2024-2025 Catalog

CMLT 12003. Jewish Civilization III: Language, Creation, and Translation in Jewish Thought and Literature. 100 Units.

Jewish Civilization is a three-quarter sequence that explores the development of Jewish culture and tradition from its ancient beginnings through its rabbinic and medieval transformations to its modern manifestations. Through investigation of primary texts-biblical, Talmudic, philosophical, mystical, historical, documentary, and literary-students will acquire a broad overview of Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness while reflecting in greater depth on major themes, ideas, and events in Jewish history. This Jewish Civilization III course will start with two stories from Genesis-the creation story and the story of the Tower of Babel in chapter 11-and consider the intertwined dynamics of language, creation, and translation in Jewish thought and literature. In addition to commentaries on both of these key texts, we will read philosophical and literary texts that illuminate the workings of language as a creative force and the dynamics of multilingualism and translation in the creation of Jewish culture. Through this lens, we will consider topics such as gender and sexuality, Jewish national identity, Zionism, the revival of the Hebrew language, Jewish responses to the Holocaust, and contemporary American Jewish culture.

Instructor(s): Na'ama Rokem     Terms Offered: TBD. Not offered in 2024–25
Note(s): Students who wish to take this course for Civilization Studies credit, must also take Jewish Civilization I and II. The course may also be taken as an independent elective.
Equivalent Course(s): JWSC 12003, NEHC 12003, RLST 22012

CMLT 14920. Comparative Media Poetics: Horror. 100 Units.

Cinema, videogames, and VR: all moving-image media, which have at times exerted multi-directional aesthetic influences on each other. This course will investigate the raw materials and basic forms at the disposal of artists working in and across these media, with a special focus on horror as a genre. Along with fundamental questions regarding the social, psychological, and political uses (and abuses) of horror as a genre, this course will also look at how horror works across a variety of media. In what way do the possibilities available to game developers differ from those available to filmmakers, and vice versa? How are space, time, and action presented and segmented differently across moving images (cinema), interactive moving images (games), and fully-immersive virtual environments (VR)? How do techniques ranging from psychological identification to jump scares work in each medium, and what aesthetic effects are open to one that are not open to the other? Course materials will include horror cinema, horror games (video and otherwise), VR experiences, and written horror literature.

Instructor(s): Ian Bryce Jones     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 14920, MADD 14920

CMLT 20109. Comparative Literature - Theory and Practice. 100 Units.

This course introduces methods of study in Comparative Literature. We will take up interdisciplinary approaches, including translation and critical theory. Students will develop and deepen their skills in close reading and the comparative analysis of text and art forms.

Instructor(s): Anna Elena Torres     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Prerequisite: Completed Humanities, or Civilization Core requirement. The course is designed for the second-year students and above.
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 28918

CMLT 20123. Orientalism. 100 Units.

In 1978, Edward Said transformed "Orientalism" from a somewhat innocent term for a fascination with the cultures of the Orient into a label for a "discursive formation" that systematically objectified, essentialized, and distorted the non-West in the service of Western ideology and power. His intervention provoked a number of responses: some critiqued the critique, on empirical or theoretical grounds; some extended his analysis, which was based primarily on the Middle East, to other "Orients"; some argued that his critique did not go far enough. We will examine Said's Orientalism, some important precursors in the critique of Orientalist knowledge, and a selection of responses to Said's work, with a focus on theoretical questions. Why do the overarching structures of knowledge change so slowly when it comes to the non-West, and why, at the same time, does "knowledge" about the non-West appear so compromised when we examine it a century or so after it is produced? What are the rules of the "discursive formation" Said claimed to have identified? On what basis can a critique of an entire "way of knowing" be justified and undertaken? How does Orientalism reframe the Baconian cliché that "knowledge is power"? In the end, what is the epistemic and political status of "knowledge of the non-West"?

Instructor(s): Andrew Ollett     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 30123, SALC 20123, SALC 30123

CMLT 20124. The Bible Throughout History: From the Dead Sea Scrolls to King James. 100 Units.

While the collection of ancient texts found in modern Bibles appears fixed and is read by many people as a source of edification or theological insight, it has not always been this way. Though absent from most Bibles, there is an entire body of literature commonly known as "rewritten bible": early translations, retellings, or entirely new stories with familiar names and faces that update, retcon, or subvert their "biblical" sources. How might we understand these ancient forms of fan fiction? The class will introduce this corpus (including some of the Dead Sea Scrolls) and its sources, production, and historical contexts. We will confront significant problems in understanding religious texts: how is it that some texts become authoritative while other very similar texts do not? Who gets to retell foundational religious narratives, and within what social or political constraints? What does it mean to relate to sacred texts as artistic prompts or imperfect points of departure? Can a biblical text be rewritten for an entirely different religious tradition? We will consider similar questions for contemporary religious practice, asking: how did rewriting the Bible get started, and has it stopped?

Instructor(s): Doren Snoek     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 20124, RLST 20124, MDVL 20124, HIST 29908, JWSC 20924

CMLT 20230. Iconology East and West. 100 Units.

Iconology is the study of images across media and cultures. It is also associated with philosophical reflections on the nature of images and their relation to language-the interplay between the "icon" and the "logos." A plausible translation of this compound word into Chinese would describe it as "Words in Pictures, Pictures in Words":  诗中有画，画中有诗. This seminar will explore the relations of word and image in poetics, semiotics, and aesthetics with a particular emphasis on how texts and pictures have been understood in the Anglo-European-American and Chinese theoretical traditions. The interplay of painting and poetry, speech and spectacle, audition and vision will be considered across a variety of media, particularly the textual and graphic arts. The aims of the course will be 1) to critique the simplistic oppositions between "East" and "West" that have bedevilled intercultural and intermedial comparative studies; 2) to identify common principles, zones of interaction and translation that make this a vital area of study. (Theory; 20th/21st)

Instructor(s): WJT Mitchell     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Enrollment in the course will be with the consent of instructor; it is open to students at all levels, but enrollment will be limited to 15. Students should send a one page statement of their interest to W. J. T. Mitchell (wjtm@uchicago.edu)
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 30033, ARTV 30033, ARTH 20033, CMLT 30230, ARTV 20033, ENGL 30230, ENGL 20230

CMLT 20711. Jewish Graphic Narrative: Between Memory and Caricature. 100 Units.

Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of "graphic novels" aimed at adult readers concerning Jewish society, history, and religion. This course explores the history of comics through the lens of its Jewish creators and Jewish themes, and the history of Jewish culture and society through the lens of graphic storytelling. We learn to interpret this complex art form that combines words and hand-drawn images, translating temporal progression into a spatial form. Reading American, European, and Israeli narratives, our discussions will focus on autobiographical and journalistic accounts of uprooting, immigration, conflict, and loss. We will ask: how do Jewish graphic novelists grapple with the history of racist caricature? What is the relationship between graphic narrative and memory culture? Authors whose work we will study include: Art Spiegelman, Rutu Modan, Lianna Finck, Joann Sfar, Joe Sacco, R. Crumb

Instructor(s): Na'ama Rokem     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 26062, NEHC 26062, SIGN 26062, JWSC 20701

CMLT 21208. Poets in Dialogue: Galip & Robinson. 100 Units.

Picture a tête-à-tête between Seyh Galip (1757-1799), a mystic poet and leader of a Sufi order in Istanbul, and Mary Robinson (1757-1800), otherwise known as "the English Sappho," a prolific Romantic poet and actress renowned for Shakespearean roles. We'll dive into their narrative poems on love: Galip's masnavi Love and Beauty breathes new life into rhyming couplets, and Robinson's "Sappho and Phaeon" contributes to the revival of the sonnet sequence, with both poets writing at historical crossroads. As the Ottoman Empire undertakes structural modernization efforts amidst decline, England expands its colonial outreach while contending with the legacies of the American and French Revolutions. We will analyze how these poets navigate the delicate balance between tradition and innovation, with a fundamental inquiry into their use of ornamentation and excess. Coleridge's quip, "she overloads everything," nods to Robinson's affiliation with the "Della Cruscans," while Galip's opulent works reflect the so-called "Indian style." What draws poets, or anyone, to such ornate expressive techniques? We'll ponder these questions, exploring their intersections with gendered, cultural, and political realms. In doing so, we might just stumble upon intriguing theories to explain the eventual rise of symbolist movements in modern art.

Instructor(s): Melih Levi     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 21208

CMLT 21505. Mourning and Struggle in African, Native American, and Palestinian Narratives. 100 Units.

In this course, we will explore themes spanning three diverse bodies of literature and film, identifying points of connection and difference between expressions of sorrow and resistance in African, Native American, and Palestinian works. We focus on portrayals of mourning and examine how in response to catastrophic experiences and histories of colonialism, writers and filmmakers narrate loss and trauma. We will investigate how these authors renegotiate their identities, how they fashion national and political imaginaries, and how they envision alternative futures. Together, we will analyze source materials related to the themes of violence, memory, gender, and race. Through our weekly assignments and discussions, we will seek to determine the tropes and aesthetic tools that ignite modes of storytelling, and to answer: how do writers and artists employ aesthetic form to portray catastrophes? How might expressions of grief also be mobilized for resistance and struggle? Our class will be organized into three modules, touching upon African, Native American, and Palestinian prose, poetry, and film alongside theoretical works in memory and trauma studies. By the end of the quarter, students will be able to develop their own complex evaluations of these narratives-and recognize how comparisons through artistic expression can be a powerful tool for amplifying a multiplicity of stories about mourning and defiance.

Instructor(s): Stephanie Kraver     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 21500, RDIN 31500, GLST 21500, NEHC 31500, RDIN 21500, CMLT 31505

CMLT 21810. The Werewolf in Literature and Film. 100 Units.

Human transformation into animals (and into wolves in particular) is a recurring trope in many cultures' storytelling. Authors have used the story device to explore the nature of humans and animals, human fear and vulnerability, psychological problems and mental illness, gender and sexuality, social/racial hierarchy, marginalization, identity, and our own capacity for violence and savagery. In this course we will examine werewolves in literature and film from several cultures (French, English, German, Finnish, Blackfoot, Japanese) in English translation, primarily from the late 20th century onward. We will focus on how the aforementioned themes are used and developed in each work and the overarching patterns of werewolf stories. Students will write a final analytical paper or produce a creative project.

Instructor(s): David Delbar     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 21810, ENGL 21810

CMLT 21815. Strange Lit: Estrangement and Literature. 100 Units.

This course explores the genre of the strange, weird, bizarre and wonderous in literary works from around the world and across various time periods. In contrast to the voyeuristic and expected othering of the 'exotic', the course interrogates the strange as an aesthetic mode that estranges the reader and disturbs and upends our familiar and predictable worlds. Theorists have explored art's ability to unsettle our automatized perception, interrogating our relationship to reality, the way we know things, and the basis on which we make assumptions. This course will trace how specific literary forms (like magical-realism, fantasy, sci-fi, miracle literature, comedy/dark comedy, and even scripture) evoke wonder and a sense of the strange. We will explore how these genres mystify and make strange things like the individual, society, modernity, the nation-state, the secular, economy, and more to unearth the myth-making inherent in processes of world-building, as well as in narrative. We will see ghosts in court, hallucinating nation-states, dead narrators, animated-inanimate objects as we move into the world of dreams, madness, and the supernatural in literary works from Iceland, Iran, Palestine, Japan, Egypt and more.

