This course will focus on narrative and film regarding both economic and ecological precarity and their relationship to various historical sites of dispossession, displacement, and vulnerability. With an eye on the contemporary disasters of genocide and pandemic under late-stage capitalism, we will develop an understanding of how forms of embodiment are situated in periods of chronic catastrophes through narrative form.

Expository writing based on analysis of selected masterpieces of ancient and modern literature. R1A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R1B satisfies the second half.

Expository writing based on analysis of selected masterpieces of ancient and modern literature. R1A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R1B satisfies the second half.

“He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.” – Job: 14:2

“Ah, but before we begin to read
We must water the flowers” –Melih Cevdet Anday, translated by Efe Murad and Sidney Wade

What is the novel? What function does it have? This course aims to read through various “novels” in order to see the potential the novel has to develop critique–be it political, social, economic, identitarian, etc. With the turn of “anti-reading,” or the perception of reading as “not cool,” in mainstream U.S. and Canadian culture, this class aims to center reading, specifically the novel, as a political act. We will see how the novel has been used by situated and transnational writers to critique the material reality they produce under.

Expository writing based on analysis of selected masterpieces of ancient and modern literature. R1A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R1B satisfies the second half.

Expository writing based on analysis of selected masterpieces of ancient and modern literature. R1A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R1B satisfies the second half.

Berkeley Connect is a mentoring program, offered through various academic departments, that helps students build intellectual community. Over the course of a semester, enrolled students participate in regular small-group discussions facilitated by a graduate student mentor (following a faculty-directed curriculum), meet with their graduate student mentor for one-on-one academic advising, attend lectures and panel discussions featuring department faculty and alumni, and go on field trips to campus resources. Students are not required to be declared majors in order to participate.

Sometimes that thing called “reality” is just too much to face. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed. Other times, we struggle to represent or grasp what it is that grounds us, the earth around us, the difference between reality and fantasy, poem, or dream. A dream or a poem can seem to present a reality more true than any photograph. Or taking a photo without looking through the viewfinder can grasp a bit of the real beyond our limited view.

"Modern art--and maybe modern poetry especially--is DIFFICULT"