FOR ONLINE COURSES SELECT:
TERM: Spring 2015
LOCATION: New Brunswick
LEVEL: Undergraduate
SUBJECT: Comparative Literature (195)
COURSE TYPE: Online
Spring 2015
Undergraduate Courses
Introduction to World Literature
195:101:01; Index 03998; M6 (4:30PM-5:50) SC-206; CAC
W6 (4:30PM–5:50) SC-206; CAC
Instructor: Clawson
Does not count toward major or minor
SAS Core Code: Arts and Literatures (AHp)
Classics of Western and Eastern literature. Readings may include the Odyssey, the Tao Te Ching, Roman poetry, Beowulf, Shakuntala, The Tale of Genji, troubadour poetry, and Dante's Inferno.
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Introduction to World Literature -CANCELLED
195:101:02; Index 05917; TTh4 (2:15-3:35) LOR-115; C/D
Instructor: TBD
Does not count toward major or minor
SAS Core Code: Arts and Literatures (AHp)
Classics of Western and Eastern literature. Readings may include the Odyssey, the Tao Te Ching, Roman poetry, Beowulf, Shakuntala, The Tale of Genji, troubadour poetry, and Dante's Inferno. ______________________________________________________________________________
Introduction to World Literature
ONLINE COURSE
195:101:90; Index 15101;
Instructor: Rios
Does not count toward major or minor
SAS Core Code: Arts and Literatures (AHp)
$100 Online Course Support Fee
Classics of Western and Eastern literature. Readings may include the Odyssey, the Tao Te Ching, Roman poetry, Beowulf, Shakuntala, The Tale of Genji, troubadour poetry, and Dante's Inferno.
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Introduction to Short Fiction -CANCELLED
195:135:02; Index 06202; TTh4 (1:10PM– 2:30) HH-A5; CAC
Instructor: TBD
Taught in English
Does not count toward major or minor
SAS Core Code: Arts and Literatures (AHp)
The novella, short story, and short novel in Western and non-Western literary traditions. Authors: Boccaccio, Kleist, Hoffmann, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Mann, Kafka, Gide, and Akutagawa.
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Introduction to Short Fiction
195:135:03; Index 20014; T6 (5:35PM-6:55) RAB-104; C/D
TH6 (5:35PM-6:55) RAB-104; C/D
Instructor: Hsieh
Does not count toward major or minor
SAS Core Code: Arts and Literatures (AHp)
The novella, short story, and short novel in Western and non-Western literary traditions. Authors: Boccaccio, Kleist, Hoffmann, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Mann, Kafka, Gide, and Akutagawa.
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Introduction to Short Fiction
ONLINE COURSE
195:135:90; Index 15157;
Instructor: Levkovitch
Does not count toward major or minor
SAS Core Code: Arts and Literatures (AHp)
$100 Online Course Support Fee
The course endeavors to help students hone critical thinking and close reading skills by examining such fundamental aspects of short fiction as theme, plot, setting, characterization, point of view, and style. We will approach these concepts through some theoretical readings and a diverse selection of stories both originally in English and in translation, seeking overlooked elements in well-known classics, and perhaps discovering some new tales. This is a chance to become familiar with major authors, from Boccaccio and Poe to Tolstoy and Kafka through their smaller works!
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World Mythology
195:150:01; Index 07825; MW4 (1:10PM-2:30) SC-204; CAC
Instructor: Ureña
Does not count towards major or minor
It’s time to face your fears.
From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) to David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986) and beyond, monsters have captured the imagination of readers and moviegoers for as long as we can remember. Part of the attraction of monsters lies in the fact that they are strangely familiar while remaining dangerously different, forcing us to ask how we draw the line between us and them.
In World Mythology: Monster Mythologies, students will explore literary, cinematic, and cultural monsters to consider how these figures form part of the greater social myth of the “normal.” By rethinking the monster through discourses of difference, including illness, disability, and race, students will ponder the questions: What makes a monster? What does it mean to be human? In this way, students will learn to think about myth in contemporary society and everyday life, while also considering how particular myths get retold across time, culture, and media.
Required Texts
Gabriel García Márquez, Of Love and Other Demons [ISBN: 9781400034925]
Toni Morrison, Beloved [ISBN: 9781400033416]
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein [ISBN: 9780141439471]
Bram Stoker, Dracula [ISBN: 9780141439846]
Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing
[ISBN: 9780393935844]
Additional Readings will be posted on Sakai.
Films will be available for viewing at the Rutgers Media Center on Douglass.
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World Mythology -CANCELLED
195:150:02; Index 02919; TTh4 (1:10PM-2:30) CA-A1; CAC
Instructor: TBD
Does not count towards major or minor
Story, structure, and meaning in myths of many cultures. Myth as a primary literary phenomenon, with some attention to anthropological and psychological perspectives.
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World Mythology -CANCELLED
195:150:03; Index 08945; MH3 (12:35PM-1:55) RAB-110B; C/D
Does not count towards major or minor
Instructor: TBD
Story, structure, and meaning in myths of many cultures. Myth as a primary literary phenomenon, with some attention to anthropological and psychological perspectives.
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World Mythology
ONLINE COURSE
195:150:90; Index 11625;
Instructor: Gonzagowski
Does not count towards major or minor
$100 Online Course Support Fee
In this course, we will examine the form and content of myths from various countries and eras, with particular emphasis on the mythology surrounding the notion of the hero and heroine. The works cover a wide variety of genres including: drama, epic poetry, oral tales, the anecdote, the essay, and film. The main focus is on the representation of the hero/heroine, which will be examined through various theoretical lenses including psychoanalysis, sociology, and gender theory.
