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The 200-level Collegiate courses in humanities seek to extend humanistic
inquiry beyond the scope of the Common Core. A few of them also serve as parts
of special degree programs. All of these courses are open as electives to
students from any Collegiate Division.
110-111-112. Readings in World Literature. This course examines the
relationship of the individual and society in literary texts from across the
globe. Writers studied range from Austen to Toni Morrison, from Voltaire to the
Egyptian Nawal El Sadaawi, from Gogol to the Brazilian Clarice Lispector, from
Flaubert to Salman Rushdie. In the autumn, the class surveys prose works from
the Renaissance to the 1980s, in which individuals learn--or struggle--to
situate themselves in a society that is often unaccepting of individuality. In
the winter, students consider the problem of evil through an analysis of
authors as diverse as Dostoevksy, Hardy, Lispector, Cela, Weiss, and Arendt. In
the spring, the class explores the issue of alienation, using Kafka as a point
of departure, and eventually moving on to the autobiography of Maya Angelou.
Students in this course work closely with a writing tutor and participate in
weekly writing workshops. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
115-116-117. Philosophical Perspectives on the Humanities. This sequence
studies philosophy both as an ongoing series of arguments, mainly but not
exclusively concerning ethics and knowledge, and as a discipline interacting
with and responding to developments in the natural sciences, history, and
literature. Papers are assigned throughout the course to help students develop
their writing and reasoning skills. Readings may vary from section to section,
although the year is organized around several common themes. The autumn quarter
focuses on Greek conceptions of ethics and epistemology, primarily through
analysis of Platonic dialogues, but readings may also come from Aristotle and
the Greek dramatists. The winter quarter focuses on questions and challenges
raised by the intellectual revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, with readings from Montaigne, Bacon, Descartes, Pascal, Galileo, and
Shakespeare. The spring quarter focuses on modern moral philosophy, and on the
relation of philosophy to literature, with readings from Hume, Kant, Diderot,
Melville, Conrad, and Nietzsche. T. Cohen, Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
Go to middle of document 120-121-122. Greek Thought and Literature. This sequence approaches its
subject matter in two ways: generically and historically. First, it offers an
introduction to the methods of humanistic inquiry in three broadly defined
areas: history, philosophy, and imaginative literature. The works of Herodotus
and Thucydides are studied as examples of historiography; the dialogues of
Plato exemplify philosophy; imaginative literature is exemplified by Homer's
epic poetry, the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and the
comedies of Aristophanes. Second, the sequence is concerned with ancient Greek
culture as a system of related activities and
attitudes. By following the creative phases of Greek culture in roughly
chronological order, beginning with Homer and ending with Plato, we aim at
understanding what ancient works meant to their original authors and audiences
and how each work reflects the specific conditions of its composition. We study
exemplary texts and cultural development in ancient Greece because of the
Greeks' unique influence upon the history of civilization in the western
hemisphere. Importantly, this is also a class in how to write an effective
essay. We place considerable stress on how to construct an argument, how to
reason cogently with a philosophical or literary text. Because the course is
cross-disciplinary, we consider how to ask literary questions of a historical
text, philosophical questions of a literary text, and the like. The course is
not conceived of at all as a prerequisite for a prospective classics major,
though it does introduce students to great classical texts; it is meant to be a
course in humanities, sharing with other courses in the core sequence an
interest in exploring the spirit of human greatness. D. Bevington, Staff.
Autumn, Winter, Spring.