Instructor(s): Rana Ghuloom     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 31815, NEHC 21815, RLST 26815, ENGL 21815

CMLT 21822. Creative Ecologies: Environmental and Multispecies Storytelling. 100 Units.

Literature plays a pivotal role in addressing environmental issues: it can perpetuate damaging narratives or offer creative solutions for sustainable living. What is then the role of literature in an era of ecological crisis? How does literature forward environmental change? How do writers represent the natural world and imagine innovative ways of living ecologically? To answer these questions, we will turn to the field of ecocriticism informed by queer ecology, decolonial thought and critical animal studies. We will explore the themes of migration, extinction, displacement, hegemony, and biodiversity in texts of various genres, from poetry to speculative fiction, particularly in relation to imperial, colonial and capitalist ecologies. Besides questioning troublesome dichotomies within our corpus, such as domestic/wilderness and nature/culture, we will also examine the links between environmental concerns and gender, race, class, and species. While we will be attentive to the specificities of the Italian local environment to fully unravel the role of Italy in aggravating or lessening environmental problems, our approach will remain comparative and global in scope. We will also revisit the literary canon and privilege the stories of historically disenfranchised voices that narrativize ethical and sociopolitical issues related to ecology. The course will include visits to Special Collections and the Map Collection to further enrich our engagement with the literary sources.

Instructor(s): Elizabeth Tavella
Note(s): Taught in English. No prior knowledge of Italian is required. Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 21822, ITAL 21822

CMLT 22001. Bringing up the Novel in Bohemia. 100 Units.

TBD

Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 22203, REES 28007

CMLT 22010. Writing the unspeakable: History, Memory, and Reflection through Literature. 100 Units.

This workshop will focus on literature as a tool to explore tragic and traumatic events in history, such as wars, genocides, and natural disasters, among others. Through different examples, we will review different poetic and narrative forms that delve into historical and personal memory, remembering, reflecting, and analyzing events that have marked the lives of individuals, communities, and nations. We will discuss how writing can be an effective way of coping with the painful burden of history, helping to heal the wounds of the past, as well as to reflect on the ways in which literature can serve as a way of preserving the memory of the victims of these tragic events, allowing their stories to be told, remembered and honored in order to bring us a little closer to reparation and justice. Keywords: Documentary poetry, experimental poetry, journalistic genre, political poetry, social poetry.

Instructor(s): Carlos Soto Roman
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 32010, LACS 22010, CMLT 32010

CMLT 22210. Decolonization and Culture. 100 Units.

This course introduces students to the various theories of militant or "fighting" cultures engendered by global struggles for decolonization throughout the twentieth century. Beginning with the global upswell of revolutionary movements at the end of World War I, intellectuals and artists from the colonial world began to enlist poetry, novels, art, music and other cultural forms in the struggle for decolonization. At the same that culture was instrumentalized for larger political struggles, meanwhile, "culture" itself was increasingly understood as a distinct site of struggle: The decolonization of culture was part and parcel of the decolonization of peoples. This course traces this evolving global discourse linking culture and decolonization across the twentieth century, exploring how writers and activists from the colonial world articulated a new cultural agenda within the context of broader programs of social transformation. Throughout we will contend with key questions and dilemmas faced by culture producers in the age of decolonization: What is the role of artists in a revolution? How does culture serve as a staging-ground larger political and ideological conflicts? What are the promises and pitfalls of treating decolonization as a metaphor? To answer these and other related questions, we will draw on case studies from the Harlem Renaissance, the Proletarian Literature movement, Haitian and Latin American Indigenist movements, Négritude, and Third Worldism.

Instructor(s): Noah Hansen      Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 22210

CMLT 22310. Character Study. 100 Units.

This course offers space to consider in-depth one of the most fundamental, yet mercurial aspects of stories: the imagined person, or fictional character. How do characters "work"-what makes successful characterization? How do authors depict a character changing over time? How are characters shaped and conditioned not only by events in a plot but by the other characters that they interact with? We will investigate these questions across a wide range of genres and media, with a few major themes as our focus: the stability of characters across time or multiple texts (from figures in myth to Sherlock Holmes); character as moral progression or formation; and character relationality-both the question of "relatability" and why it might (or might not!) matter and characters' hierarchical relationships within the plot (e.g., major vs. minor characters, protagonist and sidekick, etc.) and how these intersect with the social hierarchies of these character' worlds. By taking one key aspect of narrative and trying to think about it seriously together, our goal will be to gain a better understanding of how stories meditate on personhood in all its complexity.

Instructor(s): Jane Gordon     Terms Offered: Spring

CMLT 22400-22500. History of International Cinema I-II.

This sequence is required of students majoring in Cinema and Media Studies. Taking these courses in sequence is strongly recommended but not required.

CMLT 22501. Vico's New Science. 100 Units.

This course offers a close reading of Giambattista Vico's masterpiece, "The New Science" (1744) - a work that sets out to refute "all opinions hitherto held about the principles of humanity." Vico, who is acknowledged as the most resolute scourge of any form of rationalism, breathed new life into rhetoric, imagination, poetry, metaphor, history, and philology in order to promote in his readers that originary "wonder" and "pathos" which sets human beings on the search for truth. However, Vico argues, the truths that are most available and interesting to us are the ones humanity "authored" by means of its culture and history-creating activities. For this reason the study of myth and folklore as well as archeology, anthropology, and ethnology must all play a role in the rediscovery of man. "The New Science" builds an "alternative philosophy" for a new age and reads like a "novel of formation" recounting the (hi)story of the entire human race and our divine ancestors. In Vico, a prophetic spirit, one recognizes the fulfillment of the Renaissance, the spokesperson of a particular Enlightenment, the precursor of the Kantian revolution, and the forefather of the philosophy of history (Herder, Hegel, and Marx). "The New Science" remained a strong source of inspiration in the twentieth century (Cassirer, Gadamer, Berlin, Joyce, Beckett, etc.) and may prove relevant in disclosing our own responsibilities in postmodernity.

Instructor(s): Rocco Rubini     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Taught in English.
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 32501, ITAL 22900, ITAL 32900, FNDL 21408

CMLT 22515. Reading and Writing Ecological Obsessions. 100 Units.

In this seminar, we will read short stories, ethnography, philosophy, and cultural/art criticism that obsesses over one ecological thing e.g., petroleum, axolotl, pecans, palm trees, or fungi. We will study how a seemingly simple living or non-living object can be a guide, source, muse, and catalyst for social, political, and cultural knowledge. How do thinkers mix scholarly critique with creative/generative practices like autobiography, ancestral storytelling, and speculative fiction to express the politics of the earth? In a final research paper intersecting literary art, activism, and critique, students will reflect on this question to frame their own ecological obsessions. The course literature will focus on themes like deep time, extractivism, futurity, the nature-culture divide, and the relationships between human and nonhuman life. We will close-read representative modern and contemporary works of ecological obsessions from Julio Cortazar's "Axolotl" to Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass.

Instructor(s): Natalie Cortez Klossner     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 22515, ENGL 22515, CMLT 32515

CMLT 22705. Diasporic Literature and Modern Islam in the Imperial Core. 100 Units.

The 19th century enslaved scholar Omar Ibn Said opens his autobiography with the words: "I cannot write my life." This seminar takes this starting point -the thick of chattel slavery, mercantile capitalism, and colonial violence - to investigate literary productions by racialized others dispersed in and by the so-called era of modernity. We will complicate what constitutes the modernity and how Islam, perhaps more than any other tradition, has been configured as its inverse. We will read works ranging from poetry, novels, short stories, comics, & memoirs as they relate to encounters & engagements particularly with Islam as a religious tradition, colonialism, industrialization, & nationalism, even as global understandings of tradition, genre, & form are being contested & rapidly changing. In addition to primary sources, we will theoretically situate these works within larger discussions of racecraft, oral transmission & culture, "folk" vs. "high" literature, Orientalism, politics, gender, sexuality, & identity. We will look at this is articulated in diasporic literary forms written within -and sometimes for- the imperial core. Through in-class discussions, readings, & a final paper, students will strengthen their global literacy, demonstrate knowledge of global historical trends, analyze the shifting and even contradictory interpretations of the role of religion in racial formations, all while identifying, critiquing & assessing these key course themes.

Instructor(s): Samah Choudhury     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 22710, AASR 36717, RDIN 32700, RLST 26717, CMLT 32700, RDIN 22700, ISLM 36717

CMLT 22715. Antisocial Modernism: Troubled Subjects in 20th-Century East Asian Literature and Film and Beyond. 100 Units.

This course aims at an in-depth examination of the "dark side" of modernism through closing readings of various kinds of outsiders, misfits, and sociopaths in literature and film, with a focus on but not limited to East Asia and the 20th Century. If being "social" amounts above all to an acknowledgement of the plurality of human lives and an acquiescence to live together with others, what then does it mean to reject such a fundamental premise? In this course, we will investigate a variety of fictional characters who cannot or will not conform with the implicit conventions of communal life-criminals, lunatics, or simply people who find themselves struggling to sympathize with the feelings of others, etc. In tackling the aforementioned questions, our inquiry will be guided by a range of distinct methodological approaches such as moral philosophy, psychoanalysis, and queer theory. Readings may include works by Lu Xun, Ma-Xu Weibang, Yi Sang, Kinugasa Teinosuke, Edogawa Rampo, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Dazai Osamu, Mishima Yukio, Abe Kōbō, Murakami Haruki, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Herman Melville, Samuel Beckett, Gaston Leroux, Aimé Césaire, and Derek Jarman. All readings will be in English.

Instructor(s): J. Hou     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Not offered in 2023-24.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 22715

CMLT 22900. Cinema in Africa. 100 Units.

This course examines Africa in film as well as films produced in Africa. It places cinema in Sub Saharan Africa in its social, cultural, and aesthetic contexts ranging from neocolonial to postcolonial, Western to Southern Africa, documentary to fiction, art cinema to TV, and includes films that reflect on the impact of global trends in Africa and local responses, as well as changing racial and gender identifications. We will begin with La Noire de... (1966), by the "father" of African cinema, Ousmane Sembene, contrasted w/ a South African film, African Jim (1960) that more closely resembles African American musical film, and anti-colonial and anti-apartheid films from Lionel Rogosin's Come Back Africa (1959) to Sarah Maldoror's Sambizanga, Sembene's Camp de Thiaroye (1984), and Jean Marie Teno's Afrique, Je te Plumerai (1995). The rest of the course will examine 20th and 21st century films such as I am a not a Witch and The wound (both 2017), which show tensions between urban and rural, traditional and modern life, and the implications of these tensions for women and men, Western and Southern Africa, in fiction, documentary and fiction film. (20th/21st)

Instructor(s): Loren Kruger     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): One or more of the following: Intro to Film/ International Cinema AND/OR Intro to African Studies or equivalent
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 27600, ENGL 47600, RDIN 37600, CMST 34201, CMLT 42900, GNSE 48602, RDIN 27600, CMST 24201, GNSE 28602

CMLT 23301. Balkan Folklore. 100 Units.

