2008-2009 Courses

Fall 2008

Graduate

30102. Seminar: Literary Criticism from Plato to Burke. (=ENGL 52502) 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. Fulfills the core course requirement for CompLit students. This course will explore major trends in Western literary criticism from Plato to the late eighteenth-century conceived of as the "prehistory" of comparative literature as a discipline. The course will take as its particular focus the critical treatment of epic in some of the following: Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, Horace, Giraldi, Montaigne, Tasso, Sidney, Le Bossu, St. Evremond, Dryden, Addison, Voltaire, and Burke. The course will also examine both twentieth-century comparative approaches to epic (e.g., Auerbach, Curtius, Frye) and more recent debates within comparative literature in order to assess continuities and discontinuities in critical method and goals. Students will be encouraged to write final papers on subjects and authors of their choice while addressing issues treated in the course. Joshua Scodel

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

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, 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, 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

33800. Love's Books, Love's Looks: Textual and Visual Perspectives on the Roman de la Rose. (=CDIN 41400, ARTH 42208, FREN 31403, GNDR 31600) The course will initiate students into the complex allegorical narrative of the Roman de la Rose and its images. Through discussion of topically organized scholarship on the Rose and its historical ambient the seminar will provide students with the historical and historiographical orientation required for sophisticated interpretation of the work. The seminar will provide a setting for discussion and debate that draws from the special disciplinary skills of seminar participants and works toward a more integrated and mutually engaging conversation about how we can work to ‘see' the Rose collaboratively. Daisy Delogu, Aden Kumler

33801. Mandel'shtam and Celan. (=CMLT 23801, RUSS 23800/33800) Both the Russian poet Osip Mandel'shtam and the German poet Paul Celan envisioned a poem as a "message in a bottle" written to an unknown reader in the future. Placing ourselves in the position of such a reader we will conduct a detailed reading of the poetry and prose of these two poets-one who died in a holocaust in the east, the other who survived the Holocaust in the west-to try to decipher what this message may be. Particular emphasis will be place on the ways in which poetics and ethics overlap for both authors. Secondary readings will likely include works by Tynyanov, Heidegger, Levinas, Bakhtin and Adorno. No knowledge of Russian or German expected. Thomas Dolack

34301. Poems and Essays. (=CMLT 24301, ENGL 26702/46702, SCTH 34320) This course will focus on five poets who also wrote essays: Charles Baudelaire, Wallace Stevens, Gottfried Benn, Joseph Brodsky, and Zbigniew Herbert. We will first read poems by each of these authors, then we will turn to the essays. Our objective is to study both poems and essays as artful writing; we will not be looking to the essays for explanations of the poems, though some of the essays we will read do directly concern the art of poetry. Certain literary critical questions will no doubt arise: to what extent does the art of the essay depend upon brilliant moments, as poems often do? Is continuity a necessary feature of an artful essay? Is the persuasive objective of an essayist altogether different from the objectives of a poet? How far can rhetorical analysis take one in understanding lyric poetry? Each student will give one oral report (of about ten minutes) on one of the writers in the course, and also write a final essay (of ca. 15 pp., on a topic to be approved by one of the instructors) due at the end of the quarter. Robert von Hallberg, Adam Zagajewski

35301. Sociology of Literature. (=CMLT 25301, ENGL 25306/42404) This course explores the critical potential and limitations of a few key sociological approaches to literature, working with the London literary scene of the 1890s as our case. We will focus on Bourdieu's theorization of the field of cultural production; Foucault's analytics of power/knowledge and discursive formations; Luhman's influential systems theory; and recent efforts by Moretti and others to import geographic and evolutionary models into literary studies. Larry Rothfield

35701. Comparative Literature of the Americas. (=CMLT 25701, ENGL 22809/42804, LACS 22809/42804, SPAN 22803/32803) The last decade has seen a dramatic shift away from nation-based approaches to literary studies and a desire to move towards more transnational approaches. But how and more importantly why should we do so? What is to be gained? This course will explore these conceptual questions as we read primary texts from late eighteenth and nineteenth-century Spanish America and the U.S.. Raul Coronado

