Spring 2002 Undergraduate Course Descriptions |
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AFRICAN LITERATURE - NO COURSE OFFERINGS SPRING 2002 LTAM 132 - THE DARK SIDE OF ENLIGHTENMENT: BASTARDS OF 1898 This course will examine the construction of anomalous subjects whose belonging to the United States was forged by U.S. imperial designs in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. We will begin with Martí's simultaneous fascination and horror at the flows of production, consumption, bodies, transportation and communication, etc., that were rapidly transforming the cities and the countryside into a machine of incalculable power, poised to exercise a new hegemony over the Western hemisphere (and Pacific basin). From there, we will question his own intermediary position (as a Cuban exile who wrote extensively on the plight of U.S. minorities), in order to examine other "minor literatures" inspired by the relationship of the U.S. to its island empire and its invisible colonial subjects. Readings may include prose and/or poetry by José Martí, José Rizal, Bernardo Vega, Luisa Capetillo, Carlos Bulosan, Cristina García, Tato Laviera, Jessica Hagedorn, Giannini Braschi, and Bienvenido Santos. LTCH 101 - READINGS IN CONTEMPORARY CHINESE LITERATURE GAO XINGJIAN
THE NOBEL LAUREATE In 2000, Gao Xingjian, a Chinese-French "avant-garde" writer, surprised the Chinese literary circles both at home and overseas by becoming the first-ever Chinese to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. This class is devoted to reading Gao's representative works of fiction, drama, and prose writing. We will also survey controversial responses to Gao's award and consider critical issues such as diasporic writing (as Gao's work now often appears first in a European language), translation and Chineseness, as well as the politics of domestic and international literary awards. All readings of Gao's work are done in the Chinese original, but some critical texts may be in English. Students can choose to write their journal entries and term papers in Chinese or English, but all quizzes, exams, and presentations must be in English. Grading 10 points Attendance and class participation Primary Readings: Gao Xingjian, Lingshan (Soul mountain). Gao Xingjian, Gao Xingjian xiju ji (Selected plays by Gao Xingjian). Gao Xingjian, Bi an (The other shore). Gao Xingjian, Meiyou zhuyi (No isms). A course reader of other required texts. (The following courses in Classical Literature can be found under their respective Literature sub-headings: European, Greek, Latin, and World)
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE - NO COURSE OFFERINGS SPRING 2002 LTCS 110 - POPULAR CULTURE: SOUTH ASIAN DIASPORIC CULTURE This course studies general theories of popular culture in the context of the production and circulation of culture within the South Asian diaspora in the U.S. We will examine a variety of texts - film, popular fiction, magazines, websites, Indian stores, parties, religious gatherings, Sunday schools, parades, restaurants, beauty & talent contests, language classes, summer camps, activist groups, as well as other sites in which South Asian American popular culture is both formulated and contested. We will pay close attention to shifting understandings of gender, nationality, class, globalization, race, and sexuality that are produced in such locations. We will also examine recent scholarly analyses that attempt to read in these cultural practices, a means of remembering old and forging new associations with other communities of color in the United States. LTEA 132 - LATER JAPANESE LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION: "MODERN"
JAPANESE FICTION IN TRANSLATION More or less canonical prose fiction since around 1900. We will discuss key events/ideas such as "modernization/westernization," "war and peace," "nationalism/globalism," "gender politics," "city and industrialization," "wealth and poverty," etc. as they are presented/represented in works. The point is not to "appreciate" the aesthetic merits of works, but to see how contradictions and conflicts are made to look resolved. The purpose of this course is not the transmission of pre-packaged information, but the encouragement of critical thinking. Thus rote-memory, note-taking, and unexamined repetition of ideas are strongly discouraged. Dispute and doubt everything, and do not stop until you find what satisfies you. No prerequisite. 2 short papers (5-7 pp.); no mid-term; discussions; final. LTEN 19 - INTRODUCTION TO CHICANO LITERATURE This course will focus on the history and cultural production of the Mexican-origin population in the U.S.--the Chicanos--from the 19th century to the present. We will begin with writings by and about Mexicans in the Southwest before and after the U.S. invasion of 1848 and then move on into the 20th century. Topics to be covered include: Anglo-Mexican relations before and after 1848, the migrant experience, the Chicano working class, the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and writings by Chicano women. We will end with Chicano writing of the contemporary period. The material to be read includes corridos or ballads, oral legends, short stories, novels or autoethnographic narratives, and dramas. Quizzes, papers, and a final exam will be required. LTEN 23 - LITERATURE OF THE BRITISH ISLES: 1832-PRESENT This course examines British literature written after 1832 in light of relevant historical or cultural developments. Readings will include Charlotte Bronte's novel Villette and Samuel Beckett's trilogy, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnameable. Two papers of 1250 words apiece will be required, determining half of the grade. There will be a final exam. LTEN 24 - INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERATURE OF THE UNITED STATES From within the belly of the beast, this course narrates the complex saga of American literary history. In apprehending this narrative, we consider the uses to which the United States has historically put its literature. From the earliest writings on the American experiment to the most recent experimental texts, this course critically proceeds through American literary history from conventional periodization to conventional periodization. By tracing the narrative of American literary history, we can appreciate both how the texts are products of their historical moments as well as how they serve the history that has us as its present. We examine how even the most canonical of texts -- ones that essentially never fell out of critical acclaim or popular circulation--contain radically forgotten histories that we can recover if we know how to look for them. When we turn our attention to texts that did fall out of American literary history, we understand more acutely why the development of the literature of the United States took the form that it did. LTEN 60 - TOPICS IN ETHNIC AMERICAN LITERATURE: GENDERED FICTIONS