Vampires, fire-breathing dragons, vengeful mountain nymphs. 7/8 and other uneven dance beats, heart-rending laments, and a living epic tradition. This course is an overview of Balkan folklore from historical, political, and anthropological perspectives. We seek to understand folk tradition as a dynamic process and consider the function of different folklore genres in the imagining and maintenance of community and the socialization of the individual. We also experience this living tradition firsthand through visits of a Chicago-based folk dance ensemble, "Balkan Dance."

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 30568, CMLT 33301, ANTH 25908, REES 39009, ANTH 35908, NEHC 20568, REES 29009

CMLT 23401. The Burden of History: The Nation and Its Lost Paradise. 100 Units.

What makes it possible for the imagined communities called nations to command the emotional attachments that they do? This course considers some possible answers to Benedict Anderson's question on the basis of material from the Balkans. We will examine the transformation of the scenario of paradise, loss, and redemption into a template for a national identity narrative through which South East European nations retell their Ottoman past. With the help of Žižek's theory of the subject as constituted by trauma and Kant's notion of the sublime, we will contemplate the national fixation on the trauma of loss and the dynamic between victimhood and sublimity.

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 20573, HIST 34005, REES 29013, CMLT 33401, NEHC 30573, HIST 24005, REES 39013

CMLT 23421. Transcontinental Romanticism. 100 Units.

In 1836, at the age of 26, Margaret Fuller began teaching the great works of German Romanticism to students at Amos Alcott's radically progressive Temple School in Boston. Fuller's passion for the German Romantics and their propagation in America is representative of the profound importance that the "American Transcendentalists" (Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller) attributed to German literature and its potential to shape American culture and values. In this course, we will explore the elective affinities between German Romanticism and its American counterpart, tracing the ways in which the two traditions mutually illuminate each other. Each unit will pair one major German and one major American text or artwork. Themes / pairings include: gender and mythology in Novalis' fragmentary novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen and Fuller's fairy tales; spiritual landscapes in the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich and the Hudson River School; slavery and abolition in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience;" exemplarity and individualism in Emerson's "Self-Reliance" and Nietzsche's "Schopenhauer as Educator."

Instructor(s): Simon Friedland     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 23421, ENGL 23421

CMLT 23810. Spanish Cinema-Basque Cinema. 100 Units.

This course explores Basque cinema from its beginnings to our days while also reviewing Spanish cinema from a Basque point of view. Among other topics, the course will explore the nationalist imaginary and its influence in film, the centrality of gender (and motherly) representations in Basque cinema, Basque films' recent tendency to become Spanish blockbusters outselling Hollywood, and allusions to the Basque Country in Spanish cinema.

Note(s): Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 24716, BASQ 24710

CMLT 23823. Melancholy: Readings in Medieval Christian Literature. 100 Units.

The idea of melancholy, a persistent affective orientation toward sadness and/or despair, is ubiquitous in Christian writings from the Middle Ages. This course considers the nature and function of melancholy and possible remedies in Christian discourses, and in so doing it provides a survey of medieval Christian literature. Readings may be drawn from authors such as Boethius, Alan of Lille, Jean de Meun, Marguerite Porete, Dante, and Christine de Pizan. Special attention will be given to the role of literary form in Christian writing, competing accounts of despair and hope, and the relationship of Christianity to non-Christian discourses. There are no language prerequisites, though reading groups may be formed if sufficient students posses relevant language skills.

Instructor(s): M. Vanderpoel     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 23823, MDVL 23823

CMLT 24110. Love and Transformation. 100 Units.

TBD

Note(s): Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 24110

CMLT 24305. Exile and Émigré Literature. 100 Units.

This course navigates the global refugee, exilic, expatriate and émigré crises and experiences as modes of displacement that permeate modern and contemporary literature. Using a comparative approach, this course offers a sustained and nuanced examination of the notion of displacement in most of its forms as represented by many canonical literary works produced by writers of various nations. This course compares the historical, socio-political, economic, cultural and national motives behind the experiences of displacement discussed throughout the course. The main topics covered in this course are: Loss, Alienation and Disorientation, Displacement and Gender Crossing, Displacement and Imperialistic Gestures, Displacement and Mobility, Displacement and Self-fashioning, Acts of Departure: Roots and Routes, Home-Abroad Dichotomy, Displacement, Memory and the Narrative/Poetic Imagination, Displacement and Individual/ National Identity, Abjection and Assimilation, Cross-Cultural Psychology and Dialogical Acculturation, The Crisis of Acceptance and Belonging, Biopolitics and Zoopolitics, The American Dream and Otherness.

Instructor(s): Ahmad Qabaha     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 23434, NEHC 34305, CMLT 34305, NEHC 24305, ENGL 33434, RDIN 24305, RDIN 34305

CMLT 24405. Kieslowski's French Cinema. 100 Units.

Krzysztof Kieślowski's The Decalogue and The Double Life of Veronique catapulted the Polish director to the international scene. His subsequent French triptych Blue, White, Red turned out to be his last works that altered his image and legacy to affirm his status as an auteur and a representative of the transnational cinema. We discuss how in his virtual universe of parallel histories and repeated chances, captured with visually and aurally dazzling artistry, the possibility of reconstituting one's identity, triggered by tragic loss and betrayal, reveals an ever-ambiguous reality. By focusing on the filmmaker's dissolution of the thing-world, often portrayed on the verge of vague abstraction of (in)audibility or (un)transparency, this course bridges his cinema with the larger concepts of postmodern subjectivity and possibility of metaphysics. The course concludes with the filmmaker's contribution to world cinema. All along, we read selections from Kieślowski's and Piesiewicz's screen scripts, Kieślowski's own writings and interviews, as well as from the abundant criticism of his French movies. All materials are in English.

Instructor(s): Bozena Shallcross     Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): REES 31002, REES 21002, CMST 24405, CMST 34405, FNDL 25312

CMLT 24419. Kafka: Acrobatics of Reading. 100 Units.

In a universe determined by power such as Kafka's - patriarchal, legal, governmental, colonial power, but also physical constraints such as gravity and entropy - everything depends on one's ability or inability to perform. Against such determination, Kafka's texts work as exercises in self-empowerment and -disempowerment, acts that constitute their power to perform through their very performance. Taking Kafka's short prose as a test case, the course investigates the relationship between two things: First, the acrobatics performed in and by the texts that not only feature a cast of tightrope walkers, hunger artists, bucket riders, and other performers, but can more generally be read as a series of kinetic experiments involving plot, description, imagery, sound, and grammar. Second, the acrobatics it takes us, the audience, to engage these texts-demanding a similar artistry of performance that includes casting highly flexible, improbable, and often risky readerly strategies in response. From the short prose, the course broadens its focus to include the longer texts and the diary, as well as excerpts from the fragments Amerika, The Trial, and The Castle. Readings and discussion in English.

Instructor(s): Florian Klinger     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 24419, FNDL 24419

CMLT 24425. Invasion Culture: Russia through its Wars. 100 Units.

This course looks at contemporary culture through Russia's invasions, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Broadly, this course explores how war shapes cultural life. How do the policies and strategies of war, and the art and literature of wartime, convey ideas about power and the state, traditional vs. modern values, civilizational mission vs. cultural pluralism? Beyond Russian literature and film, we consider voices from Afghanistan, the Caucasus, Chechnya, Syria, Belarus, and Ukraine, asking, How are Russia's wars fought and resisted in the domain of culture?

Instructor(s): Ania Aizman     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 24009, REES 24425, GLST 24424, MAPH 34425, REES 34425, HIST 34009

CMLT 24510. Kawaii (cuteness) culture in Japan and the world. 100 Units.

The Japanese word kawaii (commonly translated as "cute" or "adorable") has long been a part of Japanese culture, but, originating from schoolgirl subculture of the 1970s, today's conception of kawaiihas become ubiquitous as a cultural keyword of contemporary Japanese life. We now find kawaii in clothing, food, toys, engineering, films, music, personal appearance, behavior and mannerisms, and even in government. With the popularity of Japanese entertainment, fashion and other consumer products abroad, kawaii has also become a global cultural idiom in a process Christine Yano has called "Pink Globalization". With the key figures of Hello Kitty and Rilakkuma as our guides, this course explores the many dimensions of kawaii culture, in Japan and globally, from beauty and aesthetics, affect and psychological dimensions, consumerism and marketing, gender, sexuality and queerness, to racism, orientalism and robot design.

Instructor(s): Nisha Kommattam     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 24511, MADD 14510, ENGL 24510, EALC 24520

CMLT 24655. Forgeries and Flippancies: Literary "Fakes" 100 Units.

This is a course on fakes, forgeries, hoaxes, and all manner of intentional anachronisms designed to forge fake pasts, with a particular emphasis on how invented texts and artifacts might impact contemporary society and the "post-truth" world. By engaging in weekly case-studies around four central authors (Samuel Constantine Rafinesque, Pierre Louys, James Macpherson, Thomas Carlyle), students will learn to describe and categorize different kinds of such "flippancies" and to articulate their political weight across time. Examples include invented poems from Ancient Greece, spurious Native American epics, forged ancient Scottish epics, and the like. Our study of the main texts will be accompanied by a look at other forgeries that have played a not so fake role in the course of history (such as the Donation of Constantine). This course is appropriate to undergraduates of all levels interested in critical theory, the study of premodern cultures in a political dimension, as well as contemporary debates about cultural appropriation.

Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 24655

CMLT 24715. On Dialogue: Introduction to a Genre. 100 Units.

The figure of Socrates is famous for engaging Athenians in dialogue, but what was so important and effective about this mode of exchange? How did Socrates' dialogue work as a philosophical exercise? Why was the dialogue suited to mediate between gods, Socrates, and citizens? In this class, we will take a philosophical and historical approach to the genre of dialogue, analyzing key moments in the genre and related texts to trace the relationships between the mode of dialogue, the role of the divinity, the obligations of the citizen, and the formation of the subject. Starting from the dialogue of Socrates, we will read from classical antiquity into the Christian context, with attention to the creative transformations of the genre and the changing notions of subject, god, and citizen. In the final turn, we will return to two canonical texts of modern philosophy, the Dialogues by David Hume and Dialogues by Jean-Jacques Rousseau to examine how modern philosophical texts deploy the mode of dialogue, invoke the classical and Christian modes, and transform the genre again.

Instructor(s): Maureen Kelly     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course counts as a general literature course or pre-20th century literature course for CRWR students.
Equivalent Course(s): CLCV 24722, RLST 24715

CMLT 24723. Philosophical Anthropology: Origins of the Human. 100 Units.

