
Fall 2007 Undergraduate Course Descriptions |
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No Course Offerings Fall 2007 |
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LITERATURE OF THE AMERICAS |
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No Course Offerings Fall 2007 |
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| (The following courses in Classical Literature can be found under their
respective Literature sub-headings: European, Greek, Latin, and World) LTGK 1 (BEGINNING GREEK) LTGK 132 (HISTORY: HERODOTUS’S HISTORY OF THE PERSIAN WARS) LTLA 1 (BEGINNING LATIN) - 2 Sections for Fall 2007 LTLA 100 (INTRODUCTION TO LATIN LITERATURE: THE SATYRICA OF PETRONIUS) LTLA 133 (EPIC: OVID’S METAMORPHOSES ) LTWL 19A (INTRODUCTION TO THE ANCIENT GREEKS AND ROMANS) LTWL 100 (MYTHOLOGY: COMPARATIVE WORLD MYTHOLOGY) |
| COMPARATIVE LITERATURE No Course Offerings Fall 2007 |
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| CULTURAL STUDIES LTCS 50 - INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL STUDIES Proposed Instructor: Randall Williams In this course we will examine a number of texts which have been influential in shaping the contemporary study of culture and the field of cultural studies. We will survey three general areas: (a) the philosophy of culture, (b) colonialism and culture, and (c) globalization and culture. In particular we will focus our study on the dynamic relationship between race, class and empire. We will consider a range of cultural productions including novels, essays, short stories, films and various internet media. Our goal is to provide students with an international introduction to the idea of contemporary culture(s), cultural difference, and cultural identity. This introduction should be useful for anyone interested in ethnic studies, gender studies, media/cinema studies, political economy, queer studies, and sociology. Readings include works by Matthew Arnold, Luis Britto García, Frantz Fanon, Sigmund Freud, Stuart Hall, Fredric Jameson, Geeta Kapur, Karl Marx, Kobena Mercer, Gayle Rubin, Edward Said, Jean-Paul Sartre, Roberto Schwarz, Helena María Viramontes, and George Yúdice. Films screened will include “Battle of Algiers,” “My Beautiful Laundrette” and “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” LTCS 120 - HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON CULTURE: THE DARK SIDE OF ENLIGHTENMENT Instructor: Jody Blanco When one speaks of “Enlightenment” as a philosophical, political, and social revolution in Europe and the Americas (both North and South) – a revolution that promised universal human freedom, the individual’s free exercise of reason, equality under democratic republican institutions, unlimited progress and world peace – it is easy to forget that such ideals brought in their wake terror, insecurity, madness, colonial brutality, imperialism, world war, the nightmares of the unconscious, the police state, and fascism. This course examines the comparative intellectual and cultural history of Enlightenment from its dark side in the nineteenth century, which will enable us to see how the “theory” of Western reason translated into the “practices” of world domination and unprecedented massacres. Texts may include works by Immanuel Kant, Francisco Goya, the Marquis de Sade, GWF Hegel, José Mariano de Larra, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Bram Stoker, Joseph Conrad, Sigmund Freud, Gustave Klimt, and Arthur Schoenberg. LTCS 150 - TOPICS IN CULTURAL STUDIES* Modern War and Masculinities Instructor: Roddey Reid *This course will also count as an LTEN course and Qualifies for credit for the Critical Gender Studies major and minor. This class will look at how shifting definitions of masculinity across different historical periods and regions have been shaped by and contributed to the traumatic experience of modern warfare and combat. Possible topics (to be narrowed down later): the Mexican Revolution, World War I, World War II and the Asian Pacific War and the colonial wars of independence in Africa and Asia as well as the Vietnam War, the Kosovo War, and the two Gulf Wars. To what extent has the initiation and prosecution of modern warfare been an exclusively male enterprise and how have wars made and unmade definitions of masculinity and femininity? How have wars—especially those that deployed high-tech weaponry or low-tech guerilla tactics—redistributed the norms of acceptable male and female behavior in different societies? Finally, how has the trauma of war experience by the military and civilians alike including that of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, torture, life-long disabilities, defeat, or occupation challenged reigning understandings of masculinity? Materials include fiction, films, TV serials, and documentaries as well as historical and medical studies focusing on some of the following countries and regions: Mexico, the U.S., Europe, North Africa, and East Asia. |
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| EAST ASIAN LITERATURE LTEA 100A - CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY IN TRANSLATION Instructor: Wai-lim Yip Heidegger warns us in an essay that any dialogue using Indo-European languages to discuss the spirit of East-Asian poetry will run the risk of destroying the possibility of saying what the dialogue is about. How much can we understand from English translations the original aesthetic grounding of Chinese poetry? This course attempts to overcome this difficulty by offering the students a chance to witness the original workings of the Chinese poem. This we hope to achieve by a dual process; first, through specially prepared texts which will retrieve, in part, the empty spaces in the Chinese original for the reader to move in and participate in completing the total aesthetic experience; and, second, through careful examination of Chinese aesthetic positions in comparative perspective. |