Required Texts: Available at Rutgers University Barnes and Noble Bookstore. If you order your texts elsewhere, that is fine, but be sure to get the recommended translations listed below as it will facilitate your reading comprehension!
Belcher, Stephen African Myths of Origin. Penguin USA ISBN: 9780140449457
Camões, Luís Vaz de The Lusíads. Oxford UP ISBN: 9780199539963
Chestnutt, Charles W. The Conjure Woman & Other Conjure Tales. Duke UP ISBN: 0822313871
Homer The Odyssey. Oxford UP. Oxford UP ISBN: 9780199536788
Morales, Helen Classical Mythology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford UP ISBN: 9780192804761
Shapiro, Alan The Oresteia (Aeschylus). Oxford UP ISBN: 9780195135923
Note that in addition to the above texts, I have posted required shorter readings under the DOCS SHARING tab on the E-college website.
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World Mythology
ONLINE COURSE
195:150:91; Index 12455
Instructor: Gonzagowski
Does not count towards major or minor
$100 Online Course Support Fee
In this course, we will examine the form and content of myths from various countries and eras, with particular emphasis on the mythology surrounding the notion of the hero and heroine. The works cover a wide variety of genres including: drama, epic poetry, oral tales, the anecdote, the essay, and film. The main focus is on the representation of the hero/heroine, which will be examined through various theoretical lenses including psychoanalysis, sociology, and gender theory.
Required Texts: Available at Rutgers University Barnes and Noble Bookstore. If you order your texts elsewhere, that is fine, but be sure to get the recommended translations listed below as it will facilitate your reading comprehension!
Belcher, Stephen African Myths of Origin. Penguin USA ISBN: 9780140449457
Camões, Luís Vaz de The Lusíads. Oxford UP ISBN: 9780199539963
Chestnutt, Charles W. The Conjure Woman & Other Conjure Tales. Duke UP ISBN: 0822313871
Homer The Odyssey. Oxford UP. Oxford UP ISBN: 9780199536788
Morales, Helen Classical Mythology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford UP ISBN: 9780192804761
Shapiro, Alan The Oresteia (Aeschylus). Oxford UP ISBN: 9780195135923
Note that in addition to the above texts, I have posted required shorter readings under the DOCS SHARING tab on the E-college website.
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Masterworks of Western Literature
195:203:01; Index; 06874; MH3 (11:30 AM- 12:50) HH-B2; CAC
Instructor: Walker, J.
I view this course as a journey through Western literature from its beginnings to the twentieth century, focusing on major works of fiction and drama from Greece, France, Spain, Germany, and Russia. We will start with Homer’s Odyssey, the work that provided the model of a literary journey for centuries thereafter. Then we will go on to read Béroul’s short narrative The Romance of Tristan, one of the most important expressions of medieval tragic love. After that we will read excerpts from Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote, followed by a turn to drama, with a play by the comedy writer Molière: The School for Wives, which critiques the custom of marrying off young women against their will. Next we will read Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, a confessional and to some extent autobiographical novel of unhappy love that caused emotional upheavals and even suicides among German youth of the time. After that we read two short novels by Russian writers: Dostoevsky’s “The Meek One” and Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” both of which depict characters confronted with moral choices in the face of death. We will conclude the course with the German writer Brecht’s play The Caucasian Chalk Circle, in which a drunken judge has to decide who has the right to a baby: the natural mother who abandoned it or the woman who cared for it at great personal risk. Along the way we will ask the questions: Why are these texts considered major? What social and/or political issues do they bring up for the original audiences, and for later audiences (i.e., ourselves)? How was Europe open to the non-Western world at various times? For example, Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle was modeled on a 13th-century Chinese play.
The course aims to help student to develop their capacity to think and write critically about European literary texts in their literary and socio-political contexts. Required books to purchase are: The Odyssey: The Fitzgerald Translation. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998. ISBN#: 978-0374525743 [Kindle: ASIN# B005QPBDUA]; Béroul—The Romance of Tristan. Penguin Classics. ISBN# 978-0140442304. Cervantes—Don Quixote. Trans. Edith Grossman. Harper Perennial. ISBN# 978-0060934347. Molière—Tartuffe and Other Plays. Trans. Donald M. Frame. Signet Classics. ISBN#: 978-0451530332; Goethe—The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings. Trans. Catherine Hutter. Signet Classics. ISBN#: 978-0451418555 [Kindle ASIN#: B00AYJIKR2]; and Bertolt Brecht: The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Bloomsbury Methuen Drama 2012. ISBN# 978-0413544506. The stories by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy will be available on Alexander Online Reserve. All works will be read in translation.
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Introduction to Mythology
195:244:01; Index 06875; MH3 (11:30AM-12:50) FH-B4; CAC
Instructor: Ulus
Credit not given for both this course and 01:351:244
What is myth? What is the significance of myth or mythology in terms of understanding culture(s)? What is the connection between myth and psychology, religion, politics or ethics? In this introductory course, we will read several ancient and contemporary texts produced in culturally and historically diverse societies, as well as some theories on myth which could enrich our class discussion.
Required Texts:
Euripides, Bacchae. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett.1998. 0872203921
George, A. R. The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian. London; New York: Penguin, 2003. ISBN: 0140449191
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Introduction to Mythology
195:244:02; Index 06842; TH5 (2:50 PM – 4:10) SC-203; CAC
Instructor: Uhlirova
Credit not given for both this course and 01:351:244
In this course you will be introduced to various world cultures through reading and discussing their myths. You will become familiar with basic archetypes as they appear in these myths. In particular, we will explore myths focusing on Creation, the Great Goddess and the Hero Quest. The focus of the course is on interpretation of the meaning of the chosen texts, but you will at the same time become better at deciphering the meaning of stories and myths outside of this course. In addition to exploring ancient and foreign cultures, we will also think about the contemporary Western culture and society in terms of its stories and values.