123-124-125. Human Being and Citizen. "Who is a knower of such excellence,
of a human being and of a citizen?" As both human beings and citizens, we are
concerned to discover what it means to be an excellent human being and an
excellent citizen, and to learn what a just community is. This course seeks to
explore these questions and related matters, and to examine critically our
opinions about them. To this end, we read closely and discuss critically
seminal works of the Western tradition, selected partly because they richly
reveal the central questions and partly because, read together, they force us
to consider different and competing ways of asking and answering questions
about human and civic excellence. The diverse and even competing excellences of
which we are capable, to which we are drawn, and among which we may have to
choose make it impossible for us to approach these great writings as detached
or indifferent spectators, especially as these books are both the originators
and the most exacting critics of our common opinions--opinions by which we
explicitly or implicitly guide our lives. Thus we seek not only an
understanding of certain enduring questions, but also a deeper appreciation of
who we are, here and now, all in the service of a more thoughtful consideration
of our lives as human beings and citizens. This course also aims to cultivate
the liberating skills of careful reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
Reading list (1995-96): Homer, Iliad; Genesis; Plato, The Apology of
Socrates; Sophocles, Antigone; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics;
the Gospel According to St. Matthew; Shakespeare, Measure for Measure;
selected American poems and documents; Kant, Foundations of the
Metaphysics of Morals; Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. A. Kass,
Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
Go to top of document 130-131-132. Strategies of Interpretation: Form, Problem, and Event. "There
are no magics or elves or timely godmothers to guide us" (Gwendolyn Brooks). We
must create our own paths through the world. Interpretation is not a passive,
safe, or merely academic activity; it is our power to create new paths or
reshape old paths through the world. Interpretation involves intellectual risk,
as well as well-honed persuasive skills. The interpretations of others always
challenge our own, so we must gain experience in different methods or
strategies of interpretation in order to complicate and clarify our own
positions while recognizing the merits and faults of others. We encourage
vigorous debate and disagreement in the different sections of this course. By
focusing on literary, philosophical, and historical analyses as strategies of
interpretation, we come to a better understanding of forms, problems, and
events. The complex structures of literary texts, the difficult questions posed
by philosophical inquiries, and the intricate patterns of historical accounts
all make demands on the ways we see ourselves and the world around us. Our aim
in the course is to culminate in an appreciation of how these different
strategies of interpretation interact with one another and contribute together
to a critical understanding of human experience. Thus in each quarter we read
literary, philosophical, and historical texts, showing how each kind of writing
may be submitted to each style of interpretation. At the same time, the
course's emphasis on students' critical writing is designed to sharpen their
skills in thinking and expression. D. Bruster, Staff. Autumn, Winter,
Spring.
130. Strategies of Interpretation: Form. How is a human life shaped in
writing? In what ways does the literary form of autobiography limit or expand
the possibilities of selfhood? During this quarter we address not only the
formal or structural features that autobiographical works have in common but
also how those works' formal differences embody changing conceptions of the
self. Readings include Augustine's Confessions, Descartes's Discourse
on Method, Kingston's Woman Warrior, and Mishima's Sun and
Steel.
131. Strategies of Interpretation: Problem. PQ: Hum 130. How is
gender important for philosophical understanding? Are the masculine and the
feminine eternal categories of being or cultural conventions? This quarter we
examine gender as a philosophical question, as well as the relevance of gender
to traditional philosophical problems. Readings include Plato's
Symposium, Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well, Freud's
Schreber case, Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of
Woman, and Woolf's A Room of One's Own.
132. Strategies of Interpretation: Event. PQ: Hum 131. How do we
understand emancipation historically? In what ways was the end of slavery a
defining moment for the United States? This quarter investigates texts centered
on a discrete historical event--the proclamation of emancipation in 1863--but
asks also whether emancipation ought to be understood differently, as a process
perhaps not yet completed. Readings include Du Bois's The Souls of Black
Folk, Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Douglass's Narrative of the Life
of an American Slave, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
135-136-137. Introduction to the Humanities. Open only to first-year
students. Like other Common Core sequences, this course is grounded on the
texts and analyses that characterize the humanities. This sequence is unique,
however, in its emphasis on teaching the skills of writing. We pay special
attention to the nature and effects of writing structures in the texts we
study. We continue this attention to the students' own writing, which is
substantial: an average of one assignment per week, which we discuss in seminar
meetings of five or six students. It is not a course in remedial writing but
rather, a course for those students who want to become particularly proficient
writers. Readings for the course are organized according to our focus on
writing. In the autumn quarter we examine several of the constituent analyses
of the humanities, and we read shorter texts. In 1994 these included Lincoln,
Second Inaugural Address and Gettysburg Address; Jefferson, Declaration of
Independence; Plato, Apology and Crito; Thucydides, selections
from The Peloponnesian War; and Shakespeare, Henry IV. In the
winter, we concentrate on constructing the problems posed in the humanities. In
1995 our texts were The Peloponnesian War; The Federalist Papers; and
short fiction by Ambrose Bierce and Joseph Conrad. In the spring, we turn to
intense and expansive works of imaginative literature: poetry by John Donne,
Emily Dickinson, and T. S. Eliot; and Tolstoy, War and Peace. L.
