Spring 2020 Undergraduate Courses

Instructor: Professor Paul

Comparative literature has long aspired to analyze literary texts, aesthetic objects, and cultural phenomena through larger philosophical and theoretical lenses, while remaining attentive to forms of linguistic, political, and historic difference. Moving between national and disciplinary boundaries, comparatists aim to reconsider the value of core notions in literary studies, such as style, genre, text, author, technique, medium, translation, public, work, and world. This course revisits the possibility of comparison in an age of local and global crisis, closed borders, economic collapse, environmental catastrophes, revived nationalisms and fundamentalisms. How does literature index, respond, resist or become complicit in such events on the individual and collective level? Tracing the shared roots of crisis and critique, we will consider the poetics and politics of comparison by discussing plays, poems, novels, stories, and films from antiquity to present. Critical perspectives will be introduced through short readings in philosophy, psychoanalysis, queer theory, critical theory, poststructuralist and postcolonial studies. Course requirements include two papers, a final, and an in-class exam.   

 

Instructor: Professor Vatulescu

What do we mean by document, documentary, and fiction? How have these concepts and their relationships changed through time? This course starts by considering the beginnings of documentary in literature, film, and the visual arts, from the controversial coining of the term in 1926. We will explore representative works from foundational moments in the evolution of documentary—the beginnings of the newsreel, Soviet and Nazi propaganda, American depression era documentary books, the cinéma-vérité movement, and the rise of autobiographical/personal documentary films. How has the emergence of this new term and its development affected our other key concepts—document and fiction? What is the relationship between documentary modes and particular media and technologies—print, photography, cinema, video, and digital? Other topics include the role of the artist, indexicality and representation, literature as historical document, “fiction in the archives,” false documents and forgery, collage, illustration, and other uses of the document in twentieth century art. This semester’s special topics are 1) word/image relations and 2) the archive. Theoretical forays around and into the archive will be complemented by hands-on research in the Tamiment archive or in an archive of your choice. 

Instructor: Professor Halim

Although literature by Middle Easterners, particularly Arab-Americans, in English is not

a new phenomenon, it has flourished in the past two decades. In addressing Arab Anglophone literature, this course covers the output of both writers resident in their country of origin and ones living in the diaspora. We will discuss a range of genres, including poetry, fiction, essay, and memoir, paired with selected films. Drawing on postcolonial theory, this course will pose, among others, the following questions: How do the writers we study identify--Arab, Arab-American, Anglo-Egyptian, British, American, Middle Eastern--and what is at stake in such labels? How do we parse the abiding legacy of colonialism, in particular Orientalism, in stereotypes about Middle Eastern émigrés? What risks of complicity might come with identities hyphenated across sides divided by imperialism and neo-colonialism? What translational strategies are adopted in the texts to be read and can we speak of such a thing as “Arabglish”? As comparatists, how do we relate the linguistic choices in Middle Eastern Anglophone texts to earlier debates in the Indian and sub-Saharan African contexts? Readings by, among others: Diana Abu-Jaber; Suheir Hammad; David Lodge; Gauri Viswanathan; Edward Said; Mohja Kahf; Hisham Matar; Nadine Naber; Edward W. Said; Anthony Shadid; Ahdaf Soueif.

Note: these courses do count as core courses toward the Major or Minor

 

Everyday Life in Chinese Literature and Film

Professor Foley

COLIT-UA 300

EAST-UA 952-002

3:30pm-6:10pm, Fridays 

Mundane and nonspecific, everyday life has emerged as a central area of study through which the very understanding of culture may be questioned and re-imagined. Taken as both an open and valueless category, as well as one that is already determined by networks of discursive and institutional power, everyday life seems to harbor within it the possibility of new forms of perceiving and feeling. If traditional understandings of culture privilege the spirituality of abstract reason, then contemporary theories of everyday life commonly emphasize the materiality of lived experience. As grand narratives of history become increasingly suspicious in our cultural thinking, everyday life may appear to provide a vantage point to re-examine the nature of human existence.  The goal of this class will be to bring theoretical perspectives on everyday life to the study of modern and contemporary Chinese culture. In a society that has undergone such dramatic and rapid transformations, we will aim to begin our critical inquiry on the level of the quotidian. While the field of Chinese cultural production has often been explicitly dominated by broad questions of history, politics, and the nation, we will not ignore these sorts of larger issues; rather, we will approach them by examining the contested arena of everyday life as it is registered in modern Chinese literature and film. Although the course will be divided into three units—everyday life and the city; personal reflection and nostalgia; and boredom and ennui—these categories are by no means mutually exclusive and will prove to be overlapping in a number of ways. Course materials will include a number of theoretical readings spread out through the semester, which are meant to broadly complement our overall examination of literature and film.