Required texts and ISBN numbers:
Course Packet
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. ISBN-10: 0060838671
Sandars, N. K. The Epic of Gilgamesh. ISBN 0-140-44100-x
Wolkstein, Diane and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth. ISBN 0-06-090854-8
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Introduction to Mythology
ONLINE COURSE
195:244:90; Index: 11691;
Instructor: Rios
Credit not given for both this course and 01:351:244
$100 Online Course Support Fee
Go to http://ecollege.rutgers.edu
Myths of various cultures; their structures and functions in social and especially literary contexts.
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Introduction to Mythology
ONLINE COURSE
195:244:91; Index 12457
Instructor: Sclafani
Credit not given for both this course and 01:351:244
$100 Online Course Support Fee
Myths of various cultures; their structures and functions in social and especially literary contexts.
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Fairy Tales Then and Now
01:195:246:01; Index 15886; MW5 (3:20PM-4:40) RC-1; LIV
Instructor: Behrmann
Taught in English
Cross-Listed:01:470:225:01
SAS Core Code: Writing and Communications in a Discipline (WCd), Arts and Literatures (AHp)
This course analyzes the structure, meaning, and function of fairy tales and their enduring influence on literature and popular culture. While we will concentrate on the German context, and in particular the works of the Brothers Grimm, we will also consider fairy tales drawn from a number of different national traditions and historical periods, including the American present. Various strategies for interpretng fairy tales will be examined, including methodologies derived from structuralism, folklore studies, gender studies, and psychoanalysis. We will explore pedagogical and political uses and abuses of fairy tales. We will investigate the evolution of specific tale types and trace their transformations in various media from oral storytelling through print to film, television, and the stage. Finally, we will consider potential strategies for the reinterpretation and rewriting of fairy tales.
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Major French Writers in Translation- Surrealism
195:251:01; Index 13119; TF2 (9:50 AM – 11:10) SC-202; CAC
Instructor: Flieger
Cross-listed: 01:420:241:01
SAS Core Code: Arts and Literatures (AHp), Writing and Communications in a Discipline (WCd)
Credit not given for both this course and 01:420:241 or 242
Taught in English
"Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all" Andre Bréton
Few aesthetic movements have had the far-reaching impact of surrealism, dating from the early 20's in France, but exerting an international influence that continues even today in cyber-culture and music videos, the visual arts, cinema, and literature. The surrealists were the first to attempt systematically to draw on unconscious sources such as dream and eroticism, following the lead of Sigmund Freud, to explore a revolutionary new concept of beauty with the aim of transforming all of human experience. In this course, we shall study the origin and artistic/social preoccupations of the surrealist school, including experiments in film, poetry, theater, novel, and painting.
Course activities include film viewings, surrealist games in class, field trips to New York to view iconic surrealist artists, and presentation of scenes from plays.
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Introducing Italy, City by City: Venice and Its Culture
195:256:01; Index 20644; TTh5 (2:50 PM - 4:10) MU-211; CAC
Instructor: White
Cross-listed: 01:560:256:01
The course explores the culture of Venice, from its origins to modern day, starting with its geographical configuration, demographic composition, foreign communities, government, economy, spice trade, and diplomacy. We will use literary texts, visual artifacts, and musical pieces. We will read texts from a variety of theatrical genres produced over the centuries and view many excerpts from movies involving Venice. We will examine selected texts from Marco Polo, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Bembo, Veronica Franco, Philippe de Commines, Goldoni, Casanova, Da Ponte, Pirandello and Pasinetti. Images of great artists such as Titian, Bellini, Carpaccio and Canaletto will be included as well as passages from major composers such as Vivaldi. We will also analyze different perspectives of Venice as presented in movies such as Visconti’s Senso and Death in Venice, Lean’s Summertime, Fellini’s Casanova, Softly’s Wings of the Dove and Young and Guest’s 007 From Russia with Love. No knowledge of Italian is required.
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Introduction to Caribbean Literature
195:260:01; Index 19801 T (9:50AM-12:35PM) MU-204; CAC
Instructor: Lambert
This class is a double period which ends at 12:35 with a 5 minute break
Cross-Listed: 01:595:370:01
SAS Core Code: Arts and Literatures (AHp)
This course examines literatures from the Anglophone, Francophone and Hispanophone Caribbean. Using revolutions in Haiti, Cuba and Grenada as our touchstones, we will read poetry, novels and essays dealing with slavery, colonialism, decolonization, Black Power, socialism, feminism and LGBTQ rights in the Caribbean. Students will learn to identify the central issues at stake within each of these movements and analyze the role of resistance in shaping Caribbean literature. We will discuss the cultural and aesthetic production of Caribbean writers in relation to the geo-politics of the region. How is the Caribbean represented in imaginative texts? What are the cultural differences between Anglophone, Francophone and Hispanophone territories, and how does Caribbean literature help us better understand these differences? Particular attention will be paid to literary form, narrative voice, structure, imagery, rhetorical devices and figures of speech. Responsiveness to these categories will guide our analysis of the specific ways in which Caribbean writers imagine the region, its history, and its people. Authors will include Alejo Carpentier, Aimé Césaire, Junot Díaz, Merle Collins, Edwidge Danticat, and Nourbese Philip.