What makes us human? What is our place in the cosmos? What common condition unites us as a species across race, gender, and ethnicity? In this course, we will explore these questions through the lens of twentieth-century German thinkers who placed the human being at the center of philosophical inquiry. Seeking an alternative to both religious and scientific accounts, the philosophers Max Scheler, Arnold Gehlen, and Helmut Plessner developed new conceptions of the human that sought to do justice to both our spiritual and our biological being. We will take an historical approach to this intellectual movement, considering how philosophers such as Herder, Kant, and Nietzsche laid the groundwork for a reevaluation of who we are. In the conviction that literature also plays a vital role in formulating a philosophical anthropology, we will also consider several poets, in particular Friedrich Hölderlin and Rainer Maria Rilke. All texts will be read in English translation.

Instructor(s): Simon Friedland     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 24723, GRMN 34723, CMLT 34723

CMLT 24725. Transatlantic Feminism. French, Francophone, and North American perspectives (20th-21st c.) 100 Units.

This course explores modern and contemporary feminism through a transatlantic lens. We will consider three major moments and sites of a multi-centered conversation. First, we will explore the modernist desire for cosmopolitanism which drew writers across the Atlantic (Simone de Beauvoir's adventures in the US; Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein's lives in Paris). In the central part of the quarter, we will focus on the period between 1960 and 1990 which witnessed intense conversation and contestation between a French paradigm of "écriture féminine" (Hélène Cixous, Monique Wittig), and the rivalling practices and theories in America (from Adrienne Rich and Mary Daly to Judith Butler). Finally, we will explore the ways in which recent feminist writers have accounted for race, class, and disability (from Maryse Condé to Liliane Giraudon). The course will explore various media (novels, poetry, theater and performance, film), and various ways to engage critically and creatively with this history of transatlantic feminism.

Instructor(s): Léon Pradeau     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Taught in English but reading knowledge of French is required. Students taking this class for French credit must have taken FREN 20500, 20503 or a literature course taught in French, and will complete assignments in French.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 23172, FREN 24725

CMLT 24848. Sino-Soviet Relations. 100 Units.

This course is an interdisciplinary introduction to the history of the relationship between China and the Soviet Union, surveying some of the most representative texts and sources on the topic. For the Chinese side, we cover both ROC and PRC. Moreover, we extend our timeline beyond the collapse of the USSR to inquire how the historical Sino-Soviet alliance is being perceived in the present day. Our focus will primarily be on state-level politics and highbrow cultural production, but we will also pay attention to the social history of the expansive border regions and population movement. Students are expected to bring their own expertise and interest to the class by presenting on an individualized research topic, in addition to writing an in-class midterm and a final paper. All readings are in English

Instructor(s): Yueling Ji     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 29914, EALC 24848, REES 24112, GLST 24848

CMLT 25105. In the Beginning": Origin, Style, and Transformation in the King James Version Matrix. 100 Units.

The 400th anniversary of the King James Bible (KJV) set off a series of events and texts dedicated to the great influence of this literary classic-a vernacular English Bible from 1611. What is it about the KJV that has so obsessed readers and writers? How has it become part of and affected world literature? Are there competing ways of conceiving the biblical text in English literature? In this course, we will trace some of the KJV's thematic and stylistic influences in global Anglophone literature; sometimes we will deal with direct allusion and rewriting, and other times we will study the possibilities of more tenuous links. In parallel to this work, we will problematize the KJV's astounding centrality by: examining some pre-KJV literature and alternative early-modern and 20th century translations (particularly as these intersect with Jewish tradition); attending to subversive and postcolonial literary uses of the translation; and close-reading the political and ideological motivations behind certain forms of critical adulation. Texts examined may include works by authors such as George Peele, William Shakespeare, Herman Melville, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Cynthia Ozick, Zora Neale Hurston, Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka.

Instructor(s): Chloe Blackshear     Terms Offered: Spring

CMLT 25137. Writing the unspeakable. History, Memory, and Reflection through Literature. 100 Units.

This workshop will focus on literature as a tool to explore tragic and traumatic events in history, such as wars, genocides, and natural disasters, among others. Through different examples, we will review different poetic and narrative forms that delve into historical and personal memory, remembering, reflecting, and analyzing events that have marked the lives of individuals, communities, and nations. We will discuss how writing can be an effective way of coping with the painful burden of history, helping to heal the wounds of the past, as well as to reflect on the ways in which literature can serve as a way of preserving the memory of the victims of these tragic events, allowing their stories to be told, remembered and honored in order to bring us a little closer to reparation and justice.

Instructor(s): Carlos Soto Román     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 35137, LACS 35137, LACS 25137

CMLT 25218. Reading Nonhuman Animals: A Challenge to Anthropocentrism. 100 Units.

How can we "read" a literary nonhuman animal? In what ways does literature deal with ethical and political issues concerning nonhuman animals? What does it mean to live in a multicultural and multispecies world? What does it mean to be "human"? In this course we will ask these and other related questions as they are presented and represented in Italian 20th century literary texts, read alongside philosophical writings, scholarly essays, and visual materials. While maintaining a focus on Italian literature, a comparative approach involving literary works of non-Italian authors will be key in understanding the pervasiveness of the problems that have caused our detachment from nature and our broken relationship with nonhuman animals. We will closely analyze and critically evaluate the works of several authors, including those by Italo Calvino, Primo Levi, Anna Maria Ortese, Elsa Morante, Italo Svevo, Alice Walker, and Franz Kafka, giving particular attention to techniques of close reading. A thematic approach will enable us to explore a large number of critical discourses, from the moral status of nonhuman animals to the long-held assumptions regarding the anthropocentric set of values that have defined (Western) culture. We will also take into consideration different theoretical frameworks such as posthumanist theory and gender studies in order to discuss and evaluate the selected texts from different perspectives and entry points.

Instructor(s): E. Tavella
Note(s): Taught in English. No previous knowledge of Italian is required. Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 25218, ITAL 25218

CMLT 25550. Machiavelli: Politics and Theater. 100 Units.

Arguably the most debated political theorist of all time due to The Prince, Machiavelli genuinely aspired to be remembered for his creative prowess. He explored various literary genres, such as short stories, dialogues, satirical poetry, letter writing, and, notably, theater, where he demonstrated mastery with The Mandrake, an exemplary Renaissance comedy. This course aims to reintegrate these two aspects of Machiavelli: the serious politician and the facetious performer, a Janus-faced figure who serves as a precursor of both Hobbes and Montaigne. We will revive the image of this "Renaissance man," and, through him, shed light on his era and fellow humanists by restoring their intellectual unity of prescription and laughter. Indeed, we will discover that Machiavelli encourages us not to take things, including him and ourselves, too seriously! Taught in English.

Instructor(s): Rocco Rubini     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 38481, CMLT 35550, ITAL 25550, FNDL 29305, TAPS 28481, ITAL 35550

CMLT 25801. Machiavelli and Machiavellism. 100 Units.

This course is a comprehensive introduction to Machiavelli's The Prince in light of his vast and varied literary corpus and European reception. The course includes discussion of Machiavelli as playwright ("The Mandrake"), fiction writer ("Belfagor," "The Golden Ass"), and historian ("Discourses," "Florentine Histories"). We will also closely investigate the emergence of myths surrounding Machiavelli (Machiavellism and anti-Machiavellism) in Italy (Guicciardini, Botero, Boccalini), France (Bodin and Gentillet), Spain (Ribadeneyra), and Northern Europe (Hobbes, Grotius, Spinoza) during the Counter Reformation and beyond.

Instructor(s): Rocco Rubini
Note(s): Course conducted in English. Those seeking Italian credit will do all work in Italian. Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 21603, ITAL 33001, CMLT 35801, ITAL 23000

CMLT 25810. Childhood and Fairy Tale in Bachelard, Benjamin, and Agamben. 100 Units.

'The child' is a complex and fascinating notion that plays a crucial role in the writings of some of the major twentieth-century thinkers. The child is often linked to 'fairy tale,' as if one concept couldn't exist without the other. What constitutes a fairy tale, what is the difference between fairy tale, myth, and allegory, and who is the real narrator and listener of fairy tales are questions that can only be addressed through a second, fundamental query: What is 'the child'? What does 'the child' represent? What role does the imagination play in the formation of 'the child'? These issues are especially significant in the writings of Gaston Bachelard, Walter Benjamin, and Giorgio Agamben. Readings will include: Bachelard, "Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos"; Bachelard, "Air and Dreams. An Essay on the Imagination of Movement"; Bachelard, "The Flame of a Candle"; Benjamin, One-Way Street; Benjamin, "The Fireside Saga"; Benjamin, "Berlin Childhood around 1900"; Benjamin "Goethe's Elective Affinities,"; Benjamin, "The Storyteller"; Agamben, "Infancy and History"; Agamben, "Profanations"; Agamben, "Pulcinella or Entertainment for Children"; Agamben, "Pinocchio". We will also read an ample selection of classic fairy tales from Giambattista Basile ("The Tale of Tales"), the seventeenth-century French conteuses, The Brothers Grimm, Clemens Brentano, and Collodi's "Pinocchio." Taught in English.

Instructor(s): Armando Maggi     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 25800, ITAL 35800, CMLT 35810

CMLT 25823. Three Comedies of Sexual Revolution. 100 Units.

This seminar will discuss three comedies of sexual revolution from three different times and places. Aristophanes's Assemblywomen recounts how under the leadership of the able Praxagora the women of Athens take over the Assembly and legislate a new regime in which private property is replaced by communism and sexual equity is achieved in favor of the old and unattractive at the expense of the young and attractive. Machiavelli's Mandragola dramatizes the tricks by which young Callimaco manages with the aid of the trickster parasite Ligurio to have sex with Lucrezia, the beautiful young wife of the elderly lawyer Nicomaco, with the consent of both her and her husband, ushering in a new regime in which all are satisfied. In Shakespeare's Measure for Measure Angelo the interim duke of Vienna institutes a repressive sexual regime in which the brothels are closed and extramarital sex is a capital crime. What might we learn about sexual relations from these diverse plays? Why are they comedies?

Instructor(s): Nathan Tarcov & Glenn Most      Terms Offered: Spring. Spring 2024
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduates need the Instructor's permission to register.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 25997, CLAS 37623, PLSC 35997, FNDL 21772, CLCV 27623, SCTH 25823, CMLT 35997, SCTH 35997, PLSC 25997, GNSE 35997

CMLT 25999. Realism: Art or Metaphysics? 100 Units.

