms of knowledge production that are translation-based. We will investigate what a "knowledge alphabet" is today and how it is related (or not) to its particular medium, whether phoneme, script, algorithm, bitmap, pixel, or RNA molecule. Drawing from the sciences, we will gain an understanding of the complexities of translation as interpretation, code, natural language, morphing intelligence, and biotechnological reproduction. Drawing from the arts and humanities, we will gain experience in thinking about translation as a medium, as border checkpoint, and political cartography. Course readings will include texts by Georges Perec (an early experiment in the programming novel called How to Ask Your Boss for a Raise), Barbara Cassin, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Aria Dean, Ferdinand de Saussure, Nelson Goodman, Friedrich Kittler, Jacques Lacan, Alan Turing, and Eyal Weizman. The curriculum for this course was developed in the "Knowledge Alphabets" working group, a Bennett-Polonsky Humanities Lab sponsored by the NYU Center for the Humanities.
Courses taught by Comp Lit Faculty Originating in Other Departments
Note: these courses do count as core courses toward the Major or Minor
Marx, Nietzsche, & Freud
Professor Ronell
GERM-UA 240 / COLIT-UA 240
This course aims to engage curious minds in new and lasting ways that help one analyze history, literature, science, law, social collapse, ghostly returns and intersubjective relationships. The course takes off from the works of Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud. These works have defined our world in crucial ways. Their abiding influence on our every move, though often stealth, will become clear during the course of our readings. It is more necessary than ever to encounter these blockbuster texts, intellectually meaningful to this day and still programming our existential perspectives. The course offers introductory but also wide-ranging and probing materials. We shall analyze outstanding passages by these breakout writers and look at works that have come under their influence, grappling with them in fascinating ways--including the contributions of Jacques "deconstruction" Derrida, Hélène Cixous, Kathy Acker, and many other contemporary players.
Explaining Evil, Legitimating Luck: The Problems of Theodicy
Professor Gadberry
CORE-UA.400.080
In 1755, a massive earthquake came close to demolishing Lisbon, then the fourth largest city in Europe. The earthquake’s aftershocks, however, were also intellectual: in the face of catastrophe, writers struggled as they asked how God (or nature) could possibly be benevolent if so terrible an event could take place. The “justif[ication of] the ways of God to men” was also an ancient project, but it was not until the eighteenth century that the task of defending God, explaining disaster, or finding meaning in a world in which there is horrific suffering got a name: theodicy, a term coined only in 1710 by the philosopher Leibniz.
This course investigates theodicy through a comparative literary framework. Looking at literary, philosophical, political-theoretical, and theological works, from antiquity to the present, we will examine theodicies and anti-theodicies alike that respond to “earthquakes” literal and figurative, singular and structural. As we read across a spectrum of texts – from “vindications” of the goodness of God to satires of the theodical project, from secular representations of the status quo that disavow their faith in providence to anti-theodicies that call for conspiracy and revolt – we will ask what and whom theodicy serves. How do these texts let us understand the production of meaning following disaster, how do they attempt to explain the existence of suffering or justify mere luck? How does justification take literary or philosophical form – and why does form matter to theodicy? What form(s) might an anti-theodicy take? How do these older works about theodicy speak to and from history, and why does theodicy matter today?
DUS Approved Courses Originating In Other Departments
Note: these courses do NOT count as core courses toward the Major or Minor
The Passions of Elena Ferrante
Professor Rebecca Falkoff
ITAL-UA 300
Course description: The success of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels is astounding, not only because of the record-breaking sales, but also because of the strong emotions they thematize and arouse. In this course, we will read novels, interviews, and essays by Ferrante, asking why her work inspires such passionate reading, and whether there is political efficacy in all this affect. Engaging with Sianne Ngai, Elspeth Probyn, Lauren Berlant and others, we will consider the political and aesthetic implications of ugly and opaque emotions like irritation, envy, disgust, and shame. We will also study major influences—including writers Ferrante cites frequently in interviews: Adriana Cavarero, Carla Lonzi, Luisa Muraro, and Elsa Morante; as well as those she tends to refrain from naming: Christa Wolf and Ingeborg Bachmann. Reading knowledge of Italian is suggested but not required. Class discussion will be conducted in English; texts will be available in English and Italian.
South Asian Literature
Professor Gabriela Nik. Ilieva
MEIS-UA 717-001 / COLIT-UA.717.001
Description: This course will introduce you to a selection of writings in various Indian languages available in translation in English. The focus of this course is on the representation of gender and sexuality, as well as its relation to other factors such as class, caste, religion or ethnicity and how the depictions are mediated particularly through emerging fictional conventions in prose writing. We begin with pre-independence texts and then move on to the narratives of Partition. As we examine the cultural and historical contexts within which literature has evolved in South Asia, we also look at the voices of women and the role they play in the development of literary movements. Finally, we examine contemporary texts to gain a broader understanding of how tradition and modernity are embedded in South Asian literature with emphasis of gender representations. Addresses the rich literary product of modern and contemporary South Asia. Offers more advanced undergraduates a window on a rich and culturally varied area of the world, as well as an understanding of aspects of South Asian history and society as represented in translations of modern prose writing (short stories and novels) originally written in South Asian languages.