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Past Today - SAS Signature Course
Richard Serrano is the lead instructor for all sections
SAS Core Code: 21st Century Challenges (21C), Philosophical and Theoretical Issues (AHo)
195:270:01; Index 11913; T3 (12:00PM-1:20) RC-1; LIV
F3 (12:00PM-1:20) RC-1; LIV
H3 (12:00PM-1:20) TIL- 251; LIV
Instructor: Martinez
Past Today
195:270:02; Index 12953; T3 (12:00PM-1:20) RC-1; LIV
F3 (12:00PM-1:20) RC-1; LIV
H4 (1:40PM-3:00)
TIL-230; LIV
Instructor: Doherty
Past Today
195:270:03; Index 12954; T3 (12:00PM-1:20) RC-1; LIV
F3 (12:00PM- 1:20) RC-1; LIV
H2 (10:20AM- 11:40) TIL-251; LIV
Instructor: Troiano
Past Today
195:270:04; Index 12955; T3 (12:00PM-1:20) RC-1; LIV
F3 (12:00PM-1:20) RC-1; LIV
W3 (12:00AM-1:20) TIL-103C; LIV
Instructor: Martinez
Past Today
195:270:05; Index 12956; T3 (12:00PM-1:20) RC-1; LIV
F3 (12:00PM-1:20) RC-1; LIV
W2 (10:20AM-11:40) TIL-224; LIV
Instructor: Troiano
Past Today
195:270:06; Index 12957; T3 (12:00PM-1:20) RC-1; LIV
F3 (12:00PM-1:20) RC-1; LIV
W4 (1:40PM-3:00) TIL-103B; LIV
Instructor: Doherty
The great American novelist William Faulkner famously said, "The past is not dead. It's not even past." Why do some conflicts endure despite the enormous political, technological, cultural and economic changes of the past several decades?
What can we learn about 21st-century struggles through examining the representation of conflict in comparative literature and arts? How can we understand the ways in which the past remains “undead” through its continuing animation of today's clashes while complicating all attempts to resolve them? How can literature, film, and other visual arts, as well as architecture, and music, be used to understand how the past shapes political and cultural strife today? Focusing on three current conflicts from disparate cultures, this course explores how conflicts are constructed and searches for the means to look through and beyond them, to overcome them, and to loosen the past’s hold on the present and future.
This course has no prerequisites and assumes no prior knowledge of the topic.
Required Texts:
Aslam, Nadeem. The Wasted Vigil. ISBN: 978-0307388742
Hamid, Mohsin. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. ISBN: 978-1616848804
Kobek, Jarett. Atta. ISBN: 978-1584351061
The Rainy Spell and Other Korean Stories ISBN: 978-0765601391
(Also available as an EBook through Google Books)
All other readings will be placed on Sakai
The goals that meet SAS' Core Curriculum Requirements:
This course fulfills the following student learning outcome goals:21st Century Challenges (21c), by which students will:
Analyze the degree to which forms of human difference shape a person’s experiences of and perspectives on the world
Analyze a contemporary global issue from a multidisciplinary perspective
Analyze issues of social justice across local and global contexts.
Arts and the Humanities (AHo, or AHp), by which students will:
Examine critically philosophical and other theoretical issues concerning the nature of reality, human experience, knowledge, value, and/or cultural production; Analyze arts and/or literatures in themselves and in relation to specific histories, values, languages, cultures, and technologies.
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Textual Transformations- Introduction to Translation Studies
195:280:02; Index 13079; M6 (4:30PM-5:50) FH-A1; CAC
W6 (4:30PM-5:50) FH-A1; CAC
Instructor: Nerlekar
Cross-Listed: 01:013:304:01
Introduction to a broad range of possible textual transformations such as literary translation, film adaptation, transcription, ekphrasis, and dramatization. Discussion regarding notions of originality and derivation and examination of the ways artists use form to domesticate, subvert, celebrate, or modernize other artists' works.
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Introduction to Literary Theory
195:301:01; Index 19750; TTh5 (2:50PM-4:10) SC-115; CAC
Instructor: E. Efe
SAS Core Code: Philosophical and Theoretical Issues (AHo)
This course examines the theoretical concepts and contexts that frame contemporary views of literature. It traces the historical development of the concepts and contexts in question. In addition to covering the basic tenets of contemporary literary criticism, it critically analyzes the social scientific and philosophical attempts to frame the literary space. An overview of formalist and psychoanalytic, structuralist and poststructuralist, postcolonial and feminist literary and cultural theory. Structured to familiarize students with recent debates in contemporary criticism.
All readings will be available on Sakai. They include selections from: Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe; Comte, System of Positive Polity; Auerbach, “Figura”; Blanchot, The Literary Space; Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy; Marx, The Communist Manifesto; Heidegger, On the Way to Language; Derrida, Acts of Literature; Bourdieu, Distinction; Rancière, “The Politics of Literature”; Adorno, Aesthetic Theory; Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere; Jean-Luc Nancy, Inoperative Community; Edward Said, Orientalism; Spivak, An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization; Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself; Nichanian, Mourning Philology.
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Introduction To Postcolonial Literatures and Theories- Postcolonial Literatures and Theories
195:307:01; Index 15167; TTh5 (2:50PM- 4:10) SC-102; CAC
Instructor: Walker, J.
Cross-Listed: 01:013:307:01
Postcolonialism may be defined, following Robert Young, as the perspective provided by theories that “analyze the material and epistemological conditions of postcoloniality and seek to combat the continuing, often covert operation of an imperialist system of economic, political and cultural domination.” In this course we will discuss, through the lens of postcolonial theories, major literary and filmic texts that, as John McLeod puts it, have been “produced by people from countries with a history of colonialism, primarily those concerned with the workings and legacy of colonialism, and resistance to it, in either the past or the present.”