OF AFRICAN AMERICAN AND ASIAN AMERICAN WRITERS This course will examine the work of African American and Asian American women writers. We will analyze how women writers engage with issues of gender and sexuality within the spaces of family located in U.S. multi-ethnic society. How do the texts open alternative spaces of resistance in the face of "silences" and "silencing" from family and society? How do these texts situate race, class, and gender within oppositional literary strategies? We will study the texts as representing two different histories and literary traditions in the United States. Among the texts we will read are Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, and Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior. LTEN 113 - SHAKESPEARE II: JACOBEAN PERIOD (a) A lecture/discussion course exploring six of Shakespeare’s later plays — Othello, King Lear, Anthony and Cleopatra, Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. We will examine the plays with attention to the language, dramatic forms, and theatrical practice of early modern England — in the context of questions of kingship, the state, the family, colonialism, poverty, and the relation between the individual and the community. We will read a selection of primary and secondary materials in addition to the plays. LTEN 125G - KEATS AND HIS POETICAL HEIRS (b) As a largely self-taught writer who never attended a university, lacked money and class status, spoke with the wrong accent, and died in his mid-twenties, John Keats was an unlikely prospect for literary greatness. But he lived and worked with extraordinary purposefulness and intensity, and he wrote a number of the most admired poems and letters in the English language. This class will read his best work closely, aiming to show in plain English how Keats uses poetic form to wrestle with central human problems. The class will also treat the recent controversy over whether his poetry sidesteps or comments upon political issues and whether his liberal sympathies outside his poetry surface in his major writings. We will also read some of the works that influenced him and a sampling of several of the poets, including Gerard Manley Hopkins and Christina Rossetti, whom he influenced. LTEN 127A - VICTORIAN PERIOD: THEMES AND ISSUES SERVANTS IN VICTORIAN
LITERATURE (c) In this course we will examine the ways in which domestic servants and domestic labor are portrayed in a variety of Victorian texts. Domestic servants comprised at least sixteen percent of the working population in Britain throughout the nineteenth century, yet they are often overlooked as significant figures in the literature of the period. As we look at representations of servants, we will consider the following questions: How do servants function within and potentially disrupt social class hierarchies? What are the motivations and rhetorical strategies of writers from different social classes? In what ways are servants important to Britain's status and identity as an imperial power? How do servants influence sexual mores and identities? How does the inclusion of servants' perspectives influence different genres of writing in the nineteenth century (autobiography, the detective novel)? Readings will include Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son, Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, George Moore's Esther Waters, the autobiography of Janet Bathgate, and selections from My Secret Life (anonymous), Isabella Beeton's The Book of Household Management, and Sarah Stickney Ellis's The Wives of England. Books will be available at Groundwork Books and a required course reader will be at Cal Copy. Students will write two papers and take a final exam. LTEN 146 - WOMEN AND ENGLISH/AMERICAN LITERATURE: WOMEN WRITERS
OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD (b) Throughout most of the twentieth century, the concept of British Romanticism consisted primarily of the works of the "Big Six" male poets -- Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Keats, Percy Shelley, and Byron. While these poets are still extremely important in the study of Romanticism, the scholarship of the late twentieth century has broadened the category to include women, genres other than poetry, and writers of non-English ethnicities. This course will be an exploration of the literature by the most prominent (and a few lesser-known) women writers in the British Isles in the period from 1789-1837. During the quarter we will be asking questions about the "proper" roles for women and how contemporary concepts of gender, class, and sexuality affected women's writing -- what genres women wrote in, what topics they wrote about, whether they published their work, etc. We will also explore the influence of the work of female authors on the male writers of the period and will discuss whether or not a concept of "female Romanticism" can be posited as a counterpart to the "male Romanticism" of the Big Six. We will start the quarter with a novel by Mary Wollstonecraft which highlights issues of class as well as addressing many of the same gender-related issues Wollstonecraft discusses in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. We will move on to read excerpts from works that were not meant for the public eye -- the journals of Dorothy Wordsworth and Anne Lister. Most of the course will consist of the study of texts that were written for publication, many of which were quite popular at the time. We will read a short story by Mary Shelley, a play by Joanna Baillie, and Lady Morgan's novel The Wild Irish Girl. Also included will be a short selection of prose by female working-class radicals. And as might be expected in a course on Romanticism, a large section of the course will be devoted to poetry. Books (the two novels and a poetry anthology) will be available at Groundwork Books; there will also be a reader from Postal Plus. Evaluation will be primarily via two essays and a final exam. LTEN 147 - METAMORPHOSES OF THE SYMBOL: AMAZING CAVE JOURNEYS Western literature, in some of its most acclaimed works, focuses attention on a voyager whose travel is more than physical: inward journeys and cultural crossings are as pertinent as miles covered. At a crucial juncture, this traveller happens upon a cave, which may be positive or negative, sensuous or cerebral, isolated or embedded in a society. This encounter functions in very different ways in different authors and at different cultural moments, but often it's at the center of a text that engages some of the Big Questions (about gender and politics but also about philosophy and religion) while also grabbing our attention. And many of these texts debate with their predecessors in the same tradition. Texts will include: Homer's Odyssey, trans. Robert Fitzgerald; Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" from The Republic; Vergil's The Aeneid, trans. R. Fitzgerald (selections); Spenser's The Faerie Queene (brief selections); Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"; Wordsworth's "Peter Bell"; Byron's Don Juan (selections); Mary Shelley's narrative of cave exploring near Naples; Percy Bysshe Shelley's Prometheus Unbound; poems by Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich; and E. M. Forster's great novel, A Passage to India. LTEN 160 - IDEAS AND PHOTO IMAGES OF AMERICAN CULTURE: JUST LOOKING:
1838-1900 This course will trace the interrelated histories of photography and literature in the nineteenth century. Topics for discussion may include the following:
Assignments will include several analytical papers and at least one creative project. LTEN 172 - AMERICAN POETRY II: CHINESE POETRY AND THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION
(e) The course attempts to examine the role of Chinese poetry and poetics in the making of modern American poetry. The word "influence" hardly describes what actually happened. Instead, we will ask these questions: Under what cultural climate and socio-political condition did certain American poets propose perceptual and expressive procedures that are compatible with those in Chinese poetry? Or, to put it slightly differently, what kind of language strategies did they find in Chinese poetry that would help them circumscribe their own problems? Since we must not assume that what is true of the source-model must also be true of its transplanted product, we must find out the native elements--historical and aesthetic obsessions--in the consciousness of these poets that conditioned the process of their appropriation and transplantation. In other words, we must ask: what kind of consciousness crisis prompted them to reject certain traditional dimensions in favor of an alien ideology? In the course of acceptance, what native ideological and aesthetic models were resorted to for support or justification? What kind of modification was being made to localize a given alien model for acceptance?...and more questions of this nature. We will begin with Pound's generation, certain Black Mountain poets, including Cage, the Beat Poets, and end with Rexroth, Snyder, and others. LTEN 178 - COMPARATIVE ETHNIC LITERATURE: 19th and 20th CENTURY CALIFORNIA
