2009-2010 Courses

Fall 2009

Graduate

30500. History and Theory of Drama I. (=ANST 21200, CLAS 31200, CLCV 21200, CMLT 20500, ENGL 13800/31000, ISHU 24200/34200) May be taken in sequence with CMLT 20600/30600 or individually. This course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in Western drama from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, medieval religious drama, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson, along with some consideration of dramatic theory by Aristotle, Horace, Sir Philip Sidney, and Dryden. The goal is not to develop acting skill but, rather, the goal is to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with other members of the class. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended. David Bevington

30901. Shakespeare, Marlowe, Benjamin, and Brecht. (=CMLT 20901, ENGL 16709/36709) In this course, we will read several plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe in relationship to the theoretical writings of two twentieth-century critics, Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht. Why did Benjamin and Brecht think Shakespeare and Marlowe were radical, avant-garde playwrights? What conclusions did they draw from Shakespeare and Marlowe for their own political moment? How were Brecht's own plays and dramatic theory influenced by these earlier writers? Texts will include Shakespeare, Hamlet; Marlowe, Edward II and Tamburlaine; Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama and Understanding Brecht; Brecht, Selected Plays and his Short Organon for the Theater. For students with an interest in both Renaissance literature and European modernism, as well as a strong interest in literary theory. Victoria Kahn

32301. Tolstoy’s War and Peace. (=CMLT 22301, RUSS 22302/32302,HIST 23704,FNDL 27103,ISHU 22304,ENGL 28912/ 32302) Written in the wake of the Crimean War (1856) and the emancipation of the serfs (1861), Tolstoy’s War and Peace is Russia’s most famous national narrative. Tolstoy set his tale during the Napoleonic wars, which coincided with Russia’s national awakening. This period witnessed major social and political transformations in Russian society. Some of these epochal changes were still underway at the time when Tolstoy came of age and began to wok on his national epic. By reading War and Peace we not only learn a lot about Russian history and culture, but also witness the creation of a completely original organic work of art. It is a telling fact that Tolstoy called his work a novel-epic—a unique hybrid of several different genres deliberately designed as a riposte to the typical West European novel. This course will focus on War and Peace as a work of literature and a historical document. It is highly recommended for all students interested in Russian and European literature, history and political science, as well as to those majoring in Fundamentals. The course is open to all undergraduates and some graduate students (by instructor’s consent). In addition to Tolstoy’s War and Peace , we will read several contemporary poems, memoirs, selections from Machiavelli’s Art of War, as well as several short essays by Russian and German philosophers including Herder, Humboldt and Chaadaev. All readings, discussion and papers will be in English. Lina Steiner

32400. History of International Cinema I: Silent Era. (=ARTH 28500/38500, ARTV 26500, CMLT 22400, CMST 28500/48500, ENGL 29300/47800, MAPH 33600) This is the first part of a two-quarter course. The two parts may be taken individually, but taking them in sequence is helpful. The aim of this course is to introduce what was singular about the art and craft of silent film. Its general outline is chronological. We also discuss main national schools and international trends of filmmaking. James Lastra

32601.Cinema from the Balkans. (=CMLT 22601, CMST 24402/34402, ISHU 27603, SOSL 27600/37600) This course is designed as an overview of major cinematic works from Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Rumania, former Yugsolavia and Turkey. While the main criterion for selection will be the artistic quality of the work, the main issues under consideration will be those of identity, gender, the poignant relation with the “Western World,” memories of conflict and violence, socialism, its disintegration and subsequent emigration. We will compare the conceptual categories through which these films make sense of the world and especially the sense of humor with which they come to terms with that world. Some directors whose work we will examine: Vulchanov, Andonova (Bulgaria), Kusturica, Makavejev, Grlic (Former Yugoslavia), Guney (Turkey), Boulmetis (Greece), Manchevski (Macedonia). Angelina Ilieva

33201-33401/23201-23401. The Other within the Self: Identity in Balkan Literature and Film. This two-course sequence examines discursive practices in a number of literary and cinematic works from the South East corner of Europe through which identities in the region become defined by two distinct others: the “barbaric, demonic” Ottoman and the “civilized” Western European.

33201. Returning the Gaze: The Balkans and Western Europe. (=CMLT 23201, ISHU 27406, NEHC 20885/30885, SOSL 27200/37200) This course will investigate the complex relationship between South East European self-representations and the imagined Western gaze for whose benefit the nations stage their quest for identity and their aspirations for recognition. We will focus on the problems of Orientalism, Balkanism and nesting orientalisms, as well as on self-mythologization and self-exoticization. We will also think about differing models of masculinity, and of the figure of the gypsy as a metaphor for the national self in relation to the West. The course will conclude by considering the role that the imperative to belong to Western Europe played in the Yugoslavian wars of the 1990s. Angelina Ilieva

34101. Embracing the Past, Struggling with the Present; Poetry's Quest for Meaning. (=ENGL 34560, SCTH 34350) PQ: Open to undergrads. In this class we’ll be reading poets (and a few essayists as well) and, in doing so, paying attention to their romance with the historical time. We’ll ask several questions and among them this one: Is the dialogue with history one of the main sources of meaning in poetry? And: Which layers of the past and the present are involved? Why does the imagination need the past? But we’ll also concentrate on individual voices and situations. Texts: C.P. Cavafy, Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Claudel, Joseph Brodsky, W.G. Sebald, Z. Herbert and other authors. Adam Zagajewski

35901. Reading Modern Poets. (=CMLT 25901, ENGL 27805/47215, SCTH 34340) The idea of the class is to read a group of important 20th century poets and some of the crucial theoretical texts. This course will focus on a heterogeneous group of poets, some who write in English, some who will be read in translation. The course is not organized around a particular theme or problem. We will let each poet raise particular themes and problems for class discussion. The poets: Anne Carson, Philippe Jaccottet, Derek Mahon, Czeslaw Milosz, Eugenio Montale, Paul Valery, C. K. Williams. Robert von Hallberg, Adam Zagajewski

36400. Interpreting Goethe's Faust. (=GRMN 36409, SCTH 47011) Intensive study of Goethe’s Faust, Parts I and II. The major task of the seminar is to develop a synthetic reading of the entire Faust drama, as Goethe conceived it. What are the leading concepts of a contemporary interpretation of Faust? Discussion will address the major lines of interpretation as developed especially in the philosophical literature and in the major recent studies commentaries. Selective consideration of the tradition of Faust-representations (from the so-called Volksbuch to Valery will enable us to circumscribe the historical and aesthetic specificity of Goethe’s work. Sound reading knowledge of German required. David Wellbery

40200. Comparative Mystical Literature. (=ISLM 43300, RLIT 43600) PQ: Willingness to work in one of these languages: Arabic, Latin, Greek, French, German, Hebrew, Aramaic or Spanish. Michael Sells.