McEnerney. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
140-141-142. Reading Cultures: Collecting, Traveling, and Capitalist Cultures.
Introducing students to methods of literary, visual, and social analysis,
this course addresses the formation and transformation of cultures across a
broad chronological and geographic field. Our objects of study range from the
Renaissance epic to contemporary film, the fairy tale to the museum. Hardly
presuming that we know definitively what "culture" means, we examine paradigms
of reading within which the very idea of culture emerged and changed. W.
Brown, K. Trumpener, Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
Go to top of document 140. Reading Cultures: Collecting. This quarter focuses on the way objects
and stories are selected and rearranged to produce cultural identities. Likely
texts include Ovid's Metamorphoses; collections of European,
Native-American, and African-American myths and tales; T. S. Eliot's The
Waste Land; Alejo Carpentier's The Lost Steps; and Orson Welles's
Citizen Kane. We also examine museum installations of the past and
present, as well as contemporary artworks about the museum.
141. Reading Cultures: Traveling. This quarter considers the literary
conventions of cross-cultural encounter. We read ancient, early-modern and
modern travelers' reports, such as Herodotus's Histories, Basho's
Narrow Road to the North, and contemporary tourist literature; narratives
of conquest and colonization, such as the Columbus Diario, Comoens's
Lusiads, and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe; and texts of diaspora and
emigration.
142. Reading Cultures: Capitalist Cultures. This quarter works toward
understanding the relation, in the modern and postmodern periods, between
economic development, on the one hand, and processes of cultural formation,
deformation, and transformation, on the other. We examine literary and visual
texts both celebratory and critical of modernization, urbanization, and
"Westernization." Texts probably include modernist painting and poetry; Modikwe
Dikobe's Marabi Dance, Abdelrahamn Munif's Cities of Salt, and
Richard Wright's Native Son; contemporary poetry, music, and video; and
the city of Chicago itself.
150-151-152. Perspectives on Language in the Humanities. This course
considers fundamentals of language and its relation to other aspects of
humanistic studies, including the arts, philosophy, social structure, and
history. The first quarter is devoted to a careful reading of foundational
texts in linguistics, including excerpts from Aristotle; Plato, The
Cratylus; Hobbes, Leviathan; Saussure, General Course in
Linguistics; and Sapir, Language. In the second quarter we consider
language in relation to its speakers as members of society--considering
problems of language and gender, language and ethnicity, and language and race.
In the third quarter, we examine the role of language theory in contemporary
studies of culture, gender, sexuality, and political economy. Texts include:
Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams; Foucault, The History of
Sexuality; Baudrillard, For a Critique of the Political Economy of the
Sign; Butler, Gender Trouble; and Barthes, Mythologies. As an
alternative to either the second or third quarters as described above, a
quarter emphasizing language and history may also be offered. Both the history
of languages and the role of language in historical studies will be taken up.
Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
164. South Asian Visual Culture (=Art H 185). From ancient Buddhist cave
paintings and monumental Hindu temples to the medieval Islamic architecture of
the Taj Mahal and contemporary Bombay films, the history of South Asian arts
and architecture includes diverse visual cultures. This course studies the ways
these varied art forms generate meanings for audiences within the specific
historical and cultural contexts of their use. These include their contextual
use in religious rituals, at imperial courts, as political rhetoric, in the
formation of national and postcolonial identity, and self-representation.
Visits to the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago
are included. W. Taylor. Spring.
Go to top of document 168. German Jewish Culture since 1780: The Discontents of Assimilation (=GS Hum
272, German 278). PQ: Reading knowledge of German desirable but not
required. This is a broad survey of German Jewish culture from the
Enlightenment on, with a close analysis of the entwinement of German and Jewish
cultures at particular historical moments. Themes include emancipation and
assimilation, Jewish women and Salon-culture, the rise of racial
anti-Semitism, Jewish "self-hatred" and the search for new Jewish identities,
and the Holocaust and its aftermath. Literary texts by Heinrich Heine,
Rahel Varnhagen, Else Lasker-Schüler, Franz Kafka, Paul Celan, Peter
Weiss, and others. Background readings by David Sorkin, Hannah Arendt, Sander
Gilman, Raul Hilberg. Class discussion in English; readings available in
English and German. K. Garloff. Autumn.