| LITERATURES IN ENGLISH
LTEN 21- INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE OF THE BRITISH ISLES:
PRE-1660 LTEN 117A - THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: THEMES AND ISSUES: POETRY
AND PROSE OF THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION (a) LTEN 140 - EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITISH NOVEL (b) LTEN 176 - MAJOR AMERICAN WRITERS: FITZGERALD AND HEMINGWAY
AND THE TWENTIES (d) |
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The following courses also count as an LTEN Course:
LTCS 150 (TOPICS IN CULTURAL STUDIES) |
| LTEN Upper Division Codes:
Return to top of LTEN section |
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| EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN
LITERATURE No Course Offerings Fall 2007 |
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| FRENCH LITERATURE LTFR 2A - INTERMEDIATE FRENCH I Instructor: TAs supervised by Catherine Ploye Second-year course designed to be taken after 1C/CX. 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 Instructor: TAs supervised by Catherine Ploye We continue the review of grammar begun in LTFR 2A. To strengthen language skills, plays from the 19Th and 20th centuries, the movie interpretation of Cyrano de Bergerac and Inch’Allah Dimanche 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 TOPICS Instructor: TA supervised by Catherine Ploye 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 2C 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 Instructor: TA supervised by Catherine Ploye One-unit, one-meeting-a-week courses, designed to develop and maintain oral skills by discussing current cultural issues of the francophone world. These courses may be taken more than once, alone or in combination with any other literature course. Prerequisite: LIFR 1C/CX or consent of instructor. LTFR 31 - CONVERSATION WORKSHOP II Instructor: TA supervised by Catherine Ploye One-unit, one-meeting-a-week courses, designed to develop and maintain oral skills by discussing current cultural issues of the francophone world. These courses 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 Instructor: TA supervised by Catherine Ploye This course emphasizes the development of language skills and the practice of textual analysis. Discussions are based on the analysis of various poetic texts as well as on 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 116 - THEMES IN INTELLECTUAL AND LITERARY HISTORY Instructor: Roddey Reid Ce cours propose de présenter aux étudiants les grands courants et thèmes des littératures de langue française de 1800 à nos jours: le réalisme romantique, la vie moderne, la poésie surréaliste, le nouveau roman et l’essai. A travers ces lectures se posent les grandes questions auxquelles on se trouve confronté dans la vie moderne: l'identité individuelle et la croissance des villes, l'économie capitaliste, la sexualité, et le colonialisme. Auteurs prévus: Balzac, Baudelaire, Césaire, Duras et Ben Jelloun. LTFR 144 - LITERARY GENRES LE ROMAN POLICIER Instructor: Catherine Ploye Longtemps considéré comme un genre mineur, le roman policie a toujours fasciné lecteurs et écrivains. Dans un premier temps, nous analyserons les circonstances qui ont permis l’émergence du roman policier au XIXe siècle. Nous étudierons ensuite quelques textes récents particulièrement représentatifs de la manière dont le roman contemporain a intégré l’intrigue policière. Auteurs possibles: Balzac, Modiano, Varga. Prerequisite: LTFR 115 or 116 or consent of instructor. Fulfills LTFR 19th or 20th century requirement. |
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| GERMAN
LITERATURE LTGM 2A - INTERMEDIATE GERMAN I Instructor: Edda Hodnett LTGM 2A is the first course in the second year German series, and aims at broadening students' speaking, comprehension, reading and writing skills in a multimedia approach. Films, video clips of newscasts, texts of journals, letters, and first person accounts of events in post-war Germany give insight into the exciting period from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the end of WW II. A thorough review of exciting grammar topics will help us get the most out of the various materials in the course, and refine our writing skills in German. LTGM 100 - GERMAN STUDIES I: AESTHETIC CULTURE: ARTISTIC MOVEMENTS Proposed Instructor: Laurel Plapp This course surveys major artistic movements in Germany from the Romantic period to the present. We will consider how the art, fiction, poetry, drama, music, and/or film of each movement responded to historical circumstances and expressed the world view of the artists and writers of the time. We will begin with Romanticism, including the eerie story “Der Sandmann” by E.T.A. Hoffmann, songs based on Goethe’s poetry, and scenes from a late Romantic opera. We will then focus on the graphic designs and avant-garde poetry of the Expressionist movement and screen an experimental film of that era by Robert Wiene (the horror classic Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari). We will continue with political movements emerging in the wake of World War II, particularly Socialist Realism in East Germany and the literary association Gruppe 47 in the West, and conclude