Spring 2008
Topics in Comparative Literature – Introduction to Literary Theory
195:516; Index 72345; M67; Helfer, M. GH-102; CAC
Cross listed with 16:470:510:01
Recommended during the first year. Recommended during the first year. Study and practice of scholarly techniques, the use of secondary literature for research, the writing of papers, and an overview of literary theories. This course will trace the genealogy of contemporary literary criticism from Kant through the German romantics to early twentieth-century critical theory and deconstruction. In particular, we will explore the role of aesthetics and art in major philosophical theories of subjectivity, and the structure of critical discourse in these theories. Instruction and texts are in English.
Credit not given for this course and 16:470:510:01
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Individual Studies in Comparative Literature
195:519; Index 70625; M67; Sass, L. PSY-A223; Busch
Cross listed with 18:820:560:01
The course offers an interpretive or hermeneutic perspective on psychological aspects of modernist and postmodernist literature, culture, and society. Focuses on various forms of psychopathology (especially schizoid and schizophrenic conditions and narcissistic and borderline personality) and also on exemplary expressions of modernist and postmodernist culture. Each is used to shed light on the nature of the self, subjectivity, and personality in the modern era. The course places hermeneutics, phenomenology, and cultural psychology in historical and philosophical perspective, and presents their relevance both for psychology and for literary and cultural studies. Readings re modernism and postmodernism include the following authors: Antonin Artaud, Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, Heidegger, Fredric Jameson, Kafka, Nietzche, Ortega y Gasset, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Sartre, Susan Sontag, Slavoj Zizek. Readings re psychopathology include: Lacan, Ludwig Binswanger, R. D. Laing, Eugene Minkowski, & Louis Sass.
Credit not given for this course and 18:820:560:01
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Major Authors - Kafka
195:605; Index 73835; T67; Levine, M. GH-102; CAC
Cross listed with 16:470:670:01
An examination of texts by Kafka including selections from his parables, short stories, novels, diaries, and correspondence. Particular attention will be paid to questions of intertextuality, the relationship between writing and the body and the gestural language of Kafka's texts. Critical texts by Benjamin, Menninghaus, Deleuze and Guattari, Canetti, Wagenbach, and others. Discussions in English. For those unable to do the reading in German, English translations of all texts will be available for purchase. (Course meets at 172 College Avenue)
Credit not given for this course and 16:470:670:01
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Advanced Topics in Comparative Literature – Memory Cultures
195:608; Index 69391; W67; Clark, C. GH-102; CAC
Cross-listed with 16:470:671:01
This course provides an overview of German literature, film, and culture since 1945, with a focus on the topic of memory. German culture after 1945 has been preoccupied by the memory of war, National Socialism, and the Holocaust; debates among historians are front-page news, particularly the Historians' Debate of the 1980s and the Goldhagen debate of the 90s. Literature and film have been important vehicles for the process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or coming to terms with the past, and we will discuss texts that both portray and perform acts of memory. We will examine various strategies of remembering and memorializing the past, always asking what the significance of memory is for the present and future. Furthermore, we will examine a range of memory cultures, considering memories of the 1950s "economic miracle," the 60s student movement and 70s radicalism, the GDR and its demise, and German colonialism and genocide in Africa, all of which coexist and compete with memories of the war and the Holocaust in the same cultural space. Readings/viewings may include literature by Seghers, Langgässer, Bachmann, Böll, Weiss, Kluge, Wilkomirski, Sebald, and Senocak; films by Verhoeven, Trotta, Fassbinder, Schlöndorff, Hirschbiegel, and Donnersmarck; and non-fiction/theoretical texts by Mitscherlisch, Walser, Bubis, Klüger, Assmann, Huyssen, Jarausch, and others. Readings in English and German (or in English translation), discussion in English; no knowledge of German required. (Course meets at 172 College Avenue)
Credit not given for this course and 16:470:671:01
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Comparative Literature and Other Fields - The Prostitute/Public Works in 19th Century France
195:609; Index TBD; F45; Diamond, M.J. SC-114; CAC
Cross listed with 16:420:660:01
Representations of the prostitute/public woman in nineteenth century art, literature and social and scientific theory from the French Revolution to the collapse of the Second Empire. This interdisciplinary course explores cultural and ideological representations of the prostitute/public woman in nineteenth century social and scientific theory, art and literature. It will be given in English and the texts are available in English translation. It may be of interest to students from Women’s Studies, History, Art History, Comparative Literature, Transliteratures and English. During the social upheaval following the Revolution of 1789, politically active women like Olympe de Gouges, who fought for the rights of women, slaves and prostitutes, were themselves condemned as prostitutes for participating in the public sphere. The distinction between the public and private domains articulated in republican ideology and codified by Napoleon, idealized the feminine domestic sphere and vilified the woman in the streets or in public circulation as sexually depraved other. The association of the woman revolutionary with the prostitute continued throughout the nineteenth century, as we see in Delacroix’ iconic painting, “Woman on the Barricades,” and in the identification of the women revolutionaries of the Commune with the prostitutes whom they recruited to their cause. As industrialization and agricultural crises attracted the poor to Paris, more and more women turned to prostitution which was perceived by the government, the police and the medical professions as a growing menace to public morality, safety and health. The prostitute thus generated volumes of social and scientific research (much of it establishing her inherent “racial” inferiority and degeneracy) as well as innovative and troubling works by poets, novelists and painters. Especially during what Walter Benjamin calls the period of high capitalism, prostitution, not only for Marx, for example, but for the far from revolutionary Flaubert, epitomizes bourgeois capitalist society in which not only the businessman but the artist and the virtuous wife sells themselves within the terms and dynamics of the market. Lauded by Baudelaire as muses of modernity, prostitutes haunt the late nineteenth century imagination. Despite the abject lives most prostitutes led, the figure of Salome, which dominates fin de siecle art and literature, embodies (in male authored texts) the destructive and socially subversive power of female sexuality. By the end of the century, the prostitute, represented as consumer of wealth and the destroyer of moral law becomes the preferred scapegoat for the economic, moral and physical decline of the bourgeois social body. Course requirements: Because of the wide range of materials covered, students may focus on a limited topic related to their specific interests. They will present a short paper in class (about 5 pages) on a single text or painting—which may be incorporated into the final paper. The final paper (20 pages) will be on a topic of their choice and may be written in English or French.