173. Reading Eating: The Narratives of Food (=GS Hum 214, German 270).
PQ: Knowledge of German, French, or Italian helpful but not required.
In this course we discuss modern and contemporary texts, from film to
literature, from psychoanalysis to anthropology, dealing with the
representation of eating as a metaphor of national, cultural, and sexual
identity. Feminist theory and psychoanalytical and anthropological essays are
theoretical reference points. We examine how, in certain depictions or
fantasies, the figures of "eating" become the means to convey personal and
cultural anxieties of invasion and/or destruction. While studying the texts, we
pay specific attention to whether the discourse of eating serves to set up and
define or bring down and collapse the boundaries between the self and other,
inside and outside, subject and object. C. Novero. Winter.
177. Practicing American Poetry, 1855-1899 (=Eng 258). Once upon a time in
the nineteenth century, the American public actually read poetry. In this
course, we attempt to re-imagine the nineteenth-century "public" (or multiple
"publics") and its poetic practices: its needs, pleasure, and agendas. We
attend, particularly, to the overlapping spheres--domestic, "public,"
commercial, and state-sponsored--that allowed poetry to reach beyond
established East Coast magazines and into the daily life of (mostly)
middle-class Americans. A. Sorby. Autumn.
200. Judaic Civilization I: Biblical Literature and Religion (=JewStd 200).
This course provides an overall introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Old
Testament), with specific attention to its literary, religious, and ideological
contents. The diversity of thought and theology in ancient Israel is explored,
along with its notions of text, teaching, and tradition. Revision and
reinterpretation is found within the Bible itself. Portions of the earliest
postbiblical interpretation (in Philo, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and selected
Pseudepigrapha) are also considered. J. Collins. Autumn.
201. Judaic Civilization II: Rabbinic Judaism from the Mishneh to Maimonides
(=GS Hum 271/371, JewStd 201). Study of the primary texts in the
development of classical and medieval rabbinic Judaism from roughly 70 C.E. to
the twelfth century. The course centers around selections (in translation) from
the Mishneh and tannaitic midrash, the Babylonian Talmud, Geonic and Karaite
writing, the Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew literature of Andalusia, and Maimonides'
legal and philosophical compositions. Topics include different conceptions of
the Hebrew Bible and its interpretation; the origins and development of the
Oral Law; relations between Judaism and both Christianity and Islam;
sectarianism; rationalist and antirationalist trends in rabbinic thought; and
the emergence of secular pursuits in the rabbinic tradition. J. Stern.
Winter.
Go to top of document 202. Judaic Civilization III: The American-Jewish Experience (=JewStd 202).
This course, the third in the Jewish Civilization sequence, focuses this
year on the Jewish experience in the United States, mainly during the past one
hundred years. The central theme is the effort of representative writers and
intellectuals to make sense of both terms of their hyphenated Jewish-American
identities. The texts include novels and short stories, films, critical essays,
autobiographies, and letters. The course is organized around representative
figures, such as Abraham Cahan, Louis D. Brandeis, Mary Antin, Horace Kallen,
Henry Roth, Delmore Schwartz, I. B. Singer, Saul Bellow, Grace Paley, and
Cynthia Ozick. M. Krupnick. Spring.
Collegiate Courses
203. Heroic Failure: Lord Jim and The Great Gatsby (=Fndmtl 281).
This course focuses on a reading of Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim and F.
Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The reading focuses on how
narrative techniques construct what is seen and understood and how the narrator
is as much told as he is telling. E. Wasiolek. Autumn.
207. Augustine's Confessions and The Life of Teresa of Jesus
(=Fndmtl 276, Id/Met 290/390). The course examines confessions and
autobiography as ways of orienting lives and selves toward alteration, focusing
in particular on love and discourse as agents of transformation. It consists of
a close reading of the texts in English translation. We spend about seven weeks
on the Confessions and about three on The Life of Teresa. Class
consists of brief lectures and discussion. Students may choose to write papers
on one or both of the texts. W. Olmsted. Autumn.
208. Milton's Paradise Lost (=Fndmtl 219, Id/Met 219/319). This
course is based on a close reading of Milton's Paradise Lost with
emphasis on the poem's redefinition of heroic virtue and on the text's
engagement with issues of family, politics, history, psychology, and theology.