with the work of recent postmodern writers. Readings and discussion in German. LTWL 172 - SPECIAL TOPICS IN LITERATURE: KAFKA Proposed Instructor: Laurel Plapp The surreal worlds created by Franz Kafka—in which humans become cockroaches and apes can talk—have long fascinated readers. In this course, we will read selections from Kafka’s diaries and short fiction, including “The Metamorphosis” and “In the Penal Colony,” and conclude with his novel The Trial. To begin making sense of the worlds he created, we will consider contemporary critical approaches to his work and analyze his writings in the context of his many influences and interests: Prague and its legends, Jewish mysticism, Yiddish theater, the Zionist circle Bar Kokhba, and contemporary film. Readings and discussion in English, with the option of reading Kafka’s texts in German. |
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| GREEK LITERATURE LTGK 1 - BEGINNING GREEK Instructor: Leslie Edwards Introduction to the grammar of ancient Greek, with readings appropriate to this level, including some from Plato, Euripides, Homer, the New Testament, and others. This is the first of a three-quarter sequence, by the spring quarter of which we'll be reading Homer's Odyssey in the original Greek. Following successful completion of this sequence (LTGK 1-2-3), students will be eligible to enroll in upper-division Greek Literature courses. Quizzes, midterm, final, and daily homework. LTGK 132 - HISTORY: HERODOTUS’S HISTORY OF THE PERSIAN WARS Instructor: Anthony Edwards Herodotus's amazing book, with its unforgettable characters, reversals of fortune, interventions of gods and fate, diverse peoples and customs, and war on three continents, reads more like a novel than a work of history. We'll read the entire book in English translation but focus on selections in Herodotus's Greek. For 4th-quarter students special attention will be devoted to the transition to a prose author (Herodotus's Ionic dialect aids in this). We may devote special attention to Herodotus's ethnographic scheme. Midterm, Final, Paper. |
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| HEBREW LITERATURE
No Course Offerings Fall 2007 |
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| LITERATURES IN ITALIAN LTIT 2A - INTERMEDIATE ITALIAN I Instructor: Adriana De Marchi Gherini A second-year course in Italian language and literature. Conversation, composition, grammar review, and an introduction to literary and nonliterary texts. Prerequisite: LIIT 1C, LIIT 1C/1CX, or equivalent or consent of the instructor. LTIT 100 - INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURES IN ITALIAN: CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN WRITERS Instructor: Stephanie Jed Italiano 100 è un’introduzione ad alcune delle tematiche principali della letteratura italiana contemporanea, quali la condizione esistenziale dell’individuo, il ruolo della donna, la famiglia e la società contemporanea. Si leggeranno racconti di autori che rispecchiano punti di vista differenti e a volte conflittuali. Fra gli altri ricordiamo Antonio Tabucchi, Dacia Maraini, Alberto Moravia, Anna Banti, Natalia Ginzburg, Gianni Celati, Leonardo Sciascia, e Italo Calvino. Compiti scritti settimanali, un esame “midterm” e un esame finale da completare a casa. La partecipazione attiva è essenziale. |
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| KOREAN LITERATURE
LTKO 1A - BEGINNING KOREAN: FIRST YEAR I
LTKO 2B - INTERMEDIATE KOREAN: SECOND YEAR II
LTKO 100 - READINGS IN KOREAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE:
POST-LIBERATION SOUTH KOREAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE |
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| LATIN LITERATURE
LTLA 1 - BEGINNING LATIN Instructor: Eliot Wirshbo Everyone at some point in life comes to the realization that they (or he or she) should have studied Latin, so if you sign up for this course you’d be averting that disappointment down the road. But you’d also be exposing yourself to an intricate system of word-forms and rules (= Latin grammar) that would severely tax your brain during the learning process. Some find this “taxation” onerous and drop out as soon as their brains start to feel squeezed, but others come to appreciate the mental training this sequence exposes them to. (These are the people who insist that their children take Latin.) The appreciation comes from a sense of a newfound ability to analyze grammatical and, concomitantly, semantic structures. This analytical ability fostered by the study of Latin is helpful in the understanding of any sort of exposition/argumentation/logic in any language (or “language”). In addition, students attest to the influence Latin exerts on their writing, which inevitably becomes clearer and more exact: the intricacies of the ancient language, increasingly internalized, produce a more acute sense of the capacities of English and an outsider’s perspective on its nature. No language lab, no conversation, but frequent quizzes, daily recitation, a mid-term and a final. LTLA 1 - BEGINNING LATIN Instructor: Charles Chamberlain We will cover the first 16 chapters of Wheelock's Latin by Frederic M. Wheelock. This means a pace of about 2 chapters per week overall, though we will go slowly at the beginning. Expect to have a quiz every Monday, plus a midterm and final. Quizzes are worth 30%, the midterm 25%, the final 35%, class participation and other factors 10%. (I also reserve the right to institute more frequent quizzes and to assign graded homework if necessary.) Latin is not taught as a spoken