Besides its historical role as the first capital-letter avant-garde in painting and literature, Realism is making a return in many current artistic and, for that matter, cultural and journalistic contexts. But whether one examines its entanglement with reputed adversaries like Romanticism and Idealism, its origins in ancient and medieval metaphysics, or its strange side career as a label for amoral pragmatism in political theory and practice, the many-sidedness of realism makes pinning it down quite a challenge. Is there any common thread binding Plato and Courbet, Virginia Woolf and García Marquez, Catherine Opie and Ai Weiwei? Can there be a realism of dreams and desire, such as one might find in Freud? And is realism a revolutionary venture, or a consolidating surveillance of social types? What role do new technologies and forms of spectatorship, from oil painting to photography, the printed book to streaming media, play in its rise and evolution? Readings in art history, fiction, and philosophy will alternate with film screenings and gallery visits.

Instructor(s): Andrei Pop and Mechtild Widrich      Terms Offered: Autumn. Autumn
Prerequisite(s): No Consent Required
Equivalent Course(s): SCTH 35010, KNOW 35010, ARTH 39609, SCTH 25010, CMLT 35999, KNOW 25010, ARTH 29609

CMLT 26002. Gramsci. 100 Units.

In this course we read selections from Antonio Gramsci's Letters and Prison Notebooks side by side with their sources. Gramsci's influential interpretations of the Italian Renaissance, Risorgimento, and Fascism are reviewed testi alla mano with the aim of reassessing some major turning points in Italian intellectual history. Readings and notions introduced include, for the Renaissance, Petrarch (the cosmopolitan intellectual), Savonarola (the disarmed prophet), Machiavelli (the modern prince), and Guicciardini (the particulare; for Italys long Risorgimento, Vico (living philology), Cuoco (passive revolution), Manzoni (questione della lingua), Gioberti (clericalism), and De Sanctis (the Man of Guicciardini); and Croce (the anti-Croce) and Pirandello (theater and national-popular literature), for Italy's twentieth century.

Instructor(s): R. Rubini
Note(s): Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 36002, FNDL 26206, ITAL 26000, ITAL 36000

CMLT 26040. Theater in East and Central Europe: Between Power and Powerlessness. 100 Units.

National independence movements, revolutions, authoritarian regimes, and the decline of empire: playwrights in East and Central Europe wrote major works of world literature in response to these events - and sometimes in prescient anticipation of them. This seminar introduces students to the plays that, from Chekhov to Havel, shaped the fates of nations. Topics include: the avant-garde, theater of the absurd, acting methods, performance art, and documentary theater.

Instructor(s): Ania Aizman     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 34404, TAPS 35214, TAPS 25214, REES 24404

CMLT 26105. Queering God. 100 Units.

Can God be an ally in queer worldmaking? Is God queer? What does queerness have to do with Judaism, Christianity, or Islam? This course introduces students to foundational concepts in queer and trans studies by focusing on queer Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theologies. We will analyze the ways that contemporary artists, activists, and scholars are using theology to reimagine gender and experiment with new relational forms. Our readings will include a variety of genres: memoir, letters, scriptural interpretation, and a novel. There will be no presumption of previous acquaintance with any of the readings or topics discussed, or indeed with any academic theology or queer theory at all.

Instructor(s): Olivia Bustion     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 26105, GNSE 12124

CMLT 26113. Queer South Asia. 100 Units.

This course explores representations of queerness, same-sex love, sexualities and debates around them by introducing students to a variety of literary texts translated from South Asian languages as well as films, geographically ranging from India and Pakistan to Sri Lanka. We will also read scholarship that will help us place the production and reception of these primary sources in historical, political, cultural and religious contexts. In particular, we will examine questions of history and continuity (recurrent themes and images); form and genre (differences of representation in mythological narratives, poetry, biography, fiction, erotic/legal/medical treatises); the relationship of gender to sexuality (differences and similarities between representations of male-male and female-female relations); queerness as a site for exploring other differences, such as caste or religious difference; and questions of cross-cultural and transnational dialogue and cultural specificity.

Instructor(s): Nisha Kommattam     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 26115, SALC 26113, HMRT 26113, GNSE 23145

CMLT 26211. The World in Ruins. 100 Units.

In this course we will not limit ourselves to the traditional view of 'ruins' as remains of ancient or modern buildings. Our course will involve a variety of different artifacts (literary texts, paintings, films, philosophical tracts, etc.) from different cultural moments, in order to attain a clearer understanding of our notion of ruins, decay, and decadence. We will first examine 'ruins' in classical cultures, focusing on Plutarch's short treatise On the Obsolescence of Oracles. We will investigate the 'discovery' of ruins in the Renaissance through Petrarch's Letters on Familiar Matters, his canzoniere, and his epic poem Africa, Francesco Colonna's verbal/visual Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (The Strife of Love in a Dream), and Joaquim De Bellay's The Antiquities of Rome. 17th-century approach to ruins and decay will focus on Benjamin's texts (Origins of the German Tragic Drama among others), Agamben's response to Benjamin in Man Without Content, and European poetry and paintings. After an analysis of Piranesi's famous etchings Vedute di Roma, we will approach Romanticism through Leopardi's and Hölderlin's works. There will be a screening of Pasolini's The Walls of Sana'a (1970), which will open our discussion of the concepts of decay and annihilation in modern times. We will read Curzio Malaparte's novel The Skin and W. G. Sebald's On the Natural History of Destruction, César Aira's Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, and the recent Anthropocene: The Human Epoch.

Instructor(s): A. Maggi
Note(s): Taught in English. Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 26210, ITAL 36210, CMLT 42311

CMLT 26269. Religious Authority in Comparative Perspective. 100 Units.

When somebody tells us about the nature of God or the gods, about what such beings want from us, about our experiences before this life or our destinies after it-why should we believe them? With equal and opposite force, why shouldn't we believe them? Are the standards of acceptable belief entirely independent of what we're told by religious authorities, or is it impossible to arrive at any such standards without presuming something we've been told? When confronted with diverse claims about the divine, should we try to ascertain which ones are true, should we combine or harmonize them in some way, or should we dismiss the entire conversation as wrongheaded? In this course, we'll think through these questions with the help of influential texts drawn from the Buddhist, Hindu, Platonic, and classical Chinese traditions.

Instructor(s): Stephen C. Walker     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 26269, DVPR 36269

CMLT 26400. Introduction to the Renaissance. 100 Units.

The Renaissance, which first and foremost flourished in Italy, founded our modern concept of the self. The way we see ourselves, the values we cherish, derive from the Renaissance. Modernity is a product of the Renaissance. This course emphasizes the importance of introspection in Renaissance culture, poetry, and philosophy. The books I have selected have a strong autobiographical element. However, they also illuminate how the Renaissance theorizes the relationship between the individual and society. We will read, in Italian, passages from major Italian texts in prose, such as Castiglione's Il cortigiano, Machiavelli's Discorsi, Campanella's Città del Sole, and poetry by Michelangelo, Monsignor della Casa, and numerous women poets, such as Veronica Franco, Vittoria Colonna, and Veronica Gambara.

Instructor(s): A. Maggi
Note(s): Taught in Italian. Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 22200

CMLT 26523. Motherless Tongue:" Introduction to Transnational Writing in German. 100 Units.

This course introduces students to contemporary authors writing in German whose texts explore cross-pollinations between languages and cultures. Discussions will center around topics such as: identity; cosmopolitanism; memory; cultural hybridity and alterity; hospitality; guests and hosts; storytelling; migration; what are transnational German Studies? Authors include: the Japanese writer Yoko Tawada who lives in Berlin and writes in Japanese and German; the Romanian-born author Herta Müller (Nobel Prize in 2009); the Black British author Sharon Dodua Otoo who resides in Berlin and writes in German and English; the Ukrainian-German writer Katja Petrowskaja; the Turkish-born writer Feridun Zaimoglu; and others. Course conducted in English with an LxC option for interested students.

Instructor(s): Margareta Ingrid Christian     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 36523, GRMN 36523, GRMN 26523

CMLT 26677. American Jewish Literature. 100 Units.

Is there an American Jewish literature? At the heart of this question is a reckoning with what constitutes American Jewish experience. Literary expression has played an outsized role in the way that American Jews view themselves, exploring a vocabulary and an idiom of immigration and religion, of ethnic identity and of political consciousness. In this class we will study a selection of the fiction, poetry, essays and films of American Jewish experience with an eye towards the varieties of American-Jewish experience and the role of literature in forging that experience.

Instructor(s): Sheila Jelen     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the LMCS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): JWSC 26677, RLVC 46677, AMER 46677, AMER 26677, HIJD 46677, RLST 26677, CMLT 46677

CMLT 26680. Literary Games: Oulipo and Onward. 100 Units.

Does constraint foster creativity? Can wordplay carry political meaning? Is formal innovation divorced from lyrical expression? How do experimental literary movements respond to their sociopolitical moments and local contexts, and how do they transform when they travel across geographical and linguistic borders? We will consider these questions via the work of the longest-lived French literary group, the Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle or Workshop for Potential Literature), examining its origins as a quasi-secret society in 1960 and its expansion into an internationally visible and multilingual collective (with members from Italy, Spain, Argentina, and the US). We will investigate debates about inspiration and authorship, copying and plagiarism, collective creation, multilingualism, constraint and translation, and the viability of the lyric subject. While considering antecedents (Edgar Allan Poe, Raymond Roussel), our readings will explore several generations of Oulipians (Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec, Italo Calvino, Michèle Métail, Anne Garréta, Frédéric Forte), and conclude with some very contemporary Oulipo-inspired writing from around the world (Christian Bök, Urayoán Noel, Mónica de la Torre, K. Silem Mohammed). Alongside critical essays, students will carry out short experiments with constraint and procedure, as well as translation exercises; and they will have the opportunity for dialogue with acclaimed writers and scholars who will visit our seminar.

Instructor(s): Rachel Galvin and Alison James     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Open to advanced undergraduates. Students who are taking the class for French credit will complete some readings and writings in French.
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 36680, FREN 36680, ENGL 36680, FREN 26680, ENGL 26680

CMLT 26700. Renaissance and Baroque Fairytales and Their Modern Rewritings. 100 Units.

We study the distinctions between myth and fairy tale, and then focus on collections of modern Western European fairy tales, including those by Straparola, Basile, and Perrault, in light of their contemporary rewritings of classics (Angela Carter, Calvino, Anne Sexton). We analyze this genre from diverse critical standpoints (e.g., historical, structuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist) through the works of Croce, Propp, Bettelheim, and Marie-Louise Von Franz.

Instructor(s): A. Maggi
Note(s): Class conducted in English. Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 26200, CMLT 36700, ITAL 36200, REMS 36200

CMLT 26701. Marsilio Ficino's "On Love" 100 Units.

This course is first of all a close reading of Marsilio Ficino's seminal book On Love (first Latin edition De amore 1484; Ficino's own Italian translation 1544). Ficino's philosophical masterpiece is the foundation of the Renaissance view of love from a Neo-Platonic perspective. It is impossible to overemphasize its influence on European culture. On Love is not just a radically new interpretation of Plato's Symposium. It is the book through which sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe read the love experience. Our course will analyze its multiple classical sources and its spiritual connotations. During our close reading of Ficino's text, we will show how European writers and philosophers appropriated specific parts of this Renaissance masterpiece. In particular, we will read extensive excerpts from some important love treatises, such as Castiglione's The Courtier (Il cortigiano), Leone Ebreo's Dialogues on Love, Tullia d'Aragona's On the Infinity of Love, but also selections from a variety of European poets, such as Michelangelo's canzoniere, Maurice Scève's Délie, and Fray Luis de León's Poesía.