40900. Styles of Performance and Expression from Stage to Screen. (=ARTH 38704, CMST 38401, ISHU 35250) This seminar will focus on the history of acting styles in silent film (1895-1930) mapping "national" styles of acting that emerged during the 1910s (American, Danish, Italian, Russian) and various "acting schools" that proliferated during the 1920s ("Expressionist acting," "Kuleshov's workshop," etc). We will discuss film acting in the context of stage acting: its history from the 17th to 20th century, its theories and systems (Delsarte, Stanislavsky, Meyerhold) and in the context of fine arts. We will also look at various theories of impact (empathy, identification, etc) and at some influential texts in the history of performance (Diderot, Coquelin, Kleist). Yuri Tsivian

46900. Owning and Disowning: J. M. Coetzee. (=CMLT 26900, ENGL 28605/48605) This course is not simply about contemporary South Africa, and the novels of Coetzee, but also about the manner in which the public confession of past sins was and continues to be a critical point of reference for the ways in which political transition and justice are imagined. We will be reading Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, Foe, The Life and times of Michael K, Disgrace and the volume of essays, Giving Offence. We will also be reading Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground, Yvette Christiaanse's novel, Unconfessed, and Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, Yael Farber's playtext, Malora, and will study two films: Alain Resnais' groundbreaking Hiroshima Mon Amour, and Christopher Nolan's recent psychological thriller, Memento. Theoretical readings will include works from Freud, Derrida, Foucault. David Bunn, Colleen Taylor

47000. Circulation, Sensibility, and the Discourses of Modern Value. (=ARTH 48509, ENGL 48606, GNDR 48600) We will look at the figure of circulation arising from Harvey's anatomical investigations, philosophical enquiries from Descartes, Smith and Hume, and literary texts including Behn, Wycherley, Fielding, Austen, Smollet, Burney, Goldsmith and Pope and Worsworth as well as Kubrick's film of Thackeray's novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon, and will look at circulation, feeling and value from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. We will discuss the particular emergence of two sites for the performance of mobility: on one hand, the English landscape, with the impact of practitioners such as Vanbrugh, Capability Brown, and Humphry Repton, as well as Vauxhall Gardens and Stowe; on the other is the auction house: both as key tropes. Theoretical readings will include Marx, Veblen, Simmel, Benjamin, Habermas, Nancy Fraser. Literary and performance history of the early modern era suggests that there was considerable instability around matters of gender identity. In this course we will look at such historically particular cultural phenomena as 'the breeches part' and the 'castrato' in an enquiry into how passing (across class positions as well as gendered identities) gets deployed as a strategy for representing increasingly mobile conceptions of selfhood in an era of upheaval within the economic sphere. David Bunn and Jane Taylor

50100. Seminar: Tragedy and the Tragic. (=CLAS 40709) PQ: Consent of instructor. Outside students will be accepted, with the class size limited to 15 students, as long as the majority of the students are CompLit Grad students and PhD students in Classics. Fulfills the core course requirement for CompLit students. Students who wish to take this course but have already taken a Comparative Literature core course may take this course with permission of the instructor. Course readings include Greek, Roman, and early modern European tragic dramas (including Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Corneille, Racine, and Schiller) together with major works of literary criticism on tragedy and the idea of the tragic, from Plato, Aristotle, and Longinus to Sidney, Hegel, and Lacan. Each student must read at least one play in a language other than English. David Wray

51500. Race, Media, and Visual Culture. (=CDIN 51300, ENGL 51300, ARTH 49309, CMST 51300, ARTV 55500) This seminar will explore the question of race, racism, and racial identity across a variety of media and social practices, including photography and cinema, visual art and literature, and the iconology of everyday life. The seminar will provide a twin introduction to the fundamentals of visual cultural theory and media studies, on the one hand, and racial theory on the “other.” The study of racial theory will converge with issues of visuality, mediation, and iconology, particularly the question of stereotype and caricature, the role of fantasy and the imaginary in racist perception, and its reproduction and critique in various form of visual art and media. Sponsored by the Center for Disciplinary Innovation (CDI), the seminar will combine methodologies from art history, literary criticism, visual and media studies, as well as anthropology. Darby English, W.J.T. Mitchell

Undergraduate

20500. History and Theory of Drama I. (=ANST 21200, CLAS 31200, CLCV 21200, CMLT 30500, ENGL 13800/31000, ISHU 24200/34200) May be taken in sequence with CMLT 20600/30600 or individually. This course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in Western drama from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, medieval religious drama, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson, along with some consideration of dramatic theory by Aristotle, Horace, Sir Philip Sidney, and Dryden. The goal is not to develop acting skill but, rather, the goal is to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with other members of the class. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended. David Bevington

20901. Shakespeare, Marlowe, Benjamin, and Brecht. (=CMLT 30901, ENGL 16709/36709) In this course, we will read several plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe in relationship to the theoretical writings of two twentieth-century critics, Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht. Why did Benjamin and Brecht think Shakespeare and Marlowe were radical, avant-garde playwrights? What conclusions did they draw from Shakespeare and Marlowe for their own political moment? How were Brecht's own plays and dramatic theory influenced by these earlier writers? Texts will include Shakespeare, Hamlet; Marlowe, Edward II and Tamburlaine; Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama and Understanding Brecht; Brecht, Selected Plays and his Short Organon for the Theater. For students with an interest in both Renaissance literature and European modernism, as well as a strong interest in literary theory. Victoria Kahn