W. Olmsted. Winter.
212. Myths and Symbols of Evil (=Fndmtl 223, RelHum 223). This course
examines in depth Martin Buber's Good and Evil and Paul Ricoeur's
Symbolism of Evil. There are a few brief lectures, but emphasis is on
seminar discussion and student participation. A. Carr. Not offered 1995-96;
will be offered 1996-97.
220. Don Quixote (=Fndmtl 220). This course is based on a close
reading and analysis of the text. Discussions focus on problems of textual
analysis and interpretation as well as on questions of literary theory,
fictional form, and narrative technique. Reading and discussion are in English.
Those competent to do so are urged to read the text in Spanish. G. Haley.
Autumn.
224. Homer and Tolstoy (=ComLit 306, GS Hum 275/375). This course consists
of a close reading of the Iliad and War and Peace. We compare and
contrast the role of the epic in ancient and modern culture. Emphasis is on
class discussion. M. Ehre, H. Sinaiko. Spring.
Go to top of document 225. Homer: The Odyssey (=Fndmtl 214, Id/Met 214/314). This course
is based on a close reading of the text and focuses on such topics as the
relation between nature and culture, the heroic model of leadership, the
encounters of Odysseus with other cultures, and the role of story in
establishing and sustaining social ties. We discuss the tensions between heroic
and domestic models of virtue and examine the poem's construction of gender and
sexuality. W. Olmsted. Autumn.
228-229. Problems in Gender Studies (=Anthro 215, Eng 102-103, GS Hum 205-206,
Hist 204-205, SocSci 282-283). PQ: Second- or third-year standing and
completion of a Common Core social science or humanities course or the
equivalent. This two-quarter interdisciplinary sequence is designed as an
introduction to theories and critical practices in the study of feminism,
gender, and sexuality. Both classic texts and recent reconceptualizations of
these contested fields are examined. Problems and cases from a variety of
cultures and historical periods are considered, and the course pursues their
differing implications for local, national, and global politics. Topics might
include the politics of reproduction; gender and postcolonialism; women, sexual
scandal, and the law; race and sexual paranoia; and sexual subcultures. L.
Berlant, E. Hadley, Staff, Autumn; E. Alexander, E. Povinelli, Staff,
Winter.
230-231-232. Medieval Jewish History I, II, III (=NELC 280-281-282). A
three-quarter sequence dealing with the history of Jews over a wide
geographical and historical range. First quarter work is concerned with the
rise of early rabbinical Judaism and development of the Jewish community in
Palestine and the eastern and western Diaspora during the first several
centuries A.D. Topics include the legal status of the Jews in the Roman world;
the rise of rabbinical Judaism; the rabbinical literature of Palestine in that
context; the spread of rabbinical Judaism; the rise and decline of competing
centers of Jewish hegemony; the introduction of Hebrew language and culture
beyond the confines of their original home; and the impact of the birth of
Islam on the political and cultural status of the Jews. An attempt will be made
to evaluate the main characteristics of Jewish belief and social concepts in
the formative periods of Judaism as it developed beyond its original
geographical boundaries. Second-quarter work is concerned with the Jews under
Islam, both in Eastern and Western Caliphates. Third-quarter work is concerned
with the Jews of Western Europe into the time of the first crusade. N. Golb.
Autumn, Winter, Spring.
233. Borges. This lecture/discussion course in English is organized around
Borges's multifaceted career, from avant-garde poet in the 1920s to essayist,
film critic, short story writer, and literary prankster. The focus is on the
development of his narrative art (with emphasis on his wit and humor) in the
context of his acknowledged "precursors" in the genre of the fantastic:
Hoffman, Gogol, Poet, and Kafka. Some theory is discussed (Borges, Todorov, et
al.). R. de Costa. Autumn.
234. The World of the Biblical Prophets (=JewStd 234, NCD 280). This course
offers an in-depth analysis of the biblical prophets. Each prophet is set in
historical time and within a particular societal context, and against this
background a profile of the man is drawn. What was he like as a social reformer
and religious thinker? What did he say no to in society and no to in organized
worship? And to what did he say yes? How was his message received, and what
influence did it have in its day? Finally, are the prophets merely historical
figures, curiosities of antiquity, or do they speak to us in our age? H.
Moltz. Autumn.
Go to top of document 235. The Radicalism of Job and Ecclesiastes (=Fndmtl 246, JewStd 235, NCD 277).