Instructor(s): A. Maggi
Note(s): Course taught in English. Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 33900, CMLT 36701, FNDL 21103, REMS 33900, ITAL 23900

CMLT 26702. Arabic into Hebrew: Translation and Cultural Change during the Middle Ages. 100 Units.

Religions, like all cultural phenomena, are akin to organic beings: they change, grow and adapt, absorb and assimilate what they encounter, become transformed constantly in relation to challenges and opportunities - and sometimes react against them. This course will focus on one example of religious-cultural-philosophical adaptation and change through a study of the medieval translation of Arabic and Judeo-Arabic works into Hebrew during the 12th-15th centuries. We will focus on the translations themselves and translation technique, but principally on what was translated and why, when and where, by whom and for whom. All this with an added emphasis on the result: how did Judaism and Jewish culture change through translation - in all its forms - during the high middle ages.

Instructor(s): James T. Robinson     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): ISLM 36702, HIJD 36702, HREL 36702, RLVC 36702, RLST 26702, CMLT 36702, MDVL 26702, NEHC 26702, JWSC 26702, NEHC 36702

CMLT 26771. Stories of Oceans and Archipelagos. 100 Units.

According to Fijian-Tongan writer Epeli Hau'ofa, "There is a world of difference between viewing the Pacific as 'islands in a far sea' and as 'a sea of islands.'" In this course, we will delve into the "world of difference" that exists between viewing islands as remote and insignificant, and considering them as crucial nodes in an ever-expanding planetary network. Simultaneously, we will consider the stakes of moving away from traditional representations of the ocean as a blank canvas for human movement, to instead consider it as a vibrant material and multispecies space. This course will encourage students to formulate their own approaches to cutting-edge debates in archipelagic theory and critical ocean studies, and to situate those debates within the broader fields of environmental humanities and postcolonial studies. Readings will be drawn from the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean (including the Caribbean Sea), and the Indian Ocean.

Instructor(s): Nikhita Obeegadoo     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): For students seeking French credit, FREN 20500 or equivalent.
Note(s): Taught in French.
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 26770, FREN 26770, CEGU 26770

CMLT 26802. Epic Religion: From the Ramayana to Game of Thrones. 100 Units.

What can epic literature and media teach us about religion? In this introductory seminar, students explore answers to this question, focusing on the ways epics dramatize the human relationship to divinity. We read the epics through the relationships of its central characters-humans, heroes, and gods. By following the winding quests and gory battles of these narratives, students examine how epics present various forms of human-divine relationships-transactional, intimate, inspirational, and manipulative. We employ a comparative approach to the genre; our readings originate in different world regions and historical periods-from ancient India and Greece to West Africa, England, and the contemporary US. We will read these texts closely and examine how they reflect particular views of the human condition within religious worldviews. Considering the contexts of post-colonization, nationalism, and globalization, we analyze how mass media-comic books, TV series, films, and social media-shape and spread those views to new popular audiences.

Instructor(s): Andrew Kunze     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 26802, GLST 26802, RLST 26802

CMLT 26855. Queer Theory. 100 Units.

This course offers a foundation in queer theory. In order to understand the contested definitions of the term "queer" and explore the contours of the field's major debates, we will work to historicize queer theory's emergence in the 1980s and 1990s amidst the AIDS crisis. Reading texts by key figures like Foucault, Sedgwick, Butler, Lorde, Bersani, Crimp, Warner, Halperin, Dinshaw, Edelman, Anzaldúa, Ferguson, and Muñoz in addition to prominent issues of journals like GLQ, differences, and Signs, we will approach these pieces as historical artifacts and place these theorists within the communities of intellectuals, activists, and artists out of which their work emerged. We will, thus, imagine queer theory as a literary practice of mournful and militant devotion, trace queer theory's relationship to feminism and critical race theory, critique the hagiographic tendency of the academic star system, and interrogate the assumptions of queer theory's secularity.

Instructor(s): Kris Trujillo     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 20130, ENGL 26855, GNSE 36855, RLVC 36855, CMLT 36855, ENGL 36855, RLST 26885

CMLT 26912. Strangers to Ourselves: Emigre Literature and Film from Russia and Southeast Europe. 100 Units.

Being alienated from myself, as painful as that may be, provides me with that exquisite distance within which perverse pleasure begins, as well as the possibility of my imagining and thinking," writes Julia Kristeva in "Strangers to Ourselves," the book from which this course takes its title. The authors whose works we are going to examine often alternate between nostalgia and the exhilaration of being set free into the breathless possibilities of new lives. Leaving home does not simply mean movement in space. Separated from the sensory boundaries that defined their old selves, immigrants inhabit a warped, fragmentary, disjointed time. Immigrant writers struggle for breath-speech, language, voice, the very stuff of their craft resounds somewhere else. Join us as we explore the pain, the struggle, the failure, and the triumph of emigration and exile. Vladimir Nabokov, Joseph Brodsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, Nina Berberova, Julia Kristeva, Alexander Hemon, Dubravka Ugrešić, Norman Manea, Miroslav Penkov, Ilija Trojanow, Tea Obreht.

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 36912, REES 29010, REES 39010

CMLT 26994. Anticolonial Worlding: Literature, Film, Thought. 100 Units.

This course explores anticolonial worldbuilding through literature, film, art, and philosophy. It focuses on the role of the cultural Cold War in shaping anticolonial aesthetics and politics during the twentieth century as well as its impact on our current political moment. The mid-century was characterized by an expansion of anticolonial festivals, exchanges, and congresses and marked by political crises and coalitional solidarity across Vietnam, Palestine, Cuba, Soviet and US imperial expansion, and the May 1968 student protests. We will explore how Pan-Arab, Pan-African, Non-Aligned/Global South, Marxist-Leninist, indigenous land rights, and racial justice movements mobilized class, gender, and language politics. Exploring anticolonial literature, film, and art across a multilingual and transnational archive we will ask how socialist and speculative realisms, engaged literature, third cinema, agitprop, and other aesthetic movements generated powerful internationalist imaginations and networks of resistance.

Instructor(s): Leah Feldman     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 26994, HMRT 26994, CMLT 36994, ENGL 26994, GNSE 36994, REES 26994, NEHC 26994, RDIN 26994, RDIN 36994

CMLT 27517. Metaphysics, Morbidity, & Modernity: Mann's The Magic Mountain. 100 Units.

Our main task in this course is to explore in detail one of the most significant novels of the twentieth century, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. But this novel is also a window onto the entirety of modern European thought, and it provides, at the same time, a telling perspective of the crisis of European culture prior to and following on World War I. It is, in Thomas Mann's formulation, a time-novel: a novel about its time, but also a novel about human being in time. For anyone interested in the configuration of European intellectual life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Mann's great (and challenging) novel is indispensible reading. Lectures will relate Mann's novel to its great European counterparts (e.g., Proust, Joyce, Musil), to the traditions of European thought from Voltaire to Georg Lukacs, from Schopenhauer to Heidegger, from Marx to Max Weber.

Instructor(s): David Wellbery      Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SIGN 26086, GRMN 27517, FNDL 27517

CMLT 27602. Renaissance Demonology. 100 Units.

In this course we analyze the complex concept of demonology according to early modern European culture from a theological, historical, philosophical, and literary point of view. The term 'demon' in the Renaissance encompasses a vast variety of meanings. Demons are hybrids. They are both the Christian devils, but also synonyms for classical deities, and Neo-platonic spiritual beings. As far as Christian theology is concerned, we read selections from Augustine's and Thomas Aquinas's treatises, some complex exorcisms written in Italy, and a recent translation of the infamous "Malleus maleficarum," the most important treatise on witch-hunt. We pay close attention to the historical evolution of the so-called witch-craze in Europe through a selection of the best secondary literature on this subject, with special emphasis on Michel de Certeau's "The Possession at Loudun." We also study how major Italian and Spanish women mystics, such as Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi and Teresa of Avila, approach the issue of demonic temptation and possession. As far as Renaissance Neoplatonic philosophy is concerned, we read selections from Marsilio Ficino's "Platonic Theology" and Girolamo Cardano's mesmerizing autobiography. We also investigate the connection between demonology and melancholy through a close reading of the initial section of Robert Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" and Cervantes's short story "The Glass Graduate" ("El licenciado Vidriera").

Instructor(s): Armando Maggi     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Course taught in English.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 26504, HIST 22110, ITAL 26500, RLST 26501

CMLT 27610. Brave Old Worlds: Russian Jewish Culture. 100 Units.

This course will examine the worlds of Russian Yiddish culture, with a focus on its radical and Revolutionary forms. Materials will include folklore and ethnography, poetry and visual art, and political history of Bundist and anarchist movements. Literature and theory will include the work of Dovid Bergelson, S. An-sky, Lilya Brik, Moyshe Kulbak, Peretz Markish, Gennady Estraikh, Anna Shternshis, Yevgeniy Fiks, Nina Gourianova, and others. All texts will be in translation.

Instructor(s): Anna Elena Torres     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Study Abroad

CMLT 27621. Philosophical Aesthetics: Heidegger and Adorno. 100 Units.

Two major positions in German philosophical aesthetics of the 20th century will be considered in detail: 1) the ontological-hermeneutic theory advanced by Martin Heidegger; 2) the dialectical-critical theory developed by Theodor W. Adorno. Primary readings will be Heidegger's Origin of the Work of Art and selections from Adorno's Aesthetic Theory. In addition, selected shorter pieces by the two authors will be studied, with a special emphasis on their work on lyric poetry. The seminar will also consider contributions by Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Helmut Plessner, Arnold Gehlen, Georg Lukács. The course seeks to develop an understanding of the conceptual foundation of each of the two philosophical positions. Particular topics to be considered: a) the nature of artistic presentation (Darstellung); b) the nature of artistic truth; c) the historical character of art; d) the political significance of art; e) the relation of art to philosophy.

Instructor(s): David Wellbery     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Undergrads must receive consent.
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 27621, CMLT 37621, GRMN 37621, SCTH 37621, SCTH 27621

CMLT 27721. Race and Religion: Theorizing Blackness and Jewishness. 100 Units.

Founded on ideals of universalism, pluralism and secularism, France and the United States are fraught with contradictions when it comes to race and religion. Which religions are accepted? Which religions are suspect? Is it minority that defines the difference-or only particular kinds of minority, such as race? To untangle the intersections of race and religion, we will examine Blackness and Jewishness as they are represented in political polemic, fiction, memoir and philosophy from the 1960s to the present. This course introduces students to the foundational concepts for the critical study of race and religion through exploring the constructions of Black and Jewish identity. We will examine the contradictions of secular politics and culture in France and the United States, and discuss how religion, race, and intersecting categories such as gender and sexuality, can become tools of critique. Readings include works by thinkers such as Césaire, Fanon, Memmi, Levinas and Foucault, along with literary classics by Nella Larsen and Sarah Kofman, and contemporary critical essays by Judith Butler, Christina Sharpe and Talal Asad. Throughout this course, we will examine how the concepts of race and religion are key components of the political, philosophical and ethical projects of these authors. No prerequisite knowledge of critical theory, or this historical period, is expected.