The course aims to develop the student’s capacity to think and write critically about postcolonial literatures in a comparative framework. Important issues in the formation of identities in both colonial and postcolonial contexts that we will consider are: the construction of nation and national culture; the roles of language, education, and law; and concepts of hybridity, gender, and the subaltern.
Readings: Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s This Earth of Mankind (Penguin ISBN #978-0140256352), Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (Random House ISBN #978-0812979657), Mahasweta Devi’s “Draupadi,” Rigoberta Menchú’s I, Rigoberta Menchú (Verso 2nd edition 2010: ISBN#978-1844674183), and Ousmane Sembène’s Xala (novel and film) (Lawrence Hill Books ISBN #978-1556520709). Theoretical texts include Ania Loomba’s Colonialism/Postcolonialism (Routledge 2nd edition, ISBN #978-0415350648) and a few relevant essays or parts of essays available on Alexander Online Reserve. All texts will be read or viewed in translation.
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Literature and Psychoanalytic Theory - Dreams and Delusions
195:312:01; Index 15169 TTH4 (1:10PM-2:30) GH-102; CAC
Instructor: Groves
Taught in English
Cross-listed with 01:470:390:01
“The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious,” Freud famously wrote in 1900. More than one hundred years later, we will look back at the many inroads that literature and art had made into Freud’s knowledge of the unconscious, while also inquiring into what dreams might mean today and how film in particular has challenged and extended Freud’s theories. Throughout the semester, students will develop their own practices of dream interpretation by keeping a dream journal and writing three essays: an interpretation of a dream, a critical essay on two approaches to dreams, and a theoretical essay on dreams and dreaming.
Required texts, available at the Rutgers Bookstore
• Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (Basic Books, 2010), ISBN: 978-0465019779
• Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (Hackett, 1993), ISBN: 9780872201927
• Freud, Gradiva and Delusion and Dream in Wilhelm Jensen’s Gradiva (Green Integer Books, 2003), ISBN: 9781892295897
Recommended texts, available at the Rutgers Bookstore:
• Tales of the German Imagination, trans. Peter Wortsman (Penguin, 2013), ISBN: 9780141198804
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Postmodern Approaches to Sacred Literature
195:318:01; Index 19752 M7 (6:10PM-7:30) SC-205; CAC
W7 (6:10-7:30) MU-208; CAC
Instructor: S. Walker
Cross-listed with 840:362:01
An examination of some significant aspects of postmodern literary and cinematic approaches to religion through the close analysis of a few select texts. The course does not deal primarily with the theological or historical interpretation of canonic sacred texts, but rather is designed to highlight the literary daring and the sometimes even outrageous postmodern freedom of authors who, through a process of bricolage, and via reference to a canonical sacred text, create statements of religious orientation and personal declarations of faith. By means of the elaboration of a creative and original literary, cinematic and/or psychological response, these authors come to terms personally with the ongoing power of the sacred text to captivate modern minds. Their own texts, when put into juxtaposition with the original sacred texts, may be taken to some degree as personal confessions in terms of their particular sensibilité religieuse. The course will analyze key texts by such original postmodern interpreters as Sigmund Freud (Moses and Monotheism/the Biblical story of Moses), D.H. Lawrence (Apocalypse/ John of Patmos’ Apocalypse), C.G. Jung (Answer to Job/The Book of Job), and Marcel Proust (Time Regained/the ritual of the Tridentine Mass). The analysis will also include films of two modern directors (Peter Weir’s The Last Wave/apocalyptic themes and Jean-Luc Godard’s Hail, Mary/the Annunciation to the Virgin) and my own literary contextualization of the Bhagavad Gita (based initially on van Buitenen’s The Gita in the Mahabharata). These analyses will provide material for the study of such postmodern religious themes as the antinomy of Good and Evil, apocalypse as a myth of both world and individual transformation, and the feminine side of God.
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World Cinema I
01:195:320:01; Index: 18841; M4 (1:10PM-2:30) MU-301; CAC
W4 (1:10PM-2:30) MU-301; CAC
M78 (6:40PM-9:30) Film Screening MU-301; CAC
Instructor: Koszarski
Cross-Listed: 01:354:320:01
Credit not given for both this course and 01:354:320 and 01:175:320
Where did today's cinema come from? What technological, cultural and economic factors (operating across international borders as much as inside them) transformed the "moving pictures" of the 1890s into the twentieth century's signature medium of mass communication? Charting the first half century of this development, we will study films from France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, the Soviet Union and Japan, without losing track of how all aspects of international cinema are unavoidably related to the situation in America. Our focus will be on the development of film form and technology, the rivalry of European and American producers for world markets, the creation of an "international style" in the late 1920s, the effects of the economic depression, and the impact on international cinema of both world wars.
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Literature and Memory in The Arab World
195:337:01; Index 19770; MW6 (5:00PM-6:20) LSH-A140; LIV
Instructor: Khayyat, Y.
Cross-Listed: 01:013:346:01, 01:685:347:01
SAS Core Code: Philosophical and Theoretical Issues (AHo), Arts and Literatures (AHp)
Cultural memory studies are largely dominated by western discourses of remembrance.