Both Job and Ecclesiastes dispute a central doctrine of Hebrew Bible,
namely, the doctrine of retributive justice. Each book argues that a person's
fate is not a consequence of his or her religio-moral acts and thus the piety,
whatever else it is, must be disinterested. In brief, the authors of Job and
Ecclesiates, each in his own way, not only "de-mythologizes," but
"de-moralizes" the world. The students read the books in translation and
discuss their theological and philosophical implications. H. Moltz.
Spring.
240. Introduction to Russian Literature II: 1850-1900 (=Russ 256/356). This
is a survey covering the second half of the nineteenth century. Major figures
studied are Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Leskov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Chekhov.
Representative works are read for their literary value and against their
historical, cultural, and intellectual background. Class discussion is
encouraged. All readings in English. N. Ingham. Winter.
241. Dostoevsky (=Russ 275/375). A close reading of Dostoevsky's main works
with the aim of understanding the aesthetic and philosophical dimensions of
each work. Works read include Poor Folk, The Double, Notes from the
Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Possessed, The Gentle Creature, The
Dream of the Ridiculous Man, and The Brothers Karamazov. E. Wasiolek.
Not offered 1995-96; will be offered 1996-97.
242. Tolstoy (=Russ 276/376). A close reading of Tolstoy's principal works
seen as aesthetic wholes and in the development of his ideological, moral, and
aesthetic views. All readings in English. E. Wasiolek. Spring.
245. Kant: Ethics, Politics, History, and Religion (=Fndmtl 262, Id/Met
270/370). Kant's writings on the practical are often called formalist and
deontologic. This reading is usually based solely on the Grundlegung
(the English title of which is normally either Fundamental Principles
or Groundwork), an early "critical" work written for a very specific
purpose. The assumption in this course is that Kant is much more interesting
than this reading indicates and than attention to the Grundlegung alone
allows. Some of the course readings, consequently, are his Metaphysics of
Morals, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, and various essays on
"history." These in combination provide subtle and consciously interrelated
reflections on the problems of practice. D. Smigelskis. Spring.
247. Hegel's Philosophy of Right (=Fndmtl 230, Id/Met 269/369). The course
first focuses on "translating"--becoming more familiar with what is to many the
peculiar language of Hegel, a language which has set and still sets the most
important boundaries and questions for many thinkers, not merely about politics
but also about economics, sociology, and jurisprudence. More importantly, a
concern with particular arguments and the general strategies of his argument
understood broadly is also stressed. Once some comfort with the language is
attained, a somewhat critical stance is adopted, if for no other reason than to
guard against the possible bewitchment by what may be for many a somewhat new
language of thought. D. Smigelskis. Autumn.
Go to top of document 254. Poetry of the Jews and/or Germans (=GS Hum 379, German 375, JewStd 275).
The course consists of a series of close readings in several subgenres of
verse drawn from the premodern as well as the modern period. Its aim is to
explore how the problematic identities of disempowered but resistant peoples
("Jews and/or Germans," as well as "others" similarly situated) creatively
reinvent and reinscribe themselves within that most personal and intimate of
canonical genres, "lyric poetry." Following a sequence of core readings and
discussions participants are encouraged to present, interpret, and discuss
poems of their choice. Texts in English and the original. S. Jaffe. Autumn.
256. Aristotle's Politics (=Fndmtl 256, Id/Met 216/316). Special
attention is given to the problems Aristotle thought important to consider and
why they continue to be problems which are worthy of attention. Of particular
interest is the manner in which politics is distinct from but interrelated with
many other enterprises and the shaping of the inquiry as a deliberation which
is meant to eventuate in choices by the readers. Another more recent text in
the same general tradition, probably J. S. Mill's On Representative
Government, is read for comparative purposes. D. Smigelskis. Spring.
262. Aristotle's Poetics (=Fndmtl 290, Id/Met 252/352). Courses
about art are usually concerned with aesthetic and critical questions and
rarely pause to consider questions about how to make works of art. Aristotle's
Poetics would seem to be, in large part at least, about the latter with
the primary focus being certain types of stories. The relation between
aesthetic/critical and poetic strategies will be discussed. In addition, the
text we have is filled with ambiguities. Rather than being a liability, these
ambiguities are an occasion to explore various possibilities of what a poetic
enterprise might involve. Furthermore, various types of stories either
mentioned by Aristotle or which are seeming counterexamples to what he says
will also be part of the course readings and class discussion. D.