language, so there will be no emphasis on conversing. However, there are many grammatical rules to be learned, perhaps more than you ever imagined. In some ways, Latin is more like math or science than it is like a modern foreign language; it will soon become impossible to "get the gist" of what you read unless you know the grammatical rules thoroughly. Therefore, I urge you not to fall behind -- it is very difficult to catch up. LTLA 100 - INTRODUCTION TO LATIN LITERATURE: THE SATYRICA OF PETRONIUS Instructor: Anthony Edwards We will read all of Petronius's Satyrica in English translation and the "Banquet of Trimalchio" episode in Latin. There will also be a showing of Fellini's adaptation of Petronius's book. Petronius's Latin is artfully colloquial; his characters span the boundaries of Roman and Greek, elite and vulgar; his scenarios mock the artistic and philosophical pretensions of Nero's court with comic vulgarity. Read the West's first novel and discover why the Roman empire declined, or why it lasted so long (it depends on your point of view). LTLA 133 - EPIC: OVID’S METAMORPHOSES Instructor: Eliot Wirshbo As always, this course will aim primarily at the improvement of students’ understanding of Latin. With an author as lively as Ovid and a work as central as the Metamorphoses, additional aims are appropriate: gaining an appreciation of Ovid’s playful, lighthearted style; seeing how Ovid humanizes the inherited myths; recognizing the extent to which rhetoric plays a role in Ovid’s deepening of the impact of the stories. Practically speaking, the course will involve our reading (in Latin) as many stories from the Metamorphoses as we can. You’ll be tested on your mastery of these stories and your ability to read them through a mid-term and a final, the first of which will consist of seen passages and the second a combination of seen and sight passages. A preliminary brush-clearing (= a literal translation) will be the starting-point for our discussion of what Ovid is saying, so that an understanding of Latin grammatical constructions is prerequisite to proceeding on to higher matters. In addition, a paper (of a length to be niggled over) on some problem —metrical, textual, psychological, or “literary” — will be required. Mid-term and final exams, naturally. |
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| NEAR EASTERN LITERATURE No course offerings Fall 2007 |
| PORTUGUESE LITERATURE No course offerings Fall 2007 |
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| RUSSIAN LITERATURE
LTRU 1A - FIRST-YEAR RUSSIAN |
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| LITERATURES IN SPANISH |
| INTERMEDIATE COURSES IN SPANISH
LANGUAGE/LITERATURE: The introductory Spanish sequence (1ABCD) is offered through the Linguistics Language Program. Intermediate language and upper-level language and literature courses are offered through the Literature Department. Contact course instructor for further information and with questions regarding placement in LTSP 2ABCDE & 50ABC. Students in LTSP 2A and 2B must attend both the lecture and discussion sections of the course. Note: The final examinations for LTSP 2ABCDE & 50ABC will be held in common. |
| LTSP 2A - INTERMEDIATE SPANISH l: FOUNDATIONS Instructors: TAs supervised by Beatrice Pita This 5 unit intermediate course meets 4 days per week and is taught entirely in Spanish. LTSP 2A emphasizes the development of communicative skills, reading ability, listening comprehension and writing skills. It includes grammar review, short readings, class discussions and working with Spanish-language video and Internet materials. This course is designed to prepare students for LTSP 2B and 2C. A diagnostic test will be administered on the first day. Prerequisites: Completion of LISP 1C/CX, its equivalent, or a score of 3 on the AP Spanish language exam. LTSP 2B - INTERMEDIATE SPANISH ll: READINGS AND COMPOSITION Instructors: TAs supervised by Beatrice Pita This intermediate course is designed for students who wish to improve their grammatical competence, 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 4 days per week. Work for this 5 unit course includes oral presentations, grammar review, writing assignments, class discussions on the readings and work with Spanish-language video and Internet materials. A diagnostic test will be administered on the first day. Prerequisites: Completion of LTSP 2A, its equivalent, or a score of 4 on the AP Spanish language exam. LTSP 2C - INTERMEDIATE SPANISH lll: CULTURAL TOPICS AND COMPOSITION Instructors: TAs supervised by Beatrice Pita The goal of this intermediate language course is twofold: to further develop all skill areas in Spanish and to increase Spanish language-based cultural literacy. LTSP 2C is a continuation of the LTSP second-year sequence with special emphasis on problems in grammar, 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 the understanding of Spanish-language materials on the Internet. A diagnostic test will be administered on the first day. Prerequisite: Completion of LTSP 2B, its equivalent, or a score of 5 on the AP Spanish language exam. This course satisfies the third course requirement of the college-required language sequence as well as the language requirement for participation in UC-EAP. |
| DEPARTMENT APPROVAL FOR LTSP 2D AND 2E IS AVAILABLE IN THE LITERATURE UNDERGRADUATE OFFICE FROM 9:00-3:30, MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY, BEGINNING 10/30/2006. LTSP 2D IS INTENDED FOR STUDENTS WITH SPANISH-SPEAKING BACKGROUND. PLEASE CONTACT INSTRUCTOR PRIOR TO ENROLLMENT. |