22301. Tolstoy’s War and Peace. (=CMLT 32301, RUSS 22302/32302,HIST 23704,FNDL 27103,ISHU 22304,ENGL 28912/ 32302) Written in the wake of the Crimean War (1856) and the emancipation of the serfs (1861), Tolstoy’s War and Peace is Russia’s most famous national narrative. Tolstoy set his tale during the Napoleonic wars, which coincided with Russia’s national awakening. This period witnessed major social and political transformations in Russian society. Some of these epochal changes were still underway at the time when Tolstoy came of age and began to wok on his national epic. By reading War and Peace we not only learn a lot about Russian history and culture, but also witness the creation of a completely original organic work of art. It is a telling fact that Tolstoy called his work a novel-epic—a unique hybrid of several different genres deliberately designed as a riposte to the typical West European novel. This course will focus on War and Peace as a work of literature and a historical document. It is highly recommended for all students interested in Russian and European literature, history and political science, as well as to those majoring in Fundamentals. The course is open to all undergraduates and some graduate students (by instructor’s consent). In addition to Tolstoy’s War and Peace , we will read several contemporary poems, memoirs, selections from Machiavelli’s Art of War, as well as several short essays by Russian and German philosophers including Herder, Humboldt and Chaadaev. All readings, discussion and papers will be in English. Lina Steiner

22400. History of International Cinema I: Silent Era. (=ARTH 28500/38500, ARTV 26500, CMLT 32400, CMST 28500/48500, ENGL 29300/47800, MAPH 33600) This is the first part of a two-quarter course. The two parts may be taken individually, but taking them in sequence is helpful. The aim of this course is to introduce what was singular about the art and craft of silent film. Its general outline is chronological. We also discuss main national schools and international trends of filmmaking. James Lastra

22601. Cinema from the Balkans. (=CMLT 32601, CMST 24402/34402, ISHU 27603, SOSL 27600/37600) This course is designed as an overview of major cinematic works from Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Rumania, former Yugsolavia and Turkey. While the main criterion for selection will be the artistic quality of the work, the main issues under consideration will be those of identity, gender, the poignant relation with the “Western World,” memories of conflict and violence, socialism, its disintegration and subsequent emigration. We will compare the conceptual categories through which these films make sense of the world and especially the sense of humor with which they come to terms with that world. Some directors whose work we will examine: Vulchanov, Andonova (Bulgaria), Kusturica, Makavejev, Grlic (Former Yugoslavia), Guney (Turkey), Boulmetis (Greece), Manchevski (Macedonia). Angelina Ilieva

23201-23401/33201-33401. The Other within the Self: Identity in Balkan Literature and Film. This two-course sequence examines discursive practices in a number of literary and cinematic works from the South East corner of Europe through which identities in the region become defined by two distinct others: the “barbaric, demonic” Ottoman and the “civilized” Western European.

23201. Returning the Gaze: The Balkans and Western Europe. (=CMLT 33201, ISHU 27406, NEHC 20885/30885, SOSL 27200/37200) This course will investigate the complex relationship between South East European self-representations and the imagined Western gaze for whose benefit the nations stage their quest for identity and their aspirations for recognition. We will focus on the problems of Orientalism, Balkanism and nesting orientalisms, as well as on self-mythologization and self-exoticization. We will also think about differing models of masculinity, and of the figure of the gypsy as a metaphor for the national self in relation to the West. The course will conclude by considering the role that the imperative to belong to Western Europe played in the Yugoslavian wars of the 1990s. Angelina Ilieva

24701. Sensibility, Sensation, and Sexuality. (=ENGL 25307) This course traces a genealogy of affect by focusing on the representation and incitement of emotions in nineteenth-century fiction. Readings include Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther; Austen, Sense and Sensibility; Flaubert, Madame Bovary; and Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd. Larry Rothfield

25001. Foucault and The History of Sexuality. (=FNDL 22001, GNDR 23100, HIPS 24300, PHIL 24800) Open only to college students. PQ: Prior philosophy course or consent of instructor. This course centers on a close reading of the first volume of Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality, with some attention to his writings on the history of ancient conceptualizations of sex. How should a history of sexuality take into account scientific theories, social relations of power, and different experiences of the self? We discuss the contrasting descriptions and conceptions of sexual behavior before and after the emergence of a science of sexuality. Other writers influenced by and critical of Foucault are also discussed. Arnold Davidson

25901. Reading Modern Poets. (=CMLT 35901, ENGL 27805/47215, SCTH 34340) The idea of the class is to read a group of important 20th century poets and some of the crucial theoretical texts. This course will focus on a heterogeneous group of poets, some who write in English, some who will be read in translation. The course is not organized around a particular theme or problem. We will let each poet raise particular themes and problems for class discussion. The poets: Anne Carson, Philippe Jaccottet, Derek Mahon, Czeslaw Milosz, Eugenio Montale, Paul Valery, C. K. Williams. Robert von Hallberg, Adam Zagajewski

26900. Owning and Disowning: J. M. Coetzee. (=CMLT 46900, ENGL 28605/48605) This course is not simply about contemporary South Africa, and the novels of Coetzee, but also about the manner in which the public confession of past sins was and continues to be a critical point of reference for the ways in which political transition and justice are imagined. We will be reading Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, Foe, The Life and times of Michael K, Disgrace and the volume of essays, Giving Offence. We will also be reading Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground, Yvette Christiaanse's novel, Unconfessed, and Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, Yael Farber's playtext, Malora, and will study two films: Alain Resnais' groundbreaking Hiroshima Mon Amour, and Christopher Nolan's recent psychological thriller, Memento. Theoretical readings will include works from Freud, Derrida, Foucault. David Bunn, Colleen Taylor

29801. B.A. Project and Workshop: Comparative Literature. All fourth-year Comparative Literature majors are required to register for the B.A. project and workshop (CMLT 29801) and attend its meetings. The workshop begins in the Autumn Quarter and continues through the middle of the Spring Quarter. While the B.A. workshop meets in all three quarters, it counts as a one-quarter course credit. Students may register for the course in any of the three quarters of their fourth year. A grade for the course will be assigned in the Spring Quarter based partly on participation in the workshop and partly on the quality of the B.A. paper. Dustin Simpson

Winter 2010

Graduate

30600. History and Theory of Drama II. (=CMLT 20600, ENGL 13900/31100, ISHU 24300/34300) May be taken in sequence with CMLT 20500/30500 or individually. This course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in Western drama from the late seventeenth century into the twentieth: Molière, Goldsmith, Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, Wilde, Shaw, Brecht, Beckett, and Stoppard. Attention is also paid to theorists of the drama, including Stanislavsky, Artaud, and Grotowski. The goal is not to develop acting skill but, rather, the goal is to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with some other members of the class. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended. David Bevington

