In this course we will read a number of literary texts set in colonized territories, largely though not entirely under French domination.  Dating from the turn of the twentieth century to the period of widespread decolonization a half-century later, these texts represent a variety of forms and genres (adventure novels, autobiographical fiction, philosophical novels, political denunciation and/or satire) and emerge out of a number of different cultural situations and geographic locations (including Southeast Asia, North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa).  Some of the authors to be considered a

A comparative survey of late seventeenth to early twentieth-century poetry written in English, French, German, and Japanese, during the height of print culture or what Walter Benjamin called the “age of mechanical reproduction.” As we read poems that address themselves as much to the reading eye as to the listening ear, we will give special attention to these poets’ engagement with the nearby visual arts—painting and sculpture as well as the emergent genre of photography.

In what sense can our contemporary multicultural global world be traced back to the Renaissance? Did the Renaissance take place only in Florence, Rome, Venice and a few other Italian city states, or did it extend itself beyond Europe to include Africa and Asia? Intertwining history, literature, art and anthropology, this course will introduce students to the global Renaissance, stretching its traditional boundaries and examining Italy’s multiple exchanges with Northern Europe and the Muslim Mediterranean, as well as with the New World and the Far East.

This course will explore the biblical tradition in modern literature beyond the dichotomy of East and West. We will focus on close readings of selections from the Hebrew Bible in English translation in conjunction with a series of poems written in different languages that make central use of these biblical sources, from William Blake to Leonard Cohen, from Itzik Manger to Yehuda Amichai, and from Rilke to Else Lasker-Schuler. One underlying concern of the course will be the function of various types of biblical intertextuality (allusion, parody, translation, etc).

This course examines forms of Modern Greek writing (prose, poetry, drama) and the reading of literary texts as auxiliary to the acquisition of compositional skills.

Prerequisites: Consent of the instructor.

A reader for the course is prepared by the instructor.

What does literature do in the digital age? How have literature and art confronted their relationship with mass media or broader cultural and historical trends? How do media forms condition our relationship with time, and with identity? How are the literary and critical writing about it “media practices” in themselves, and how do they relate to other kinds of “media acts”?

In many genres and periods, marriage has been the privileged choice for marking a text’s “happy ending.” Why should this one social institution have come to stand as the symbol of the plot’s resolution? What assumptions about both marriage and narrative does this choice imply? In this class, we will examine not only texts in which the marriage plot plays its predictable role but also texts in which it is thwarted, parodied or inverted. We will approach these texts both from the viewpoint of narrative structure and from the viewpoint of social or ideological frames of meaning.

20:101, Mon 10-11:11, 210 Dwinelle, A. Gadberry
20:102, Tu 11-12:00, 189 Dwinelle, K. Crim
20:103, Wed 10-11:00 214 Haviland, K. Crim
20:104, Wed 2-3:00, 204 Dwinelle, A. Gadberry

In many ways Shakespeare is the literary inventor of modernity. His plays depict the psychological, political, economic, and social upheavals that mark the transition from the pre-modern world to a world that is recognizably our own. But he is also the most international of all writers.

Imitatio, the Latin word for “imitation,” was an important literary and rhetorical principle in ancient Rome. In his “Institutes of Oratory,” Quintillian explains the importance of imitatio: “a great portion of art consists in imitation, since, though to invent was first in order of time and holds the first place in merit, it is of advantage to copy what has been invented with success.” To learn to speak well, one had to train oneself by imitating more accomplished orators.