39401. Classic Yiddish Fiction: Sholem-Aleichem and the Diasporic Imagination. (=CMLT 29401, ENGL 28908/48909, GRMN 27708/37708, RUSS 22901/32901, YDDH 27708/37700) This seminar examines the Yiddish writer Sholem-Aleichem's work as a prime example of the diasporic imagination in modern Jewish literature. Key texts (e.g., Tevye the Dairyman , the Railroad Stories , Menakhem Mendel ) are discussed in the context of Russian Jewry's crisis and transformation at the turn of the twentieth century. Sholem-Aleichem's encounter with America during his visit in 1905-06 and his immigration in 1914 are discussed in connection with his play writing for the Yiddish stage and cinema. We examine Sholem-Aleichem's unique literary universe and style as the pivotal expression of classic Yiddish fiction. Jan Schwarz

50000. The Moral and Political Philosophy of Foucault. (=PHIL 50212) A close reading of Michel Foucault's Surveller et punir. Naissance de la prison. Some attention will also be given to the debates provoked by this book, and to the political activities of the “groupe d'information sur les prisons.” Reading knowledge of French is required. Arnold Davidson

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

21401. Latino/a Intellectual Thought. (=ENGL 22804, GNDR 22401, LACS 22804, SPAN 22801) This course traces the history of Latina/o intellectual work that helped shape contemporary Latina/o cultural studies. Our focus is on how Chicanas/os and Puerto Ricans have theorized the history, society, and culture of Latinas/os in the United States. Themes include folklore and anthropology, cultural nationalism, postcolonialism, literary and cultural studies, community activism, feminism, sexuality, and the emergence of a pan-Latino culture. Throughout, we pay attention to the convergences and divergences of Chicana/o and Puerto Rican studies, especially as contemporary practitioners have encouraged us to (re)think Latina/o studies in a comparative framework. Raúl Coronado

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, 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, SOSL 27200/37200, NEHC 20885/30885) 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

23801. Mandel'shtam and Celan. (=CMLT 33801, RUSS 23800/33800) Both the Russian poet Osip Mandel'shtam and the German poet Paul Celan envisioned a poem as a "message in a bottle" written to an unknown reader in the future. Placing ourselves in the position of such a reader we will conduct a detailed reading of the poetry and prose of these two poets-one who died in a holocaust in the east, the other who survived the Holocaust in the west-to try to decipher what this message may be. Particular emphasis will be place on the ways in which poetics and ethics overlap for both authors. Secondary readings will likely include works by Tynyanov, Heidegger, Levinas, Bakhtin and Adorno. No knowledge of Russian or German expected. Thomas Dolack

24301. Poems and Essays. (=CMLT 34301, ENGL 26702/46702, SCTH 34320) This course will focus on five poets who also wrote essays: Charles Baudelaire, Wallace Stevens, Gottfried Benn, Joseph Brodsky, and Zbigniew Herbert. We will first read poems by each of these authors, then we will turn to the essays. Our objective is to study both poems and essays as artful writing; we will not be looking to the essays for explanations of the poems, though some of the essays we will read do directly concern the art of poetry. Certain literary critical questions will no doubt arise: to what extent does the art of the essay depend upon brilliant moments, as poems often do? Is continuity a necessary feature of an artful essay? Is the persuasive objective of an essayist altogether different from the objectives of a poet? How far can rhetorical analysis take one in understanding lyric poetry? Each student will give one oral report (of about ten minutes) on one of the writers in the course, and also write a final essay (of ca. 15 pp., on a topic to be approved by one of the instructors) due at the end of the quarter. Robert von Hallberg, Adam Zagajewski

25001. Foucault and The History of Sexuality . (=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

25301. Sociology of Literature. (=CMLT 35301, ENGL 25306/42404) This course explores the critical potential and limitations of a few key sociological approaches to literature, working with the London literary scene of the 1890s as our case. We will focus on Bourdieu's theorization of the field of cultural production; Foucault's analytics of power/knowledge and discursive formations; Luhman's influential systems theory; and recent efforts by Moretti and others to import geographic and evolutionary models into literary studies. Larry Rothfield

25701. Comparative Literature of the Americas. (=CMLT 35701, ENGL 22809/42804, LACS 22809/42804, SPAN 22803/32803) The last decade has seen a dramatic shift away from nation-based approaches to literary studies and a desire to move towards more transnational approaches. But how and more importantly why should we do so? What is to be gained? This course will explore these conceptual questions as we read primary texts from late eighteenth and nineteenth-century Spanish America and the U.S.. Raul Coronado