31001. The Theatrical Illusion: Corneille, Kushner and the Baroque. (=CMLT 21001, FREN 28000/38000, TAPS 28460) We will explore the Baroque interest in meta-theatricality (“the play in the play”) by concentrating on Pierre Corneille's 1636 L’illusion comique. The play will be situated in the theatrical, literary and artistic corpus of the seventeenth century, in France (Rotrou, Moliere, Descartes, Poussin) as well as in Spain (Calderon, Velazquez) and beyond. We will also reflect on the contemporary adaptation of baroque theatre, in particular through the Court Theatre’s preparation for a production of Tony Kushner’s version of Corneille’s play. Director Charles Newell will be a guest in the class, and students will be engaged in the dramaturgical process. Reading knowledge of French strongly preferred. Students taking courses for French credit must complete all readings and written work in French. Larry Norman

31201. Contemporary European Philosophy and Religion. (=CMLT 21201, DPVR 40900, PHIL 21209/31209) The first part of this course considers Martin Heidegger’s critique of humanism and various attempts to formulate alternative versions of humanism. We also study Emmanuel Lévinas’ conception of ethics as first philosophy and its effect on political philosophy and philosophy of religion, Jacques Derrida’s politics of hospitality and cosmopolitanism, and Pierre Hadot’s conception of spiritual exercises and philosophy as a way of life. In the second part of this course, we discuss the status of ethical, political, and religious concepts after the experience of Auschwitz. In addition to Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man, other readings may come from Lévinas, Robert Antelme, Sara Kofman, and Hans Jonas. Texts in English and the original. Arnold Davidson

33301. Balkan Folklore. (=CMLT 23301, SOSL 26800/36800) This course will give an overview of Balkan folklore from ethnographic, anthropological, historical/political, and performative perspectives. We will become acquainted with folk tales, lyric and epic songs, music, and dance. The work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, who developed their theory of oral composition through work among epic singers in the Balkans, will help us understand folk tradition as a dynamic process. We will also consider the function of different folklore genres in the imagining and maintenance of community and the socialization of the individual. The historical/political part will survey the emergence of folklore studies as a discipline as well as the ways it has served in the formation and propagation of the nation in the Balkans. The class will also experience this living tradition first hand through our visit to the classes and rehearsals of the Chicago based ensemble “Balkanske igre.” Angelina Ilieva

33901. Gender in the Balkans through Literature and Film. (=CMLT 23901, GNDR 27702/37700, ISHU 27610, SOSL 27610/37610) This introductory course examines the poetics of femininity and masculinity in some of the best works of the Balkan region. We contemplate how the experiences of masculinity and femininity are constituted and the issues of socialization related to these modes of being. Topics include the traditional family model, the challenges of modernization and urbanization, the socialist paradigm, and the post-socialist changes. Finally, we consider the relation between gender and nation, especially in the context of the dissolution of Yugoslavia. All work in English. Angelina Ilieva

36700. Renaissance and Baroque Fairy Tales and their Modern Rewritings. (=CMLT 26700, HCUL 34400, ITAL 26200/36200) We study the distinctions between myth and fairy tale, and then focus on collections of modern Western European fairy tales, including those by Straparola, Basile and Perrault, in light of their contemporary rewritings of classics (Angela Carter, Calvino, Anne Sexton). We analyze this genre from diverse critical standpoints (e.g., historical, structuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist) through the works of Croce, Propp, Bettelheim and Marie-Louise Von Franz. Class conducted in English. Armando Maggi

38101. Don Quijote. (=CMLT 28101, FNDL 21211, RLLT 34202, SPAN 24202/34202) This course will provide a close reading of Cervantes' Don Quijote and discuss its links with Renaissance art and Early Modern narrative genres. On the one hand, Don Quijote can be viewed in terms of prose fiction, from the ancient Greek romances to the medieval books of knights errant and the Renaissance pastoral novels. On the other hand, Don Quijote exhibits a desire for Italy through the utilization of Renaissance art. The course will be taught in English. Spanish majors and Spanish graduate students will read the text in the original and use Spanish for the course assignments. Frederick de Armas, Thomas Pavel

38300. Theories of Narrative. (=CLAS 37009, SLAV 37100) This seminar will focus on critical approaches to narrative, story-telling, and discourse analysis. While the emphasis will be on the “formalist”/structuralist tradition (Shklovsky, Benveniste, Barthes, Genette), we will also discuss works by Plato, Aristotle, Bakhtin, Benjamin, Auerbach, Banfield, Silverstein, and others. Notably, most of these approaches were inspired by the analysis of modern European novel, and part of our task will be to test them against shorter narratives produced in different genres and historical periods (possible authors include Pindar, Cicero, Virgil, Pushkin, and Leskov). Boris (Rodin) Maslov

39800. Jewish American Literature. (=CMLT 29800, ENGL 25004/45002, GRMN 29800/39800, YDDH 27800/37800) This course expands the conception of the field of Jewish American literature from English-only to English-plus. We examine how Yiddish literary models and styles influenced the emergence and development of Jewish American literature. We also discuss how recent Jewish American novels have renewed the engagement with the Yiddish literary tradition. Readings are by Abraham Cahan, Henry Roth, I. B. Singer, Chaim Grade, Saul Bellow, Cynthia Ozick, Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley, Jonathan Safran Foer, Pearl Abraham, and Dara Horn. Jan Schwarz

41200. Decolonizing Literature and Film in Southern Africa. (=ENGL 44507) Required texts in English or translation but those working with Portuguese, Afrikaans, Zulu etc will be accommodated. While ‘postcolonialism’ may turn a complex and contradictory history into a tidy theory, decolonizing highlights the uneven and unfinished processes of writing and filming national, transnational and anti-national narratives, from the cultural nationalism of the 1940s and 1950s to the possibly post-national present. We will explore the links as well as the differences among the textual and cinematic cultures of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique and examine the potential and pitfalls of applying postcolonial and other theories to these cultures. Authors may include Nadine Gordimer, Athol Fugard, Zakes Mda, Shimmer Chinodya, Yvonne Vera, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Bessie Head, Luandino Vieira, and/or Mia Couto; theory and political analysis may include anticolonial writing by Fanon, Mandela, Neto, and Cabral and contemporary critics: Ann McClintock, Njabulo Ndebele, Kwame Appiah, Robert Mshengu Kavanagh and others. Loren Kruger