Scholarly attempts to come to terms with the dark side of the twentieth century at times overshadow our accounts of non-western pasts. This course opens up avenues for exploring the nexus between conflict and memory in the Arab world. We will explore the oft-silenced memory narratives of Arab writers caught in the flux of upheaval for more than a century. Can we formulate a discourse of memory that is both unique to the Arabic literary heritage and versatile in its application to modern times? How do Arab writers and artists engage and/or create memory narratives in times of war? How does fiction recreate, revise and re-examine the past? How do our human memories and imaginations give rise to the stories we tell and to the selves that we are becoming? In this course we consider the nature of memory and its relationship to imagination, both in the evolving life of the individual and in the development
of the larger group or culture. We regard the self, then, as both singular and collective, fixed and in flux, determined inwardly and shaped by external forces. This course will address these questions by tracing the interconnections between memory and literature through close readings of memoirs, novels, poems, short stories, films and graphic art.
Required Texts
• Huyssen, Andreas. Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory.
Cultural – Memory in the Present. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003.
• Kanafani, Ghassan, Barbara Harlow, and Karen E. Riley. Palestine's Children: Returning to Haifa & Other Stories. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000.
• Mosteghanemi, Ahlem. Memory in the Flesh. Cairo, Egypt: The American University in Cairo Press, 2000.
• Sacco, Joe. Footnotes in Gaza. London: Jonathan Cape, 2009.
• Yazbik, Samar, and Max Weiss. A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution. London: Haus Pub., 2012.
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Marx, Nietzche, Freud
195:374:01; Index 19269; MW4 (1:10PM-2:30) FH-B2; CAC
Instructor: Sussman
Cross-Listed: 01:470:371:01, 01:730:344:01
Taught in English
SAS Core Code: Historical Analysis (HST), Philosophical and Theoretical Issues (AHo)
I suspect that we’ll never overcome the difficulty and complexity of the ultimate question driving this course: What is the relation between politics and literature? On first glance, this issue should not be daunting: in their referential dimension, works of literature can hardly avoid the political and ideological formations comprising a segment of their overall cultural “surround.” But a number of ancillary questions, all impenetrable, emerge from this simple relationship of mutual encompassing or implication. What is the relationship between political components of the artwork and other elements? What is the relationship between literary expression and prevailing ideologies? Confirmation? Reduction? Cooption? Translation? Allegory? Transference? Distortion? Dissimulation? The evasion of censorship? An intimate tango that breaks apart at a certain point? Is close cultural exegesis, in its mindfulness and appeal to thought, political in its own right? If so, how?
As we mutually process a sequence of readings held together by explicitly systematic attempts (whether in philosophy, socio-cultural criticism, psychology, or literature) to delineate and dramatize the role of the political, we need to keep our eyes on that broader prize: the meditation into the rapport between the political and the literary. Indeed, for a variety of reasons, socio-political and administrative as well as cultural, the 19th century was the heyday of systematic inquiries and efforts to open the gates of knowledge and illumination, and it seems that German culture had geared itself up as systematically as any other to undertake this labor on a broadband of frequencies. The course will not be long underway before we take up the inevitable interconnection between the inquiry into the political dimensions of literature and systems theory. (We presuppose to some degree that political aspirations entail systematic dimensions and spheres of endeavor.)
In this brief context, the program of readings will perhaps make sense: a brief foray into Nietzsche’s early deconstruction of culture; Marxian readings indicative both of the earlier parameters of the project and its mature “delivery” (Capital, I); Derrida’s surprisingly sentimental evocation of Marx as an ongoing site of critique, and as an instance of the abyssal scene of representation, in Specters of Marx; the vicissitudes of the Freudian project as it extends itself to the domain of cultural critique; and, last—but far from least—the literary instances serving as a proving ground for the relevance of the other readings. In this latter respect, two 20th-century artifacts, Brecht’s drama (as exemplified by The Threepenny Opera, St. Joan of the Stockyards, and Mother Courage) and theory (e.g. the “alienation effect”) rush to the fore in their relevance. We close with a snapshot of the overall 20th-century cultural landscape and ecology that owed so much to the radical thinking and experimentation of our four “protagonists.”
Wherever possible, students will be encouraged to read primary texts in German.
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Topics in World Cinema – History & Memory in French Cinema of WWII
195:377:04; Index 19792; TTh6 (lecture 4:30PM-5:50) MU-301; CAC
Th78 (screening 6:10PM-9:00) MU-301; CAC
Instructor: Flitterman-Louis
Cross-Listed: 01:354:392:01
This unique course will be of interest to students of all majors with a concern for history and culture; it will especially interest film students who want to learn about a little-studied period of French film and questions of historical representation. Recently there has been a renewed attempt to understand the complex and disturbing period in France known as the "dark years" of World War II, Vichy France and the Occupation. This course will look at daily life through the films, both popular films of the time and more current films that explore issues of memory, identity, trauma, and history. We will look at films of the period and those preceding it in the heady days of the Popular Front; we will then consider current films (and those of more recent decades) as they grapple with the horrors of persecution and deportation, of fascism, of appropriation and anti-semitism, of popular attitudes that supported the oppression and those of the resistance. Our perspective will benefit from an emphasis on the lives of children, different notions of the family, new definitions of resistance, and personal accounts (either memoirs or contemporary writing). The crucial moment of this history is the 1942 roundup of Jewish families and their week-long imprisonment in the Winter Cycling Stadium (Vel d'Hiv), before being sent to Auschwitz, providing the Germans with the first trains of the Final Solution. Roselyne Bosch's epic film, La Rafle (The Roundup) will be our starting point, and we will screen documentaries, fiction films, and films that combine the two methods, among them Marcel Ophuls's Hotel Terminus, Louis Malle's Lacombe Lucien (screenplay by new Nobel Laureate Patrick Modiano) and Au Revoir Les Enfants, Claude Chabrol's Story of Women, and Alain Resnais's Hiroshima Mon Amour. These are just a few of the amazing, thought-provoking films that will be screened.
