Undergraduate

We confront Virgil's Aeneid in translation as a poem, as an artifact and representation of Greco-Roman culture, as a response to a millennial oral (Homeric) poetic tradition and a particular historical (Augustan) moment, as a reflection of ancient thought rich with significance for contemporary questions about human life, and as a central piece of world literature. Readings include comparative study of English poetic translations ranging from early modernity (Caxton, Douglas, Phayer, Surrey, and Dryden) to the twentieth century (Taylor, Lewis, Jackson Knight, Mandelbaum, and Fitzgerald) and beyond (Lombardo and Fagles). Students who are majoring in Comparative Literature compare versions of a book of the Aeneid in at least two languages.

This course examines a series of major twentieth-century works of fiction that explore the nature of human freedom. Our concern is not only to delineate the theme of freedom but also to attempt to understand the link between that theme and the fictional form the author chooses. A further concern is the position of the reader as it is figured in the texts examined. Authors considered include Herman Melville, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, T. S. Eliot, Maurice Blanchot, and Imre Kertsz.

This course concentrates on works of the classic period (from the 1930s to the 1960s). It does, however, begin with representative authors from the nineteenth century (e.g., Jules Verne, H. Rider Haggard), as well as some works from the early twentieth century (e.g., David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus , H. P. Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness ). Worth special attention are authors (e.g., C. S. Lewis and Ursula LeGuin) who worked in both genres at a time when they were often contrasted. The two major texts discussed include one from each genre (i.e., Tolkien's Lord of the Rings , Herbert's Dune ). Most texts come from the Anglo-American tradition, with some significant exceptions (e.g., short works by Kafka and Borges).

PQ: Advanced standing. This course is an exploration and comparison of several different strategies used by European novelists to represent an autonomous individual, all of which give rise to specific novelistic forms (e.g., autobiography, Bildungsroman , novel of manners, psychological novel). The primary bibliography for this course includes works by Rousseau, Goethe, Stendhal, and Tolstoy. We also read critical works by Georg Lukacs, Franco Moretti, Clement Lugowski, Mikhail Bakhtin, Lidia Ginzburg, and Alex Woloch. Texts in English and the original; discussion and papers in English.

This course is a close reading of Cervantes's Don Quijote that discuss its links with Renaissance art and Early Modern narrative genres. On the one hand, Don Quijote can be viewed in terms of prose fiction, from the ancient Hellenistic romances to the spectacular vigor of the books of knight errants and the French pastoral and heroic romances. On the other hand, Don Quijote exhibits a desire for Italy through the utilization of Renaissance art. Beneath the dusty roads of La Mancha and within Don Quijote's chivalric fantasies, students come to appreciate glimpses of images with Italian designs. Classes conducted in English; Spanish majors do all work in Spanish.

A reading of some central texts of Freud (both early and late) in the context of a study of the role of psychoanalysis in contemporary European philosophy. Other authors to be read may include Foucault, Deleuze and Guatteri, Marcuse, and Derrida.

We will look at the narrative of loss and redemption through which Balkan countries retell the Ottoman past. With the help of Freud‚s analysis of masochistic desire and Zizek's theory of the subject as constituted by trauma, we will contemplate the national fixation on the trauma of loss and the dynamic between victimhood and sublimity. The figure of the Janissary will highlight the significance of the other in the definition of the self. Some possible texts are Petar Njego'‚ Mountain Wreath , Ismail Kadare's The Castle , and Anton Donchev's Time of Parting.

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 is centered on several canonical works of classical modernism: Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Ein Brief ; Robert Walser's Jakob von Gunten ; Thomas Mann's Tod in Venedig ; Franz Kafka's Die Verwandlung ; Arthur Schnitzler's Frulein Else ; Bertolt Brecht's Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder ; poetry by Stefan George, Hofmannsthal, Gottfried Benn, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Georg Trakl; essays by Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, and Robert Musil. On the basis of the works studied we shall endeavor to develop a concept of modernism sufficiently capacious to embrace radically opposed literary and cultural agendas. Readings and discussion in German.

This course examines the Jewish literary world's relation to the figure of Jesus from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. We study the transformations of Jesus through close readings of major works, both prose fiction and poetry, by Yiddish and Hebrew writers (e.g., Uri Zvi Greenberg, H. Leivick, Jacob Glatstein, S. Y. Agnon, Avraham Shlonsky, Natan Bistritzki, A. A. Kabak, Haim Hazaz, Zalman Shneior, Yigal Mosenzon, Avot Yeshurun, Nathan Zach, Yona Wallach, Yoel Hoffmann). Classes conducted in English, but students with knowledge of Hebrew are encouraged to read texts in the original.