Smigelskis. Autumn.
273. Yiddish Literature and Culture in English Translation (=GS Hum 283).
Readings in English of the classics of Yiddish literature, modern Yiddish
prose, and drama writers from Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the
United States. (Yiddish poetry is not covered.) Yiddish cinema and American
Yiddish popular culture form a second motif for the course. There is a strong
emphasis on all of Yiddish culture, both higher culture and popular culture.
Among the writers covered are Sholom-Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, Sholem Asch, I. J.
Singer, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. H. Aronson. Winter.
274. Language, Power, and Identity in Southeastern Europe: A Linguistic View of
the Balkan Crisis (=Anthro 274, GnSlav 230, LngLin 230). Language is a key
issue in the articulation of ethnicity and the struggle for power in
southeastern Europe. This course familiarizes students with the linguistic
histories and structures that have served as bases for the formation of modern
Balkan ethnic identities and that are being manipulated to shape current and
future events. V. Friedman. Autumn.
Go to top of document 278. Cinema and Culture of the 1930s: Germany and Europe (=ComLit 360, GS Hum
378, German 351). PQ: Knowledge of German helpful but not required.
This course considers the dislocations of German cinema in the 1930s (the
transition from Weimar to Nazi cinema) within a broad European context and in
relation to the coming of sound. Particular emphasis is placed on the
relationship between "commitment" and modernism; the rise of fascist and
Popular Front cinemas and their new representations of the nation state; the
impact of sound on film aesthetics and film genre, ethnographic and documentary
filmmaking; the rise of the musical; the realignment of sight and sound, the
voice and the body; surrealism and the politics of eroticism. Films by Fritz
Lang, Hans Richter, Joseph von Sternberg, Douglas Sirk, Leontine Sagan, Leni
Riefenstahl, René Clair, Jean Renoir, Carl Dreyer, Luis Buñuel,
Alfred Hitchcock, Sergei Eisenstein, and Dziga Vertov. K. Trumpener. Winter.
279. Freud and Nietzsche (=Fndmtl 296, GS Hum 383, German 392, JewStd 272).
This course pursues a comparative analysis of the genesis, structure, and
implications of Freudian and Nietzschean thought. Special attention is paid to
issues of individual and cultural identity (sexual, disciplinary, professional,
religious, political), as they emerge from the close reading of two texts:
Freud's Moses and Monotheism and Nietzsche's On the Advantages and
Disadvantages of History for Life. Participants are asked to present their
understanding of, and reaction to, some aspect of these texts seminar-fashion
in the concluding part of the course. Texts in German and English. S. Jaffe.
Winter.
281. Modern Readings in Anthropology: Explorations in Oral Narrative--The Folk
Tale (=Anthro 213/453). Class limited to thirty-five students. This
course studies the role of storytelling and narrativity in society and culture:
comparison of folk-tale traditions; the shift from oral to literate traditions
and the impact of writing; the principal schools of analysis of narrative
structure and function; and the place of narrative in the disciplines: law,
psychoanalysis, politics, history, philosophy, and anthropology. Story
performance and contemporary storytelling in America are considered. J.
Fernandez. Autumn.
283. Arts of Love and Books of Marriage from Sappho and Solomon to Freud and
Lou (=GS Hum 390, German 399, JewStd 273). This course seeks to resituate a
classic gender issue ("love and marriage") within the
textual/cultural/historical contexts of two "theoretical" genres that have both
reflected and helped to shape it: the ars amandi and the Ehebuch.
Texts for the course consist of a core which is discussed in class,
surrounded by a list of suggested readings from which participants may choose a
text to present, interpret, and discuss during the final, seminar-style part of
the course. Premodern as well as modern texts are featured and foreign-language
works are in English and the original. S. Jaffe. Spring.
299. Reading Course. PQ: Consent of instructor and senior adviser.
Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form.
Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
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Humanities
First-year Common Core courses seek to engage students in the challenges and
pleasures of humanistic works through close reading of a broad range of
texts--literary, historical, and philosophical. They are not survey courses;
they try, rather, to focus on the methods and habits of analyzing and
experiencing exemplary texts. Improvement in students' skills in writing,
frequently through special tutorial sessions, constitutes an essential goal of
these courses.
Courses
Common Core Sequences
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