NARRATIVES (e) The course will focus on California narratives dealing with a variety of land issues (dispossession, squatting, relocation, homesteading, speculation, transformation, modernization, and theft) as presented in novels by María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Helen Hunt Jackson, John Rollin Ridge, Josiah Royce, and Frank Norris. We will also discuss the film "Chinatown." LTEN 181 - ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE: THE "YELLOW PERIL"
AND ASIAN/AMERICAN CULTURAL RESPONSE (e) Since the Chinese Exclusion Act of the turn of the late nineteenth century, the Asian presence in the U.S. has been understood as posing major social and cultural threats. Moreover, the American relationship to Asia has been dominated by war and militarism, whether in the form of armed conflicts, ideological battles, or economic rivalry. Casting Asians as inscrutable "enemies" past, imminent, reformed, potential, or ungrateful has thus been central to dominant representations and understandings of Asians and Asian Americans. The "Yellow Peril" as an epistemological and affective structure of knowledge has been mediated to us through various forms of representation. It is inscribed in official histories, disseminated through Hollywood films and other popular media, and objectified as academic knowledge. Yet, this "Peril," imagined and real, is constantly contested at various local sites, at the in-between places of Asian/American cultural activities. There we can find various alternative representations and counter-memories. The course will examine the still persistent "Yellow Peril" complex as well as the Asian/American response manifested in diverse cultural forms. LTEN 183 - AFRO-AMERICAN PROSE WHEN LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING ARE PROBLEMS:
TRANSFORMING WORK OF JAMES BALDWIN AND AUDRE LORDE (e) This course begins by considering the dilemma facing would be African-American cultural producers who seek to represent some particularly troubling features of social relation as they arise in the context of African-American life. In a cultural context that is notable for its reliance upon discourses of difference and degradation and of systematically and institutionally cultivating the physical, psychic, spiritual and political dissolution of marginalized people, some souls resist. James Baldwin and Audre Lorde are two such souls. Across different periods of time (Baldwin from the late 50s to the early 80s and Lorde from the late 70s into the 90s) these gifted artists have used their remarkable skills and incisive sensibilities to write powerfully of how the seemingly universally accessible activities of loving and understanding actually become problems when undertaken in the context of American social relations shaped by ideas of race, class, gender and sexuality based differences. Whether you are new to these authors and the passions that drove them to unparalleled excellence, or whether their work already provides the compass for your personal develop-ment you will learn in this course. Reading novels critical essays, bibliographies and secondary sources, we will examine these authors’ work for its content and form, and will understand the social context of its formation. But above all, while we will sometime agree with and sometimes dispute the visions they provide, we will always respond and change ourselves as we engage the transforming work of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. LTEN Upper Division Codes:
Return to top of LTEN section EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN LITERATURE LTEU 100 - THE CLASSICAL TRADITION: THE ANCIENT EPIC In this course we'll read some of the most important and popular of the epic poems from the Greco-Roman world. We'll begin with Homer's epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, move on to Apollonius's Argonautica, and wind up with Vergil's Aeneid. For comparative side trips I may throw in Gilgamesh and Beowulf. We'll be attentive, among other things, to social and historical contexts, to questions of literary form, to the dialogue established by later texts with what went before, and to enjoying these wonderful stories. Papers and a final. LTEU 139 - MARX/NIETZSCHE/FREUD Perhaps no modern writers have so greatly influenced life and thought after them as Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. This course will introduce students to the major ideas of all three writers in some of their most famous works. We shall also pay special attention to the literary styles of all three authors, and to problematic and disturbing aspects of their work. The readings are:
Students will write 5-page essays on each author. All texts will be read and discussed in English. A one-unit XL (pass/not pass) foreign-language discussion section is being offered in conjunction with this class to allow interested students to work on the German texts and receive credit for LTEU 139 as a German course. LTEU 154 - RUSSIAN CULTURE: MODERN PERIOD UTOPIA
AND POPULAR CULTURE (cross-listed with LTRU 150) This course will examine the ways in which Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet writers, policy-makers, artists, architects and filmmakers articulated and responded to the utopian aspirations of the early Soviet period. This was a time when many Soviet artists, writers and cultural critics believed that the new socialist state must produce radically new forms of artistic expression and material culture that would be appealing, intelligible and useful to all of the new state's citizens. This course will explore the links between utopian ideals and popular culture in works such as Aleksandr Bogdanov's science fiction novel Red Star (1908); Marietta Shaginian's Mess-Mend (1925), a suspense-filled novel of magical machines and heroic Russo-American labor unions; and Grigorii Aleksandrov's musical comedy "Circus" (1936). We will study the cult of the machine in early Soviet film and photography; and the ambitious designs of avant-garde artists like Chagall, Malevich, Tatlin and others for innovative teapots, baby-bottles, textiles, clothing, and public housing. In all these varied forms early 20th-century Russian writers and artists sought both to portray and to build a more perfect society. We will also look at the dystopian anxieties of works such as Mayakovskii's satirical play The Bathhouse (1930); Evgenii Zamiatin's dissident novel We (1927); Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris (1972); and the parodic inversions of Soviet ideals in the work of underground and dissident artists in the final decades of the 20th-century. Throughout the course we will consider what it means to speak of "popular" culture, and we will examine the often unexpected connections between avant-garde aesthetic experiments, mass culture and national identity in the Soviet period. All lectures and discussions will be conducted in English. Students who register for LTEU154 will be co-reading and writing assignments in English. Students who register for LTRU150 are expected to do the reading and writing assignments in Russian. If five or more students are interested I will schedule a one-unit pass/not pass foreign language discussion section to allow more detailed study of the Russian texts and to provide students with practice speaking Russian.