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LTSP 2D - INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED SPANISH Instructor: TAs supervised by Beatrice Pita Designed for bilingual students who have been exposed to Spanish at home but have little or no formal training in Spanish. The goal is for students who are comfortable understanding, reading and speaking in Spanish to further develop existing skills and to acquire greater oral fluency, and grammatical control through grammar review, and reading and writing practice. Building on existing strengths, the course will allow students to develop a variety of Spanish language strategies to express themselves in Spanish with greater ease and precision. Prepares native-speakers for more advanced courses. A diagnostic test will be administered on the first day. Prerequisite: Native speaking ability and/or recommendation of instructor. Enrollment for LTSP 2D requires department approval. LTSP 2E - ADVANCED SPANISH READINGS AND COMPOSITION: SPANISH FOR HERITAGE SPEAKERS Instructor: TA supervised by Beatrice Pita An advanced/intermediate course designed for bilingual students who may or may not have studied Spanish formally, but possess good oral skills and seek to become fully bilingual and 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 a higher level of oral proficiency for more advanced courses. A diagnostic test will be administered on the first day. Prerequisite: Native speaking ability and/or recommendation of instructor. Enrollment for LTSP 2E requires department approval. LTSP 21 - CONVERSATION AND ORTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP Instructors: TAs supervised by Beatrice Pita Designed to allow students with a basic grounding in Spanish to discuss a variety of topics related to literary and current cultural issues. Focus will be on vocabulary development, use of idiomatic expressions and advancing oral proficiency in Spanish. Prerequisites: LISP 1C/CX or consent of the instructor. Note: This conversation/discussion class meets once a week. May be taken as an adjunct to lower division LTSP courses, alone, or in combination with any other LTSP course. 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 50A - READINGS IN PENINSULAR LITERATURE Instructors: TAs supervised by Beatrice Pita This course introduces students to Peninsular literature and literary analysis through the close textual reading of a selection of texts including novels, plays, short fiction and poetry. Coursework includes reading of several texts by Spanish authors, participation in class discussions, oral presentations and written assignments. LTSP 50A prepares Literature majors and minors for upper-division work. LTSP 50A and either 50B or 50C are required for Spanish Literature majors. May be applied towards a minor in Spanish Literature or towards fulfilling the second literature requirement for Literature majors. Prerequisites: Completion of LTSP 2C, 2D, 2E or 2 years of college level Spanish. LTSP 130A - DEVELOPMENT OF SPANISH LITERATURE: PANORÁMICO DE LITERATURA ESPAÑOLA Instructor: Jaime Concha El curso consiste en una introducción a la literatura peninsular en un marco cronológico que va desde la Edad Media hasta el siglo XX. Las obras fundamentales del desarrollo literario serán consideradas, contra el fondo de los cambios de época, circunstancias sociales y de estilos, corrientes estéticas, públicos, etc. Un Reader será entregado a los estudiantes, los que también deberán adquirir en Groundwork algunas otras obras imprescindibles. Dos exámenes, uno intermedio, otro final, con igual valor en las calificaciones. LTSP 138 - CENTRAL AMERICAN LITERATURE: POSTWAR CENTRAL AMERICAN NARRATIVE Instructor: Misha Kokotovic In this course we will read literary works from the period of post-utopian disillusionment that followed the defeat of the Central American revolutions in the early 1990s. The negotiated settlements that ended the Central American civil wars in the 1990s did little to resolve the inequalities that gave rise to armed struggle in the first place. Indeed, the region’s socio-economic inequalities are at least as extreme today as they were 30 or 40 years ago. Rather than declining, violence has merely changed form: from politically motivated armed struggle to a criminality fueled by poverty and a rapidly growing illegal drug trade. It is in this context that politically committed revolutionary poetry and testimonial narrative give way to new, equally experimental literary works that critique the national liberation movements of the 1970s and 1980s as well as the free-market, neoliberal policies of right-wing, postwar governments. This course will explore narrative representations of postwar disillusionment with the promises of the free market that in the 1990s replaced the utopian projects of the revolutionary Left. Through such literary works, we will look at the reintegration of ex-guerrillas and demobilized soldiers into civilian life; the new political and cultural spaces opened up and occupied by women during the crisis years of the war and their resistance to the closing of such spaces in the postwar period; the legacy of the genocide against the Maya in Guatemala; and the effects of free market capitalism and the growth of the drug trade on Central American societies. Throughout the course we will be examining both how Central American narratives of the 1990s and 2000s represent life under the new, neoliberal social order, as well as how changed conditions have given rise to new forms of literary representation. Course readings include short stories and short novels by Franz