Sponsored by Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
Contact: Imran Khan/Kieran Lettrich
Modern Chinese Fiction (LEC)
Professor Foley
EAST-UA 732 / COLIT-UA.723.001
Description: This course will survey literature produced at various points in the tumult of modern Chinese history, from the late Qing through to the present day. While the time period will be broad, we will hope to engage in close, critical readings of significant works of fiction from a selection of major authors primarily from Mainland China. How do certain concerns of modernity arise in different texts, at different times, and for different writers? What different relationships do we see being shaped between literature, life, and politics, and how does fiction negotiate certain tensions and anxieties about modern and contemporary life? By exploring a variety of engaging novels and short stories, we will hope to gain a more nuanced understanding of modern China and the role that fiction has played as both an agent of modernity and a reflection of modern Chinese life.
Sponsored by EAS
10 seats to go to Comp. Lit/Contact Francheska Jimenez
Bible As Literature
Professor Liane Feldman
HBRJD-UA 23 / COLIT-UA.800.001
Description: The Bible is a complex and fascinating anthology of ancient literature, written by many different people over the course of nearly a thousand years. The focus of this course will be on reading the Bible as literature, and not as a religious or sacred text. In this course, students will be introduced to various strategies for the literary reading and interpretation of biblical texts. The class will engage diverse literary genres from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament and consider the biblical writers’ creative deployment of poetic forms, plot devices, and narrative styles. With the guidance of secondary literature that will introduce us to a number of diverse ways to think about the literary interpretation of these texts, we will read parts of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Esther, Ruth, Jonah, and the Gospels, as well as selections from the poetic and wisdom traditions. The goals of this course are twofold: 1) to introduce students to literary forms and styles from one corner of the ancient world, and 2) to enable students to engage with these texts from a new perspective, and examine the ways in which our assumptions about the origins of a text can and do shape our interpretations of it.
Sponsored by Hebrew and Judaic Studies
Contact: Doug Voight
Landmarks of Modern & Contemporary Arabic Literature
Professor Nader Uthman
MEIS-UA 720-001 / COLIT-UA.852.002
Description: Significant prose works (in translation) of the Arabic literary tradition from approximately the last hundred years are considered through the prisms of their multiple contexts— including, but not limited to the historical, social, cultural, gender, and class—and also examined as works of art.
Sponsored by Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
Contact: Imran Khan/Kieran Lettrich
Dante's Divine Comedy in Context
Professor Maria Luisa Ardizzone
ITAL-UA 269.001 / COLIT-UA 866 001
Description: The Divine Comedy is traditionally judged to be one of the most important poems in Western culture. At the center of the poem is the human being, his condition in the afterlife and his punishment or reward. Taken literally, the theme is the state of souls after death. Allegorically, the true subject is the moral life. Considers the cultural and intellectual traditions that shaped Dante’s mind and his work.
Sponsored by: Italian Studies
Contact: Julie Canziani
Modern Hebrew Literature in Translation
Professor Roni Henig
HBRJD-UA 76 / COLIT-UA 951.001
Exploring a rich variety of literary prose fiction, this course focuses on the emergence of modernism in Hebrew literature at the turn of the 20th century. Ever since the 19th century Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah), Hebrew literature has played a major role in the processes of permutation and transition within Jewish society, articulating new modes of thinking on matters such as body, identity, sexuality and language. In both its themes and aesthetics, Hebrew literature not only reflected these processes, but in fact created and shaped the public sphere within which these new ideas emerged. Identifying literature as an institution of the modern, intertwined with the rise of nationalism, this course examines the coincidence, as well as the discrepancy, between modernist poetics and the nationalist imagination. It asks how literature constructs national consciousness and whether, and in what ways, it ever exceeds it. Our weekly sessions will be dedicated to reading diverse texts (short stories, essays, novels and literary theory) and tackling some of the recurring issues they raise, including gender and sexuality, ideology, secularization and immigration. We will acquire methodologies of literary analysis, pay attention to rhetoric and style and practice close reading. No prior knowledge of Hebrew is required. All texts are available in English translation.
Sponsored by Hebrew and Judaic Studies
Contact: Doug Voight
War and Cinema from WWI to the Arab Spring
Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat
HIST-UA 276 / COLIT-UA.972.001
Description: This seminar investigates the relationship of cinema and war around the world from the early 20th century to the present. The course looks at both feature films and non-fiction: we will watch government propaganda, commercial entertainment films and independent documentaries. Topics to be addressed include representations of ally and enemy; the aestheticization of violence and war as spectacle; the role of sound; the ethics of targeting. This is a class on the history of war, and the history of cinema; no prior knowledge of either field is assumed.
Sponsored by History
Contact: Julie Canziani
Theatre in the French Tradition
Professor Judith Miller
FREN-UA 829 / COLIT-UA 975
Description: Includes the golden-age playwrights (Corneille, Racine, Moliere), 18th-century irony and sentiment, and the 19th-century theatrical revolution. Topics include theories of comedy and tragedy, the development of stagecraft, and romanticism and realism. Also considers the theatre as a public genre, its relationship to taste and fashion, and its sociopolitical function.
Sponsored by French
Contact: John Moran
Spring 2021 Big Ideas Course Series
Note: these courses do NOT count as core courses toward the Major or Minor
The Center for Faculty Advancement is pleased to announce the following courses as part of the Spring 2021 Big Ideas Course Series.
Faculty from across the University have created courses that explore big idea special topics that emphasize what is relevant to today’s students and deepen conversations rooted in social justice, the arts, history, literature, and science. The spring 2021 series consists of 11 two-credit classes and are either 7 or 14 weeks in duration. The Big Ideas Course Series is open to all NYU undergraduates regardless of school or major.