LTFR 2A - INTERMEDIATE FRENCH I Second-year course designed to be taken after LIFR 1C/1CX. We undertake a thorough review of grammar while continuing to develop language skills (oral and written) by studying short stories, cartoons, and movies from various French-speaking countries. May be applied towards a minor in French literature. Prerequisite: LIFR 1C/CX or equivalent or a score of 3 on the AP French language exam. LTFR 2B INTERMEDIATE FRENCH II We continue the review of grammar begun in LTFR 2A. To strengthen language skill, plays from the 19th and 20th centuries as well as the movie interpretation of Cyrano de Bergerac are studied. May be applied towards a minor in French literature or towards fulfilling the secondary literature requirement. Prerequisite: LTFR 2A or equivalent or a score of 4 on the AP French language exam. LTFR 2C - INTERMEDIATE FRENCH III/ COMPOSITION AND CULTURAL STUDIES Designed for students who wish to further improve writing and conversational skills. Most advanced course in the program that offers a formal review of grammar. Oral skills are practiced through discussions of cultural issues presented in a contemporary novel and a film. May be applied towards a minor in French literature or towards fulfilling the secondary literature requirement. Students having completed 50 can register in upper-level courses (115 or 116). Prerequisite: LTFR 2B or equivalent or a score of 5 on the AP French language exam. LTFR 21 - CONVERSATION WORKSHOP I Designed to allow students to practice and develop their oral skills by expanding the vocabulary necessary to discuss abstract ideas and by building up the confidence necessary to participate in literature classes. Prerequisite: LIFR 1C/CX or consent of instructor. LTFR 31 - CONVERSATION WORKSHOP II A one-unit, one-meeting-a-week course, designed to develop and maintain oral skills by discussing current cultural issues of the francophone world. This course may be taken more than once, alone or in combination with any other literature course. Prerequisite: LTFR 2B or consent of instructor. LTFR 50 - INTERMEDIATE FRENCH III/TEXTUAL ANALYSIS This course emphasizes the development of language skills and the practice of textual analysis. Discussions are based on analysis of poems as well as on a novel and films. May be applied towards a minor in French literature or towards fulfilling the secondary literature requirement. Students having completed 50 can register in upper-level courses (115 or 116). Prerequisite: LTFR 2B or equivalent or a score of 5 on the AP French language exam. LTFR 116 - THEMES IN FRENCH INTELLECTUAL AND LITERARY HISTORY Dans le cadre de ce cours panoramique nous étudierons les principales tendances du roman, du théâtre et de la poésie de l’Age Romantique â l’époque contemporaine. Textes: Balzac, Le Père Goriot, Hugo, Ruy Blas, Baudelaire, Fleurs du mal et Poèmes en prose, Maupassant, Nouvelles, Rimbaud, Poèmes, Proust, Un amour de Swann, Sarte, Les mains sales, Duras, L’amant. LTFR 124 - NINETEENTH CENTURY SAND, MUSSET, ET LA REVOLUTION DE 1830 En prenant comme exemples George Sand et Alfred de Musset, nous étudierons comment la jeune génération romantique perçut les évènements de1830 et les représenta. Textes étudiés: Indiana et Lorenzaccio. LTFR 144 - LITERATURE AND IDEAS LA LITTÉRATURE ET L’ARGENT DE MOLIÉRE
A ZOLA La question de l'argent commence à être un problème dans la littérature à partir du 17e siècle. Pourtant ce problème n'est pas nouveau: il a hanté les relations entre les hommes depuis bien longtemps et les témoignages concernant l'Antiquité ou le Moyen Age sont abondants. Mais la littérature n'en parlait pas sauf dans les genres considérés comme mineurs ou bas (comédie, farce, fabliaux etc). Dans les genres nobles (épopées, tragédie, poésie lyrique etc) il n'était pas question d'évoquer ce sujet. Pourtant le théâtre de Shakespeare rebelle à la séparation des genres osait en faire une question centrale. En France le sujet entre peu à peu en littérature par la comédie (Molière, Lesage, Marivaux) et surtout dans le roman au 19e siècle (Stendhal, Balzac, Hugo, Zola etc). On devrait même dire que l'argent devient progressivement un personnage central de nos récits. Il ne s'agit plus simplement d'une ouverture des genres mais d'une transformation radicale de la société; la victoire du modèle bourgeois sur le modèle aristocratique. C'est ce que nous essayerons de comprendre en lisant quelques textes allant de Molière à Zola. Textes:
LTGM 2C - INTERMEDIATE GERMAN III This course builds on the Intermediate German sequence 2A/2B to help students make the transition from language courses to more advanced work in German. We will read different kinds of texts, including literature, film and news reports on the Internet to build a broad critical vocabulary and develop skill in both conversational and written German. As the last course in the second-year sequence, 2C prepares students for upper-division course work and is also very useful for anyone planning to travel abroad and spend time in German-speaking countries. LTGM 60B - GERMAN FOR READING KNOWLEDGE II This is the second part of a two-quarter program for students, both undergraduate and graduate, who need German primarily in connection with scholarly research. We cover the remaining chapters in German for Reading Knowledge, the text used in LTGM 60A. Taught in English. May not be taken to fulfill foreign language requirement for a major or minor. LTGM 125 - 19th CENTURY GERMAN LITERATURE: FOLK AND FAIRY TALES The seminar focuses on the enormously popular collection of tales published by the Brothers Grimm and known as Kinder-und Hausmaerchen. When reading individual folk and fairy tales we will look for recurring themes, narrative components and characters; to help understand the texts in the broader context of the European fairy tale tradition. We will also compare Grimm versions with others (Perrault, e.g.), and consider how Disney adaptations for the screen relate to the tradition. This look at the fairy tale as both genre and institution will also include essays by such writers as Bruno Bettelheim and J.R.R.Tolkein, who reflect on why the tales enjoy such a special place in children's literature and popular culture. Taught in German. Prerequisite: LTGM 2C, its equivalent, or instructor's permission. LTGK 3 - INTERMEDIATE GREEK II Having mastered (most of) the morphology of Ancient Greek, we’ll turn this quarter to the reading of Homer’s Odyssey. Besides translating passages from the poem, we’ll discuss and review forms and constructions as they appear in our reading. Midterm, final, and some quizzes. Prerequisite: Greek 2 or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor. LTGK 131 - COMEDY ARISTOPHANES’S CLOUDS The text for this course will be Aristophanes’s Clouds, from which we will read as much as we can in Greek. This is the comedy in which Aristophanes lampoons Socrates, though it is a matter of debate just how individualized his portrait of the philosopher is. We'll talk about this as well as issues of comic language, the sophistic movement, and Aristophanes' s politics. Midterm, final, and writing assignments. HEBREW LITERATURE - NO COURSE OFFERINGS SPRING 2002 LTIT 1C- LANGUAGE OF ITALIAN CULTURE III A continued study of the elements of Italian conversation, syntax, and style through the study of videos, music and literature. We will study the libretto of Aida (and go, as a class, to see a performance of it by the San Diego Opera). We will continue our study of Italian mysteries and videos, and we will study the screenplay of Fellini's La Strada. This course is designed for students who are interested in a cultural approach to Italian language study; or who love Italian cinema, literature and music; or who want to develop their own dramatic flair in life through the imitation and study of Italian language and style. Prerequisite: LTIT 1A/B, LIIT 1A/B, or consent of instructor. LTIT 50 - ADVANCED ITALIAN This course provides an introduction to Italian literature and culture. Students will read 20th-century short stories and newspaper articles. Close reading, written assignments, and conversation will prepare them for upper-division literature courses. Prerequisite: LTIT 2B or permission of instructor. LTIT 161 - ADVANCED STYLISTICS AND CONVERSATION Lo scopo di questo corsè di imparare a scriver bene e ad apprezzare testi scritti di vari livelli e intenzioni. Si parlerà di stillistica, metrica, retorica e letteratura e si analizzeranno diversi tipi di linguaggi letterari (letteratura dell’ infanzia, testi di canzoni, giornalismo, propaganda politica, pubblicità, ecc.). L’enfasi sulla conversazione si tradurrà in presentazioni orali. Midterm in classe, final a cassa, un saggio di circa 5 pagine. LTKO 1C - BEGINNING KOREAN: FIRST YEAR II First-year Korean 1C aims to enhance the novice-high level of standard modern Korean in all four skill areas: listening, speaking, reading, and writing (including cultural