The concept of point of view seems familiar enough — after all, everyone seems to have one. But as a key technique of literary experimentation and innovation, point of view becomes something radically unfamiliar. In this course we will engage a variety of literary traditions in order to study — and develop our own arguments about — how authors structure point of view differently. What kinds of possibilities and limitations are associated with the first-person point of view, or the third-person point of view? Is there such a thing as a collective point of view?

All large cities are, in a sense, improbable: accommodating millions of people in a confined space requires vast resources and careful planning. But this course will focus on three cities more unlikely than most: Venice, afloat on wooden piles and perpetually in danger of sinking; St. Petersburg, constructed atop the swampy soils of the Neva River; and Los Angeles, subsisting at the edge of a desert through artificial irrigation.

Does it matter where you live? Can the imagination offer an escape from real life circumstances? How do our physical surroundings change our mental lives? And, conversely, how do our mental lives shape our physical surroundings? This course explores the connection between our internal mental worlds and the here and now of our daily lives. In particular, we’ll focus on several specific regions as we explore the relationships between place and mental life.

Suppose I asked you to tell me what your friend Stephanie knows about what Jorge thinks about Alan’s opinion about Margaret. How would you structure your response to account not only for the relations between each person, but also for each person’s thoughts? Would your response need four different accounts of four different thoughts, or would those accounts overlap? And in the end, would your account have painted me one picture or a series of pictures?

This course will begin with the textual foundations of the Islamic tradition to understand why some books are read as dangerously subversive in particular historical moments.

Tales of travelers questing across the globe have been a cornerstone of popular culture from Homer’s Odyssey to Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yet, while these adventure narratives continue to seduce large audiences, we must also consider the political and social ramifications of such texts. What ethical problems might authors face in trying to represent foreignness and “the exotic”? How does the notion of “adventure” become part of imperialist and nationalist projects from the eighteenth century to now? Is adventure a gendered enterprise?

This course will begin with the textual foundations of the Islamic tradition to understand why some books are read as dangerously subversive in particular historical moments.

What does it mean to see? What is implied when we talk about seeing something differently, seeing for the first time, or making an experience, a person, or a place visible? How do visual media like photography or spaces like museums ‘train’ our eyes and shape how we think about seeing as a physical, social, and political activity? What are different ways that we practice seeing, and how do these interact with what we consider accessible, knowable, or even relevant?