Instructor(s): Kirsten Collins     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 27721, ANTH 23916, GLST 27721, FREN 27721, RLST 27721, CRES 27721, JWSC 27721

CMLT 28000. Racine: Phedre/Text/Sources/Translations. 100 Units.

TBD

Terms Offered: Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 29401, FREN 23201

CMLT 28013. Love, Desire, and Sexuality in Islamic Texts and Contexts. 100 Units.

What separates love from lust? How do our erotic desires and sexual practices intersect with our beliefs? This interdisciplinary class explores these questions in conversation with foundational thinkers from the Islamic tradition alongside insights from feminist and queer theory. We will delve into questions on the relationship between romantic, familial, and divine love; gender, sexuality, and the body; and Orientalism and the politics of reading desire cross-culturally. Exploring a diverse set of primary sources that range from the Qur'ān to Rūmī's Masnāvī to contemporary Bollywood, we will encounter different representations of love, desire, and sexuality in religious and philosophical discourses, literary representations, and visual media. We will examine not only how these representations reflect different historical norms, but also how and to what extent texts and images can inform or impact the norms of their contexts as well. No prerequisite knowledge of the topics or time periods discussed is needed, and students will have the opportunity over the course of the class to develop a project that relates our content to their own interests.

Instructor(s): Allison Kanner-Botan     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course counts as a Concepts course for GNSE majors.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 28013, SALC 28013, NEHC 29018, MDVL 28013, GNSE 23135

CMLT 28280. The Good Place and the Bad Place: Judgement, Punishment, and Living a Good Life. 100 Units.

Do you believe that you are a good person and, if so, why are you good? This course will investigate the connections between personal intentions to be a "good person" and the fear of punishment. What do we owe each other as ethical actors? Do the intentions of our actions matter or only the results of our actions? How can one be good in an increasingly complicated web of intersecting needs, social developments, and understandings of morality? This course will examine conceptions of hell, eternal punishment, and justice in a variety of religious traditions. In addition to reading authors such as Dante and John Milton, students will critically engage The Good Place, a sitcom which tackles deep questions of faith, morality, and the complexity of the human person. We will think through competing understandings of justice (retributive, distributive, and restorative) alongside our individual beliefs surrounding fairness and deservingness. No prior knowledge of religious studies or ethics is expected.

Instructor(s): Foster Pinkney     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 28280, RLST 28280

CMLT 28405. Religion in Anime and Japanese Pop Culture. 100 Units.

How does Spirited Away reflect teachings of Japanese Buddhism and Shinto? Or what about Neon Genesis Evangelion? What can pop culture tell us about religion? In this course, we will consider what Japanese religions are (and are not) by looking at their representations in popular cultural forms of past and present. Sources are drawn from a range of popular cultural forms including anime and manga, but also literature, artistic performances, visual arts, and live-action movies. The course covers foundational aspects of Japanese religious life through non-traditional sources like Bleach, The Tale of Genji, and Your Name. At the end of the course, students will be able to speak to the great diversity of religious practices and viewpoints in Japan, not only its centers but also its peripheries and minorities. Meanwhile, we will consider broader questions about the complex connections between religion and popular culture. No prior knowledge of Buddhism, Shinto, or Japanese history is expected.

Instructor(s): Bruce Winkelman     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 28405, EALC 28405, MADD 14805

CMLT 28447. It's the End of the World as We Know It: Apocalypticism and Religious Thinking about the End Times. 100 Units.

Why and how will the world end? How much time is left? What happens to humans in those final days-and after? This course will examine art, rituals, and sacred texts - along with the movements that produced them - in order to understand how religious communities have answered such questions throughout history. Along the way, we will learn about the circumstances that have inspired Apocalyptic movements, the religious traditions that they have emerged from, and the theological and political principles that have animated them. We will cover a wide range of contexts, including Roman-occupied Judea during the first century CE, the Xhosaland of southern Africa in the mid 19th century, and the rise of QAnon and climate activism in the 21st century United States. No prerequisite knowledge of the historical periods or religious traditions examined required.

Instructor(s): Marshall Cunningham     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 28447, HIST 25219, RLST 28447, JWSC 28447

CMLT 28500. Journey to the West II. 100 Units.

TBD

Equivalent Course(s): CHIN 31306, CMLT 38500, CHIN 21306, RLIT 49200

CMLT 28506. Jesus: From Scripture to the Silver Screen. 100 Units.

Jesus holds particular significance for believers all around the world. But how is he portrayed in modern films? How faithful are these depictions to the Bible? Do these portrayals push a certain kind of theological position? In this course, we will examine film adaptations of Jesus, including biopics, dramas, comedies, and musicals. As we watch everything from Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) to Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), we will compare these modern depictions to ancient texts and theology. During the course, students will become familiar with significant aspects of Jesus's life both in canonical and noncanonical Gospels, as well as to how those texts have been understood in the antiquity and today. After the class, students will be able to analyze critically portrayals of Jesus in order to understand why certain decisions are made and address pivotal questions about biblical interpretation, cinema and adaptation, and the ethical challenges of representing religious figures in media. No prior familiarity with biblical studies or film criticism is required.

Instructor(s): Richard Zaleski     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 28506

CMLT 28509. Reinterpretations of Time and Death. 100 Units.

This class will explore philosophical, religious and literary reimaginings and reconceptualizations of the nature of time and of death. Of special concern will be both conceptual and imaginative speculations that contravene commonsensical notions such as 1) time as a sequence of nonconsecutive and nonoverlapping "moments," 2) time as unidirectional, 3) time as uninterrupted, 4) time as synordinate, 5) time as nonrepeating, 6) death as either the end of individual consciousness or the continuation of individual consciousness, 7) death as either leading to consequences of the life lived or having no such consequences, and so on. Readings may include the following: Borges, "A New Refutation of Time," Amis, Time's Arrow; Baker The Fermata; Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five; Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra; Eagleman, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives; and Ziporyn, Death Time Perception (in progress), among others.

Instructor(s): Brook Ziporyn     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): HREL 35809, DVPR 35809, RLST 28509

CMLT 28550. Comparing Epic, Then and Now. 100 Units.

Two of the great epics of world literature, Gilgamesh and Beowulf, were only rediscovered in the nineteenth century, after being lost to the world for centuries. We will read both epics in translation, consider the consequences of their recovery for world literature, and look at expansions on their narratives by contemporary writers. How is our understanding of literature changed by the sudden emergence of an unknown masterpiece? What does it look like to respond to an instant classic? What gaps need to be filled, which parts would we rather were missing, and how do contemporary writers add on in a way that feels authentic to the original?

Instructor(s): Mark Payne     Terms Offered: Winter

CMLT 28633. Monkeys, Elephants, and Cows: Animals in Indian Literatures and Cultures. 100 Units.

Non-human animals are ubiquitous in India's literary and visual cultures, whether as characters in epics, fables and moral tale; as objects of study by court scholars and painters; as pets and hunting companions; as part of the Hindu pantheon (such as the elephant-headed god Ganapathi, or the monkey god Hanuman) or as symbols and metaphors. This course explores the complex interactions among human and non-human animals and the realms of animals/mortals/immortals through examples from India's literatures, Indian painting and film - across times, places, spaces and religious traditions. It will conclude with contemporary debates on animal activism and provide a non-Western entry point into the field of animal studies.

Instructor(s): Nisha Kommattam     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 28633

CMLT 28660. Contemporary Palestinian Life Writing. 100 Units.

This course analyzes a range of Palestinian life narratives produced by authors based in different places, both in Palestine and the diaspora, united in a common cause and a desire to speak out, thereby circulating their works as a form of Palestinian testimony. This course sees these writers conversing with each other, each attempting to represent their own personal experience but also responding to the broader context of ongoing Palestinian dispossession, making this integral to the snapshot of experience they want to narrate. This course shows that such texts, individually meaningful but also conversant with wider concerns and messages of solidarity and advocacy, are ideal components of contemporary Palestinian literature that position itself as future-orientated, and expresses a desire to combat the international community's failure to acknowledge Palestinian rights for justice and self-determination. This course contends that contemporary Palestinian life writing goes beyond narrating the specifics of the conflict in order to reflect on central questions of dignity, justice, and solidarity at the time Palestine is still a place that is not fully recognized. All readings will be in English, although there will be an opportunity to read and discuss texts in the original language (Arabic).

Instructor(s): Ahmad Qabaha     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 38661, ENGL 28661, RDIN 38660, CMLT 38660, NEHC 38660, NEHC 28660, RDIN 28660

CMLT 28690. Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things Revisited. 100 Units.

South Indian author Arundhati Roy's fascinating Booker-prize winning novel The God of Small Things (1997) catapulted her to unexpected world fame, leading to the book's inclusion in many liberal arts curricula centered around postcolonial writing or so-called "world lit". Written in English, the novel appears to be easily accessible to a global audience, but in fact the narrative contains dense layers of micro-regional, specific nuances that can easily escape readers and that warrant closer examination. In this course, we will read the novel closely with fresh eyes, pairing the fictional text with select secondary sources on gender, caste, class, history, communism, regionalism, vernacularity, migration, diaspora and trauma. No prior knowledge of India/South Asia is required. Students who wish to take this class need to be present from week 1 of the quarter.

Instructor(s): Nisha Kommattam     Terms Offered: Spring

CMLT 28705. Christian Iconography. 100 Units.

In Christian culture, visual images have for many centuries played a pivotal role in ritual, devotion, intellectual thought, and religious instruction. The most important aims of this course are that students understand images convey meaning in very unique ways and learn how to decode their visual messages. The study of iconography encompasses a variety of methods used to identify the subject matter of a pictorial image, describe its contents, and analyze its discursive strategies in view of its original cultural context. We will cover some of the most important themes visualized in the arts of Christianity by analyzing imagery spanning different periods, geographical regions, pictorial media, and artistic techniques. While special emphasis is placed on the intersections of art and literature, we will also examine pictorial themes that are independent of a specific textual basis. Alongside the study of Christian iconography, this course will address broader issues of visual inquiry, such as patronage, viewer response, emotions, and gender roles. In this course, students will acquire a 'visual literacy' that will enable them to explore all kinds of works of art fruitfully as primary sources in their own right. Students will be examined on the basis of an essay and one oral presentation of a work of art. Active participation in the classroom discussion is also a requirement.

Instructor(s): Karin Krause     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course is intended primarily for students who have little or no familiarity with the methods of visual analysis.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 28705, ARTH 28705, MDVL 28705

CMLT 28800. The (Auto)Biography of a Nation: Francesco De Sanctis and Benedetto Croce. 100 Units.