29401. Classic Yiddish Fiction: Sholem-Aleichem and the Diasporic Imagination. (=CMLT 39401, ENGL 28908/48909, GRMN 27708/37708, RUSS 22901/32901, YDDH 27708/37700) This seminar examines the Yiddish writer Sholem-Aleichem's work as a prime example of the diasporic imagination in modern Jewish literature. Key texts (e.g., Tevye the Dairyman , the Railroad Stories, Menakhem Mendel) are discussed in the context of Russian Jewry's crisis and transformation at the turn of the twentieth century. Sholem-Aleichem's encounter with America during his visit in 1905-06 and his immigration in 1914 are discussed in connection with his play writing for the Yiddish stage and cinema. We examine Sholem-Aleichem's unique literary universe and style as the pivotal expression of classic Yiddish fiction. 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

Winter 2009

Graduate

CMLT 30203. Seminar: Poet-Critics. (=ENGL 47208) 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 ComLit Grad students and PhD students in English Language and Literature. Fulfills the core course requirement for CompLit students. A course on the methods and procedures of a few poet-critics of the 19th and 20th centuries: Matthew Arnold, R. W. Emerson, Paul Valery, T. S. Eliot, William Empson, Charles Bernstein. To what extent is the history of criticism a record of the work of poet-critics? Are these writers models for contemporary critics? Insofar as they are, how? Insofar as they are not, why not? This course will focus to some extent on the essay form and on prose style. Robert von Hallberg

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

31600. Marxism and Modern Culture. (=ENGL 32300) This course covers the classics in the field of marxist social theory (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, Reich, Lukacs, Fanon) as well as key figures in the development of Marxist aesthetics (Adorno, Benjamin, Brecht, Marcuse, Williams) and recent developments in Marxist critiques of new media, post-colonial theory and other contemporary topics. It is suitable for graduate students in literature depts., art history and possibly history. It is not suitable for students in the social sciences. Loren Kruger

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

33101. Twentieth Century Literature from the Balkans. (=CMLT 23101, SOSL 26500/36500) In this course, we will examine the works of major writers from former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, Rumania, Greece, and Turkey from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will examine how their works grapple with the issues of national identity and their countries' place in the Balkans and in Europe, with the legacies of the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman Empires, with socialism and its demise, with emigration, as well as simply with the modern experience of being. We will compare the conceptual and mythic categories through which these works make sense of the world and argue for and against considering such categories constitutive of an overall Balkan sensibility. The readings will include works by Orhan Pamuk, Ivo Andri, Norman Manea, Mesa Selimovi, Danilo Kis, Miroslav Krle a, Ismail Kadare and others. Angelina Ilieva

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

35101. History, Philosophy and the Politics of Psychoanalysis. (=CMLT 25101, PHIL 25401/35401) A reading of some central texts of Freud (both early and late) in the context of a study of the role of psychoanalysis in contemporary European philosophy. Other authors to be read may include Foucault, Deleuze and Guatteri, Marcuse, and Derrida. Arnold Davidson

39100. Renaissance Epic. (=CMLT 29100 , ENGL 36300/16300) A study of classical epic in the Renaissance or Early Modern period. Emphasis will be both on texts and on classical epic theory. We will read Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered , Camões' Lusiads , and Milton's Paradise Lost . A paper will be required and perhaps an examination. Michael Murrin

40800. Brecht and Beyond. (=CMLT 20800, ENGL 24400/44505) Brecht is indisputably the most influential playwright in the twentieth century. In this course we will explore the range and variety of Brecht's own theatre, from the anarchic plays of the 1920's to the political learning plays to the classical parable plays, as well as the works of his heirs in Germany (Heiner Müller, Peter Weiss), Britain (John Arden, Caryl Churchill), and sub-Saharan Africa (Ngugi, and various South African practitioners). We will consider the impact of Brechtian theory on film, from Brecht's own Kuhle Wampe to Jean-Luc Godard to African film makers. PQ: Juniors, seniors and/or graduate students with at least one of the following: Intro to Cinema, History and Theory of drama, or their equivalents. Working knowledge of German and/or French would be helpful but is not required. Loren Kruger