understanding). By the end of the course, students will be able to do the following in Korean: Speaking: emerging, but not sustained, ability to engage in basic communicative exchanges, mainly through recombination or expansion of learned material. Content is still usually limited to a few topics concerning self and immediate surroundings, such as family, including some basic kinship terms. Creativity is reflected in partial ability to ask some questions, and partial ability to cope with simple survival situations, such as inviting out a friend. May be able to use basic numbers but with only a vague awareness of the classifiers. Speakers may still have difficulty in producing sounds not found in the first language. Listening: ability to understand partially very simple face-to-face conversations, including some questions, when strongly supported by familiar contexts. May require repetition, rephrasing, and/or slow, careful speech for comprehension. Reading: ability to derive some meaning on an inconsistent basis from simple connected texts, such as straightforward advertisements written for a wide audience. Even partial understanding may depend on context and/or extralinguistic knowledge. Writing: ability to write with partial success a limited number of personal communications. Practical writing skills are beginning to emerge. Can combine memorized material into simple statements or questions. Students in this course are assumed to have previous knowledge of Korean taught in LTKO 1A and 1B. LTKO 2C - INTERMEDIATE KOREAN: SECOND YEAR Second-year Korean 2C aims to enhance the intermediate-high level of standard modern Korean in all four skill areas: listening, speaking, reading, and writing (including cultural understanding). By the end of the course, students will be able to do the following in Korean: Speaking: ability to handle successfully most uncomplicated communicative tasks and social situations, distinguishing partially appropriate polite and formal speech styles. Partial but not sustained ability to narrate and describe simple activities and situations in connected speech using a variety of the most frequent conjunctions. Listening: ability to understand main ideas and/or some details from conversations related to a variety of contexts. Listening comprehension may expand beyond face-to-face conversations to include routine telephone conversations and simple announcements over the media. Reading: ability to understand partially texts of several paragraphs in length, such as news items featuring narration and/or description, when texts feature a clear underlying structure and if expectations cued by the text are fulfilled. Understanding may depend somewhat on contextual and subject matter knowledge. Reading several times may be necessary. Writing: ability to write some descriptions and narratives on familiar topics using rudimentary connected discourse, featuring both simple and complex sentence structure. Signs of organizational ability at the paragraph level begin to appear. Students in this course are assumed to have previous knowledge of Korean taught in LTKO 2A and 2B. LTKO 3C READINGS IN KOREAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE Third Year Korean 3C (5 units) is the third part of the advanced Korean. Students in this course are assumed to have previous knowledge of Korean, which was taught in the Korean 2A, 2B, 2C, 3A and 3B courses. Students in this course will learn high-advanced level skills in the areas of listening, speaking, reading, and writing in Korean, as well as expand their cultural understanding. Upon completion of this course, students are expected to acquire and use more vocabularies, expressions and sentence structures and to have a good command of Korean in formal situations. Students are expected to read and understand daily newspapers and daily news broadcasts. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to do the following in Korean: Speaking: Ability to satisfy the requirements of a broad variety of everyday, school, and work situations. Can narrate and describe in paragraphs linking sentences together smoothly with cohesive devices. Can state an opinion on topics of general interest, such as current events, politics, and social issues. Can handle situations with a complication or an unforeseen turn of events, such as being stranded at an airport, losing documents, and being late for work. Errors rarely cause misunderstandings, even in communication with native speakers unaccustomed to interacting with foreigners. Listening: Ability to understand partially texts on a range of abstract topics delivered in propositionally and linguistically complex extended discourse. Able to understand main ideas and most details of connected discourse on a variety of factual topics beyond the immediacy of the situation. Texts include most face-to-face speech and factual radio and television reports involving description and narration and featuring interviews or short talks on familiar subjects. Reading: Ability to understand partially extended texts, such as editorials, which are conceptually abstract and linguistically complex, featuring quite a few Chinese characters. Comprehension derives not only from contextual and subject matter knowledge but from control of the language. Writing: Ability to write about a variety of topics with precision and in detail. Can write most social and informal business correspondence, using conventional greetings, openings and closings. Can describe and narrate personal experiences well, and can write about the concrete aspects of topics relating to particular interests and special fields of competence. Has good control of a full range of grammatical structures and a fairly wide general vocabulary. LTLA 3 - INTERMEDIATE LATIN II The culmination of the year of grammar is the reading of short passages from the rear of Wheelock and elsewhere. Before that, though, more slogging through grammatical sloughs. There will be the by-now- familiar quizzes, mid-term, and final; plus daily recitation of edifying homework assignments. LTLA 114 - VERGIL Excerpts from the epic of Rome, with a view toward appreciating some of the reasons for the high regard in which Vergil is held. His rhythms, sound, and poignant evocativeness (evocative poignance?) will be among the foci. Students' sensitivity to Latin should grow from the daily semantic/grammatical analysis. Mid-term, paper, final. LTNE 102 - THE BIBLE: THE PROPHETIC BOOKS The prophetic books of the Bible in their historical contexts. The relationship between the prophetic and narrative books. Literary/critical analysis, theological issues, reference to archaeological data. Topic for 2002: The Reluctant Prophet: Moses, Elijah, Jonah, Jeremiah, and Joel. PORTUGUESE LITERATURE - NO COURSE OFFERINGS SPRING 2002 LTRU 1C - FIRST YEAR RUSSIAN Continue exploring the mechanics and mystery of Russian language, culture, and people. We will journey forth into all forms of communication, reading, writing, speaking, and listening. We will continue acquiring basic vocabulary and grammar skills and attempt to apply them both mechanically and creatively. Original Russian materials will supplement the basic text and language lab tapes. This course meets three days per week for grammar lectures and two days per week for conversation. Every effort will be made to integrate material on Russian culture into the language curriculum. LTRU 2C - SECOND YEAR RUSSIAN Continuing expansion of previous language acquisitions and introduction to new, unexplored territories. While systematically reviewing grammar, we will begin focusing on the language for more creative purposes in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Language lab videos and readings texts will supplement the basic text. This course meets three days a week for grammar lectures and two days per week for conversation. Every effort will be made to integrate material on Russian culture into the language curriculum. LTRU 104C ADVANCED PRACTICUM IN RUSSIAN This course is an advanced practicum for all students with at least two years of Russian. The course will be based on oral and written texts from Russian literature, films, newspapers, and areas of particular interest to the class. Within the context of these texts we will develop vocabulary, review grammar, and hone your practical language skills. Every effort will be made to address the individual needs of students with respect to both linguistic abilities and areas of interest. We will strive to integrate cultural content as much as possible into the language instruction. Students will meet once per week with a T.A. for discussion at a time to be arranged later. Students will develop term projects based on their own areas of interest. Native speakers and advanced students are encouraged to enroll. LTRU 150 - RUSSIAN CULTURE: MODERN PERIOD UTOPIA