Credit not given for this course and 16:420:660:01
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Literature and Social Order – Friendship: Nationality: Race
195:612; Index 73902; T67; Braga-Pinto, C. 195 College Ave; CAC
Cross-listed: 16:940:659:01 – (A Transliterature Course)
In this course we will read a number of classical as well as recent theoretical works on friendship alongside with more or less cannonical novels from Brazil. The approach will be both theoretical and historical. On the one hand, we intend to survey the history of the modern Brazilian novel from what could be considered a non-canonical or hetedorox point of view. On the other hand, the particular Brazilian novels should displace our thinking of friendship by introducing issues of race, social justice, marginality and the postcolonial condition. Course will be taught in English. All readings available in English translation. Knowledge of Portuguese or Spanish desired, but not required. This course meets the Transliterature requirement. (Course meets at 195 College Avenue)
Credit not given for this course and 16:940:659:01
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Advanced Topics in Literature Theory: Topics in Theory
195:617:01; Index 73837; TH67; Flieger, J. MU-113; CAC
Cross listed: 16:420:684:20
course will reference work produced during the last four decades by three of the major theorists of our time – Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, and Slavoj Zizek – all of whom have produced important works on popular culture, as well as their better-known works on philosophy and psychoanalytic theory. We will be comparing a wide range of cultural works by these thinkers and others (as time permits and student interests dictate) and looking at classic films (Casablanca, The Birds, La Belle et la bête, Orphée, Vertigo, Un chien andalou), in order to consider how widely varying theoretical approaches to popular culture intersect, manifesting common sources and influences (Freud, Marx, Bergson, phenomenology). This course will also look at how the encounter between three main penchants in contemporary theory – cultural, philosophical, and psychoanalytic – may enrich our appreciation of the arts today. Finally, the course will consider how the newer electronic media (television and internet) lend themselves to the broader aesthetic issues and approaches elaborated by "millennial" theorists. It will be conducted in English and is open to registrants from other programs. Students will write two papers: one critiquing a theoretical work and one focusing on a work or works of literature, cinema, the plastic arts or electronic media, to be presented briefly in one of four roundtable discussions during the semester. Students from the graduate program in French may read the Deleuze and Lacan texts in French and may write papers in French.
Credit not given for this course and 16:420:684:20
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Research in Comparative Literature
195:702;B2 Index 65958; Braga-Pinto, C. By arrangement
B3 64126; Diamond, E.
B4 72493; Bronner, S.
B5 72494; Busia, A.
C1 65959; Diamond, J.
C2 65960; Eisensweig, U.
C3 72492; Cohen, Ed
C4 72495; Cornell, D.
D1 65610; Flitterman-Lewis, S.
D3 63773; Martin-Marquez, S.
D5 70598; Schalow, P.
D6 72496; Davidson, H.
E1 65962; Serrano, R.
E2 63710; Sifuentes-Jauregui, B.
F2 65965; Vettori, A.
F3 72498; Flieger, J.
G1 64297; Walker, J.
G2 72499; Galperin, W.
G3 72500; Gossy, M.
G4 72501; Grosz, E.
H1 72502; Helfer, M.
J1 65966; Walker, S.
M1 65600; Wang, B.
M2 72503; McKeon, M.
P1 72504; Pirog, G.
R1 72505; Reinert, M.
S1 72506; Sass, L.
S2 72507; Scanlon, S.
S3 72508; Schein, L.
S4 72509; Shen, S.
S5 72510; Stevens, C.
T1 72511; Tu, Ching-I
T2 72512; Tschanz, D.
Z1 72513; Zerubavel, Y.
W1 72514; Williams, A.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Graduate Fellowship
195:811; Index 63711 By Arrangement
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Teaching Assistantship
195:811; Index 61502 By Arrangement
