2008-2009

PQ: Prior or current registration in CMST 10100 required; CMLT 22400/32400 strongly recommended. The center of this course is film style, from the classical scene breakdown to the introduction of deep focus, stylistic experimentation, and technical innovation (sound, wide screen, location shooting). The development of a film culture is also discussed. Texts include Thompson and Bordwell's Film History, An Introduction; and works by Bazin, Belton, Sitney, and Godard. Screenings include films by Hitchcock, Welles, Rossellini, Bresson, Ozu, Antonioni, and Renoir.

This course covers the classics in the field of marxist social theory (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, Reich, Lukacs, Fanon) as well as key figures in the development of Marxist aesthetics (Adorno, Benjamin, Brecht, Marcuse, Williams) and recent developments in Marxist critiques of new media, post-colonial theory and other contemporary topics. It is suitable for graduate students in literature depts., art history and possibly history. It is not suitable for students in the social sciences.

May be taken in sequence with CMLT 20500/30500 or individually. This course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in Western drama from the late seventeenth century into the twentieth: Molire, Goldsmith, Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, Wilde, Shaw, Brecht, Beckett, and Stoppard. Attention is also paid to theorists of the drama, including Stanislavsky, Artaud, and Grotowski. The goal is not to develop acting skill but, rather, the goal is to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with some other members of the class. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended.

PQ: Consent of instructor, outside students will be accepted, with the class size limited to 15 students, as long as the majority of the students are ComLit Grad students and PhD students in English Language and Literature. Fulfills the core course requirement for CompLit students. A course on the methods and procedures of a few poet-critics of the 19th and 20th centuries: Matthew Arnold, R. W. Emerson, Paul Valery, T. S. Eliot, William Empson, Charles Bernstein. To what extent is the history of criticism a record of the work of poet-critics? Are these writers models for contemporary critics? Insofar as they are, how? Insofar as they are not, why not? This course will focus to some extent on the essay form and on prose style.

All fourth-year Comparative Literature majors are required to register for the B.A. project and workshop (CMLT 29801) and attend its meetings. The workshop begins in the Autumn Quarter and continues through the middle of the Spring Quarter. While the B.A. workshop meets in all three quarters, it counts as a one-quarter course credit. Students may register for the course in any of the three quarters of their fourth year. A grade for the course will be assigned in the Spring Quarter based partly on participation in the workshop and partly on the quality of the B.A. paper.

Open only to college students. PQ: Prior philosophy course or consent of instructor. This course centers on a close reading of the first volume of Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality , with some attention to his writings on the history of ancient conceptualizations of sex. How should a history of sexuality take into account scientific theories, social relations of power, and different experiences of the self? We discuss the contrasting descriptions and conceptions of sexual behavior before and after the emergence of a science of sexuality. Other writers influenced by and critical of Foucault are also discussed.

This course traces the history of Latina/o intellectual work that helped shape contemporary Latina/o cultural studies. Our focus is on how Chicanas/os and Puerto Ricans have theorized the history, society, and culture of Latinas/os in the United States. Themes include folklore and anthropology, cultural nationalism, postcolonialism, literary and cultural studies, community activism, feminism, sexuality, and the emergence of a pan-Latino culture. Throughout, we pay attention to the convergences and divergences of Chicana/o and Puerto Rican studies, especially as contemporary practitioners have encouraged us to (re)think Latina/o studies in a comparative framework.

A close reading of Michel Foucault's Surveller et punir. Naissance de la prison . Some attention will also be given to the debates provoked by this book, and to the political activities of the groupe d'information sur les prisons. Reading knowledge of French is required.

This seminar examines the Yiddish writer Sholem-Aleichem's work as a prime example of the diasporic imagination in modern Jewish literature. Key texts (e.g., Tevye the Dairyman , the Railroad Stories , Menakhem Mendel ) are discussed in the context of Russian Jewry's crisis and transformation at the turn of the twentieth century. Sholem-Aleichem's encounter with America during his visit in 1905-06 and his immigration in 1914 are discussed in connection with his play writing for the Yiddish stage and cinema. We examine Sholem-Aleichem's unique literary universe and style as the pivotal expression of classic Yiddish fiction.

The last decade has seen a dramatic shift away from nation-based approaches to literary studies and a desire to move towards more transnational approaches. But how and more importantly why should we do so? What is to be gained? This course will explore these conceptual questions as we read primary texts from late eighteenth and nineteenth-century Spanish America and the U.S..