Sponsored by Dept. of East Asian Studies 

 

Enlightenment Subjects and Subjections

Professor Gadberry

COLIT-UA.141.001

IDSEM-UG 1831

2pm-3:15pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays

Course description: This semester, we will read broadly in literary, philosophical, and political works of the Enlightenment as we ask how this period understood what it meant to be human – and what it meant to be a human in relationship to others. Our course will begin by examining works that let us ask how authors of the period conceived of "man" and world. Looking at these classic texts (which will move us from skeptical philosophy to theories of feeling to proposals that we consider humans as machines), we will then turn to works that unsettle this category of “man” and allow us to consider other possibilities: citizen, foreigner, woman, and slave. How might these works complicate how we understand personhood? How do the Enlightenment ideals of reason and freedom fare when confronted with subjects neither considered to have reason nor granted freedom? We’ll finish our semester with an eye toward figures who critique Enlightenment reason and represent their own subjectivity in autobiographical texts. Primary texts may include David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Voltaire, Candide, Montesquieu, Persian Letters, Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano…, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions.  

Sponsored by Gallatin

 

 

 

Note: these courses do not count as core courses toward the Major or Minor

 

Border Fictions

Professor Valerie Forman

COLIT-UA.202.001 / IDSEM-UG 2052

3:30pm-4:45pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays

How does a nation’s understanding of its borders come into being?  Conversely, how do borders contribute to fictions about a nation—the possibilities it offers and who is considered a legitimate member of its community? What stories get told about those who migrate or seek refuge or asylum? How do migrants document their own narratives as they cross, re-cross, and contest borders? How can their stories along with the work of artists, scholars and activists challenge dominant narratives and unravel the myths that help to give borders and related terms—refuge, asylum, immigrant, citizen--their meaning and even their power? “Fictions” in the title of the course also refers to one of the primary means (the reading of novels, plays, poetry, short fiction) by which we will explore alternatives to the limited realities that borders attempt to produce. Though we will focus on recent crises at the southern border of the United States, we will locate these crises in their longer histories and put struggles over the US/Mexico border in dialogue with other border and migrant struggles. The seminar will also draw from historical documents, the work of historians, visual artists, filmmakers, critical/political theorists, as well as scholars of the environment, indigeneity, and migration from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Possible authors/scholars/artists include: Valeria Luselli, Oscar Martínez, Gloria Anzaldua, Carlos Fuentes,Gregory Nava, John Sayles, Larissa Sansour, Boots Riley, Leo Chavez, Wendy Brown and Donna Haraway among many others.

Sponsored by Gallatin School of Individualized Study 

 

Visual Poetry

Professor Nicola Cipani

ITAL-UA 152 / COLIT-UA 550

12:30pm-3:15pm, Thursdays

This course examines objects with a dual nature:  literary artifacts that are also visual compositions — texts that function simultaneously as pictures. While a primary focus will be on Italian 20th century experimental  literary forms (parole in libertà, poesia visiva, concrete poetry), students will also explore a wider historical range of such textual-visual hybrids, from the classical world through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque period.  In order to trace the transnational circulation of visual models, comparative examples and references from English and other languages will be offered. Specific readings and discussions will address theoretical issues raised by iconic texts — how do we read visual poetry? What does it mean to be a reader and a viewer at the same time? 

Sponsored by Dept. of Italian Studies

 

Modern South Asian Literature  

Professor Gabriela Ilieva

MEIS-UA 717 001 / COLIT-UA 723

4:55pm - 7:35pm, Tuesdays 

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. Class Notes: 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.

Sponsored by Dept. of Middle Eastern / Islamic Studies

 

The New Documentary in Brazil (in English)  

Professor Marta Peixoto

PORT-UA 706 / COLIT-UA 800

12:30pm-1:45pm. Tuesdays and Thursdays 

How does documentary film represent reality?  Is it a transparent window? Or is it a more complex form that may include elements of staging and fiction? In Brazil (as elsewhere) the last twenty years have seen a surge in documentary filmmaking and critical thinking about this kind of film. The increased production of documentary film is part of the Retomada or Renewal of Brazilian cinema of all kinds since the 1990s, made possible by favorable government policies.  This course, CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH, will examine a selection of these Brazilian films from the 1990s to the present (with brief retrospectives to earlier films) and explore issues such as: the uses of fact and fiction and the multiple ways in which documentary film may go beyond offering realistic versions of preexistent realities; the scope of its political impact; ethical concerns about the respectful use of other people's images and words; the construction of layered and complex images of Brazil.  Readings concern these and other aspects of documentary films. 

