First-year general education 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; rather, they try 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.

The 200-level Collegiate courses in humanities seek to extend humanistic inquiry beyond the scope of the general education requirements. 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. Readings in World Literature. This course examines the relationship between the individual and society in literary texts from across the globe. Texts studied range from a picaresque novel (Lazarillo de Tormes) to Toni Morrison, from Montesquieu to James Baldwin, from Kafka to the Chilean Maria Luisa Bombal, from Flaubert to Philip Dick. In the autumn quarter, 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. The theme for this quarter is alienation. In the winter quarter, students consider the problem of evil through an analysis of authors as diverse as Shakespeare, Conrad, Dostoevsky, O'Connor, and Su Tong. Writing is an important component of the sequence; students work closely with a writing tutor and participate in weekly writing workshops. Staff. Autumn, Winter.

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 slightly 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, and Diderot, among others. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

120-121. 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 general education courses in the humanities an interest in exploring the spirit of human greatness. Staff. Autumn, Winter.

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 excellencies 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 (1998-1999): Plato, Apology of Socrates; Homer, Iliad; Genesis; Plato, Meno; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics; Augustine, Confessions; Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave; American documents; Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals; Tolstoy, Anna Karenina. Staff. 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. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

150-151. Perspectives on Language in the Humanities. This two-quarter sequence considers the fundamentals of language and the relationship of language to other aspects of humanistic studies. The winter quarter concentrates on philosophical and social questions related to language, while the spring quarter focuses on history and myth. Staff. Winter, Spring.

200-201-202. Judaic Civilization I, II, III. This course sequence fulfills the general education requirement in civilization studies. This is a sequential study of periods and communities selected from the history of Judaic civilization, viewed from multiple perspectives (historical, literary, philosophical, religious, and social) and examined in light of the varied ways that civilization is and is not the product of interactions between the Jewish people and surrounding civilizations, nations, and religions. The primary focus is on a close reading of original sources in translation. Specific periods and communities studied may vary from year to year.

205. Short Stories: Fitzgerald and Hemingway (=Fndmtl 231, Hum 205). Many of the short stories of these two authors are gems: beautifully crafted, compactly expressive, and often profound in implication. We read a representative number of stories to see how they express the authors aesthetic and philosophical point of view of being. Among the stories we read are the following: Fitzgerald's "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," "The Rich Boy," "The Bridal Party," and "Babylon Revisited." and Hemingway:'s "Indian Camp," "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife," "The End of Something," "The Three-Day Blow," "Big Two-Hearted River," "A Clean and Well-Lighted Place," and "The Killers." E. Wasiolek. Autumn.

206. George Bernard Shaw: Man and Superman and St. Joan (=Eng 208, Fndmtl 206, Hum 206). This course focuses on witty and moving dramas among characters engaged in confusing contemporary problems of politics, society, money, war, religion, sex, and language. S. Tave. Winter.

208. Milton's Paradise Lost (=Fndmtl 219, Hum 208, Id/Met 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. Autumn.

210. Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (=Fndmtl 241, Hum 210, Russ 246). Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov's modernist masterpiece, written at the height of the Stalinist terror in the 1930s, is much more than a satire or exposé of the absurdity and brutality of that era. It is also a dramatic love story, a comic fantasy, and a highly idiosyncratic work of theology. In interprojecting Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' death and Stalin's Moscow, the novel probes questions of truth, morality, and responsibility on every conceivable level: from the most mundane actions in our everyday lives to politics, metaphysics, the roles of Jesus and Satan in the cosmos (even the ethics of writing novels themselves). The Master and Margarita presents itself as a latter-day Gospel, even as it mocks its own pretensions. D. Powelstock. Autumn.

214. Rhetorical Theories of Legal and Political Reasoning (=Hum 214, Id/Met 324, LL/Soc 224, SocSci 224). This course uses Plato's Gorgias to raise the question of whether practical thinking is possible and considers responses to this question by such writers as Aristotle, Cicero, and Machiavelli. We study the methods and concepts that each writer uses to defend the cogency of legal, deliberative, or more generally political prudence against explicit or implicit charges that practical thinking is merely a knack or form of cleverness. W. Olmsted. Autumn.

224. George Eliot: Middlemarch (=Fndmtl 259, Hum 224). PQ: Completion of the general education requirement in humanities. Eliot's novel of early nineteenth-century life in and around the small English town of Middlemarch offers a panorama of the great variety of human types and aspirations. We proceed chronologically through the eight books of the novel, paying particular attention to the themes of human virtue and vice, courtship and marriage, science and politics, and service and heroism. A. Kass. Winter.

227. Augustine's Confessions: Ancient Autobiography and Contemporary Biography (=Fndmtl 211, Hum 227, RelHum 227, SocSci 207). A seminar class in which Augustine's Confessions and parts of Peter Brown's biography is read and discussed in depth. There are a few brief lectures but emphasis is on discussion of the readings. A. Carr. Winter.

