2014-2015 Catalog

FNDL 28102. Machiavelli's Political Thought. 100 Units.

This course is devoted to the political writings of Niccolò Machiavelli. Readings include The Prince, Discourses on Livy's History of Rome, selections from the Florentine Histories, and Machiavelli's proposal for reforming Florence's republic, "Discourses on Florentine Affairs." Topics include the relationship between the person and the polity; the compatibility of moral and political virtue; the utility of class conflict; the advantages of mixed institutions; the principles of self-government, deliberation, and participation; the meaning of liberty; and the question of military conquest. (A)

Instructor(s): J. McCormick     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Prior consent of instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 27216,LLSO 28200,PLSC 52316

FNDL 25311. Pale Fire. 100 Units.

This course is an intensive reading of Pale Fire by Nabokov.

Instructor(s): Malynne Sternstein     Terms Offered: Winter

FNDL 29901. Independent Study: Junior Paper. 100 Units.

Students who are on campus will be required to attend a series of colloquium meetings in Winter Quarter, but should enroll in the quarter that they will write the Junior Paper. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. Must be taken for P/F grading.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): Open only to Fundamentals students with consent of faculty supervisor and program chairman.

FNDL 29902. Independent Study: Senior Examination. 100 Units.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): Open only to Fundamentals students with consent of faculty supervisor and program chairman. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. Must be taken for P/F grading.

FNDL 20502. Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago and Beyond. 100 Units.

This course looks at Wright's work from multiple angles. We examine his architecture, urbanism, and relationship to the built environment, as well as the socio-cultural context of his lifetime and legend. We take advantage of the Robie House on campus and of the rich legacy of Wright's early work in Chicago; we also think about his later Usonian houses for middle-income clients and the urban framework he imagined for his work (Broadacre City), as well as his Wisconsin headquarters (Taliesin), and spectacular works like the Johnson Wax Factory (a field trip, if funds permit), Fallingwater, and the Guggenheim Museum. By examining one architect's work in context, students gain experience analyzing buildings and their siting, and interpreting them in light of their complex ingredients and circumstances. The overall goal is to provide an introduction to thinking about architecture and urbanism.

Instructor(s): K. Taylor     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 17410

FNDL 21103. 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     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Course taught in English.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 33900,CMLT 26701,CMLT 36701,ITAL 23900

FNDL 21411. The Art of Michelangelo. 100 Units.

The central focus of this course will be Michelangelo’s prolific production in sculpture, painting, and architecture while making substantial use of his writings, both poetry and letters, and his extensive extant body of preparatory drawings to help us understand more about his artistic personality, creative processes, theories of art, and his intellectual and spiritual biography, including his changing attitudes towards Neoplatonism, Christianity, and politics. Our structure will be roughly chronological starting with his highly precocious juvenilia of the 1490s in Florence at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent through his death in Rome in 1564 as an old man who was simultaneously already the deity of art and a lonely, troubled, repentant Christian, producing some of his most moving works in a highly personal style. Beyond close examination of the works themselves, among the themes that will receive considerable attention for the ways they bear upon his art are Michelangelo’s fraught relationship with patrons such as the Medici and a succession of popes; his complex devotion to and rivalry with ancient classical art and his living rivalry with Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Bramante, and others; his changing attitude towards religion, especially his engagement with the Catholic Reform and some of its key personalities such as Vittoria Colonna; his sexuality and how it might bear on the representation of gender in his art and poetry; his “official” biographies created by the devotees Giorgio Vasari (1550, 1568) and Ascanio Condivii (1553) during Michelangelo’s lifetime and some of the most influential moments in the artist’s complex, sometimes ambivalent, reception over the centuries; new approaches and ideas about Michelangelo that have emerged in recent decades from the unabated torrent of scholarship and, especially, the restoration and scientific imaging of many of his works. Through the concentrated art-historical material studied, the course will take seriously the attempt to introduce students with little or no background in art or art history to some of the major avenues for interpretation in this field, including formal, stylistic, iconographical, psychological, social, feminist, theoretical, and reception. Readings are chosen with this diversity of approach in mind.

Instructor(s): C. Cohen     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 17612

FNDL 21810. Italo Calvino. 100 Units.

Italo Calvino is one of the most important authors of the twentieth century. We will read some of his most famous books in Italian. Among others, we will study Le Cita, Invisibili, Gli Amori Difficili, Il Barone Rampante, Se Una Notte D'Inverno Un Viaggiatore. Reading Calvino is an essential experience for all students of Italian culture. We will place his books and his poetics in the context of modern Italian culture and Western European post-modernism.

Instructor(s): A. Maggi     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Taught in Italian.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 21800

FNDL 21908. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. 100 Units.

This seminar will offer a close reading of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, one of the great works of ethics. Among the topics to be considered are: What is a good life? What is ethics? What is the relation between ethics and having a good life? What is it for reason to be practical? What is human excellence? What is the non-rational part of the human psyche like? How does it ever come to listen to reason? What is human happiness? What is the place of thought and of action in the happy life? We shall use the new translation by C. D. C. Reeve (Hackett Publishers).

Instructor(s): J. Lear     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Philosophy or Fundamentals major. This seminar is intended for Philosophy majors and for Fundamentals majors. Otherwise please seek permission to enroll.
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 21720

FNDL 22001. Foucault and The History of Sexuality. 100 Units.

This course centers on a close reading of the first volume of Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, with some attention to his writings on the history of ancient conceptualizations of sex. How should a history of sexuality take into account scientific theories, social relations of power, and different experiences of the self? We discuss the contrasting descriptions and conceptions of sexual behavior before and after the emergence of a science of sexuality. Other writers influenced by and critical of Foucault are also discussed. (A)

Instructor(s): A. Davidson     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): One prior philosophy course is strongly recommended.
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 24800,CMLT 25001,GNSE 23100,HIPS 24300

FNDL 23910. Rulership Ancient and Modern: Xenophon's Education of Cyrus and Machiavelli's Prince. 100 Units.

A reading of two of the classic treatments of political rulership: Xenophon's The Education of Cyrus and Machiavelli's Prince. We will consider the qualities needed to acquire, maintain, and increase political power, the relations between rulers and ruled, the relations between political and military leadership and more broadly between politics and war, the roles of morality and religion in politics, differences between legitimate and tyrannical rule, and differences between modern and ancient views of rulership. (A)

Instructor(s): N. Tarcov     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 33910,PLSC 23910

FNDL 24400. The Mahabharata in English Translation. 100 Units.

A reading of the Mahabharata in English translation (van Buitenen, Narasimhan, Ganguli, and Doniger [ms.]), with special attention to issues of mythology, feminism, and theodicy. (C)

Instructor(s): W. Doniger     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 26800,HREL 35000,SALC 20400,SALC 48200

FNDL 24804. Three Fausts. 100 Units.

This course will examine three Faust stories: the sinful, foolish Faust of the chapbooks, the quester of Goethe's Faust, and the troubled, demonic "Faust" (the fictional composer Adrian Leverkühn) of Thomas Mann's late masterpiece, Dr. Faustus. The focus of the course will be on the problematic nature of knowledge; the goals of ends of knowledge, and how these relate to the goals/ends of human life; the aesthetics of the forbidden; and the relationships between human beings and the forbidden/demonic.

