Studies in Philosophy and Literature

“The essay does not play by the rules of organized science and theory,” writes Theodor W. Adorno in his great study, “The Essay as Form.” For Adorno, the essay “suspends the traditional concept of method,” preferring instead to operate obliquely, through association, “conjointly and in freedom.” It avoids the idealist obsession with primordial phenomena or grounds for experience, working instead in the realm of mediations and artefacts, exploring the cultural garbage inherited from the past.

Study of Literary Theory

Minor characters are having their moment. In this course, we will read selections from the spate of recent critical texts regarding minor character, asking how minorness is being constituted one hundred years after E.M. Forster’s 1927 Aspects of the Novel, which left us with the enduring division of characters into “round” and “flat.” We will question this simple dyad, as well as a host of critical practices based in the study of modernist fiction, such as the valuation of the technical means by which authors represent consciousness.

Literature and Other Arts

This is not a course about “the prison film,” “prison literature,” or the writing of imprisoned intellectuals more generally. Although we’ll briefly discuss these traditions and critical constructions, our focus will be on efforts to counter what Michelle Brown calls “penal spectatorship”: the ways of seeing (and unseeing) that uphold the carceral state.

Genre: Lyric Poetry

This class will examine Arabic poetic production from the classical to the modern period, focusing on the historical development of Arabic poetic form (including the qasida, elegy, and the wine ode) as well as the intersections between poetry, Islamic mysticism, philosophy, and political discourse. For the pre-modern component, the class traces the developments of the qasida form and its functions in Sufism and Islamic philosophy.

Special Study

Primarily for students engaged in preliminary exploration of a restricted field, involving the writing of a report. May not be substituted for available seminars.

Studies in Philosophy and Literature

“The essay does not play by the rules of organized science and theory,” writes Theodor W. Adorno in his great study, “The Essay as Form.” For Adorno, the essay “suspends the traditional concept of method,” preferring instead to operate obliquely, through association, “conjointly and in freedom.” It avoids the idealist obsession with primordial phenomena or grounds for experience, working instead in the realm of mediations and artefacts, exploring the cultural garbage inherited from the past.

Studies in Literary Theory

Minor characters are having their moment. In this course, we will read selections from the spate of recent critical texts regarding minor character, asking how minorness is being constituted one hundred years after E.M. Forster’s 1927 Aspects of the Novel, which left us with the enduring division of characters into “round” and “flat.” We will question this simple dyad, as well as a host of critical practices based in the study of modernist fiction, such as the valuation of the technical means by which authors represent consciousness.

Studies in the Relations Between Literature and the Other Arts

This is not a course about “the prison film,” “prison literature,” or the writing of imprisoned intellectuals more generally. Although we’ll briefly discuss these traditions and critical constructions, our focus will be on efforts to counter what Michelle Brown calls “penal spectatorship”: the ways of seeing (and unseeing) that uphold the carceral state.

Approaches to Genre: Lyric Poetry

This class will examine Arabic poetic production from the classical to the modern period, focusing on the historical development of Arabic poetic form (including the qasida, elegy, and the wine ode) as well as the intersections between poetry, Islamic mysticism, philosophy, and political discourse. For the pre-modern component, the class traces the developments of the qasida form and its functions in Sufism and Islamic philosophy.

Methods of Teaching Literature and English Composition-Comparative Literature

This seminar offers practical support for Graduate Student Instructors beginning to design and teach Reading and Composition (R&C) courses on the UC Berkeley campus. Together and in dialogue with other instructors, we will explore a spectrum of theories and practices related to teaching literature and college composition, all while testing and critiquing these against our own expanding experiences as students, writers, and teachers.

Pages