41600. “Whose Culture Is This, Anyway?” (=ENGL 42407) The past few decades have seen an explosion of debates over the question of who should own cultural goods. The particular goods in question -- the Elgin marbles, artworks looted by the Nazis, the skeletal remains of Kennewick Man, shared files – are as various as the stakeholders (individual victims, nation-states, museums, musicians, etc.). This course explores the philosophical bases for claims to own artifacts, sounds, words, and ideas, and the policy conundrums posed by these claims (restitution, cultural rights, assertions of national control over cultural patrimony, copyright). We will also look at the ways in which some of these issues have entered the popular imaginary via fiction and film. Lawrence Rothfield

43300. Baudelaire (=FREN 43300, RLIT 43500) PQ: All French works will be read in the original. Requirements for the course are one oral presentation, and one seminar paper. This course will look at Baudelaire and his surroundings, from the revolution of 1848 and its historians (Tocqueville in particular); to the artists that fascinated Baudelaire (Daumier, Delacroix, Guys, Wagner) and what the poet wrote about them; to the changes in Paris thanks to the Baron Haussmann; to the writers and political thinkers who most influenced the poet (Poe, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Hugo, de Quincey, Maistre, Proudhon); to Baudelaire's obsession with original sin; to, of course, Baudelaire's own works and development. We will also consider some of the major works of critical theory that concern the poet (including Benjamin, Burton, Chambers, Derrida, T.J.Clark, Blanchot, DeMan, and Poulet, to name a few). Françoise Meltzer

46500. Seminar: Greek Tragedy in Africa. (=GREK 46509) This course will trace the progress of two bursts of dramatic creativity: tragedy in fifth century Athens and adaptations of tragedy in twentieth century Africa (including South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Egypt). We will read and discuss genre, thematic concerns, and interpretative problems in plays by Euripides and Sophocles. In alternating weeks, we will discuss these topics and issues of cultural and postcolonial identity as they relate to adaptations written by Wole Soyinka, Athol Fugard, Ola Rotimi and others in the 1960s and 70s. All plays will be read in their original language, but students without knowledge of Greek may enroll with instructor’s consent. Sarah Nooter

50200. Seminar: Catharsis and other Aesthetic Responses. (=ENGL 59304, CMST 50200) PQ: Consent of instructor, outside students will be accepted, with the class size limited to 15 students, as long as the majority of the students are CompLit Grad students and PhD students in English Language and Literature and Cinema and Media Studies. Fulfills the core course requirement for CompLit students. Students who wish to take this course but have already taken a Comparative Literature core course may take this course with permission of the instructor. For other humanities PhDs: ACTIVE working knowledge of at least one of the following: French, German, (classical) Greek or Spanish. This PhD seminar examines the ramifications of catharsis and other responses to texts and images, in other words it investigates the relationship between effect and affect. Beginning with Aristotle and present day responses to catharsis, we will investigate the kinds of aesthetic response invoked by tragic drama and theory (esp Hegel), realism (Lukacs, Bazin and Brecht), as well as theories of pleasure (Barthes, Derrida), judgment (Kant, Bourdieu) and boredom (Spacks). We will conclude with a test case, exploring the potential and limitations of catharsis as an appropriate response to the literary and cinematic representation of trauma in and after the Argentine ‘dirty war.’ An essential part of the discussion will be the problem of translating key terms, not only from one language to another but also from one theoretical discourse and/or medium to another. Loren Kruger

Undergraduate

20600. History and Theory of Drama II. (=CMLT 30600, ENGL 13900/31100, ISHU 24300/34300) May be taken in sequence with CMLT 20500/30500 or individually. This course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in Western drama from the late seventeenth century into the twentieth: Molière, Goldsmith, Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, Wilde, Shaw, Brecht, Beckett, and Stoppard. Attention is also paid to theorists of the drama, including Stanislavsky, Artaud, and Grotowski. The goal is not to develop acting skill but, rather, the goal is to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with some other members of the class. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended. David Bevington

21001. The Theatrical Illusion: Corneille, Kushner and the Baroque. (=CMLT 31001, FREN 28000/38000, TAPS 28460) We will explore the Baroque interest in meta-theatricality (“the play in the play”) by concentrating on Pierre Corneille's 1636 L’illusion comique. The play will be situated in the theatrical, literary and artistic corpus of the seventeenth century, in France (Rotrou, Moliere, Descartes, Poussin) as well as in Spain (Calderon, Velazquez) and beyond. We will also reflect on the contemporary adaptation of baroque theatre, in particular through the Court Theatre’s preparation for a production of Tony Kushner’s version of Corneille’s play. Director Charles Newell will be a guest in the class, and students will be engaged in the dramaturgical process. Reading knowledge of French strongly preferred. Students taking courses for French credit must complete all readings and written work in French. Larry Norman

21201. Contemporary European Philosophy and Religion. (=CMLT 31201, PHIL 21209/31209) The first part of this course considers Martin Heidegger’s critique of humanism and various attempts to formulate alternative versions of humanism. We also study Emmanuel Lévinas’ conception of ethics as first philosophy and its effect on political philosophy and philosophy of religion, Jacques Derrida’s politics of hospitality and cosmopolitanism, and Pierre Hadot’s conception of spiritual exercises and philosophy as a way of life. In the second part of this course, we discuss the status of ethical, political, and religious concepts after the experience of Auschwitz. In addition to Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man, other readings may come from Lévinas, Robert Antelme, Sara Kofman, and Hans Jonas. Texts in English and the original. Arnold Davidson

23301. Balkan Folklore. (=CMLT 33301, SOSL 26800/36800) This course will give an overview of Balkan folklore from ethnographic, anthropological, historical/political, and performative perspectives. We will become acquainted with folk tales, lyric and epic songs, music, and dance. The work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, who developed their theory of oral composition through work among epic singers in the Balkans, will help us understand folk tradition as a dynamic process. We will also consider the function of different folklore genres in the imagining and maintenance of community and the socialization of the individual. The historical/political part will survey the emergence of folklore studies as a discipline as well as the ways it has served in the formation and propagation of the nation in the Balkans. The class will also experience this living tradition first hand through our visit to the classes and rehearsals of the Chicago based ensemble “Balkanske igre.” Angelina Ilieva