Instructor(s): S. Meredith     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 24814

FNDL 27103. War and Peace. 100 Units.

A close reading of Tolstoy's great novel, with attention to theoretical approaches to be found in the large critical apparatus devoted to the novel.

Instructor(s): W. Nickell     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 22302,CMLT 22301,CMLT 32301,ENGL 28912,ENGL 32302,HIST 23704,RUSS 32302

FNDL 21416. The Poems of Ovid. 100 Units.

Publius Ovidius Naso was the most prolific of the major Latin poets and by far the most influential classical author from the Middle Ages to early modernity. This course includes reading and discussion of all his surviving poetry: the Heroides, verse letters of mythological heroines to their lovers; the Amores, a collection of love elegies; the Art of Love, an erotodidactic manual on sex and love for women as well as men; the Cures for Love; the Metamorphoses, his masterpiece, an episodic and encylopedic epic of mythology and history; the Fasti, a poetic calendar of Roman rituals and festivals; the Tristia and Letters from the Black Sea, exile poems written after Ovid's banishment to Tomis; the Ibis, a poem of invective revenge; and short poems on women's cosmetics and fishing.  Discussion, while geared toward the interests of participants, will range over topics including: wit, affect, and embodiment; narrative and character; form and genre; tradition and innovation; classicism and excess; intimacy and cruelty; interspecies metamorphosis and the inner lives of gods, humans, animals, and plants; and poetic ambition, power, and self-fashioning. All readings will be in English translation, but separate meetings can be arranged for those wishing to read Ovid in Latin.

Instructor(s): D. Wray     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): No knowledge of Latin required.
Equivalent Course(s): CLCV 22114

FNDL 21714. Boccaccio's "Decameron" 100 Units.

One of the most important and influential works of the middle ages—and a lot funnier than the Divine Comedy. Written in the midst of the social disruption caused by the Black Death (1348), the Decameron may have held readers attention for centuries because of its bawdiness, but it is also a profound exploration into the basis of faith and the meaning of death, the status of language, the construction of social hierarchy and social order, and the nature of crisis and historical change. Framed by a storytelling contest between seven young ladies and three young men who have left the city to avoid the plague, the one hundred stories of Boccaccio’s Decameron form a structural masterpiece that anticipates the Renaissance epics, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and the modern short story. Students will be encouraged to further explore in individual projects the many topics raised by the text, including (and in addition to the themes mentioned above) magic, the visual arts, mercantile culture, travel and discovery, and new religious practices.

Instructor(s): J. Steinberg     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 23502,ITAL 33502,REMS 33502

FNDL 21907. Voices from the Iron House: Lu Xun’s Works. 100 Units.

An exploration of the writings of Lu Xun (1881–1936), widely considered the greatest Chinese writer of the past century. We will read short stories, essays, prose poetry, and personal letters against the backdrop of the political and cultural upheavals of early 20th century China and in dialogue with important English-language scholarly works.

Instructor(s): P. Iovene     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 27014,CMLT 27014,CMLT 37014,EALC 37014

FNDL 23400. Plato's Laws. 100 Units.

An introductory reading of Plato's Laws with attention to such themes as the following: war and peace; courage and moderation; rule of law; music, poetry, drinking, and education; sex, marriage, and gender; property and class structure; crime and punishment; religion and theology; and philosophy. (A)

Instructor(s): N. Tarcov     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Enrollment limited. Open to undergraduates with consent of instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 48300,LLSO 28500,SCTH 30300

FNDL 23408. Introduction to Being and Time. 100 Units.

The aim of this course is to introduce one of the most important and discussed works pertaining to the continental field of philosophy of the 20th century: Heidegger's Being and Time. The course is structured by two main movements. On the one hand we introduce the main and fundamental concepts developed by Heidegger in his work through analytic sessions devoted to the most important sections of Sein und Zeit. On the other hand, we follow the way Sein und Zeit was received and discussed in the field of French contemporary continental philosophy, especially through Derrida's and Levinas's interpretations and discussions of Sein und Zeit. The double structure of our itinerary obeys a philosophical necessity which takes the form of a leading question: Is it possible to think beyond the primacy of the horizon of Being—drawn by Heidegger in Sein und Zeit—anything like an "Otherwise than Being"? And if so, we will have to elucidate why and in what sense such an alternative horizon of sense does not entail the abandonment of the Heideggerian Question of Being, but leads, on the contrary, to the full explanation of the background without which the Question of Being raised by Sein und Zeit becomes unintelligible.

Instructor(s): R. Moati     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 23408,PHIL 33408

FNDL 23902. The Arts of Language in the Middle Ages: The Trivium. 100 Units.

Throughout the Middle Ages, formal education began with the study of language: grammar, including the study of literature as well as the practical mastery of the mechanics of language (here, Latin); logic or dialectic, whether narrowly defined as the art of constructing arguments or, more generally, as metaphysics, including the philosophy of mind; and rhetoric, or the art of speaking well, whether to praise or to persuade. In this course, we will be following this medieval curriculum insofar as we are able through some of its primary texts, many only recently translated, so as to come to a better appreciation of the way in which the study of these arts affected the development of medieval European intellectual and artistic culture.

Instructor(s): R. Fulton Brown     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 23510,HIST 33510

FNDL 23915. Plato's Republic. 100 Units.

Plato's Republic is often considered the greatest work of moral and political theory ever written. Plato's themes include justice, courage, moderation, the best political order, civic education, and the proper role of philosophy in politics. The impact of the Republic on later Roman, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and secular Western thought is unquestionably immense. But the Republic is endlessly rich. Readers to this day continue to discover within it new questions and alarming implications. Did Plato really consider the rule of philosopher 'kings' and 'queens' to be possible? Did he encourage forms of propaganda and eugenics in his ideal order? Was he a critical friend of democracy or its fiercest enemy? In the spirit of these questions, we approach the Republic with fresh eyes, analyzing its logic and drama with care, book-by-book, attentive also to the characters of Socrates and his young Athenian interlocutors. (A)

Instructor(s): J. Vandiver     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 23915,CLAS 33915,CLCV 23915,PLSC 33915

FNDL 24208. Cicero on Friendship and Aging. 100 Units.

Two of Cicero’s most enduring works are De Amicitia (On Friendship) and De Senectute (On Old Age). We will read the entirety of both works in Latin and study their relationship to Cicero’s thought and life. Other readings in translation will include related works of Cicero and quite a few of his letters to Atticus and other friends. The first hour of each course meeting will be devoted to translation, the rest to discussion, in order to give opportunities for auditors who are reading in translation. The requirements include a midterm, a final exam, and a paper. Anyone from anywhere in the University may register if you meet the prerequisite.

Instructor(s): M. Nussbaum     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): This is a Latin course that presupposes five quarters of Latin or the equivalent preparation. Others interested in taking it may register for an Independent Study and have different requirements, more writing and no Latin, but they will take a final exam (different).
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 34208,PHIL 24208,LAWS 52403,LATN 28614,CLAS 38614,RETH 38614

FNDL 24212. Lucretius. 100 Units.

We will read selections of Lucretius' magisterial account of a universe composed of atoms. The focus of our inquiry will be: how did Lucretius convert a seemingly dry philosophical doctrine about the physical composition of the universe into a gripping message of personal salvation? The selections will include Lucretius' vision of an infinite universe, of heaven, and of the hell that humans have created for themselves on earth.

