CMLT

This course will concentrate on works of the “classic” period (1930s-60s). It will, however, begin with representative authors from the nineteenth century like Jules Verne and H. Rider Haggard, as well as some from the early twentieth century like David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus and H. P. Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness. Worth special attention will be authors like C. S. Lewis and Ursula LeGuin who worked in both genres at a time when they were often contrasted. The two major texts which will be discussed will be one from each genre, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Herbert's Dune. Theory will be historical, that held by the authors or applied to their stories within the period. Most of the texts we will read come from the Anglo-American tradition with some significant exceptions like short works by Kafka and Borges.

This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. 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 (i.e., Molière, Goldsmith, Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, Wilde, Shaw, Brecht, Beckett, Stoppard). Attention is also paid to theorists of the drama (e.g., Stanislavsky, Artaud, Grotowski). The goal is not to develop acting skill but, rather, 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 other students. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended.

This seminar will consider Goethe's work after 1805 with the aim of delineating the characteristics of Goethe's post-classical style and thought. One could also say: Goethe's modernity. It has become a commonplace in the study of Goethe to refer to the allegorical nature of his late works. We shall contest this reading. 1805, the year of Schiller's death, is taken as the starting point of a reassessment of the nature of artistic activity that finds expression in Goethe's poetic works as well as in his theoretical and critical writings. Among the texts to be discussed: the Winckelmann essay, Pandora, Wahlverwandtschaften, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, essays from Kunst und Altertum, selected scientific writings.

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 CompLit Grad students. Fulfills the core course requirement for CompLit students. Students who wish to take this course but have already taken a Comparative Literature core course may take this course with permission of the instructor. This course explores some of the fundamental conceptual issues raised by novels: in what way do plot, character, and authorial intention function in the novel, as opposed to other genres? How are novels formally unified (if they are)? What special problems are associated with beginnings and endings of novels? How do such basic features as titles and chapter divisions contribute to novelistic meanings? What are the ideological presuppositions — about gender, race, class, but also about the nature of social reality, of historicity, and of modernity -- inherent in a novelistic view? What ethical practices and structures of affect do novels encourage? Readings include Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther; Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Flaubert, L'Education Sentimentale; Salih, Season of Migration to the North. Critics covered include Lukacs, Bakhtin, Watt, Jameson, McKeon, D.A. Miller, Woloch, Moretti, and others.

The idea of the class is to read attentively selected poems by five distinguished poets representing five cultures and languages: English, Russian, German, Modern Greek and Polish: Philip Larkin, Joseph Brodsky, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, C.P. Cavafy and Wislawa Szymborska. These five poets are different and yet their work can be put on the same map - the map of the European Modernism. We'll read and discuss these poems; students will be required to participate actively in the conversations and to write a final paper. Undergraduates can attend the class with my consent.

This class has a simple premise: to read closely poems which offer an interesting form and a rich and complex content (if these two can be separated). To read great poems. What's expected here is an intellectual detective work. Among the poets there will be representatives of different generations of literary Modernism: Guillaume Appollinaire, Gottfried Benn, Elizabeth Bishop, Paul Celan, Zbigniew Herbert, Paul Valery, C.K. Williams. Technically speaking, we'll only read one or two poems each week. Students will be required to participate actively in the conversations and to write a final paper.

Required of fourth-year students who are majoring in CMLT. This workshop begins in Autumn Quarter and continues through the middle of Spring Quarter. While the BA 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 is assigned in the Spring Quarter, based partly on participation in the workshop and partly on the quality of the BA paper. Attendance at each class section required.

PQ: Consent of instructor and Director of Undergraduate Studies. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. Must be taken for a quality grade. This course does not satisfy distribution requirements for students who are majoring in CMLT unless an exception is made by the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

This course provides, in lectures and discussion sections, an introduction to Nietzsche's major writings from Birth of Tragedy to The Antichrist. Nietzsche's evolving philosophical position as well as his cultural criticism and his literary and music criticism will be examined. Topics include: the tragic, pessimism and affirmation, nihilism, antiquity and modernity, philosophical psychology, the critique of morality, the interpretation of Christianity. Nietzsche's biography, the major influences on his thought, and his impact on twentieth-century culture will also be considered, if only in glimpses.

How should we understand the connections between an ethics of self-transformation and a politics of resistance to established relations of power? How are forms of the self and strategies of power intertwined? We shall examine the philosophical frameworks of Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot with respect to those questions and then study two particular cases: Primo Levi's account of Auschwitz and Martin Luther King Jr.'s account of the civil rights movement. We will look at the ways in which these two historically specific cases allow us to develop and test the philosophical frameworks we have examined.