AND MODERN CULTURE (Cross-listed with LTEU 154) This course will examine the ways in which Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet writers, policy-makers, artists, architects and filmmakers articulated and responded to the utopian aspirations of the early Soviet period. This was a time when many Soviet artists, writers and cultural critics believed that the new socialist state must produce radically new forms of artistic expression and material culture that would be appealing, intelligible and useful to all of the new state's citizens. This course will explore the links between utopian ideals and popular culture in works such as Aleksandr Bogdanov's science fiction novel Red Star (1908); Marietta Shaginian's Mess-Mend (1925), a suspense-filled novel of magical machines and heroic Russo-American labor unions; and Grigorii Aleksandrov's musical comedy Circus (1936). We will also study the cult of the machine in early Soviet film and photography; and the ambitious designs of avant-garde artists like Chagall, Malevich, Tatlin and others for innovative teapots, baby-bottles, textiles, clothing, and public housing. In all these varied forms early 20th-century Russian writers and artists sought both to portray and to build a more perfect society. We will also look at the dystopian anxieties of works such as Mayakovskii's satirical play The Bathhouse (1930); Evgenii Zamiatin's dissident novel We (1927); Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris (1972); and the parodic inversions of Soviet ideals in the work of underground and dissident artists in the final decades of the 20th-century. Throughout the course we will consider what it means to speak of "popular" culture, and we will examine the often unexpected connections between avant-garde aesthetic experiments, mass culture and national identity in the Soviet period. All lectures and discussions will be conducted in English. Students who register for LTEU154 will be co-reading and writing assignments in English. Students who register for LTRU150 are expected to do the reading and writing assignments in Russian. If five or more students are interested, I will schedule a one-unit pass/not pass foreign language discussion section to allow more detailed study of the Russian texts and to provide students with practice speaking Russian. LTSP 2A - INTERMEDIATE SPANISH I: FOUNDATION This five-unit intermediate course meets four days per week and is taught entirely in Spanish. LTSP 2A emphasizes the development of reading ability, listening comprehension, and writing skills. It includes grammar review, short readings, lab work, class discussions, and working with Spanish-language materials available on the Internet. This course is designed to prepare students for LTSP 2B and 2C. A diagnostic test will be administered on the first day. Prerequisite: Completion of LlSP 1C/CX or its equivalent. Note: The final exam for LTSP 2A is scheduled for Monday, June 10th. Please see syllabus or instructor for further information. LTSP 2B - INTERMEDIATE SPANISH II: READING AND COMPOSITION This intermediate course is designed for students who wish to improve their ability to speak, read, and write Spanish. It is a continuation of LTSP 2A with special emphasis on problems in writing and interpretation. Students meet with the instructor four days per week. Work for this 5-unit course includes grammar review, lab and writing assignments, class discussions on the readings, and accessing Spanish-language materials on the Internet. A diagnostic test will be administered on the first day. Prerequisite: Completion of LTSP 2A or its equivalent. Note: The final exam for LTSP 2B is scheduled for Monday, June 10th LTSP 2C - INTERMEDIATE SPANISH III: CULTURAL TOPICS This intermediate course is a continuation of the LTSP second-year sequence with special emphasis on problems in writing and translation. It includes class discussions of cultural topics as well as grammar review and composition assignments. The course will further develop the ability to read articles, essays, and longer pieces of fictional and non-fictional texts as well as to access Spanish-language materials on the Internet. A diagnostic test will be administered on the first day. Prerequisite: Completion of LTSP 2B or its equivalent. This course satisfies the third course requirement of the college-required language sequence. Note: The final exam for LTSP is scheduled is scheduled for Monday, June 10th.
LTSP 2D - ADVANCED READINGS AND COMPOSITION: SPANISH FOR NATIVE SPEAKERS Designed for bilingual students seeking to become biliterate. Reading and writing skills stressed with special emphasis on improvement of written expression, vocabulary development, and problems of grammar and orthography. Prepares native speakers with little or no formal training in Spanish for more advanced courses. A diagnostic test will be administered on the first day of class. Prerequisite: Native speaking ability and/or recommendation of instructor. Notes: The Final Exam for LTSP 2D is scheduled for Monday, June 10th. Enrollment for LTSP 2D requires department approval. LTSP 41 - CONVERSATION AND ORTHOGRAPHY Notes: This conversation/discussion class meets once a week. May be taken as an adjunct to lower-and upper-division LTSP courses. Recommended for students planning to study abroad. May be taken 3 times for credit as topics vary. May be taken P/NP or for a letter grade. LTSP 50C - READINGS IN LATIN AMERICAN TOPICS This course introduces students to literary analysis through the close textual reading of a selection of Latin American texts including novels, plays, short fiction, and poetry. Coursework includes reading of texts, participation in class discussions and written assignments. LTSP 50C prepares Literature majors and minors for upper-division work. LTSP 50A and either 50B or 50C are required for Spanish Literature majors. Prerequisites: Completion of LTSP 2C or 2D or 2 years of college level Spanish. Note: The final exam for LTSP 50C is scheduled for Monday, June 10th. Enrollment for LTSP 50C requires department stamp. LTSP 119B - CERVANTES: NOVELAS EJEMPLARES We will read the short stories (novelas ejemplares) written by Cervantes in the early 17th century. First published in 1613, these brief but complex narratives deal with such issues as cultural identity, ethnicity, blood purity, sexual relations, religion, and madness. We will meet a man of glass, an aristocratic gypsy girl, two talking dogs, several witches, and an English-Spanish woman, among others. We will also compare and contrast several of the readings with other writings by Cervantes, e.g., sections of Don Quijote; Persiles y Sigismunda. Students will have the responsibility of reading and analyzing the text; the instructor will provide social and historical background. Two exams plus assorted take-home exercises. Required readings: Cervantes, Novelas ejemplares, and a Cal Copy reader. Prerequisite: LTSP 50A and either LTSP 50B or 50C or consent of instructor. LTSP 133 - SPANISH AMERICAN LITERATURE: THE XX CENTURY A study, reading and comparison of two famous novels, Garcia Marquez’s Cien Años de Soledad and Isabel Allende’s la Casa de los Espiritus.Two exams, one intermediate and one final, plus participation in class. LTSP 142 - SPANISH AMERICAN SHORT STORY RECENT CLASSICS OF LATIN AMERICA A study and reading of key authors in the field of Short Story: the Chilean Skarmeta, the Argentine Cortazar, the Mexican Rulfo, etc. Two exams, one intermediate and one final, plus a brief oral presentation. LTSP 153 - CHICANO POETRY BI/TRI LINGUALISM This course focuses on the poetic expression of men and women whose writings fall under the rubric "Chicano," or people of Mexican origin who live and write in the United States. We will begin with the corrido tradition, and move into "I Am Joaquín," the epic poem of the Chicano Movement. We will cover poetry by women and men of the 1980s and 1990s. Topics of interest include linguistic wordplay in English and Spanish, pochismos, the Chicano dialect of caló, and translation. The course includes poetry by José Montoya, Tino Villanueva, Lucha Corpi, Pat Mora, Lorna Cervantes, Juan Felipe Herrera, Jose Antonio Burciaga, Gary Soto, and Sandra Cisneros. LTSP 171 - STUDIES IN LITERATUREAND SOCIETY: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