Instructor(s): E. Asmis     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): LATN 22100,LATN 32100

FNDL 24314. Dream of the Red Chamber and the Culture of Late Imperial China. 100 Units.

The main focus of this course will be a careful reading of Cao Xueqin’s eighteenth-century masterpiece Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng). In the process, we will examine some of the range of texts, images, and issues across various literary and cultural genres in late-imperial China that this immensely complex novel draws on. The hope is that in doing so we will gain a deeper appreciation both of the novel itself and of the culture of late-imperial China. We will read about and discuss such topics as gender, erotic desire, relations between text and commentary, and the world of theater and performance, as well as dimensions of material culture and theories of medicine and illness. Adaptions of the novel into various media—opera, film, and TV—may also be incorporated into class discussions or occasionally screened outside class. All readings are in English, using the Penguin translation entitled The Story of the Stone. An optional section introducing selections from the original text in Chinese will be available for if there is sufficient student interest.

Instructor(s): J. Zeitlin     Terms Offered: Winter 2015
Note(s): Prior knowledge of Chinese language and literature is not required.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 25305,GNSE 25305

FNDL 25706. Phaedo. 100 Units.

This class will be a close reading of Plato’s Phaedo, which is a dialogue about  what it means to die, and what kinds of things escape death. In addition to interesting ourselves in the—dramatic and philosophical—structure of the dialogue as a whole, we will carefully examine each of Socrates’ arguments for the immortality of the soul. We will also read some contemporary philosophical literature both on the Phaedo itself and on the problem of the afterlife. (IV)

Instructor(s): A. Callard     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 25706,PHIL 35706

FNDL 26904. Le Journal de voyage de Montaigne. 100 Units.

Rédigé en 1580 et 1581, le journal de voyage en Allemagne, en Suisse et en Italie de Montaigne constitue un riche commentaire sur les pratiques politiques, religieuses et culturelles de l'Europe à la fin de la Renaissance. Ainsi, la première partie du journal de voyage met en évidence cette préoccupation politique. On a souligné que les étapes en Alsace, en Allemagne du Sud, en Suisse alémanique et en Autriche se présentaient comme une série d’« impressions de voyage en Eucharistie  ». Sans aller jusqu’à comparer ce voyage avec une excursion en terre cannibale ou dans le Nouveau Monde, il est pourtant vrai que Montaigne découvrit des modèles politiques fondamentalement dissemblables de ceux que la Réforme lui avait fait connaître en France. Le grand apport de ce voyage en Allemagne, Autriche et Suisse fut sans nul doute une perception de la religion plus anthropologique et politique que théologique; elle favorisa le développement d’une expérience de terrain avant de rejoindre Rome. Nous verrons comment le Journal de voyage de Montaigne constitue un document politique et culturel pour Montaigne.

Instructor(s): P. Desan     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): At least two years of French.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 24300,FREN 34300

FNDL 21211. Don Quixote. 100 Units.

The course will provide a close reading of Cervantes' Don Quixote and discuss its links with Renaissance art and Early Modern narrative genres. On the one hand, Don Quixote can be viewed in terms of prose fiction, from the ancient Greek romances to the medieval books of knights errant and the Renaissance pastoral novels. On the other hand, Don Quixote exhibits a desire for Italy through the utilization of Renaissance art. Beneath the dusty roads of La Mancha and within Don Quixote’s chivalric fantasies, the careful reader will come to appreciate glimpses of images with Italian designs. Taught in English. Spanish majors will read the text in the original and use Spanish for the course assignments. The course format would be alternating lectures by the two faculty members on Mondays and Wednesdays. Fridays are devoted to discussion of the materials presented on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Instructor(s): F. de Armas, T. Pavel     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): SPAN 21703 for students seeking Spanish credit

FNDL 21300. James Joyce's Ulysses. 100 Units.

This course considers themes that include the problems of exile, homelessness, and nationality; the mysteries of paternity and maternity; the meaning of the Return; Joyce's epistemology and his use of dream, fantasy, and hallucinations; and Joyce's experimentation with and use of language.

Instructor(s): S. Meredith     Terms Offered: Spring

FNDL 21717. Psychoanalysis as Cultural Theory. 100 Units.

In this seminar we will read Freud’s major writings about society, religion, politics, and culture. We will then examine texts by writers who follow Freud’s lead in their own social, cultural, and political analysis, among them, Theodor Adorno, Norman O. Brown, Julia Kristeva, and Slavoj Zizek.

Instructor(s): Eric Santner     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 26115

FNDL 22405. A Hero and A Fool: Don Quixote and Its Impact on Art and Literature. 100 Units.

The course will study the most popular novel of Early Modern times, its heroic origins, its comedy, and its humanist message.  The adventures of Don Quixote on the dusty roads of La Mancha challenge the actual world in the name of a dream and mix the highest ideals with the humblest reality.  We will see how Cervantes’s novel dialogues with the narratives of its period and later play a major role in English, French, Russian, and Spanish fiction.  We will also examine and appreciate the silent omnipresence of Italian Renaissance art in this novel.

Instructor(s): F. de Armas and T. Pavel     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 24220,CMLT 24220,CMLT 34220,REMS 34220,RLLT 34220,SPAN 34220

FNDL 23107. Introduction to Ethics. 100 Units.

An exploration of some of the central questions in metaethics, moral theory, and applied ethics. These questions include the following: Are there objective moral truths, as there are (as it seems) objective scientific truths? If so, how can we come to know these truths? Should we make the world as good as we can, or are there moral constraints on what we can do that are not a function of the consequences of our actions? Is the best life a maximally moral life? What distribution of goods in a society satisfies the demands of justice? Can beliefs and desires be immoral, or only actions? What is “moral luck”? What is courage? (A)

Instructor(s): B. Callard     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 21000

FNDL 25704. Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality. 100 Units.

This will be an introduction to Nietzsche through the careful study of two mature works: portions of Beyond Good and Evil and all of On the Genealogy of Morality. Topics will include Nietzsche's attack on morality and freedom of the will, perspectivism, and the idea of will to power. Some prior background in philosophy, especially Plato and Kant, will be helpful, but is not required. The grade will be based on one or two writing assignments, with extra credit for high quality class participation.

Instructor(s): B. Leiter     Terms Offered: Spring

FNDL 26106. The Medieval Persian Romance: Gorgani's Vis and Ramin. 100 Units.

This class is an inquiry into the medieval romance genre through the close and comparative reading of one of its oldest extant representatives, Gorgâni’s Vis & Râmin (c. 1050). With roots that go back to Late Antiquity, this romance is a valuable interlocutor between the Greek novel and the Ovidian erotic tradition, Arabic love theory and poetics, and well-known European romances like Tristan, Lancelot, and Cligès: a sustained exploration of psychological turmoil and moral indecision, and a vivid dramatization of the many contradictions inherent in erotic theory, most starkly by the lovers' faithful adultery. By reading Vis & Râmin alongside some of its generic neighbors (Kallirrhoe, Leukippe, Tristan, Cligès), as well as the love-theories of writers like Plato, Ovid, Avicenna, Jâhiz, Ibn Hazm, and Andreas Cappellanus, we will map out the various kinds of literary work the romance is called upon to do, and investigate the myriad and shifting conceptions of romantic love as performance, subjectivity, and moral practice. An optional section introducing selections from the original text in Persian will be available if there is sufficient student interest.