Galich, Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Jacinta Escudos, and Claudia Hernández, among others. LTSP 140 - LATIN AMERICAN NOVEL Instructor: Max Parra Curso de revisión de la novela latinoamericana del siglo XX. Dado el caudal de obras notables que se produce en este período, y la imposiblilidad de abarcarlas, el curso se enfocará en dos momentos destacados: el auge de la novela regional posterior a la primera guerra mundial, 1919-1934, y la novela del postboom posterior a la década del sesenta, 1968-1980. Entre la lista tentativa de autores: Rómulo Gallegos, Manuel Puig, Jorge Ibarguengoitia. LTSP 142 - LATIN AMERICAN SHORT STORY Proposed Instructor: Cecilia Ubilla Este curso hará un examen crítico de algunos cuentos latinoamericanos de lengua española, identificando sus temas centrales, y subrayando la importancia de ellos dentro del marco de las respectivas tendencias literarias en las cuales se les ha clasificado tradicionalmente. Sin descuidar aspectos importantes de cada obra, el análisis se enfocará en el concepto de espacio y su relación con la condición social de los personajes y el momento histórico en que fueron escritos los textos. El estudio, que abarcará desde mediados del Siglo XIX hasta mediados del Siglo XX, se iniciará con Manuel Payno (México), y concluirá con Humberto Arenal (Cuba). Además de estos dos nombres, cuya narrativa ocupa un lugar importante en la literatura latinoamericana, hemos elegido otros—entre ellos Baldomero Lillo (Chile) y Horacio Quiroga (Uruguay) —que ilustran la riqueza y diversidad temática de la producción latinoamericana. LTSP 174 - TOPICS IN CULTURE AND POLITICS: LA CIUDAD DE MÉXICO: TEXTOS E IMÁGENES Instructor: Max Parra Lectura de textos teóricos y literarios sobre la ciudad de México. También se examinarán algunas imágenes (litografías, fotografía, mapas) de la ciudad generadas a través de los siglos, y la relación dialéctica de éstas con la cultura escrita. El propósito del curso es examinar cómo la construcción física de la ciudad de México va acompañada de una construcción cultural, mítica, que condiciona el modo de ver y conceptualizar la vivencia misma de la ciudad. Autores incluidos: Serge Gruzinski, Jerome Monnet, José Joaquín Pesado, Octavio Paz, et al. |
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| LITERATURE/THEORY LTTH 115 - INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THEORY: LEARNING TO THEORIZE Instructor: Stephanie Jed The aim of the course is twofold: 1) to give each student a foothold in some of the basic categories and terminologies of contemporary theoretical discourse and 2) to explore and develop critically each student's capacities for theorizing. We will especially ask the question: how does theorizing take different forms in different cultural contexts? This is intended as a foundation for further work, especially for undergraduates with plans for graduate work in literature and cultural studies. Readings will include representative texts from the (now old) “new criticism”, structuralism and poststructuralism, feminist theory, historiographic theory, political theory, and post colonial theory. |
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| LITERATURES OF THE WORLD LTWL 4A - FILM AND FICTION IN TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIETIES: FRENCH Instructor: Winnie Woodhull This course will deal with films from various parts of the French-speaking world, including Africa (e.g. Algeria, Senegal), the Caribbean, and Europe (e.g. Belgium and Switzerland as well as France itself). Most films will be fairly recent ones, In addition to the story told in a given film, we will examine formal elements, including camera work, editing, sets, lighting, costumes, and sound, in order to grasp the many cinematic features that produce meaning and induce affective responses in viewers. Finally, we will consider the films in relation to the social context of their emergence and reception, which will involve examining, among other things, questions of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, national identity, migration, and cultural belonging. This course requires no prior experience in film studies, and no knowledge of French. (All films will be subtitled in English.) Note that, in addition to lectures, there will be 7 or 8 REQUIRED film screenings during the quarter, probably on Wednesdays at 5 or 6 pm, depending on availability of classroom space. Films will also be placed on reserve for further study and preparation of a 4-5 page paper, a midterm, and a final exam. LTWL 19A - INTRODUCTION TO THE ANCIENT GREEKS AND ROMANS Instructor: Leslie Edwards This interdisciplinary sequence (LTWL 19A, B, C) includes the literature, mythology, history, philosophy, and art of ancient Greece and Rome, complex civilizations which had a determining influence on all later Western culture. In 19A we'll focus on Greece from the time of the Homeric poems to Aeschylus in the early fifth century. We shall read texts of the period as expressions of an aristocratic culture which placed emphasis on war and athletics and whose economies, educational systems, sexual politics, ethics and theology were shaped by this emphasis. This sequence partially fulfills lower division requirements for the Literature/Writing major, the Literatures of the World major/minor, the Classical Studies major/minor and the Warren College program in Classical Studies. There will be a midterm, final, and paper. LTWL 100 - MYTHOLOGY: COMPARATIVE WORLD MYTHOLOGY Instructor: Page DuBois We will look at the myths, or ancient stories, from many different