At its core, this course examines the making and legacy of Francesco De Sanctis's History of Italian Literature (1870-71), a work that distinguished literary critic René Wellek defined as "the finest history of any literature ever written" and "an active instrument of aesthetic evolution." We will read the History in the larger context of De Sanctis's corpus, including his vast epistolary exchanges, autobiographical writings, and so-called Critical Essays in order to detail his reform of Hegelian aesthetics, his redefinition of the intellectual's task after the perceived exhaustion of the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Romantic moments, and his campaign against the bent toward erudition, philology, and antiquarianism in 19th-century European scholarship. We will compare De Sanctis's methodology to that of his scholarly models in France (Alphonse de Lamartine, Alfred Mézières) and Germany (Georg Gottfried Gervinus, Georg Voigt) to explore De Sanctis's claim that literary criticisms - not just literary cultures - are "national." In the second part of the course, we assess Benedetto Croce's appropriation of De Sanctis in his Aesthetics (1902), arguably the last, vastly influential work in its genre and we conclude with Antonio Gramsci's use of De Sanctis for the regeneration of a literary savvy Marxism or philosophy of praxis.

Instructor(s): R. Rubini
Note(s): Course not offered in 24-25.
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 38800, KNOW 27700, ITAL 27700, KNOW 37700, ITAL 37700

CMLT 28860. Pedagogical Scenes. 100 Units.

A course about narratives of education and formation, with readings on the politics of education, queer theory, critical university studies. Primary texts include Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, Sylvia Plath. Secondary readings include: John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, Nick Mitchell, Lauren Berlant, Lee Edelman.

Instructor(s): Na'ama Rokem     Terms Offered: Spring

CMLT 28872. Jews in Nazi Germany: Lion Feuchtwanger's novel The Oppermanns in historical context. 100 Units.

Recently republished in 2022, Lion Feuchtwanger's 1933 best-seller The Oppermanns depicts a Jewish family who grapple with the Nazi seizure of power in Germany. Like many at the time, the Oppemanns think that the regime will be short-lived, but Feuchtwanger's prescient novel anticipates the entrenchment of Nazi power and the creeping curtailment of Jewish life in Germany with uncanny accuracy-from the thugs attacking individuals to the Ministry of Propaganda's demonization of Jewish Germans in mass media, via the enforced "Aryanization" of businesses required to employ non-Jewish managers. Discussion will focus on Feuchtwanger's nuanced portrayal of the distinct ways in which family members react to these assaults, supplemented by historical texts, including the analysis of Nazi language (1946) by Victor Klemperer, a Jewish-German survivor, and documents in the Weimar Republic Sourcebook.

Instructor(s): Loren Kruger     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Required: Complete HUM core
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 28872, JWSC 28872, ENGL 28872, FNDL 28872

CMLT 28990. La Princesse de Clèves and the Genesis of the Modern Novel. 100 Units.

Madame de La Fayette's 1678 novel represents a turning point in the international development of the psychological novel and historical fiction. Set in a Renaissance past of courtly international intrigue, the novel plumbs its characters' interiorized struggles with erotic desire, marriage, and adultery, forging a path for later novelists such as Flaubert, George Eliot, and Tolstoy. We will examine debates about its literary form and moral impact, as well as around gender and women's writing, placing the novel in a transnational context (Spanish, Italian, and English romances, drama, and moral philosophy) and its later reception, including film adaptations and its role in heated contemporary controversies around the place of the humanities in society. Students are encouraged to undertake individual comparative research projects in relation to the novel. Course taught in English but reading ability in French required.

Instructor(s): Larry Norman      Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor required for undergrads; those seeking FREN credit must have completed at least one French literature course, 21700 or higher.
Note(s): All work in French for students seeking FREN credit; written work may be in English for others.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 28900, CMLT 38990, FREN 38900, FNDL 29405

CMLT 29003. Islam Beyond the Human: Spirits, Demons, Devils, and Ghosts. 100 Units.

This seminar explores the diverse spiritual and sentient lifeforms within Islamic cosmology that exist beyond the human-from jinn, angels, and ghosts to demons and devils. We will focus on theological, scientific, philosophical, anthropological, and historical accounts of these creatures across a variety of texts, as well as their literary and filmic afterlives in contemporary cultural representations. In so doing, we consider the various religious, social, and cultural inflections that shape local cosmological imaginaries. We ask how reflecting on the nonhuman world puts the human itself in question, including such concerns as sexuality and sexual difference, the boundaries of the body, reason and madness, as well as the limits of knowledge.

Instructor(s): Alireza Doostdar and Hoda El Shakry     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Enrollment by Consent Only (for both grads and undergrads). Students should send the instructors a paragraph explaining their interest and prior preparation or familiarity with the themes in the course.
Note(s): This course meets the LMCS or SCSR Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): AASR 49003, GNSE 49003, CMLT 49003, GNSE 29003, KNOW 49003, ISLM 49003, NEHC 49003, ANTH 29003, RLST 29003, NEHC 29003, ANTH 49003

CMLT 29023. Returning the Gaze: The West and the Rest. 100 Units.

Aware of being observed. And judged. Inferior... Abject… Angry... Proud… This course provides insight into identity dynamics between the "West," as the center of economic power and self-proclaimed normative humanity, and the "Rest," as the poor, backward, volatile periphery. We investigate the relationship between South East European self-representations and the imagined Western gaze. Inherent in the act of looking at oneself through the eyes of another is the privileging of that other's standard. We will contemplate the responses to this existential position of identifying symbolically with a normative site outside of oneself-self-consciousness, defiance, arrogance, self-exoticization-and consider how these responses have been incorporated in the texture of the national, gender, and social identities in the region. Orhan Pamuk, Ivo Andrić, Nikos Kazantzakis, Aleko Konstantinov, Emir Kusturica, Milcho Manchevski.

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 33609, HIST 23609, REES 29023, REES 39023, CMLT 39023, NEHC 39023, NEHC 29023

CMLT 29024. States of Surveillance. 100 Units.

What does it feel to be watched and listened to all the time? Literary and cinematic works give us a glimpse into the experience of living under surveillance and explore the human effects of surveillance - the fraying of intimacy, fracturing sense of self, testing the limits of what it means to be human. Works from the former Soviet Union (Solzhenitsyn, Abram Tertz, Andrey Zvyagintsev), former Yugoslavia (Ivo Andrić, Danilo Kiš, Dušan Kovačević), Romania (Norman Manea, Cristian Mungiu), Bulgaria (Valeri Petrov), and Albania (Ismail Kadare).

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 39024, REES 29024, REES 39024

CMLT 29026. Loyalties, Friendships, Loves. 100 Units.

The Eastern European experience of surveillance under the police state is most often associated with the sense of betrayal, the invasion of the innermost spaces of intimacy and individual consciousness by the secret all-seeing eye. What is often overlooked, however, is the obverse side of fear - the fierce code of loyalty, the tenacity of friendship and love nurtured in the interstices of surveillance and resistance. How are love and friendship understood in such circumstances? Are they experienced in the same way as we understand them? This class will explore these emotional cultural scripts through an array of East, Central, South-East European literary and cinematic works.

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 29026, REES 39026

CMLT 29045. Dostoevsky and Critical Theory. 100 Units.

The tormented, obsessed, and sadistic characters of Dostoevsky's novels posed a challenge to positivism and reason too scandalous and compelling to be ignored. The novels inspired some of the most brilliant and influential thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the fields of religion, philosophy, psychology and literary theory. We will read two of Dostoevsky's philosophically challenging novels alongside works by these critics and philosophers, including Nietzsche, Sartre, Freud, Bakhtin, Kristeva, and Levinas. While exploring their ideas about faith and unbelief, madness and reason, violence and torture, society and history, we will also inquire into the relationships among literature, philosophy and biography and examine the processes of influence and adaptation.

Instructor(s): Anne Eakin Moss     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 39045, RLST 28207, REES 29045, REES 39045

CMLT 29071. Magic Nations. 100 Units.

As part of the post-colonial turn, magic realism is a hybrid mode of narration rejects, overcomes, and offers an alternative to the colonial, Enlightenment episteme. It mobilizes the imaginations and narrative modes of pre-colonial pasts in the articulation of new, post-colonial, often national, selves. In this course, we will unpack some captivating narratives from Southeast Europe in which the visions of the pre-modern mythic worlds emerge as the magic, transcendent core of the modern nations. We will indulge in the sheer enjoyment of the brilliance of these text while focusing on the paradoxes they embody - for example, the simultaneous rejection and reliance on the realist mode, the colonial worldview, and its civilizational hierarchies and models.

Instructor(s): Angelina Ilieva     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): REES 29071, REES 39071

CMLT 29300. Dostoevsky: The Idiot. 100 Units.

TBD

Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 48902, CMLT 39300, FNDL 27101, REES 30018, ENGL 28902, REES 20018

CMLT 29447. Autotheory/Autofiction. 100 Units.

A resurgence of contemporary life writing has been characterized by the terms "autotheory" and "autofiction." These terms point to ways in which contemporary life writing complicates narrative presentations of selfhood by inflecting autobiography through generically estranged kinds of writing, theory and fiction. Narrative exposition may be further complicated by issues of non-monolingualism and gender insecurity that invite non-narrative exploration within the presentation of a life project. In this course we will examine contemporary exemplars of autotheory and autofiction in light of exemplars from earlier phases of modernity. Readings will include: Fernando Pessoa, Virginia Woolf, Jorge Luis Borges, Roland Barthes, Robert Glück, Lyn Hejinian, Clarice Lispector, Rachel Cusk, Cecilia Vicuña, Paul Preciado, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Raquel Salas-Rivera. All readings will be in English, although there will be an opportunity to discuss texts in French and Spanish in the original language.

Instructor(s): Mark Payne     Terms Offered: Autumn

CMLT 29700. Reading Course. 100 Units.

Terms Offered: Autumn,Winter,Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Note(s): 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.

CMLT 29801. BA Project and Workshop: Comparative Literature. 100 Units.

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.

Instructor(s): TBD     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Note(s): Required of fourth-year students who are majoring in CMLT. Students should register for this course in the term where it best fits in their schedule.

CMLT 29947. Autotheory/Autofiction. 100 Units.

A resurgence of contemporary life writing has been characterized by the terms "autotheory" and "autofiction." These terms point to ways in which contemporary life writing complicates narrative presentations of selfhood by inflecting autobiography through generically estranged kinds of writing, theory and fiction. Narrative exposition may be further complicated by issues of gender insecurity and interwoven practices of reading and writing that invite non-narrative, meta-narrative, or intertextual exploration in the presentation of a life project. In this course we will examine contemporary exemplars of autotheory and autofiction in light of exemplars from earlier phases of modernity and pre-modernity in European and East Asian literature. All readings will be in English, although there will be an opportunity to discuss texts in French and Chinese in the original language.

Instructor(s): Mark Payne     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 29947