Instructor(s): C. Cross     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RLLT 26106,NEHC 26106

FNDL 26107. Religion and Human Evolution: Reading Bellah. 100 Units.

This course will be a close reading of the magnum opus of one of this generation’s most important sociologists, Robert Bellah’s Religion and Human Evolution. The text will be read and analyzed attentive to historical, theological, and ethical questions about the place of religion in the development of human social life.

Instructor(s): W. Schweiker, W. Otten     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Limited to third- and fourth-year students with priority given to Fundamentals and Religious Studies majors.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 25601

FNDL 26506. Agnes Varda. 100 Units.

This course examines the work of one of the most significant directors working in France today. Making important films from the 1960s to the present day, Varda has been crucial to the development of new film practices: both in the past—as with the birth of the French New Wave Cinema—and in the present by exploring new form of plastic narration and by working with moving images in gallery spaces.

Instructor(s): D. Bluher     Terms Offered: Spring

FNDL 26507. Ernst Lubitsch: An International Style. 100 Units.

“How would Lubitsch do it?” asks Billy Wilder, who famously hang this question in his office. He asked the question hanging in the minds of generations of filmmakers around the world, most likely including Lubitsch himself. In a career spanning nearly three decades, Lubitsch’s name has come to denote a style about style, first exported from Germany to Hollywood and then from Hollywood to the world. In this sense, Lubitsch is first and foremost a filmmaker for filmmakers, and his style decidedly an international one. It is the goal of this course to examine a broadly defined international stylistic history developed by and associated with Lubitsch, whose legacy cannot be adequately assessed without such a perspective. With dual emphases on formal and historical analyses, we will look at Lubitsch’s early Weimar comedy and epic films, American silent masterpieces, musicals, sound comedies, and political farces, as well as Lubitsch-esque films made in Japan, China, and France.

Instructor(s): X. Dong     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 26302,CMST 36302

FNDL 26903. Gombrowicz: The Writer as Philosopher. 100 Units.

In this course, we dwell on Witold Gombrowicz the philosopher, exploring the components of his authorial style and concepts that substantiate his claim to both the literary and the philosophical spheres. Entangled in an ongoing battle with basic philosophical tenets and, indeed, with existence itself, this erudite Polish author is a prime example of a 20th century modernist whose philosophical novels explode with uncanny laughter. In contrast to many of his contemporaries, who established their reputations as writers/philosophers, Gombrowicz applied distinctly literary models to the same questions that they explored. We investigate these models in depth, as we focus on Gombrowicz’s novels, philosophical lectures, and some of his autobiographical writings. With an insight from recent criticism of these primary texts, we seek answers to the more general question: What makes this author a philosopher?

Instructor(s): Bozena Shallcross     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): All readings in English.
Equivalent Course(s): POLI 35301,ISHU 29405,POLI 25301

ARTH 10100. Introduction to Art. 100 Units.

This course seeks to develop skills in perception, comprehension, and appreciation when dealing with a variety of visual art forms. It encourages the close analysis of visual materials, explores the range of questions and methods appropriate to the explication of a given work of art, and examines the intellectual structures basic to the systematic study of art. Most importantly, the course encourages the understanding of art as a visual language and aims to foster in students the ability to translate this understanding into verbal expression, both oral and written. Examples draw on local collections.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Note(s): Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment. For nonmajors, this course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

ARTH 21511. Image, Spectacle, Sound. 100 Units.

Focusing on the pre-modern city primarily in Italy, this seminar seeks to introduce upper level undergraduate and graduate students in the humanities to the way in which art and architecture were elements within a comprehensive urban system that included civic, religious, and daily rituals, both modest and spectacular. The pre-modern city was the site of a whole range of practices in which art played an important but integrated role. The assumption of such a course is that the paintings, sculptures, and artifacts that remain in museums and collections today are only a part of what was once a whole set of social relations between the individual and the collective, between the sacred and the profane. Consequently, through a series of readings that will focus on experience rather than aesthetic production, students will be encouraged to develop research projects that go beyond the frame of the work of art in order to see how it was intimately connected to the structure of urban life and how it profoundly affected the lives of its audience.

Instructor(s): N. Atkinson     Terms Offered: Autumn

ARTH 26803. Architectural Theory and Practice in the Enlightenment and the 19th Century. 100 Units.

This course examines influential new ideas about architectural design from the Enlightenment and nineteenth century in terms of writings and related buildings in Europe and the United States. This experimental period generated theoretical writing that continues to matter to architects today; we will study it in terms of its initial contexts and application. Major themes are: (1) the relationship of a building’s structure to its decoration (or body to clothing, as it was sometimes put); (2) the rise of historical interest in older buildings from divergent stylistic traditions (e.g., classical and Gothic) and its impact on new design; (3) the development of aesthetic theory suited to mass as well as elite audiences (e.g., the sublime and the picturesque); and (4) the idea that architect and building could and should be ethical or socially reformative.

Instructor(s): K. Taylor     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Prior course in art history or permission of the instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 36803

CLCV 22514. Markets and Moral Economies. 100 Units.

This course examines the ways in which economic behavior in the Roman Empire was informed by, and itself came to inform, social and religious mores and practices. We will explore the interrelationship between culture and economy from the accession of Augustus to late antiquity and the conversion of the empire to Christianity. Particular attention will be given to Roman attitudes towards labor, the ethical issues surrounding buying and selling, and alternative allocative mechanisms to the market. Of constant concern will be the tension between the perspectives and prejudices of elites, which stand behind so much surviving literary evidence, and the realities of everyday commerce and economic life as they can be glimpsed in the archaeological and epigraphic record.

Instructor(s): L. Gardnier     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 32514

CLCV 23514. Augustan Culture. 100 Units.

Augustus’ accession to power after decades of civil war was a moment of tremendous cultural and political change. His own writings and the historians’ writings about him will be contextualized with readings from the great literary figures of the time, Livy, Vergil, Horace, Propertius, and Ovid, and supplemented with an overview of the art and architecture of the period.

Instructor(s): M. Lowrie     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 33514

CLCV 29100. Ancient Myth. 100 Units.

This course examines the social, political, cultural, and religious functions of ancient myth. We also examine the various theoretical interpretations of myth that have been proposed in a variety of fields to investigate what myth can tell us about the ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as about those who regard themselves as the inheritors of classical culture.

Terms Offered: Spring

CMLT 24402. Early Novels: The Ethiopian Story, Parzifal, Old Arcadia. 100 Units.

The course will introduce the students to the oldest sub-genres of the novel, the idealist story, the chivalric tale and the pastoral. It will emphasize the originality of these forms and discuss their interaction with the Spanish, French, and English novel.

Instructor(s): T. Pavel, G. Most     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 34402,SCTH 35914,RLLT 24402,RLLT 34402

CMST 10100. Introduction to Film Analysis. 100 Units.

This course introduces basic concepts of film analysis, which are discussed through examples from different national cinemas, genres, and directorial oeuvres. Along with questions of film technique and style, we consider the notion of the cinema as an institution that comprises an industrial system of production, social and aesthetic norms and codes, and particular modes of reception. Films discussed include works by Hitchcock, Porter, Griffith, Eisenstein, Lang, Renoir, Sternberg, and Welles.