51400. Montage: History, Theory, Practice. (=CMST 67201) This seminar will look at the history of editing from early attempts at multi-shot sequencing to self-conscious experiments in "intellectual montage;" at editing techniques ranging from cross-cutting to CGI sequences; and at the variety of montage theories from Eisenstein and Pudovkin to Bazin. We will test Eisenstein's hypothesis about biological foundations of temporality in art; connect dynamic patterns of film editing to Daniel Stern's study The Present Moment; link temporal contours of cutting to theories of gendered narratology. Yuri Tsivian

Undergraduate

20400. Tragedy in Early Modern Spain and England. (=ENGL 16708, SPAN 22001) Course meets the critical/intellectual methods course requirement for students majoring in Comparative Literature. Early modern England and Golden Age Spain built thriving public theaters that broke away from the confines of neoclassicism to create some of the seminal tragedies of western civilization. As we compare the development of the public theater in both countries during the 17th century, and trace their shared Senecan heritage, we will also consider their distinct treatment of women in the performance space, and the nations' opposing Protestant and Catholic orientations. Plays from the two national theaters will be paired according to the themes of revenge, desengaño , female power, and damnation as represented in tragedies by Lope de Vega and Middleton, Shakespeare and Calderón, Webster and Claramonte, and Shadwell and Tirso. The class will use English translations of the Spanish plays, but readers of Spanish will be encouraged to read the Spanish texts in the original. Spanish concentrators taking this course for their major will be required to read texts in the original Spanish. Kathryn Swanton

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

20800. Brecht and Beyond. (=CMLT 40800, CMST 24202/34202, ENGL 24400/44505, ISHU 26950) Brecht is indisputably the most influential playwright in the twentieth century. In this course we will explore the range and variety of Brecht's own theatre, from the anarchic plays of the 1920's to the political learning plays to the classical parable plays, as well as the works of his heirs in Germany (Heiner Müller, Peter Weiss), Britain (John Arden, Caryl Churchill), and sub-Saharan Africa (Ngugi, and various South African practitioners). We will consider the impact of Brechtian theory on film, from Brecht's own Kuhle Wampe to Jean-Luc Godard to African film makers. PQ Juniors, seniors and/or graduate students with at least one of the following: Intro to Cinema, History and Theory of drama, or their equivalents. Working knowledge of German and/or French would be helpful but is not required. Course meets the critical/intellectual methods course requirement for students majoring in Comparative Literature. Loren Kruger

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

23101. Twentieth Century Literature from the Balkans. (=CMLT 33101, SOSL 26500/36500) In this course, we will examine the works of major writers from former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, Rumania, Greece, and Turkey from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will examine how their works grapple with the issues of national identity and their countries' place in the Balkans and in Europe, with the legacies of the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman Empires, with socialism and its demise, with emigration, as well as simply with the modern experience of being. We will compare the conceptual and mythic categories through which these works make sense of the world and argue for and against considering such categories constitutive of an overall Balkan sensibility. The readings will include works by Orhan Pamuk, Ivo Andri, Norman Manea, Mesa Selimovi, Danilo Kis, Miroslav Krlea, Ismail Kadare and others. Angelina Ilieva

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

23601. Rivalry, Glory, and Death: Competition and Manliness in Greco-Roman Antiquity. (=CLCV 24108, GNDR 24102, HUMA 24108) This course explores the complex relationship between competition and manliness in Greco-Roman antiquity. We will examine a diverse range of examples of competition in the hopes of arriving at a deeper understanding of how manliness was defined, contested, and won in the time period ranging from archaic Greece to Augustan Rome. The course will consider questions such as whether the characteristics of manliness change over time or remain static; how the type of competition impacts the values at stake; whether it is necessary that manly acts be narrated by a poet or witnessed by spectators; and what dangers are tied to making the transition to manhood. We will explore such issues through a wide selection of literary representations of competition, ranging from the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon in Homer's Iliad to Cicero's invective against Marc Antony in his Philippics; and from the athletic hymns of Pindar and Bacchylides to the poetic contests between shepherds in Theocritean and Vergilian pastoral. Other authors to be considered include Plato, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Plautus, Catullus, and Ovid. All texts will be read in translation. Material evidence, such as monuments and statues, will also be examined. The course will close with a brief consideration of the modern reception of ancient competition and manliness, focusing in particular on the nineteenth century “rebirth” of the Olympics and the 1936 Berlin games. Aaron Seider