228-229. Problems in Gender Studies (=GendSt 101/201, Hum 228-229, SocSci 282-283; Hum 228=Sociol 228). PQ: Second-year standing or higher. Completion of the general education requirement in social sciences or humanities, or the equivalent. May be taken in sequence or individually. 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 conceptualizations 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 in local, national, and global contexts. Both quarters also engage questions of aesthetics and representation, asking how stereotypes, generic conventions, and other modes of circulated fantasy have contributed to constraining and emancipating people through their gender or sexuality. K. Crawford, Staff, Autumn; L. Salzinger, Staff, Winter.

230-231-232. Medieval Jewish History I, II, III (=Hum 230-231-232, JewStd 230-231-232/381-382-383, MdvJSt 280-281-282). PQ: Consent of instructor. This three-quarter sequence deals with the history of the Jews over a wide geographical and historical range. First-quarter work is concerned with the rise of early rabbinic Judaism and development of the Jewish community in Palestine and the Eastern and Western diasporas during the first several centuries C.E. Topics include the legal status of the Jews in the Roman world, the rise of rabbinic Judaism, the rabbinic literature of Palestine in that context, the spread of rabbinic 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 is 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 until the time of the first crusade. N. Golb. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

233. Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov (=Fndmtl 270, Hum 233, Russ 286). PQ: Knowledge of Russian not required. Close reading and discussion of the primary text, Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov in English translation (Norton Critical Edition). Students are asked to prepare one background reading in advance: Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. Emphasis is on moral, intellectual, and religious issues, and to a lesser extent on novelistic technique. Discussion, oral reports, papers. N. Ingham. Winter.

235. The Radicalism of Job and Ecclesiastes (=Fndmtl 246, Hum 235, JewStd 235). Both Job and Ecclesiastes dispute a central doctrine of the 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. Theological and philosophical implications are discussed. Texts in English. H. Moltz. Spring.

239. Emancipatory Narratives (=Hum 239, Id/Met 318, LL/Soc 218). Some reflective autobiographies written in mid-career are featured. The primary texts are Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, Bill Bradley's Life on the Run, and James Watson's The Double Helix. Each exemplifies how some people have used various resources and strategies to increase their ability to act without simultaneously diminishing the similar abilities of others in situations that require overcoming systemically oppressive obstacles. This is in part accomplished through examples of how a flourishing in certain types of activities has been achieved and the kinds of satisfactions involved. Other texts are chosen as the interests of the class emerge in discussion. D. Smigelskis. Spring

240. Introduction to Russian Literature II: 1850 to 1900 (=Hum 240, 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. Texts in English. Class discussion is encouraged. N. Ingham. Winter.

246. Zola and Dostoevsky on Crime and Retribution (=Fndmtl 265, Hum 246). This course consists of close reading and discussion of two European classics written independently from each other on a similar themes: Zola's Thérèse Raquin (1868) and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (1866). Both are, in a sense, precursors of the detective novel, except that the criminals rather than the detectives are the protagonists. Both are examples of extreme positions taken on transgression: Zola represents a materialistic, "scientific," and Dostoevsky a spiritual, Christian view of human behavior. Both represent thus fundamental texts in expressing these fundamentally opposed points of view. P. Dembowski. Spring.

255. Austen: Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion (=Fndmtl 255, GendSt 255, Hum 255, Id/Met 355). The course considers three novels by Jane Austen in terms of how they treat gender, class, socioeconomic circumstances, family structure, and geographical places as constraining and facilitating the agency of characters. In responding to change, Austen's characters bridge differences of class, gender, family history, and geographical place to form friendships and marriages that change their self-understandings and capacities for productive social and personal activities. We will discuss Austen's representations of evolving selves and how they develop or fail to develop growing powers of agency as they respond to historical and socioeconomic circumstances. W. Olmsted. Winter.

256. Aristotle's Politics (=Fndmtl 256, Hum 256, Id/Met 316, LL/Soc 278). 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. D. Smigelskis. Autumn.

258. The Federalist Papers (=Fndmtl 258, Hum 258, Id/Met 372, LL/Soc 279). This text is the first sustained commentary on the U.S. Constitution. It assumes that the Constitution is not self-interpreting. As such it is read in its entirety as an introduction to the problems and possibilities of both the specifics talked about and the more generic features of a certain type of text. In addition, it is argued that much of what is provided, especially in the first fifty-one of the total eighty-four papers, is meant to be relevant to an appreciation of considerations appropriate to the making, more generally, of certain kinds of practical decisions. Context for these activities is provided as needed in the form of background data as well as some other texts of the same period which deal with the same kinds of problems and activities. D. Smigelskis. Spring.

266. Henry James: The Wings of the Dove (=DivRL 222, Eng 206, Fndmtl 287, GS Hum 266). Class limited to twelve students. A close reading of the novel together with other materials by James (e.g., stories, essays, notebook entries, letters, and prefaces). The course involves inquiry into questions of selfishness and self-abnegation, and love and death. We also discuss the ethics of writing, interpretation, and intimate relations. M. Krupnick. Spring.