Instructor(s): Y. Tsivian, Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn, Spring
Note(s): Required of students majoring in Cinema and Media Studies
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 20000,ARTV 25300,ENGL 10800

CMST 23001. From La Dolce Vita to the Murder of Pasolini. 100 Units.

This course explores an intensely productive, stormy, even delirious period in Italian film culture between 1960 and 1975. In that era the material and social transformations effected by the economic boom, the marketing of Italy’s luxury image, the student movements, and the rise of left and right wing terrorism provoked some of the richest, most innovative work by such filmmakers as Antonioni, Pasolini, Bellocchio, Leone, among others. This Italian "New Wave," distinct from its French counterpart, responded to a host of political and cultural imperatives through new visions of urban space, of social and sexual mores, the relation of "high" and "low," and revisitations of the past both near and distant. These and related questions bound up with film culture and aesthetics we shall discuss in light of both monumental and lesser-known works. All readings in English.

Instructor(s): N. Steimatsky

CMST 28500-28600. 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.

EALC 25811. Foundations of Chinese Buddhism. 100 Units.

An introduction to the Buddhism of premodern China, examined through lenses of philosophy, texts, and art. We will examine important sources for the major currents of Chinese Buddhist thought and practice stretching from the earliest days of the religion in China through around the 13th century (with some attention to modern connections), giving special consideration to major textual and artistic monuments, such as translated scriptures, Chan literature, and the cave-shrines of Dunhuang.

Instructor(s): P. Copp     Terms Offered: Winter 2015
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 22501

ENGL 11501. Chaucer and the Literary Voice. 100 Units.

This course serves as introduction and intensive exploration of the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer. Since Chaucer’s writings consistently foreground questions of who is “speaking” in his writing, we will take “literary voice” as our guiding heuristic, and examine relationships between speech, writing, translation, and dramatis personae. The class will read works from Chaucer’s lyrics, dream visions, and Canterbury Tales. (C, E)

Instructor(s): J. Orlemanski     Terms Offered: Winter

ENGL 11904. Introduction to Modernism. 100 Units.

This course will focus on major literary works of modernism in English. Works studied will include some combination of poetry by T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), W. H. Auden, and Mina Loy, and fiction by Wyndham Lewis, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, and Rebecca West. There will also be opportunities to work on modernist music and visual art, including a trip to the Art Institute. Assessment will be based on two papers of five to seven pages, regular contributions to the Chalk discussion board, and joint class presentations. (B, C, G)

Instructor(s): M. Ellmann     Terms Offered: Winter

ENGL 13800. History and Theory of Drama I. 100 Units.

The course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in drama from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, classical Sanskrit theater, medieval religious drama, Japanese Noh drama, Kyd, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Molière, along with some consideration of dramatic theory by Aristotle, Sir Philip Sidney, Corneille, and others. Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with other members of the course. The goal of these scenes is not to develop acting skill but, rather, to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended. (D)

Instructor(s): D. Bevington     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Preference given to students with third- or fourth-year standing.
Note(s): May be taken in sequence with ENGL 13900/31100 or individually. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 31200,CLCV 21200,CMLT 20500,CMLT 30500,ENGL 31000,TAPS 28400

ENGL 13900. History and Theory of Drama II. 100 Units.

This course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in Western drama from the eighteenth century into the twentieth (i.e., Sheridan, Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, Wilde, Shaw, Brecht, Beckett, Pinter, Stoppard, Churchill, Kushner). Attention is also paid to theorists of the drama (e.g., Stanislavsky, Artaud, Grotowski). Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with other members of the course. The goal of these scenes is not to develop acting skill but, rather, to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended. (D)

Instructor(s): D. Bevington     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Third- or fourth-year standing
Note(s): May be taken in sequence with ENGL 13800/31000 or individually. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 20600,CMLT 30600,ENGL 31100,TAPS 28401

ENGL 15600. Medieval English Literature. 100 Units.

This course examines the relations among psychology, ethics, and social theory in fourteenth-century English literature. We pay particular attention to three central preoccupations of the period: sex, the human body, and the ambition of ethical perfection. Readings are drawn from Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain-poet, Gower, penitential literature, and saints' lives. There are also  some supplementary readings in the social history of late medieval England. (C, E)

Instructor(s): M. Miller     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 15600

ENGL 21401. Advanced Theories of Sex/Gender: Ideology, Culture, and Sexuality. 100 Units.

Beginning with the extension of the democratic revolution in the breakup of the New Left, this seminar will expore the key debates (foundations, psychoanalysis, sexual difference, universalism, multiculturalism) around which gender and sexuality came to be articulated as politically significant categories in the late 1980s and the 1990s. (A)

Instructor(s): L. Zerilli     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Completion of GNSE 10100-10200 and GNSE 28505 or 28605 or permission of instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 21410,ARTH 21400,ARTH 31400,ENGL 30201,GNSE 31400,MAPH 36500,PLSC 31410

ENGL 22210. Marxism and Psychoanalysis. 100 Units.

Much contemporary work on ideology inherits a tradition of work that draws on both Marxism and psychoanalysis. The aim of this course is to provide the background for reading such work. Readings from Marx, Lacan, Althusser, Gramsci, Jameson, Zizek, Berlant. (H)

Instructor(s): M. Miller     Terms Offered: Autumn

ENGL 23415. Theories of the Novel. 100 Units.

This course explores some of the fundamental conceptual issues raised by novels: In what way do plot, character, and authorial intention function in the novel, as opposed to other genres? How are novels formally unified (if they are)? What special problems are associated with beginnings and endings of novels? How do such basic features as titles and chapter divisions contribute to novelistic meanings? What are the ideological presuppositions—about gender, race, and class, but also about the nature of social reality, of historicity, and of modernity—inherent in a novelistic view? What ethical practices and structures of affect do novels encourage? (H)

Instructor(s): L. Rothfield     Terms Offered: Spring

ENGL 24408. Before and After Beckett: Theater and Theory. 100 Units.

Beckett is conventionally typed as the playwright of minimalist scenes of unremitting bleakness but his experiments with theatre and film echo the irreverent play of popular culture (vaudeville on stage and screen, e.g., Chaplin and Keaton) as well as the artistic avant garde (Jarry). This course will juxtapose these early 20th century models with Beckett’s plays on stage and screen and those of his contemporaries (Ionesco, Genet, Duras). Contemporary texts include Vinaver, Minyana, in French, Pinter, Churchill, Kane in English. Theorists include Barthes, Badiou, Bert States, and others. Comparative Literature students will have the opportunity to read French originals. (D, G, H)

Instructor(s): L. Kruger     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): PQ: HUM and TAPS course; this course is for juniors and seniors only; not open to first-year College students
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 24408,TAPS 28438

ENGL 26000. Anglo-American Gothic Fiction in the Nineteenth Century. 100 Units.

In the nineteenth century, gothic fiction in English is an Anglo-American phenomenon. America’s first internationally recognized literary masterpiece, Rip Van Winkle, is written in England and appears the same year as Frankenstein. Our course will study the transatlantic aspect of the gothic tradition, while we also give full attention to the particular qualities of individual texts. Close reading will be central to our project.  Attention to textual intricacies will lead to questions about gender and psychology, as well as culture. Our authors will include Washington Irving, Mary Shelley, James Hogg, Poe, Hawthorne, Emily Bronte, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, Henry James, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Thomas Hardy. (B, G)

Instructor(s): W. Veeder     Terms Offered: Autumn

ENGL 33409. 18th Century Novel. 100 Units.