IN MEXICAN LITERATURE In this course we will examine the dialectical relation between criminality, citizenship, and state-formation in Mexican Literature. Readings by Altamirano, M.L. Guzmán, et al. LITERATURE/THEORY - NO COURSE OFFERINGS SPRING 2002 LTWL 4C - FICTION AND FILM IN TWENTIETH CENTURY ASIAN SOCIETIES: CINEMA
AND MEMORY This class is designed as an introduction to Asian cinema. Instead of attempting the impossible task of pursuing an adequate survey of Asian film history in 10 weeks, we will explore intricate relations between cinema and memory by studying 9 films (plus other optional titles) from China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. These films are The Blue Kite, Rhapsody in August, Rashomon, The Scent of Green Papaya, Rouge, Woman Demon Human, Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East, ThePuppetmaster, and Salaam Bombay. The class focus is placed as much on cultural and thematic aspects as on conceptual and analytical ones. But we will also address issues related to socio-political history, directorial style, and cinematic arts whenever possible. Weekly topics include memory repressed, memory in ruin, memory in question, memory and nostalgia, memory and locality, memory and identity, memory and meditation, memory and orality, as well as memory and reality. All films carry English subtitles. Attendance at weekly film screenings is mandatory, and your knowledge of both required viewing and reading will be tested in quizzes. Grading 10 points Attendance and class participation A course reader of required texts. LTWL 19C - INTRODUCTION TO ANCIENT GREEKS AND ROMANS: ROMAN
LITERATURE We will read works written in Latin from about 200 B.C. to 100 A.D. I will try to fill in the historical, social, and philosophical background. There will be two papers, a midterm, and a final. LTWL 114 - CHILDREN’S LITERATURE:FANTASY AND REALISM Children’s literature is deeply rooted in the ancient oral tradition, which includes folk tales, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes--few originally intended for children. Thus, for most of its modern history children’s literature has in fact been tied to some of the oldest and deepest paradigms of myth and human thought. Even as we mature--and as children’s literature as a genre has matured over the 19th and 20th centuries--the stories we think of as children’s stories resonate with mythic paradigms and psychological material of continuing relevance. They also form the basis of much of our popular culture. Beginning with the mythic roots of the genre in the folk or "fairy" tale, we will examine children’s literature up to the present, noting the enduring motifs as well as the increasing realism of the form. LTWL 122 - FANTASY: TOLKIEN AND BEYOND Modern fantasy begins with J. R. R. Tolkien's famous trilogy Lord of the Rings, and this quarter so will we. After investigating in depth Tolkien's use of mythic and heroic paradigms and looking at the market for adult fantasy his work created, this course proceeds to contemporary fiction by writers currently working in the genre. This fiction draws from a number of mythic traditions--European, Asian and African--and from subgenres such as "urban fantasy." Expect at least one guest appearance from a novelist on the reading list. LTWL 139 - GNOSTICISM: THE RELIGIOUS UNDERGROUND FROM LATE ANTIQUITY
TO THE NEW AGE A survey of Gnostic currents in religious thought which influenced the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and which resurfaced periodically as heretical challenges to these mainstream traditions and their doctrinal orthodoxies. LTWL 140 - NOVELS AND HISTORY IN THE THIRD WORLD: SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE
IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT This course will introduce students to literary texts written within the context of the following periods of South Africa's history: (1) Pre-colonial state formation since antiquity; (2) Colonialism and segregation (before the advent of apartheid); (3) The mechanics of apartheid, 1948-1994; (4) land dispossession, rural economies, and urban morass; (5) apartheid and childhood. Proposed texts:
If possible, we will use some or all of the following videos: Cry, the Beloved Country; A World Apart; A Dry White Season; Cry Freedom; and others as available and workable within the course structure. LTWL 141- ISLAM AND MODERNITY A survey of developments in the Islamic world during the period of European colonial domination and its aftermath, with special attention to the works of leading Muslim thinkers (e.g. Sayid Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Abduh, Hasan al Banna, Ruhalah Khomenei, among others). LTWL 160- WOMEN AND LITERATURE: SEXUALITY AND SUBJECTIVITY This course takes as its theme the articulation of female selves and sexualities in a series of wildly popular, often notorious novels and memoirs written by British, French, and Russian women between 1785 and 1910. It focuses on the expression and/or repression of female sexual desire in representative works of Gothic, Romantic, Victorian, and fin-de-siecle pulp fiction by Madame de Stae’l, Ann Radcliffe, George Sand, Nadezhda Durova, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Evdokiia Nagrodskaia. Issues addressed in lectures and discussions will include the following: he physical and psychic geography of female desire; sexual tourism and transvestism; female friendships and same-sex passions; changing notions of "heroinic" sexuality; female sexual agency (or lack thereof); and "criminal" (i.e. adulterous, incestuous, disorderly or "decadent" ) sexualities. We will pay particular attention to these writers' portraits of their heroines and narratrices as both actual and potential writers, actresses, and painters in order to explore the ways in which sexual and societal pressures shaped public and private images of the woman artist. All readings, lectures, and discussions in English. LTWL 183 - FILM STUDIES AND LITERATURE: PICTURING THE U.S. IN FRENCH
JAPANESE FILM This class will explore various films in French and Japanese that take as their reference or focus the United States. Of special interest will be films that play out various myths and images of "America" present in French-language and Japanese cultures from the 1940s to 1990s, a period marked by war, the Cold War , economic rivalry, decolonization, the rise of consumer society, and globalizationthe U.S. as the New World, untamed Nature, and immature democracy, the Wild West, Modernity, land of violence, Melting Pot, savage capitalism, Superpower, land of pleasure, land of opportunity, postmodern society, etc. Some films go so far as to transpose U.S. stories and myths to the Japanese or French context as in the crossing of cowboy and samurai myths. Screenings include films by Kurosawa, Honda, Shinoda, Kitano, Tati, Clement, Demi, Godard, Mangolte, Bekolo, Kassovitz, and Besson. The films will be studied in conjunction with texts such as Nosaka's "American hijiki," Oba Minako's Urashimaso (1977/1994), Simone de Beauvoir's America Day by Day (1947/1954), and Jean Baudrillard's America (1986/1988).