Sponsored by the Dept. of Spanish & Portuguese

 

The Passions of Elena Ferrante

Professor Rebecca Falkoff

ITAL-UA 300 / COLIT-UA 852

12:30pm-1:45pm, Mondays and Wednesdays

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. 

Sponsored by Dept. of Italian Studies

 

Dante's Divine Comedy in Context

Professor Maria Luisa Ardizzone

ITAL-UA 269 / COLIT-UA 866

2:00pm-3:15pm, Mondays & Wednesdays

The Divine Comedy, is a very long poem traditionally judged to be one of the most important in Western culture. At the center of the poem is the human being, his condition in the after life and his punishment or reward. Taken literally, the theme is the state of the souls after the death. But allegorically, the true subject is moral life and thus the torments of the sins themselves or the enjoyment of a happy and saintly life. Since the beginning of its circulation the Divine Comedy has been seen as a text to be read in context, that is in light of the cultural tradition Dante was channelling and interpreting.  This course proposes a reading of Dante’s Commedia, considered in light of the ancient and medieval idea of learning. The objective of the course is to familiarize students with one of the most important author of Western culture. Through Dante’s texts, students will gain a perspective on the Biblical, Christian, and Classical traditions as well as on the historical, literary, philosophical context of medieval Europe.

Sponsored by Dept. of Italian Studies

 

Topics: Pop in Latino American Music

Prof. Licia Fiol-Matta

COLIT-UA 951 

4:55pm, Thursdays 

This course will consider several important moments in Latin American and US Latino popular music, approached as a transnational phenomenon. The focus is on the performance of music, from tango to narcorrido, traversing folk, revival, MPB, salsa, rock, and contemporary Latino genres. Yet, music is a cultural product and as such students will learn how to reflect on music critically, as a collective expression of emotions, desire, and affects, and as an arena where social and political experiences manifest through creative expression. We will also study the emergence of mass culture as decisive in our understanding of popular music and pay attention to broader music culture, especially the rise of consumer culture and the entertainment industry.  By semester’s end, students will have a working grasp of major developments in modern and contemporary Latino American popular music; be able to discuss recorded music and performance footage with critical listening tools, in relationship to larger social and political developments; incorporate the following categories into an overarching discussion of the performative aspects of music: regionalism, nationalism, folklore, subcultures, social differences, and politics; become acquainted with models of music criticism in order to approach pop music beyond simple expressions of personal taste.

Knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese is not required. When needed, paraphrases will be provided. 

Sponsored by Department of Spanish and Portuguese

 

Marxism and Culture

Professor Djagalov

COLIT-UA.955.001 / RUSSN-UA 810.002

Marx (and Engels) died without leaving a clear understanding how their theories would apply to culture. Ever since, cultural producers and critics have been trying to answer this question. The first decade or so of the Soviet state was probably the most prolific ground for Marxist art and art theory, until socialist realism became “the basic method of all Soviet art and criticism” in the early 1930s. In the ensuing decades of the twentieth century, leftist thinkers and artists from the West and subsequently, from the Third World, challenged Soviet hegemony on Marxism. The end of the Soviet bloc represented a blow to the left everywhere, especially in Russia, but even there, Marxism, with its attendant aesthetics, still exists. Shifting in and out of Russia, this course will populate this 150-year-long historical trajectory with such canonical texts, authors, and movements as Marx and Engels, Plekhanov, Gorky, Trotsky, the Soviet avant-garde of the 1920s, the socialist realism of the 1930s, Gramsci and Adorno, Mao and Latin American Third Cinema, and as well as such contemporary Russian leftist artists as the Chto Delat’ collective, Kirill Medvedev, Roman Osminkin, and Victoria Lomasko.

Sponsored by Department of Russian and Slavic Studies

 

Theatre in the French Tradition

Professor Judith Miller

COLIT-UA.975.001 / FREN-UA 829

9:30am-10:45am, Tuesdays and Thursdays

This course in English will examine several French and Francophone plays that deal with the fraught question of immigration to France. Authors include:  Mrozek, Sartre, Grumberg, Genet, Koltès, Kwahulé, Alem, Mouawad, Kemeid, and the Théâtre du Soleil. From the Eastern European Jewish women who worked in sweatshops and had to deal with the results of the Holocaust in France, to the Central Asian refugees attempting to get to Western Europe but ending up in holding camps, to the African boys who froze to death on the landing gear of an airplane headed to Paris, contemporary stories have given rise to theatrical expressions that stage, in often innovative ways, one of the world’s most urgent problems:  which people have the right to seek help and asylum in countries other than where they were born?

Sponsored by Department of French