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Topics in World Cinema – Global Women’s Filmmaking
195:377:05; Index 13120; M34 (12:00PM-3:00) RC-3;LIV
W4 (1:40PM-3:00) RC-3; LIV
Instructor: Martin-Marquez
Cross-Listed: 01:175:377:01, 01:988:396:05
Credit not given for both this course and 01:175:377
May be taken more than once if content is different
In its “Women and Media Fact Sheet,” Rutgers’ Institute for Women’s Leadership shows that male characters comprise nearly 75% of speaking roles in major Hollywood films, and that “women are dramatically underrepresented behind the scenes in the U.S. film industry.” Some of the most celebrated international filmmakers, however, are women, and their works often foreground the richly diverse experiences of female characters. In this course we will study a wide variety of films from around the globe, directed by women and produced from the 1960s to the present. We will examine the local contexts out of which these films have emerged, exploring the ways in which women work to negotiate local cultures and film industries in order to realize their creative vision. We will also seek to place their films in critical dialogue with several currents in "Western" film theory which focus, for example, on questions of authorship and authority or the cinematographic construction of difference. Films from countries such as Argentina, Britain, China, (the former) Czechoslovakia, France, India, Iran, Martinique and Tunisia will be treated.
No prior work in film studies required; the semester will begin with a “crash course” in film analysis.
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Topics in World Cinema – Bollywood
195:377:06; Index 15172; Lecture TTh4 (1:40PM-3:00) BE-221; LIV
Screening W67 (5:00PM-8:00) BE-219; LIV
Instructor: Sen
Fulfills core learning goal 21C, AHp
Cross-listed with 01:013:365:01 & 01:175:377:02
Credit not given for both this course and 01:175:377.
May be taken more than once if different content.
India is the second most populous country in the world and has a cultural tradition that has evolved over 5,000 years. It is also the world's largest film-producing nation, releasing over 900 films every year. Of these, approximately 200 films are made in Hindi in India's film capital—Bombay. Driven by the growth and spread of the Indian diaspora in recent decades, the popular Bollywood has become a ubiquitous presence in theaters and film festivals across the globe. While remaining India's most beloved art form, this cinema today is also India's most visible and fascinating export. Bollywood remains an exceptional industry that has successfully resisted the onslaught of Hollywood films in the country of its birth. These and other factors have contributed in making academic exploration of Bombay cinema a relatively new, but extremely exciting field of study. What makes Hindi cinema different? How are such a staggering number of films made in India? How do these 'song and dance' movies challenge our perceptions of narrative forms? How do Bombay films negotiate the polarities of tradition and modernity? How do they bear the burden of postcoloniality? Despite the plethora of languages and cultures that comprise India, how does Hindi cinema maintain its hegemonic position both within the subcontinent and without? What is the status of Bollywood as a national cinema? These are some of the larger questions with which we will engage in this canopic overview.
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The Cultures of the Middle Ages: Muslim Spain
01:195:388:01; Index 19709; TTh4 (1:40PM-3:00) RC-3; LIV
Instructor: Serrano
Cross-Listed: 01:667:388:01; 01: 01:358:308:01; 01:013:301:01
Credit not given for both this course and 01:358:308 or 01:667:388
How do such different peoples share a country? From the Muslim invasion of Spain in 711 until the overthrow of the last Muslim ruler and expulsion of the Jews by Christian rulers in 1492 (and the definitive expulsion of the Muslims in 1614), the Iberian Peninsula was a crucible of intercultural invention, transmission and exchange. We will explore the music, arhitecture and literature of this world, known as al-Andalus to the Muslims and Sefarad to the Jews, in order to better understand the accomplishments and challenges of attempts to forge a multicultural and multifaith society. The final part of the course will consider how this long stretch of Spanish history is remembered today in Spain, the Sephardic diaspora, and the Arab world.
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Issues in Comparative Literature- Money for Nothing: Economics of Russian Literature
195:395:02; Index 08173; M6 (4:30PM-5:50) SC-105; CAC
W6 (4:30PM-5:50) SC-205; CAC
Instructor: Lieber
Cross-Listed: 01:860:319:01
Taught in English
May be taken more than once
Content will differ each semester
From its class system of the Russian empire, to the eradication of private property in the Soviet era, to the rise of the Russian oligarch in the late twentieth century, Russia has had a complicated relationship to economic matters throughout its history. This course examines the role of money and the depiction of the marketplace in works of Russian literature ranging from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries, in order to explore how Russian economies take imaginative shape in literary text. We will explore such topics as class, ownership and property, slavery, exchange, gambling, hoarding, prostitution, charity and gift-giving, theft, and squandering as they are given shape in the Russian canon, and we will ask questions like: what is the role of money in realism, and in Russian realism in particular? In what ways do economic exchange and emotion reflect each other in these narratives? What does money have to do with sexuality? How is human worth figured in Russian texts? Lastly, we will examine specific elements of the Russian historical context—serfdom and its abolition; the Soviet communal apartment—as they make their presence felt in Russian literature. Texts will include those by Russian authors such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, Chekhov, Pushkin, Platonov, Zoshchenko, and Ulitskaya, as well as theoretical writing by thinkers like Adam Smith, Marx, Derrida, and Irigaray.
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Issues in Comparative Literature - The World According to Gogol
195:396:01; Index 12386 MW4 (1:10PM-2:30) HH-B6; CAC
Instructor: Bojanowska
Cross-Listed: 01:860:329:01
Taught in English
May be taken more than once; content will differ each semester.
Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) may well be the most bizarre and haunting of all Russian writers. In an age when the mirror-like reflection of reality was considered the highest aesthetic achievement, he created fictions that defied this imperative. His artistic universe is filled with grotesque transformations, narrative red herrings, supernatural occurrences, pervasive irony, unreliable narrators, and perplexing shifts in the customary meanings of words and actions. This is a very special world, in which a nose can become a high-ranking bureaucrat, a man can develop an ardent love for a coat, a creature can have eyelids that fall to the ground like curtains, and a diary entry can be dated “Da 34 te yare, February 349.” Through slow and meticulous reading, this course will ask you to suspend all assumptions and will teach you unique strategies for making sense of Gogol. It will also offer you a window onto Gogol's powerful legacy in Russian culture. The luminescent image of three horses that opened the 2014 Sochi Olympics came from Gogol's fiction. No other cultural figure framed the clash between Russian and Ukrainian nationalisms - which flared up most recently in 2014 in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine - with as much lasting relevance as Gogol. We will study Gogol's short fiction about Ukraine and St. Petersburg, perhaps the funniest Russian comedy ever – The Government Inspector, and a foundational text of modern Russian literature, the novel Dead Souls. The materials will also include work on Gogol produced by Rutgers undergraduates. Class discussion and all readings are in English.
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Issues in Comparative Literature – Gender, Nation and Literature in South Asia-THIS COURSE HAS BEEN ASSIGNED A NEW COURSE NUMBER, 195:430:01
195:397:01; Index 10639; TTh3 (12:00PM-1:20PM) BE-253; LIV
Instructor: Mani
Cross-Listed: 01:013:430:01
May be taken more than once; content will differ each semester
“Woman is endowed with the passive qualities of chastity, modesty, devotion and power of self-sacrifice in greater measure than man is.”
-Rabindranath Tagore, “Woman”
When Tagore gave this description of the modern Indian woman during his lecture tour in the US in the early twentieth century, he was referencing a fairly new idea of who the modern Indian woman was, one that had begun to take shape during the colonial era. How and why did the Indian woman become such a central topic of literary and public debate among Indian writers and political leaders? What are the changing characteristics of this figure, and how do they reference key moments in South Asian history? This course answers these questions by examining literary representations of the modern Indian woman and the ways they have fashioned popular understandings of national belonging and community identity in South Asia. We will use two main lenses, social reform and law, to trace the ways that representations of women in literature articulate meanings of gender, caste, class, and religion. We will read novels and short stories by influential South Asian writers such as Tagore, Sharatchandra, Premchand, and Manto, and our literary analyses will be guided by texts in South Asian historiography and social theory, as well as films. All course readings are uploaded to the Sakai course website at https://sakai.rutgers.edu/portal.
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Gender, Nation and Literature in South Asia
195:430:01; Index ; TTh3 (12:00PM-1:20PM) BE-253; LIV
Instructor: Mani
Cross-Listed: 01:013:430:01 and 01:988:431:01
May be taken more than once; content will differ each semester“
Woman is endowed with the passive qualities of chastity, modesty, devotion and power of self-sacrifice in greater measure than man is.”
-Rabindranath Tagore, “Woman”
When Tagore gave this description of the modern Indian woman during his lecture tour in the US in the early twentieth century, he was referencing a fairly new idea of who the modern Indian woman was, one that had begun to take shape during the colonial era. How and why did the Indian woman become such a central topic of literary and public debate among Indian writers and political leaders? What are the changing characteristics of this figure, and how do they reference key moments in South Asian history? This course answers these questions by examining literary representations of the modern Indian woman and the ways they have fashioned popular understandings of national belonging and community identity in South Asia. We will use two main lenses, social reform and law, to trace the ways that representations of women in literature articulate meanings of gender, caste, class, and religion. We will read novels and short stories by influential South Asian writers such as Tagore, Sharatchandra, Premchand, and Manto, and our literary analyses will be guided by texts in South Asian historiography and social theory, as well as films. All course readings are uploaded to the Sakai course website at https://sakai.rutgers.edu/portal.
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Special Topics in Comparative Literature- Gender & Sexuality in Russian Literature
195:480:01; Index 12404; T4 (1:10PM-2:30) SC-120; CAC
Th4 (1:10PM-2:30) SC-205; CAC
Instructor: Van Buskirk
Cross-Listed: 01:860:435:01, 01:988:435:01
Taught in English
In this course we study questions of gender and sexuality in Russian literature and culture through close readings of novellas, short stories, poems, films, and essays, from the nineteenth century to the present. How have gender and sexuality been constructed in different periods of Russian history? What erotic utopias did radical thinkers propose? How did Soviet ideology build on traditional myths and images of femininity and masculinity? How have gay and lesbian love been represented, given the enduring presence of cultural taboos? Our special focus is on the decades surrounding the Bolshevik Revolution –- the extreme depths and heights of symbolism, decadence, and various avant-garde movements. We will broaden our study through encounters with influential theoretical and critical texts, including those outside the Russian tradition. We will devote a unit in this course to understanding what Pussy Riot’s performance art, and the reactions to it, can tell us about gender and sexuality in today’s Russia.
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Independent Study
195:494:R1; Index 00163
By Arrangement
Independent reading under supervision of a member of the department.
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Honors in Comparative Literature
195:496:R1; Index 00164
See online schedule for prerequisites
Independent research on the honors thesis.
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Capstone Senior Workshop-CANCELLED
195:497:R1; Index 08540; T4 (1:10PM-2:30) CML-101; CAC
Instructor: TBD
Open only to seniors majoring in Comparative Literature
Meets once a week; Dates TBD
Assessment of the undergraduate experience as a minor in comparative literature. Debate around the present state of the discipline. Series of workshops intended to explore professional and academic careers, including preparation for graduate school and grant writing.