23901. Gender in the Balkans through Literature and Film. (=CMLT 33901, GNDR 27702/37700, ISHU 27610, SOSL 27610/37610) This introductory course examines the poetics of femininity and masculinity in some of the best works of the Balkan region. We contemplate how the experiences of masculinity and femininity are constituted and the issues of socialization related to these modes of being. Topics include the traditional family model, the challenges of modernization and urbanization, the socialist paradigm, and the post-socialist changes. Finally, we consider the relation between gender and nation, especially in the context of the dissolution of Yugoslavia. All work in English. Angelina Ilieva

26700. Renaissance and Baroque Fairy Tales and their Modern Rewritings. (=CMLT 36700, HCUL 34400, ITAL 26200/36200) We study the distinctions between myth and fairy tale, and then focus on collections of modern Western European fairy tales, including those by Straparola, Basile and Perrault, in light of their contemporary rewritings of classics (Angela Carter, Calvino, Anne Sexton). We analyze this genre from diverse critical standpoints (e.g., historical, structuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist) through the works of Croce, Propp, Bettelheim and Marie-Louise Von Franz. Class conducted in English. Armando Maggi

27000. Historicizing Desire. (=CLCV 27706, EALC 27410, GNDR 28001) This course meets the critical/intellectual methods course requirement for students who are majoring in Comparative Literature. This course examines conceptions of desire in ancient China and ancient Greece through an array of early philosophical, literary, historical, legal, and medical texts (e.g., Mencius, Sima Qian, Book of Songs, Plato, Sappho). We attempt not only to bring out the cultural specificities of ancient erotic experience but also to make visible the historical and geopolitical contingencies of our own methods of reading. To do so, we explore the broader cultural background of the two ancient periods, and engage with theoretical debates on the history of sexuality, feminist and queer studies, and intercultural comparative studies. Tamara Chin

28101. Don Quijote. (=CMLT 38101, FNDL 21211, RLLT 34202, SPAN 24202/34202) This course will provide a close reading of Cervantes' Don Quijote and discuss its links with Renaissance art and Early Modern narrative genres. On the one hand, Don Quijote can be viewed in terms of prose fiction, from the ancient Greek romances to the medieval books of knights errant and the Renaissance pastoral novels. On the other hand, Don Quijote exhibits a desire for Italy through the utilization of Renaissance art. The course will be taught in English. Spanish majors and Spanish graduate students will read the text in the original and use Spanish for the course assignments. Frederick de Armas, Thomas Pavel

29800. Jewish American Literature. (=CMLT 39800, NGL 25004/45002, GRMN 29800/39800, YDDH 27800/37800) This course expands the conception of the field of Jewish American literature from English-only to English-plus. We examine how Yiddish literary models and styles influenced the emergence and development of Jewish American literature. We also discuss how recent Jewish American novels have renewed the engagement with the Yiddish literary tradition. Readings are by Abraham Cahan, Henry Roth, I. B. Singer, Chaim Grade, Saul Bellow, Cynthia Ozick, Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley, Jonathan Safran Foer, Pearl Abraham, and Dara Horn. Jan Schwarz

Spring 2010

Graduate

32201. Magic Realist and Fantastic Writings from the Balkans. (=CMLT 22201, ISHU 27405, SOSL 27400/37400) In this course, we ask whether there is such a thing as a “Balkan” type of magic realism and think about the differences between the genres of magic realism and the fantastic, while reading some of the most interesting writing to have come out of the Balkans. We also look at the similarities of the works from different countries (e.g., lyricism of expression, eroticism, nostalgia) and argue for and against considering such similarities constitutive of an overall Balkan sensibility. Angelina Ilieva

32500. History of International Cinema II: Sound Era to 1960. (=ARTH 28600/38600, ARTV 26600, CMLT 22500, CMST 28600/48600, ENGL 29600/48900, MAPH 33700) PQ: Prior or current registration in CMST 10100 required; CMLT 22400/32400 strongly recommended. The center of this course is film style, from the classical scene breakdown to the introduction of deep focus, stylistic experimentation, and technical innovation (sound, wide screen, location shooting). The development of a film culture is also discussed. Texts include Thompson and Bordwell's Film History, An Introduction; and works by Bazin, Belton, Sitney, and Godard. Screenings include films by Hitchcock, Welles, Rossellini, Bresson, Ozu, Antonioni, and Renoir. Yuri Tsivian

32901. Film Noir: French and American. (=CMLT 22901, ENGL 28911/47214) This course focuses on film noir in a broad sense, including neo-noir. We attend to some of the conventions of the genre in terms of plot, characterization, and cinematography. There is also a thematic focus: How is trust constructed in these films? What are the features of trust that most directly affect political systems? Is trust among men much different from that among men and women in heterosexual relationships? We interpret a set of films as utopian efforts to imagine trusting lives. Films include The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Kiss Me Deadly, Out of the Past, Touch of Evil, Notorious, Narrow Margin, Blast of Silence, Night and the City, Criss Cross, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Gilda, Double Indemnity, Rififi, Chinatown, LA Confidential, Band of Outsiders, Bob le Flambeur, and Le Samourai. Robert von Hallberg

33401. The Burden of History: A Nation and Its Lost Paradise. (=CMLT 23401, SOSL 27300/37300) We will look at the narrative of loss and redemption through which Balkan countries retell the Ottoman past. With the help of Freud's analysis of masochistic desire and Zizek's theory of the subject as constituted by trauma, we will contemplate the national fixation on the trauma of loss and the dynamic between victimhood and sublimity. The figure of the Janissary will highlight the significance of the other in the definition of the self. Some possible texts are Petar Njego'‚ Mountain Wreath, Ismail Kadare's The Castle, and Anton Donchev's Time of Parting. Angelina Ilieva

34501. Lyric Genres from Classical Antiquity to Postmodernism. (=CMLT 24501, CLAS 37109, CLCV 27109, SLAV 24501/34501) PQ: Texts in English. Optional discussion sessions offered in the original (i.e., Greek, Latin, German, Russian). Moving beyond the modern perception of lyric as a direct expression of the poet’s subjectivity, this course confronts the remarkable longevity of poetic genres that have remained in use over centuries and millennia, such as the hymn, ode, pastoral, elegy, epistle, and epigram. What kept these classical genres alive for so long and, conversely, what made them serviceable to poets working in very different cultural milieus? In an effort to develop a theory and a history of Western lyric genres, we sample such poets as Sappho, Horace, Marvell, Hölderlin, Whitman, Mandel’shtam, Brodsky, and Milosz. Boris (Rodin) Maslov