25101. History, Philosophy and the Politics of Psychoanalysis. (=CMLT 35101, PHIL 25401/35401) A reading of some central texts of Freud (both early and late) in the context of a study of the role of psychoanalysis in contemporary European philosophy. Other authors to be read may include Foucault, Deleuze and Guatteri, Marcuse, and Derrida. Arnold Davidson

25900. Medieval Epic. (=ENGL 15800) Course meets the critical/intellectual methods course requirement for students majoring in Comparative Literature . We will study a variety of heroic literature, including Beowulf , The Volsunga Saga, The Song of Roland, The Purgatorio, and the Alliterative Morte D'Arthur . A paper will be required, and there may be an oral examination. Michael Murrin

29100. Renaissance Epic. (=CMLT 39100, ENGL 36300/16300) Course meets the critical/intellectual methods course requirement for students majoring in Comparative Literature . A study of classical epic in the Renaissance or Early Modern period. Emphasis will be both on texts and on classical epic theory. We will read Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered , Camões' Lusiads , and Milton's Paradise Lost . A paper will be required and perhaps an examination. Michael Murrin

Spring 2009

Graduate

32200. Left-Wing Art and Soviet Film Culture of the 1920s. (=CMLT 22200, ARTH 28100/38100, CMST 24701/34701, SLAV 26700/36700) The course will consider Soviet "montage cinema" of the twenties in the context of coeval aesthetic projects in other arts. How did Eisenstein's theory and practice of "intellectual cinema" connect to Fernand Leger and Vladimir Tatlin? What did Meyerkhold's "biomechanics" mean for film makers? Among other figures and issues, we will address Dziga Vertov and Constructivism, German Expressionism and Aleksandr Dovzhenko, Formalist poetics and FEKS directors. The course will be film-intensive (up to three hours of out-of-class viewings per week). Yuri Tsivian

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

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

34201. The Alice Books . (=CMLT 24201, PORT 26801/36801) We will read Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871). Some topics to be discussed are (alphabetically) animals, children, conversation, intention, justice and fairness, meaning of a word, malapropism, manners, pastoral, pictures, poems. Discussions will sometimes be accompanied by additional texts, which only occasionally count as secondary bibliography. Among these, we may read texts by Austin, Davidson, Empson, Oakeshott, Pitcher, Rawls, Russell, Wittgenstein and others. Miguel Tamen

34401. Beautiful Souls, Adventurers and Rogues. The European 18th-Century Novel. (=CMLT 24401, FREN 25301/35301) The course will examine several major 18th-century novels, including Manon Lescaut by Prevost, Pamela by Richardson, Shamela by Fielding, La Nouvelle Héloïse by Rousseau, Jacques le Fataliste by Diderot, and The Sufferings of Young Werther by Goethe. The course is taught in English. A weekly session in French will be held for majors and graduate students in French and Comparative Literature. Thomas Pavel.

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

42100. Gods, Titans, and the Ode. (=GREK 45700) This seminar has a double focus: a reading of selected odes of Pindar with emphasis on the gods and titans; and a comparative study of the Pindaric tradition in Latin and European literature, including Horace, Ronsard, Hoelderlin, Klopstock, Celan, Thomas Gray, Wordsworth, and Whitman. Course requirement: a reading knowledge of at least one of the following languages: Greek, Latin, French, German. Mark Payne, David Wray

42200. Poems and Songs. (=CDIN 41600, MUSI 42309) This seminar will be directed to graduate students in Music and in English and Comparative Literature. We intend to bring together students from the graduate programs in these two departments in hope of encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration by creating occasions for the swapping of interpretive skills. We want to enable musicologists to draw on some of the methods and procedures of textual interpretation that are familiar to students of poetry; and literature students, to draw on some of the elaborate methods and even devices of formal analysis of music. We think that we can best serve the needs of musicology students by attending displaying some of the techniques of literary interpretation that are brought to bear on canonical short poems. Likewise we mean to offer to literature students an opportunity to take seriously the notion that the lyric is a genre of musical composition. Our objective too is to overcome the common distinction between mass and elite culture by focusing on song lyrics as a genre of popular poetry. The seminar will focus on potential overlap between songs—largely popular songs—and canonical poetry. Robert von Hallberg, Travis Jackson