We'll consider a series of classic eighteenth-century novels: Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Samuel Richardson's Pamela, Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews, Sterne's Sentimental Journey, Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, and Jane Austen's Emma. We'll also be taking up various classic critical treatments of the novel (by Ian Watt, Michael McKeon, Catherine Gallagher, Deidre Lynch, and others).
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Instructor(s): F. Ferguson     Terms Offered: Winter

FREN 21501. Approches à l’analyse littéraire. 100 Units.

Dans ce cours nous aborderons des techniques d’analyse littéraire des textes en vers et en prose. En outre, nous nous pencherons sur des écrits métatextuels—ceux qui traitent des aspects formels des ouvrages littéraires, de leur utilité morale et/ou politique, du rapport entre la littérature et la vie dite réelle. La production littéraire est non seulement une activiteé culturelle, intellectuelle, politique, éthique, et aesthétique, mais aussi l’objet d’une reflexion soutenue au cours des siècles.

Instructor(s): D. Delogu     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): FREN 20500 and one previous literature course taught in French.
Note(s): Taught in French.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 31501

FREN 23600. L'écriture de l'histoire à la Renaissance. 100 Units.

Les intellectuels de la Renaissance durent conceptualiser les événements qui les entouraient et penser l’histoire en des termes nouveaux. La tradition et les textes de l’Antiquité ne suffisaient plus pour comprendre l’homme et le monde. Certains virent dans leur époque un renouveau, d’autres un progrès, d’autres encore un déclin, ou, comme Montaigne, un progrès dans le déclin. Bref, la Renaissance s'interroge sur sa propre histoire et offre une multitude de modèles théoriques pour sa compréhension et son écriture. A partir des textes de Machiavel, Jean Bodin, La Pope linière, Loys Le Roy, Montaigne et d’autres auteurs, nous verrons comment s’écrit l’histoire aux débuts de la modernité.

Instructor(s): P. Desan     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 33600

FREN 25600. Realism and Its Returns in 20th-Century France. 100 Units.

This course will examine the influence and continuation in twentieth-century French literature of the great realist enterprise of the previous century. Beginning with the crisis of naturalism in the late nineteenth century, we will consider the inflections given to literary representation by historical cataclysm, the avant-garde critique of the novel, and the postwar "age of suspicion." We will investigate the reformulations of literature's relationship to reality offered by theories of literary commitment and by the experiments of the Nouveau Roman. Finally, we will evaluate the phenomenon of the "return to the real" in contemporary French literature. Readings will include works by Aragon, Céline, Sartre, Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute, Perec, and Pierre Michon.

Instructor(s): A. James     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Advanced undergraduates admitted with consent of instructor.
Note(s): Course taught in French.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 35600

FREN 26510. Oulipo in Context. 100 Units.

This course will examine the history and achievements of the Paris-based literary collective Oulipo (Workshop for Potential Literature), from its founding as a secret society in 1960 to its expansion into an internationally visible group. We will consider the group's relationship to (and reaction against) earlier and contemporary avant-garde movements, the French new novel, and structuralism, and we will also examine the reception of Oulipian writing outside France. Readings will include collective publications by the group as well as works by Queneau, Perec, Roubaud, Calvino, Mathews, Grangaud, and others.

Instructor(s): A. James     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): A weekly session in French will be held for French majors and graduate students. Students seeking French credit must do the readings (where applicable) and writing in French.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 36510

HIST 20802. Alexander the Great. 100 Units.

This course provides both a survey of the career of Alexander the Great and an introduction to the historiographical traditions (ancient and modern) that shape our understanding of his legacy. We will focus primarily on two clusters of problems. First, we will examine what Alexander’s career can tell us about the dynamics of ancient empires. Second, we will grapple with the interpretative challenges generated by our evidence, which consists largely of literary accounts produced by authors who wrote long after Alexander’s own lifetime and who relied on earlier texts that no longer survive. All sources will be read in translation.

Instructor(s): C. Hawkins     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 30802,CLCV 24506,CLAS 34506

HIST 23002. Protestant Reformation in Germany. 100 Units.

This course is designed to clarify and test the assumptions underlying the present state of knowledge about the Protestant Reformation. Its method consists of reading extensively in the historiography and reflecting intensively on the issues raised by that reading. So as to maintain a well-defined focus the course is limited largely to the Reformation in Germany. So as to develop a broad perspective the course is not limited to the most recent literature. We will begin with some of the most famous older interpretations (Hegel, Ranke, Engels, Troeltsch, Weber, Febvre). We will then go on to consider the redefinition of the historical agenda since the 1960s and the current state of our knowledge by reading the work of leading contemporary historians of the Reformation (e.g., Bernd Moeller, Thomas Brady, Heiko Oberman, Jean Delumeau, Peter Blickle, Heinz Schilling). I will focus on explaining the readings, but I will also leave room for questions and discussion.

Instructor(s): C. Fasolt     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 22602

HIST 24913. Victorian Science. 100 Units.

This course examines how Victorians sought to understand the natural world, and how their scientific work helped develop modern intellectual conventions, social relations, and institutions. We will study a wide range of topics from the 1830s through the beginning of the twentieth century in order to develop a kind of panorama of scientific life and to determine when key features of modern science came into being.

Instructor(s): A. Winter     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 34913,HIPS 24913,HIST 34913

HIST 25506. Science and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries. 100 Units.

One can distinguish four ways in which science and aesthetics are related during the last three centuries. First, science has been the subject of artistic effort in painting and photography and in poetry and novels (e.g., in Goethe’s poetry or in H. G. Wells’s Island of Doctor Moreau). Second, science has been used to explain aesthetic effects (e.g., Helmholtz’s work on the way painters achieve visual effects or musicians achieve tonal effects). Third, aesthetic means have been used to convey scientific conceptions (e.g., through illustrations in scientific volumes or through aesthetically affective and effective writing). Finally philosophers have stepped back to consider the relationship between scientific knowing and aesthetic comprehension (e.g., Kant and Bas van Fraassen). In this course, we will consider these four modes of relationship. The first part of the quarter will be devoted to Kant, reading carefully his third critique; then we will turn to Goethe and Helmholtz, both feeling the impact of Kant, and to Wells, a student of T. H. Huxley. We then consider more contemporary modes expressive of the relationship, especially the role of illustrations in science and the work of contemporary philosophers like Fraassen.

Instructor(s): R. Richards     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 35506,HIPS 25506,CHSS 35506,PHIL 24301,PHIL 34301

HIST 27412. Race and Twentieth-Century Social Science. 100 Units.

This course explores the role that social-science ideologies and methods have played in shaping our understanding of "race" and racial phenomena in the twentieth century. Beginning with the scientific racism that dominated the late-nineteenth century, we will examine the claims and methods of diverse "scientific" interventions over the first half of the twentieth century that both challenged and confirmed racist thinking, including intelligence testing and blood work during World War I, the work of Franz Boas and his students, the Chicago school of sociology, and state policies addressing the race question in the post–WWII era (including the United Nations' UNESCO reports). Our emphasis throughout will be on how social historical and political forces shaped and were shaped in turn by twentieth-century science.