34901. Cosmopolitanisms. (=CMLT 24901, ENGL 24305/34901) This course explores notions of cosmopolitanism in philosophy, historiography, and literature. Topics include ancient world systems, world literature, hospitality, and hybridity. Readings may include Derek Walcott’s Omeros, the Hellenistic Life of Aesop, early Chinese prose-poetry, Derrida, Frank, and Spivak. Tamara Chin

36801. Love-Songs. (=CMLT 26801, ENGL 27806/47213) This course examines certain themes in poems and in popular song-lyrics that include devotion, sentiment, serial desire, bought love, and aged love. Many song-lyrics are tin pan alley tunes, often in their jazz versions. Students are encouraged to suggest songs that have particularly strong lyrics. Poems come from various historical periods, with the Norton Anthology of Poetry as our source. Robert von Hallberg

38100. Travelers on the Silk Road. (=CMLT 28100, ENGL 16180/36180, RLIT 31500, RLST 28400) PQ: Advanced standing. This course is a reading of some of the major travel narratives of the Silk Road and Tibet: Xuanzang, the most famous of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who went to the West; Marco Polo and others, who went to the East; a diplomat like Clavijo, who went to see Tamerlane; modern travelers, like the spies the British government sent from India to explore and map the area who were the prototypes for Kipling’s Kim; and archaeologists, like Aurel Stein who went both ways on the Silk Road. We learn indirectly about the different religions and political regimes travelers experienced. Michael Murrin

39601. Historiography, Literature, Archaeology. (=EALC 37460) This course examines the relation between historicity and the literary, using Sima Qian’s Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) as our primary example. The Shiji is arguably the most influential Chinese work of historiography, and we will also explore its interdisciplinary and international afterlife. Particular attention will be paid to notions of the immaterial (the fictional, the spiritual, the theoretical), the exotic (the non-Chinese, the strange), and the universal, in traditional Chinese historiography and poetics, in modern archaeology, and in critical theory. Students without classical Chinese reading knowledge are welcome to join and to write their final papers on comparative topics. Tamara Chin

39800. Jewish American Literature, Post-1945. (=CMLT 29800, ENGL 25004/45002, GRMN 27800/37800, YDDH 27800/37800) The goal of this course is to expand the conception of the field of Jewish American literature from English-only to English-plus. We examine how Yiddish literary models and styles influenced the resurgence of Jewish American literature since 1945, and we discuss how recent Jewish American novels have renewed the engagement with the Yiddish literary tradition. Readings are by I. B. Singer, Chaim Grade, Saul Bellow, Cynthia Ozick, Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley, Jonathan Safran Foer, Art Spiegelman, and Michael Chabon. Jan Schwarz

40100. Islamic Love Poetry. (=ISLM 40100, NEHC 40600) PQ: Some acquaintance with one of the following: Urdu,Persian, Turkish, Ottoman, Arabic, Punjabi, Pasho, Hindi, or other relevant languages. Michael Sells

40801. Before and after Beckett: Theater and Film. (=CMLT 20801, CMST 24203/44203, ENGL 24401/44506) PQ: Third- or fourth-year standing, and at least one prior course in modern drama or film. Working knowledge of French helpful but not required. Beckett is conventionally typed as the playwright of minimalist scenes of unremitting bleakness. But his experiments with theater and film echo the irreverent play of popular culture (vaudeville on stage and film, including Chaplin and Keaton) and the artistic avant-garde (Dreyer in film; Jarry and Artaud in theater). This course juxtaposes this early twentieth-century work with Beckett’s plays on stage and screen, as well as those of his contemporaries (Ionesco, Duras) and successors. Contemporary authors depend on availability but may include Vinaver, Minyana, and Lagarce (France); Pinter and Greenaway (England); and Foreman and Wellman (United States). Theoretical work may include texts by Artaud, Barthes, Derrida, Josette Feral, Peggy Phelan, and Bert States. Loren Kruger

52200. Seminar: Archaic Poetics. (=CLAS 47209, SLAV 52200) This seminar investigates the notion of archaic (a.k.a. primitive, folk, “sentimental”, mythological) poetics, originally formulated by the Romantics, but later pursued by scholars who sought to conceptualize the presumed break between “oral literatures” of traditional societies, as well as texts produced in Archaic Greece, and modern literary praxis. In this course we will be interested both in the actual lineaments of an archaic poetics and its literary reception in the 19^th-20^th c. Apart from relevant primary sources (Homeric epic, archaic Greek choral lyric, primitivist modernist poetry, etc.), we will discuss works by Fr. Schlegel, Veselovsky, Propp, Levi-Strauss, Bakhtin, Parry, and others. Boris (Rodin) Maslov

Undergraduate

20801. Before and after Beckett: Theater and Film. (=CMLT 40801, CMST 24203/44203, ENGL 24401/44506) PQ: Third- or fourth-year standing, and at least one prior course in modern drama or film. This course meets the critical/intellectual methods course requirement for students who are majoring in Comparative Literature. Working knowledge of French helpful but not required. Beckett is conventionally typed as the playwright of minimalist scenes of unremitting bleakness. But his experiments with theater and film echo the irreverent play of popular culture (vaudeville on stage and film, including Chaplin and Keaton) and the artistic avant-garde (Dreyer in film; Jarry and Artaud in theater). This course juxtaposes this early twentieth-century work with Beckett’s plays on stage and screen, as well as those of his contemporaries (Ionesco, Duras) and successors. Contemporary authors depend on availability but may include Vinaver, Minyana, and Lagarce (France); Pinter and Greenaway (England); and Foreman and Wellman (United States). Theoretical work may include texts by Artaud, Barthes, Derrida, Josette Feral, Peggy Phelan, and Bert States. Loren Kruger

22201. Magic Realist and Fantastic Writings from the Balkans. (=CMLT 32201, ISHU 27405, SOSL 27400/37400) In this course, we ask whether there is such a thing as a “Balkan” type of magic realism and think about the differences between the genres of magic realism and the fantastic, while reading some of the most interesting writing to have come out of the Balkans. We also look at the similarities of the works from different countries (e.g., lyricism of expression, eroticism, nostalgia) and argue for and against considering such similarities constitutive of an overall Balkan sensibility. Angelina Ilieva

