Spring 2007 - Lincoln Center
COEP 1210 Literature and Society: Subaltern in the U.S. (F. Mustafa)
In this sophomore literature study, we will compare the works of Native America, African America, Latina/o America, Asian America, feminist America and LGBT America.
COLU 3463 Diderot (A. Clark)
"Everything is already written above" exclaims Jacques the Fatalist to his master. What does it mean to know and create? And where does fiction situate itself in a materialist universe? From generative and scientific speculations on the body and life and the encyclopedic organization of all knowledge, to visual and theatrical tableaux and the deployment of dissonant narrative strategies, Diderot's literary, aesthetic, and scientific work make him one of the most important and interesting writers of the eighteenth century and force us to rethink the understanding of the body, the novel, the play, and the work of art in the eighteenth century and beyond. Diderot has also informed some of the most innovative texts in contemporary theory, philosophy, and art. In this seminar we will examine multiple works from Diderot's interdisciplinary corpus to gain intimate knowledge of his poetics and of his unique articulation of key Enlightenment issues in the discourses of science, aesthetics, music, and fiction. Works can be read in English or French.
COLP 3910 US Latino Filmmaking (A. Cruz-Malavé)
An examination of the major topics and genres of contemporary Latina/o filmmaking in the United States, this course will focus on topics such as the representation of bilingual subjects, racial and border identities, contemporary migrations, women’s lives, Latinos in Hollywood and the performance of gender, and the construction of community and place in Latina/o films. It will explore the ways U.S. Latina/o filmmakers appropriate cinematic conventions from genres as diverse as the documentary, the western, the coming-of-age story, the melodrama, the musical, and the romance. Also applies to LALS and ML majors.
COLU 4011 Seminar: Narrating Childhood (A. Hoffman)
How does childhood shape our experience of language and of literary pleasure? In this seminar, we will study the explorations of childhood that are to be found in literature, film, narratology, and psychoanalytic theory. We will examine the construction in language of the child’s voice and point of view, and we will consider literary and psychoanalytic views of the significance of childhood experience to adult life.
Cross-listed Courses
AALP 3632 Harlem Renaissance (F. Mustafa)
This course will study early twentieth-century African American literature, culminating in the period known as the Harlem Renaissance. It includes an examination of the political and cultural issues associated with jazz, separatism, and migration; gender, sexuality and race. Readings from the works of Paul Laurence Dunbar, James Weldon Johnson, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Bessie Smith, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, Jessie Fauset and Zora Neale Hurston, among others.
CLLU 3421 The Epic
An examination in translation of the most important epic texts from the ancient world. Students will read Gilgamesh, Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid, and will discuss selections from other epic and narrative poems. Dante's Inferno will also be read as an example of the later adaption of classical materials and techniques by epic poets.
CMLU 3483 Women Filmmakers in Europe (E. Stadler)
A study of representative works made by women filmmakers beginning with the avant-garde of the 1920's, through the 1930's, the French New Wave of the 1960's, the New German Cinema and more recent films. Genres include documentary, fiction and experimental films. Readings in feminist theory and film theory. Filmmakers whose works will be analyzed include Germaine Dulac, Leni Riefenstahl, Agnes Varda, Marleen Gorris, Margarethe von Trotta, Claire Denis, Chantal Akerman.
ENLU 3045 Theory for English Majors (E. Stadler)
Ordinarily to be taken during the junior year, this course introduces the student to debates in literary and critical theory. The goal of this course is to reflect on reading strategies, textual practices, and language itself. Students will engage with a range of critical, theoretical, and social issues shaping the field of literary studies today. English and Comparative Literature major/minor only.
ENLU 3400 Age of Romanticism (British and American) (V. Atchity)
This course covers the broad sweep of British Romanticism, from the 1780s through the 1830s. In any given semester, specific themes may organize the readings, but they are designed to encompass a wide range of poetry, prose, and drama
ENLU 3590 Multicultural Britain (N. PItchford)
This class will take an interdisciplinary approach to representations of race in post World War II British culture. We will study novels and films from the 1950s to the present—a period during which Britain has been transformed from an imperial power to a multicultural, immigrant society—directing particular attention to the ways in which racial identity and national identity are constructed and debated. A lesser portion of the course will also be devoted to reading cultural criticism and looking at popular culture, especially pop/rock music and sport as sites of racial exchange.
FRLU 3400 Romanticism (F. Harris)
The romantic revolution in French prose and poetry as seen in the works of Rousseau, Chateaubriand, Stendhal, Balzac, Nerval, and others.
WSEP 3010 Feminist Theories in Intercultural Perspective (A. Hoffman)
An examination of contemporary feminist theories, with attention to the construction of gender, sexuality, class, race, ethnicity, and age. Students will analyze Western and non-Western writings from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Spring 2007 - Rose Hill
CORU 1230 History and the Novel (E. Badowska)
Not a history of the novel, this course invites students toview the novel and history not as separate fields of study but as mutually informing ways of representing the world. To this end,it will examine representative novels and historical analyses that deliberately cross boundaries presumed to define literature and history.
CORU 4014 Jean Rhys: Rewriting English (C. GoGwilt)
The seminar offers an intensive study of the work of Caribbean-born English writer Jean Rhys, from the early stories and novels of the 1930s to the last and most famous novel, Wide SargassoSea,published in 1966. We pay particular attention to the way Jean Rhys'writing reimagines the linguistic, literary, and cultural coordinates of English, not only in her last novel's rewriting of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, but also in the early novels Quartet(1928), After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (1930), Voyage in the Dark(1934), and Good Morning, Midnight (1939). The seminar studies Rhys's work within the comparative contexts of European modernism,mass media and popular culture, feminist and gender theories, and postcolonial studies. The seminar fulfils both English (elective)and Comparative Literature (senior capstone seminar) major requirements.
Cross-Listed Courses
ENRU 3045 Theory for English Majors (C. GoGwilt)
Ordinarily to be taken during the junior year, this course introduces the student to debates in literary and critical theory. The goal of this course is to reflect on reading strategies, textual practices, and language itself. Students will engage with a range of critical, theoretical, and social issues shaping the field of literary studies today. English and Comparative Literature major/minor only.
ENRP 3507 Modern Anglo-Irish Literature (G. Swiontkwoski)
A study of selected works of modern Irish literature – poetry, prose, and drama – from the perspective of its relation to the Easter 1916 Rebellion. Three writers from before the 1916 Rebellion will be studied – Yeats, Joyce, and Synge – to examine their responses to Irish nationalism and their influence on the rebellion itself. Three writers from after the 1916 Rebellion will also be studied—O'Casey, MacLaverty, and Heaney—to examine how the 1916 Rebellion and its aftermath have affected their work.
ENRP 3665 Coming of Age in Asian America (J. Kim)
In the traditional coming-of-age story, the protagonist achieves personal maturity by internalizing the values of mainstream society. But what if you’re one of mainstream society’s outcasts? In this multimedia course, we will explore some of the competing strategies contemporary Asian American artists have developed to describe, narrate, and negotiate the difficulty of growing up on the margins. With the help of additional critical, theoretical, and historicalreadings, we will evaluate the extent to which Asian American artists contest hegemonic social values, revise the form of the traditional novel of development, and generally re-imagine what it means to come of age.
ITRU 3500 Comedy and Satire in Italian Cinema (J. Perricone)
In addition to reading different genres, the course will incorporate a number of theoretical readings on the genre Comedia all'Italiana or Italian social satire cinema. It will also consider issues of visual language and visual representation and students will be asked to read material on this theoretical aspect as well.