Instructor(s): T. Holt     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Open to upper-level undergraduates.
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 27412,LLSO 21210

HIST 30109. Politics of Culture in African American History. 100 Units.

In this course we will explore historically the political implications of black cultural formations and expressions, focusing on the diverse ways in which culture has been explicitly invoked or deployed to political ends, has served as a means of political mobilization, and has marked African Americans as fit or unfit for citizenship rights. Through this debate, which has been sometimes explicit and at other times sub-rosa, we will probe the meanings and significance attributed to race, culture, and their interrelationship. Among the topics to be addressed in lectures and discussions are the debates on the relation between slave culture and resistance, the contrasting ways black and white performers have engaged the minstrel tradition, the social interpretations of black musical expression, the role to the state in promoting black cultural expression, and culture as a site of resistance.  Each topic will be addressed through lectures and class discussions.

Instructor(s): T. Holt     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): LLSO 27601,CRES 20109,CRES 30109,HIST 20109

ITAL 24110. Vichianism: The Italian Enlightenment. 100 Units.

This course looks at the reception of Giambattista Vico (1668–1744), whose philosophy, largely neglected at first, eventually came to enjoy far-reaching influence as European thinkers set out on repeated quests for the source of a different “modernity” or “Counter-Enlightenment” in fields as varied as political theory (Romagnosi, Cattaneo, Ferrari), the historical and modernist novel (Cuoco, Manzoni, Joyce), Romantic historiography (Michelet, Gioberti), literary criticism (Auerbach), and intellectual history (Berlin). What is the secret behind the enduring appeal of Vico’s anti-rationalist stance? This seminar, going further than dedicating itself to the legacy of a single thinker, wishes to investigate the “logic” (or lack thereof) that attends posthumous acclaim, eponymity, and etiological myths, and to provide guidelines for a disciplined approach to the history, practice, and theory of reception.�

Instructor(s): R. Rubini     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 24110,CMLT 34110,ITAL 34110

ITAL 25115. Topics in the Philosophy of Religion: The Challenge of Suffering from Job to Primo Levi. 100 Units.

This course will focus on authors from the Jewish tradition, although some attention will be given to Catholic and Protestant perspectives, as found, for example, in liberation theology and in certain forms of religious existentialism. We will look at the various ways in which contemporary philosophers of Judaism have dealt with suffering, evil and God, especially after the experience of the Shoah. We will examine the often repeated claim that Judaism has approached the philosophical and religious challenges of suffering more through an ethics of suffering than on the basis of a metaphysics of suffering. After an introductory discussion of Maimonides on the Book of Job, readings for the course may come from authors such as E. Lévinas, J.B. Soloveitchik, Y. Leibowitz, H. Jonas, A. Lichtenstein, D.W. Halivni, D. Shatz, and E. Berkovits. The course will culminate in a philosophical analysis of some of the most important writings of Primo Levi.

Instructor(s): A. Davidson     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): All students interested in enrolling in this course should send an application to aschulz@uchicago.edu by 12/01/2014. Applications should be no longer than one page and should include name, email address, year and major for undergraduates, department or committee for graduate students. Applicants should briefly describe their background and explain their interest in, and their reasons for applying to, this course.
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 25115,DVPR 35115,HIJD 35115,ITAL 35115,JWSC 26115,PHIL 35115,RLST 25115

ITAL 26200. 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     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Class conducted in English.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 36200,CMLT 26700,CMLT 36700

ITAL 28702. Italian Comic Theater. 100 Units.

A survey of the history of Italian theatre from the Erudite Renaissance Comedy to Goldoni’s reform. We will pay particular attention to the tradition of commedia dell’arte (scenarios, stock characters, and plot formation), ancient and medieval influences, evolution and emancipation of female characters, and the question of language. Readings include works by Plautus, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Angelo Beolco (Ruzante), Flaminio Scala, and Goldoni. Toward the end of the course we will consider the legacy of Italian Comedy in relation to the birth of grotesque and realist drama in Pirandello. �

Instructor(s): R. Rubini     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Taught in Italian
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 38702

JWSC 20004-20005-20006. Jewish Thought and Literature I-II-III.

Taking these courses in sequence is not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. Students in this sequence explore Jewish thought and literature from ancient times until the modern era through a close reading of original sources. A wide variety of works is discussed, including the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and texts representative of rabbinic Judaism, medieval Jewish philosophy, and modern Jewish culture in its diverse manifestations. Texts in English.

LATN 22200. Roman Satire. 100 Units.

The object of this course is to study the emergence of satire as a Roman literary genre with a recognized subject matter and style. Readings include Horace Satires 1.1, 4, 6, and 10 and 2.1, 5 and 7; Persius 1 and 5; and Juvenal 1 and 3.

Instructor(s): S. Bartsch-Zimmer     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): LATN 32200

LATN 22300. Roman Oratory. 100 Units.

Two of Cicero's speeches for the defense in the criminal courts of Rome receive a close reading in Latin and in English. The speeches are in turn considered in relation to Cicero's rhetorical theory as set out in the De Oratore and in relation to the role of the criminal courts in Late Republican Rome.

Instructor(s): P. White     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): LATN 32300

NEHC 20573. The Burden of History: A 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): A. Ilieva     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SOSL 27300,CMLT 23401,CMLT 33401,HIST 24005,HIST 34005,NEHC 30573,SOSL 37300

NEHC 20885. Returning the Gaze: The Balkans and Western Europe. 100 Units.

This course investigates the complex relationship between South East European self-representations and the imagined Western "gaze" for whose benefit the nations stage their quest for identity and their aspirations for recognition. We also think about differing models of masculinity, the figure of the gypsy as a metaphor for the national self in relation to the West, and the myths Balkans tell about themselves. We conclude by considering the role that the imperative to belong to Western Europe played in the Yugoslav wars of succession. Some possible texts/films are Ivo Andric, Bosnian Chronicle; Aleko Konstantinov, Baj Ganyo; Emir Kusturica, Underground; and Milcho Manchevski, Before the Rain.

Instructor(s): A. Ilieva     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): SOSL 27200,CMLT 23201,CMLT 33201,NEHC 30885,SOSL 37200

PHIL 21219. Philosophical Issues of Literary Criticism. 100 Units.

Readings will include seminal theoretical works by Frye, Empson, Auerbach, Barthes, Cavell, Kittler.

Instructor(s): R. Pippin, D. Wellbery     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 31219

PHIL 21700. Human Rights I: Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights. 100 Units.

Human rights are claims of justice that hold merely in virtue of our shared humanity. In this course we will explore philosophical theories of this elementary and crucial form of justice. Among topics to be considered are the role that dignity and humanity play in grounding such rights, their relation to political and economic institutions, and the distinction between duties of justice and claims of charity or humanitarian aid. Finally we will consider the application of such theories to concrete, problematic and pressing problems, such as global poverty, torture and genocide. (V) (I)

Instructor(s): B. Laurence     Terms Offered: Spring 2015
Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 20100,HMRT 30100,PHIL 31600,HIST 29301,HIST 39301,INRE 31600,LAWS 41200,MAPH 40000,LLSO 25100

RLST 22602. Protestant Reformation in Germany. 100 Units.