LTWR 8A - CRAFT OF WRITING: FICTION This course is an introduction to the basic elements of fiction: characterization, dialogue, setting, point-of-view, and narrative structure. To explore craft and technique, students will write a range of short pieces and one longer story during the course. Writing will be reviewed in peer workshop groups as well as by T.A.s and the instructor, and revised based on these critiques. In addition, class discussion of a variety of short stories, ranging from classic to contemporary, will figure prominently. Course grades will be based on discussion and workshop participation, completion of short writing assignments, a midterm and final focusing on class readings as well as on recognizing and discussing elements of technique discussed in the course, and on the final writing project, with consideration given to the cumulative process. Attendance and review of three New Writing Series events is also a requirement. LTWR 8C - CRAFT OF WRITING: NON FICTION This course will help students to develop the writing skills necessary to produce effective non-fiction prose. Class time will involve a combination of lecture, discussion, and workshop activities; reading assignments will explore the work of professional writers as well as student texts. Required coursework will include a number of brief writing exercises, as well as a ten-page final project. All student written work will be critiqued by instructors and peers and will be revised for resubmission. Pre-requisite: students must have completed their college writing requirements prior to enrollment.
LTWR 100 - SHORT FICTION: DRAMATIC WRITING A workshop designed to encourage writing of short plays and dramatic monologues. There will be discussion of student work together with analysis and discussion of the finest examples of dramatic writing from the present to the previous ages. Students will complete a number of short plays by the end of the term. Prerequisite: LTWR 8A. LTWR 100 - SHORT FICTION A workshop for students with a special interest in writing fiction with an activist perspective. This course will encourage regular writing in the short forms of prose fiction, with some exemplary readings selected to enhance students' understanding of the assignments. There will be discussion of student work together with analysis and discussion of the required texts. Prerequisite: LTWR 8A. LTWR 102 - POETRY This course is for students with an interest in writing and reading contemporary poetry. Poetry has been variously defined by modern poets. William Carlos Williams said, "Poetry is a small (or large) machine made of words." Charles Bernstein has described poetry as "turbulent thought" which "leaves things unresolved." We will explore a range of approaches to writing poetry and students will be encouraged to invent their own poetic forms. Assigned readings will include poems by Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Kamau Brathwaite, Ron Silliman and Michael Palmer. There will be intensive small group discussion of student work. Prerequisite LTWR 8B. LTWR 109 - WRITING AND PUBLISHING CHILDREN’S LITERATURE This course will focus on writing and publishing fiction for children aged four to eight. Students will be expected to write a number of manuscripts and will have an opportunity to respond to and critique each other’s work. There will be an emphasis on understanding the publishing process and its requirements. Readings will include a variety of children’s books, and a small collection of current reviews and critical studies. Prerequisite: LTWR 8A. LTWR 113 - INTERCULTURAL WRITING We are living in a world of many centers and many interests. Our writings should not be locked inside one cultural system, in particular, they should not be mere variations of ONE Master Set of coding interests as charted out by the consumer-oriented, goal-directed, instrumental reason of post-Enlightenment West only. Instead, we would like the students to engage in the richer confrontations, negotiations, convergences, divergences and modifications between and among cultures in a sort of tensional dialogue. By introducing to the students the perceptual-expressive procedures of classical Chinese poetry which are vastly different from the cultural-aesthetic assumptions of Anglo-American writing, and thus, disclosing the limitations of the English language as a medium for poetic expression, we hope to evoke new language strategies leading to new perceptual horizons. As Williams would say, "Unless there is/a new mind there cannot be a new/line." By introducing to the students modernist writings in China, which is one of the most complex forms of antagonistic symbiosis brought about by the battles and negotiations between native sensibility and alien ideologies forced upon her writers by the aggressive acts of Western colonizing activities, we hope to help the students leap out of their still enclosed elitist positions and understand that anxieties, solitudes, hesitations, doubts, nostalgia, expectancy, exile and dreams need not come from an insulated private space. Like the modern Chinese poets or like most Third World and Latin American writers (including American writers of inner cities and internal colonies), they can be, and perhaps should be dialectical transfigurations from tensions and agonies of acculturation in the process of crosshatching and cross-fertilization. Prerequisite: LTWR 8B or consent of instructor. LTWR 120 - PERSONAL NARRATIVE NARRATIVE MOMENTS: NARRATIVES OF CHILDHOOD
AND ADOLESCENCE Contemporary personal narrative -- whether autobiographical and/or fictional -- uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to complicate the scene of writing, to subvert traditional forms of life-history, to explore subjectivity as collective and socially inscribed. This workshop will focus on analyzing and experimenting with some of the strategies that authors use to establish personal and rhetorical particularities within larger social contexts, particularly emphasizing childhood and adolescent experiences. We will examine narratives of childhood and adolescence to see how they create specific "narrative moments "instances of humor, fear, or other kinds of narrative impact. We will read excerpts from a wide range of authors in order to compare the effects of their specific strategies, and also read several book-length personal narratives to consider their situated strategies and overall development. Class time will focus on student presentations and collaborative workshops. We will demonstrate our understanding of selected strategies through short analytic papers, imitations, and, personal narratives. There will be a large and very interesting reader. Books may include Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn, Alison McGhee’s Shadow Babies, Sherwood Kiraly’s Big Babies. Prerequisite: LTWR 8C. LTWR 127 - GENERAL NON-FICTION PROSE WORKSHOP: SOCIOLOGY AND LITERATURE
Students will read and write texts which focus both on social issues and on stylistic and literary innovation. Writing exercises involve analyzing and emulating some of these writers’ approaches. The main project will be to create a portrait of an environment/scene (which will entail interviews and observation) such as a workplace, school, neighborhood, subculture center/hangout. This project might take a number of different forms, such as literary essay, zine, introduction to a proposed book project, among others. Students willprovide copies of their first drafts to everyone in the workshop, and we will discuss all of these drafts in class. Revised projects are due finals week. Readings include James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen, Susan Sontag’s "Notes on Camp" and sections from: James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men; Susan Faludi, STIFFED,: The Betrayal of the American Man; Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power, Marguerite Young, Harp Song for a Radical: The Life and Times of Victor Eugene Debs; Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Warrior for Gringostroika; Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, W.E.B. DuBoi, The Souls of Black Folk, and others. LTWR 128 - EDITING WORKSHOP The workshop will introduce techniques practiced and judgements rendered by editors of non-fiction using both material written for the workshop and that written for other readers. Prerequisite: LTWR 8C. LTWR 142 - FORMS OF WRITTEN DISCOURSE: SCIENCE WRITING This course adopts a lecture/workshop (Tuesday/Thursday) format and addresses only problems more or less particular to science writing. Students will complete a ten-page final project on a science-related topic of their choice for 50% of the grade. Final projects can consist of another (science) course's writing requirement or a dissertation chapter. Required texts include Ferris, ed. The Best American Science Writing 2001 (Ecco Press) and Joseph M. Williams, Style, 6th ed. (Longman). Highly recommended reading: Writing Science Literacy and Discursive Power (U of Pittsburgh P, 1993). Prerequisite: LTWR 8C. LTWR 143 - STYLISTICS AND GRAMMAR A close look at sentence-level features of written discourse-stylistics and sentence grammars. Students will review recent research on these topics and topics and experiment in their own writing with various stylistic and syntactic options. Prerequisite: LTWR 8C. |