22500. History of International Cinema II: Sound Era to 1960. (=ARTH 28600/38600, ARTV 26600, CMLT 32500, CMST 28600/48600, ENGL 29600/48900, MAPH 33700) PQ: Prior or current registration in CMST 10100 required; CMLT 22400/32400 strongly recommended. The center of this course is film style, from the classical scene breakdown to the introduction of deep focus, stylistic experimentation, and technical innovation (sound, wide screen, location shooting). The development of a film culture is also discussed. Texts include Thompson and Bordwell's Film History, An Introduction; and works by Bazin, Belton, Sitney, and Godard. Screenings include films by Hitchcock, Welles, Rossellini, Bresson, Ozu, Antonioni, and Renoir. Yuri Tsivian

22901. Film Noir: French and American. (=CMLT 32901, ENGL 28911/47214) This course focuses on film noir in a broad sense, including neo-noir. We attend to some of the conventions of the genre in terms of plot, characterization, and cinematography. There is also a thematic focus: How is trust constructed in these films? What are the features of trust that most directly affect political systems? Is trust among men much different from that among men and women in heterosexual relationships? We interpret a set of films as utopian efforts to imagine trusting lives. Films include The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Kiss Me Deadly, Out of the Past, Touch of Evil, Notorious, Narrow Margin, Blast of Silence, Night and the City, Criss Cross, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Gilda, Double Indemnity, Rififi, Chinatown, LA Confidential, Band of Outsiders, Bob le Flambeur, and Le Samourai. Robert von Hallberg

23401. The Burden of History: A Nation and Its Lost Paradise. (=CMLT 33401, SOSL 27300/37300) We will look at the narrative of loss and redemption through which Balkan countries retell the Ottoman past. With the help of Freud‚s analysis of masochistic desire and Zizek's theory of the subject as constituted by trauma, we will contemplate the national fixation on the trauma of loss and the dynamic between victimhood and sublimity. The figure of the Janissary will highlight the significance of the other in the definition of the self. Some possible texts are Petar Njego'‚ Mountain Wreath, Ismail Kadare's The Castle, and Anton Donchev's Time of Parting. Angelina Ilieva

24501. Lyric Genres from Classical Antiquity to Postmodernism. (=CMLT 34501, CLAS 37109, CLCV 27109, SLAV 24501/34501) PQ: This course meets the critical/intellectual methods course requirement for students who are majoring in Comparative Literature. Texts in English. Optional discussion sessions offered in the original (i.e., Greek, Latin, German, Russian). Moving beyond the modern perception of lyric as a direct expression of the poet’s subjectivity, this course confronts the remarkable longevity of poetic genres that have remained in use over centuries and millennia, such as the hymn, ode, pastoral, elegy, epistle, and epigram. What kept these classical genres alive for so long and, conversely, what made them serviceable to poets working in very different cultural milieus? In an effort to develop a theory and a history of Western lyric genres, we sample such poets as Sappho, Horace, Marvell, Hölderlin, Whitman, Mandel’shtam, Brodsky, and Milosz. Boris (Rodin) Maslov

24901. Cosmopolitanisms. (=CMLT 34901, ENGL 24305/34901) PQ: This course meets the critical/intellectual methods course requirement for students who are majoring in Comparative Literature. This course explores notions of cosmopolitanism in philosophy, historiography, and literature. Topics include ancient world systems, world literature, hospitality, and hybridity. Readings may include Derek Walcott’s Omeros, the Hellenistic Life of Aesop, early Chinese prose-poetry, Derrida, Frank, and Spivak. Tamara Chin

26400. Introduction to the Renaissance. (=ITAL 22200) This course examines the birth and development of the European Renaissance, with a special focus on sixteenth-century culture, philosophy, and literature. After an introductory analysis of Francesco Petrarca's Italian and Latin works, we will examine the phenomenon of Italian Humanism. Then, we will focus on some of the most important Renaissance philosophers, such as Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, Erasmus, Montaigne, Bruno. We will also read a selection of Renaissance lyric poetry with a special focus on authors, whose work has a philosophical content, including Michelangelo, Bembo, Camões, and Scève. The final section of our class will examine the impact on Catholic Counter-reformation on the evolution of the Renaissance. Armando Maggi

26801. Love-Songs. (=CMLT 36801, ENGL 27806/47213) This course examines certain themes in poems and in popular song-lyrics that include devotion, sentiment, serial desire, bought love, and aged love. Many song-lyrics are tin pan alley tunes, often in their jazz versions. Students are encouraged to suggest songs that have particularly strong lyrics. Poems come from various historical periods, with the Norton Anthology of Poetry as our source. Robert von Hallberg

28100. Travelers on the Silk Road. (=CMLT 38100, ENGL 16180/36180, RLIT 31500, RLST 28400) PQ: Advanced standing. This course meets the critical/intellectual methods course requirement for students who are majoring in Comparative Literature. This course is a reading of some of the major travel narratives of the Silk Road and Tibet: Xuanzang, the most famous of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who went to the West; Marco Polo and others, who went to the East; a diplomat like Clavijo, who went to see Tamerlane; modern travelers, like the spies the British government sent from India to explore and map the area who were the prototypes for Kipling’s Kim; and archaeologists, like Aurel Stein who went both ways on the Silk Road. We learn indirectly about the different religions and political regimes travelers experienced. Michael Murrin

29800. Jewish American Literature, Post-1945. (=CMLT 39800, ENGL 25004/45002, GRMN 27800/37800, YDDH 27800/37800) The goal of this course is to expand the conception of the field of Jewish American literature from English-only to English-plus. We examine how Yiddish literary models and styles influenced the resurgence of Jewish American literature since 1945, and we discuss how recent Jewish American novels have renewed the engagement with the Yiddish literary tradition. Readings are by I. B. Singer, Chaim Grade, Saul Bellow, Cynthia Ozick, Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley, Jonathan Safran Foer, Art Spiegelman, and Michael Chabon. Jan Schwarz

29801. B.A. Project and Workshop: Comparative Literature. All fourth-year Comparative Literature majors are required to register for the B.A. project and workshop (CMLT 29801) and attend its meetings. The workshop begins in the Autumn Quarter and continues through the middle of the Spring Quarter. While the B.A. workshop meets in all three quarters, it counts as a one-quarter course credit. Students may register for the course in any of the three quarters of their fourth year. A grade for the course will be assigned in the Spring Quarter based partly on participation in the workshop and partly on the quality of the B.A. paper. Dustin Simpson