51200. Translating Theory. (=CDIN 51200, ENGL 59303, SLAV 40200, GRMN 51200) This seminar uses the theory and practice of translating texts of theory, criticism, philosophy and other genres of disciplinary inquiry to explore the boundaries between disciplines. Authors may include: T.W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, José Ortega y Gasset, Roman Jakobson, Friedrich Schleiermacher and Viktor Shklovsky, and current theorists whose work raises questions of translation directly or indirectly such as Franz Fanon, Nestor García Canclini, and Philip Lewis. Topics include the translation of sacred and quasi sacred texts (including Marx) as well as contemporary theory. Open to all humanities *PhDs* including philosophy, visual art, and all language departments, as well as the divinity school and the committee on social thought. Cultural social sciences (eg anthropology or history) by application. PQ ACTIVE working knowledge of at least one source language: French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish; possibly Dutch. Admission to seminar based on a short in-class translation. Robert Bird, Loren Kruger

Undergraduate

22200. Left-Wing Art and Soviet Film Culture of the 1920s. (=CMLT 32200, ARTH 28100/38100, CMST 24701/34701, SLAV 26700/36700) The course will consider Soviet "montage cinema" of the twenties in the context of coeval aesthetic projects in other arts. How did Eisenstein's theory and practice of "intellectual cinema" connect to Fernand Leger and Vladimir Tatlin? What did Meyerkhold's "biomechanics" mean for film makers? Among other figures and issues, we will address Dziga Vertov and Constructivism, German Expressionism and Aleksandr Dovzhenko, Formalist poetics and FEKS directors. The course will be film-intensive (up to three hours of out-of-class viewings per week). Yuri Tsivian

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

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

23500. Gender and Literature in South Asia. (=GNDR 23001/33001, SALC 23002/33002) Prior knowledge of South Asia not required. This course investigates representations of gender and sexuality, especially of females and “the feminine” in South Asian literature (i.e., from areas now included in the nations of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). Topics include classical Indian literature and sexual motifs, the female voice as a devotional/literary stance, gendered nationalism, the feminist movements, class and gender, and women's songs. Texts in English. Valerie Ritter

24001. Autobiography in the 20th Century. (=ENGL 25920, ISHU 24002) Course meets the critical/intellectual methods course requirement for students majoring in Comparative Literature . This course will explore autobiography as a genre and the theoretical issues it raises. We will examine how autobiography problematizes memory, truth and fiction, ethnic/racial identity and the relationship to the body, and the connections between the individual and the collective in history. Using a variety of texts, we will investigate contemporary strategies of self-representation and constructions of subjectivity that emerged in the 20th century. Readings will include Christa Wolf's Patterns of Childhood , Gertrude Stein's Autobiography of Alice B Toklas , Art Spiegelman's Maus , Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior , Benjamin Wilkomirski's Fragments , Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation , Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory , Mary McCarthy's Confessions of a Catholic Girlhood , and the film Big Fish, alongside theoretical works by Paul John Eakin, Sidonie Smith, Julia Watson, G Thomas Couser, and others. Katarzyna Bartoszynska

24201. The Alice Books . (=CMLT 34201, PORT 26801/36801). We will read Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871). Some topics to be discussed are (alphabetically) animals, children, conversation, intention, justice and fairness, meaning of a word, malapropism, manners, pastoral, pictures, poems. Discussions will sometimes be accompanied by additional texts, which only occasionally count as secondary bibliography. Among these, we may read texts by Austin, Davidson, Empson, Oakeshott, Pitcher, Rawls, Russell, Wittgenstein and others. Miguel Tamen

24401. Beautiful Souls, Adventurers and Rogues. The European 18th-Century Novel. (=CMLT 34401, FREN 25301/35301) Not open to 1st year undergraduates. The course will examine several major 18th-century novels, including Manon Lescaut by Prevost, Pamela by Richardson, Shamela by Fielding, La Nouvelle Héloïse by Rousseau, Jacques le Fataliste by Diderot, and The Sufferings of Young Werther by Goethe. The course is taught in English. A weekly session in French will be held for majors and graduate students in French and Comparative Literature. Thomas Pavel.

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

Department of Comparative Literature

Division of the Humanities | The University of Chicago