274. Language, Power, and Identity in Southeastern Europe (=Anthro 274/374, GnSlav 230/330, Hum 274, Ling 272/372). 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 that are being manipulated to shape current and future events. The course is informed by the instructor's twenty-five years of linguistic research in the Balkans, as well as his experience as an adviser for the United Nations Protection Forces in the Former Yugoslavia and as a consultant to the South Balkan Project of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group, and other organizations. V. Friedman. Autumn.

275. Representing the Holocaust (=German 284/379, Hum 275, JewStd 284/388). This course examines historiographical, literary, and philosophical efforts to grasp the background, meaning, and consequences of the attempt by Nazi Germany at a so-called "final solution of the Jewish Question" in Europe. E. Santner. Spring.

280. World of Biblical Prophets (=Hum 280, JewStd 234/334, 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 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? And finally, is the individual prophet merely a historical figure or a curiosity of antiquity, or does he speak to us in our age? H. Moltz. Autumn.

284. The Personal and the Political in Chinese Lyric Modernity (=Chin 224, EALC 224, Hum 284). This lecture/discussion course explores aspects of the "personal" and the "political" in Chinese lyricism by looking at Chinese poets and poetry in relation to a variety of historical backgrounds, including Confucianism, nationalism, war, Maoist socialism, and contemporary counterculture. We begin with a brief introduction to Chinese classical poetics, move quickly to the reaction against this tradition in the early twentieth-century Chinese "poetic revolution," and then survey the modern Chinese lyric. We use poetic, cinematic, and theoretical texts. Texts in English. J. Crespi. Autumn.

285. Opera: Its Divas, Queens and Enchantresses (=Hum 285, Music 226). Issues of gender and sexuality permeate nearly every facet of opera production. The goal of this course is to investigate the history of opera from a sample of these new vantage points: gender studies, performance practice, and reception studies. Ultimately, we aim to grasp how gender and sexuality have affected the way musicians, authors, film makers and others, from the seventeenth century to the present, have understood and created their images of this art form. Assignments are drawn from musicological writings as well as essays from popular culture, gender studies, theater, and literature. Films of and about operas play an integral role in class discussions. Students are expected to attend five evening video viewings throughout the quarter. H. Poriss. Winter.

286. Philosophy and Friendship (=Hum 286, Philos 217). In contemporary moral philosophy, renewed attention to friendship has served to remind philosophers of the personal relationships of special value in human life and to test the adequacy of moral theories that claim to account for such value. We begin with what Aristotle, Kant, and Mill say about friendship and then examine recent philosophical work (e.g., Railton, Annas, Baron, Herman, Velleman, Stocker, and Badhwar). We ask what friendship reveals about reasons for action; whether the motives and obligations associated with friendship conflict with those demanded by morality more narrowly understood; and about the place of reason, emotion, and desire in ethical life. We also read the writings of Wilde and Fontane, and screen a film by Fassbinder. M. Mason. Spring.

287. The Naked and the Nude in Western Visual Culture (=ArtH 194, Hum 287). This class explores representations of the unclothed human body in a variety of visual contexts (e.g., religious, scientific, mythological, artistic, cinematic, theatrical, erotic, and pornographic), as well as ways in which the unclothed body itself becomes an artistic medium in dance, theater, and performance art. We investigate theoretical problems such as: What is the difference between the nude and the naked? How do modes of representation vary between women and men, or between adults and children? At what point does the unclothed body become pornographic? A. Eaton. Spring.

288. Fiction in Ireland: Quaking the Sod (=Eng 238, Hum 288). Irish writers have often turned to the short story, the "well-told tale," to probe their homeland's "quaking sod:" its tremulous history, its shifting present, and its search for national and cultural self-definition. By placing works from different time periods and perspectives in sharp yet resonant juxtaposition, this course examines the visceral nature of the short story's relationship to Ireland and its development as a distinct genre there. We read a wide selection of new and recent writing in addition to works by Maria Edgeworth, George Morre, Seán Ó Faoláin, Frank O'Connore, Elizabeth Bowen, Swift, Goldsmith, Joyce, and Beckett. C. Skeen. Autumn.

289. Music, Culture, and Power: Colonial Spanish America, 1500-1825 (=Hum 289, Music 220). PQ: Any 100-level music course. Through a selection of case studies from Colonial Spanish America, this course examines a wide range of musical activities in a society in which power is unevenly distributed. It focuses on three main postcolonial issues: the colonized Other, cities as political and economic centers, and the manifold identities (ethnic, class, gender, and locality) specific to a colonial world. We also consider the complex array of questions arising from present-day production of colonial music. Assignments include readings, musical examples, and videos of two operas. B. Illari. Winter.

297. 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.