This course is designed to clarify and test the assumptions underlying the present state of knowledge about the Protestant Reformation. Its method consists of reading extensively in the historiography and reflecting intensively on the issues raised by that reading. So as to maintain a well-defined focus the course is limited largely to the Reformation in Germany. So as to develop a broad perspective the course is not limited to the most recent literature. We will begin with some of the most famous older interpretations (Hegel, Ranke, Engels, Troeltsch, Weber, Febvre). We will then go on to consider the redefinition of the historical agenda since the 1960s and the current state of our knowledge by reading the work of leading contemporary historians of the Reformation (e.g., Bernd Moeller, Thomas Brady, Heiko Oberman, Jean Delumeau, Peter Blickle, Heinz Schilling). I will focus on explaining the readings, but I will also leave room for questions and discussion.

Instructor(s): C. Fasolt     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 23002

RLST 23403. What Is Enlightenment? 100 Units.

What is enlightenment? How does one become enlightened, and who is enlightened? In Euro-American civilization, the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment championed the powers of human reason against religion and superstition to achieve scientific progress. Buddhism in the nineteenth century was represented by the heirs of Enlightenment as a religion for the Enlightenment to the point of not being a religion at all. Both traditions offer pathways to freedom (or liberation?) that draw on our rational capabilities, and both sponsor the production of knowledge that re-visions our place in the world. But they seem to be opposed: how could reason reject “religious” beliefs but also take part in “religious” traditions that aim to bring certain kinds of persons into being? We compare the mental models, discourses, methods of analysis, world-images, and practices of these traditions of enlightenment to assess the kinds of disciplines that their theoreticians and practitioners acquire and use.

Instructor(s): M. Browning, Staff     Terms Offered: Will be offered 2014-2015
Prerequisite(s): Third- or fourth-year standing
Equivalent Course(s): BPRO 28100

RLST 23603. Cosmos and Conscience: Looking for Ourselves Elsewhere. 100 Units.

Science and religion are two ways, among many others, that people can seek to know about reality: how do we construct ordered pictures of the whole—cosmos or civilization—and how do we relate to them in terms of action? How do we know what we do not know, and what does that kind of “knowledge” mean for the orientation and direction of human existence? How would cultural biases be affected by knowing that there are others “out there” in the universe, should we discover them? From various perspectives, this course addresses these questions of the origins, structures, and ends of reality as we look for ourselves—seek understanding of the human condition—in the cosmos but also in complex religious and cultural traditions. Whereas in our popular culture, science is often identified with the realm of knowledge and religion is simply “belief” or “practice,” the course also seeks to trace the rational limits of science and the rational force of religion with respect to the ethical problem of the right and good conduct of human life.

Instructor(s): W. Schweiker, D. York     Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-2015
Prerequisite(s): Third- or fourth-year standing
Equivalent Course(s): BPRO 23000,ASTR 23000

RLST 24201. Indian Philosophy I: Origins and Orientations. 100 Units.

A survey of the origins of Indian philosophical thought, emphasizing the Vedas, Upanisads, and early Buddhist literature. Topics include concepts of causality and freedom, the nature of the self and ultimate reality, and the relationship between philosophical thought and ritual or ascetic religious practice. (B)

Instructor(s): D. Arnold     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): DVPR 30200,HREL 30200,SALC 20901,SALC 30901

RLST 24202. Indian Philosophy II: The Classical Traditions. 100 Units.

Continuing and building upon SALC 20901/30901, we focus on the development of the major classical systems of Indian thought. The course emphasizes Indian logic, epistemology, and philosophy of language. (B)

Instructor(s): M. Kapstein     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): RLST 24201
Equivalent Course(s): DVPR 30300,HREL 30300,SALC 20902,SALC 30902

RUSS 25600. Realism in Russia. 100 Units.

From the 1830s to the 1890s, most Russian prose writers and playwrights were either engaged in the European-wide cultural movement known as "realistic school" which set for itself the task of engaging with social processes from the standpoint of political ideologies. The ultimate goal of this course is to distill more precise meanings of "realism," "critical realism,"and "naturalism" in nineteenth-century Russian through analysis of works by Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Aleksandr Ostrovsky, Goncharov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Kuprin. Texts in English and the original. Optional Russian-intensive section offered.

Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 35600

RUSS 25700. Russian Literature from Modernism to Post-Modernism. 100 Units.

Given the importance of the written word in Russian culture, it is no surprise that writers were full-blooded participants in Russia's tumultuous recent history, which has lurched from war to war, and from revolution to revolution. The change of political regimes has only been outpaced by the change of aesthetic regimes, from realism to symbolism, and then from socialist realism to post-modernism. We sample the major writers, texts, and literary doctrines, paying close attention to the way they responded and contributed to historical events. This course counts as the third part of the survey of Russian literature. Texts in English.

Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RUSS 35700

RUSS 27300. Imaginary Worlds: The Fantastic and Magic Realism in Russia and Southeastern Europe. 100 Units.

In this course, we ask what constitutes the fantastic and magic realism as literary genres while reading some of the most interesting writings to have come out of Russia and Southeastern Europe. We consider how these narrative modes conjure alternative realities and how they conceptualize the human self.  We also think about the political power of these alternative realities in their historical contexts: from subversive to escapist, from giving voice to the disempowered to supportive of nationalist imaginaries.

Instructor(s): A. Ilieva     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SOSL 37700,CMLT 27701,CMLT 37701,RUSS 37300,SOSL 27700

SPAN 22310. Literature and Ideas in the Spanish-Speaking Caribbean: The Nineteenth Century. 100 Units.

In this course we will study some of the main intellectual currents in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean during the nineteenth century and their relationships to the literary production of the period. In particular, we will address the reformulation of ideas of the Enlightenment, liberalism, and philosophical Positivism, both for political reflections upon slavery, colonialism, and projects of national independence and social reform as well as for literary aesthetics. How did predicaments of the Enlightenment come to structure pro-slavery thought? What was the relationship between liberalism and abolitionism? How did philosophical principles related to the development of the natural sciences support or undermine projects of national independence and/or of social emancipation (such as women's and labor rights)? And what did literature have to do with these issues? Among the authors we may study are Francisco de Arango y Parreño, Félix Varela, José Antonio Saco, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Condesa de Merlín, Eugenio María de Hostos, Enrique José Varona, José de Jesús Galván, José Martí, and Luisa Capetillo.

Instructor(s): A. Lugo-Ortiz     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Taught in Spanish, with an additional weekly discussion session for graduate students.
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 22310,LACS 32310,SPAN 32310

SPAN 23900. El retorno de Astrea: astrología, mito e imperio en el teatro aurisecular. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): F. de Armas     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): SPAN 21703 and SPAN 21500
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s):

SPAN 26410. La imaginación mediterránea del Siglo de Oro. 100 Units.

In this course we will explore the place of the Mediterranean as a space of cultural contact, conflict, and exchange in the Spanish literary imagination. The ‘Middle Sea’ was not only the geographical framework for a large corpus of Iberian narratives, poems, and plays of the early modern period, but also a discursive space where many political, religious, and cultural ideas of the period were staged and disputed. We will read portions of sixteenth-century Spanish translations of the Odyssey and the Aeneid, travel writing such as the Viaje de Turquía, captivity narratives by Miguel de Cervantes and Diego Galán, short stories by María de Zayas and Lope de Vega, and poems by Garcilaso de la Vega, Fernando de Herrera, and morisco authors.

Instructor(s): M. Martínez     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 36410