cultures around the world. Setting them in their historical and social contexts, and considering the theory of myth, we will read creation myths from such diverse societies as Nigerian, Native American, Mayan, South Asian, and ancient Greek, as well as myths about goddesses, gods, tricksters, and sacred places, including Vietnamese, Japanese and Chinese, and Aztec stories. LTWL 100 can be repeated as its content differs from year to year. Students who have taken LTWL 100: Myths of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, or Ancient Magic, can take this course for credit. LTWL 114 - CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: THE MODERN AGE* Instructor: Stephen Potts *This course will also count as an LTEN course. The Golden Age of children’s literature began in the mid-nineteenth and ended with World War I. What followed was a period of continued experimentation during the 1920 and 30s, followed by the Silver Age of the mid-twentieth century. Subsequently, children’s literature has become a major genre, both literarily and commercially. This course will trace its history over the past 75 years, a period that begins with Mary Poppins and ends with Harry Potter. We will explore our texts not only for their literary values but for insight into developmental questions and the social construction of childhood. LTWL 122 - FANTASY: J.R.R. TOLKIEN: MASTER OF THE MIDDLE EARTH Instructor: Stephen Potts *This course will also count as an LTEN course. The Sixties generation made it a cult classic. The readers of the London Times voted it the best story of the twentieth century. Director Peter Jackson turned it into a cinematic blockbuster. The long labor of a pedantic Oxford scholar of philology, The Lord of the Rings has reshaped the fantasy genre. This course will endeavor to slow Tolkien’s posthumous spinning by placing The Trilogy in scholarly context, beginning with the mythic and literary traditions Tolkien built upon and proceeding to his other novel-length works: The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. The second half of the quarter will cover The Lord of the Rings on multiple levels—literary, philosophical, and cultural. LTWL 135 - THE BUDDHIST IMAGINARY Instructor: Richard Cohen This class provides an introduction to Buddhist thought and practice. The material will be treated thematically — e.g., the connection between cosmological models and liberative practices; the conflict/symbiosis of wisdom and compassion; renunciation vs. accumulation of wealth — and temporally — the movement from early Buddhism to Mahayana to Tantra. Our sources will be Buddhist narrative and doctrinal literatures, supplemented by archaeological and art historical artifacts. Two papers, a midterm, and a final. LTWL 138 - CRITICAL RELIGION STUDIES: ART, RELIGION AND MATERIAL CULTURE IN AMERICA Proposed Instructor: Joellyn Zollman *This course will also count as an LTEN course. This course introduces students to the visual texts of American religion, including art, commercial and “folk” objects, buildings and landscapes. Course readings emphasize the interpretation of visual texts, thereby providing students with the tools necessary to analyze both historical and contemporary examples of American religious art, artifacts and architecture. In addition, there will be the opportunity for field work. Site visits to Mission San Diego de Alcala, the San Diego Community Holocaust Memorial, and the San Diego Mormon Battalion Historic Site will allow students to apply and expand the interpretive techniques presented in course readings. LTWL 172 - SPECIAL TOPICS IN LITERATURE: KAFKA Proposed Instructor: Laurel Plapp The surreal worlds created by Franz Kafka—in which humans become cockroaches and apes can talk—have long fascinated readers. In this course, we will read selections from Kafka’s diaries and short fiction, including “The Metamorphosis” and “In the Penal Colony,” and conclude with his novel The Trial. To begin making sense of the worlds he created, we will consider contemporary critical approaches to his work and analyze his writings in the context of his many influences and interests: Prague and its legends, Jewish mysticism, Yiddish theater, the Zionist circle Bar Kokhba, and contemporary film. Readings and discussion in English, with the option of reading Kafka’s texts in German. LTWL 176 - LITERATURE AND IDEAS: ENVIRONMENTAL LITERATURES Instructor: Pasquale Verdicchio *This course will also count as an LTEN course. This course should appeal to anyone interested in the literary history of environmental writing and issues, in other words, to students of environmental studies and social sciences in addition to literature majors. We will explore the vital relationship between American literature and environmental values, and attempt to explain how literary interpretations of the land have influenced attitudes toward nonhuman nature. American authors have been consistently concerned with, and inspired by, the idea of wilderness as our culture moved from notions of a hostile wilderness, to the Transcendentalist vision of divine nature, to contemporary nature writers' concern with imperiled ecosystems. Through a consideration of these notions, the course will be devoted to a survey of nineteenth and twentieth-century authors such as H. D. Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Gary Snyder, and Barry Lopez and we will look at movements in Bioregionalism and Deep Ecology and the like. As we explore these writings, we will also examine the merit of environmental literature as a historical, scientific, political, and literary form. While this is a literature course, we will never stray far from environmental ethics and environmental history. LTWL 181 - FILM STUDIES AND LITERATURE: BOLLYWOOD CINEMA Proposed Instructor: Beheroze Shroff This course has been cancelled. LTWL 181 FILM STUDIES AND LITERATURE: ITALIAN NOEREALISM IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT Instructor: Pasquale Verdicchio ITALIAN NEOREALISM was not a truly organized moved and had a rather short life. However, the so called movement deeply influenced directors and film traditions around the world. This course will consider the impact of Italian neorealism beyond the period of 1945–1952, its beginning and end, and beyond its own national and cultural "intentions.” Neorealist filmmakers developed innovative and engaging narrative technique that the sought to bring to bear upon social issues and a redefinition of national identity. Aside from Italian neorealist films we will view productions from India, Brazil, Africa, Hong Kong and the United States among others. We will explore neorealism’s complex relationship to a different national film tradition, style, or historical period, in order to ascertain the impact of neorealism and the ways that it continues to complicate the relationship between ideas of nation, national cinema, and national identity. |
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STUDENTS MUST HAVE COMPLETED THEIR COLLEGE WRITING
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| LTWR 8B - WRITING POETRY Proposed Instructor: Sawako Nakayasu This class will investigate language through the multiple entries and exits and transit routes made possible by engaging with poetry. As a starting point, poetry might be studied as if it were architecture (a building), a place populated by the voices of yourself and others (a city), or an unusual, pleasant, funny sad strange place to visit (an eccentric uncle). We will investigate techniques of composition by studying the works of others, including Charles Baudelaire, Allen Ginsberg, Gertrude Stein, Jackson Mac Low, Lorine Niedecker, Frank O’Hara, Bernadette Mayer, Hannah Weiner, Maria Sabina, Kawata Ayane, Minoru Yoshioka, Harryette Mullen, Ted Berrigan, William Carlos Williams, Amiri Baraka, Anne Waldman, Francis Ponge, Russell Edson, and many more. While the focus remains on writing poems, we will also spend considerable time reading and performing poetry, listening to and watching poets do their thing – live and in the form of recorded material. Attendance at readings in the New Writing Series is required. LTWR 8C - WRITING NON-FICTION Instructor: John Granger It’s all about writing the difficult truth. Classes will alternate from workshop, on Thursdays, to lectures and discussions of readings (and anything else that arises), on Tuesdays. Required work includes eight writing or revision assignments, each two pages long, and weekly reading quizzes. The course grade is based on a ten-page final project (50%), on workshop performance (30%), and on class participation and attendance (20%). |
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DEPARTMENT APPROVAL FOR UPPER-DIVISION WRITING
COURSES IS AVAILABLE IN THE LITERATURE UNDERGRADUATE OFFICE FROM
9:00-3:30, MONDAY-FRIDAY. |
| LTWR 100 - SHORT FICTION Instructor: Sarah Bynum How does one transform a glorious chaos of experiences, obsessions, dreams, theories, and observations into a shapely and compelling story? This course will explore a variety of methods, both traditional and experimental, for making that transformation possible. An interest in craft and a sense of adventure are key. In addition to submitting stories for workshop, students will be asked to read widely, throw themselves into writing exercises, and contribute generously to discussions. Refining the ability to critique peers’ work will be of equal importance as developing one’s own writing. Readings may include stories by Angela Carter, Rick Moody, James Baldwin, Stuart Dybek, Aimee Bender, Jorges Luis Borges, Grace Paley, Donald Barthelme, Anton Chekhov, Alice Walker, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mary Gaitskill. Prerequisite: LTWR 8A LTWR 100 - SHORT FICTION Instructor: Mel Freilicher Students will write two complete short stories in drafts. First drafts of story #1 will be critiqued in peer groups; first drafts of story #2 will be read and discussed by the whole class. There will be a variety of analytic exercises (which are graded check, check minus, check plus) in response to the readings, which include fiction by Nella Larsen, Jane Bowles, Issac Babel, Poe, Edith Wharton, Cortázar, Kafka, Clarice Lispector, Kenzaburo Oe and others. Prerequisite: LTWR 8A. LTWR 102 - POETRY Proposed Instructor: Roberto Tejada This course will examine how poetic urgency can impose a force and shape not only on the languages of desire, but on the kinds of languages we desire. With readings focused on modern and contemporary writing from the Americas---North and South---assignments will test whether poetry can enact a refusal to comply, not only in terms of identity, but in terms of a metaphorics yielding the potential of a body to effect change. The line of inquiry will ask, ultimately, whether writers can successfully question pre-existing subjectivities and the use of received images informing our media. Prerequisite: LTWR 8B LTWR 109 - WRITING AND PUBLISHING CHILDREN’S LITERATURE Proposed Instructor: Diane D’Andrade In this course we will consider the problems and pleasures of writing for children between the ages of 4 and 9. How can one write a story that will fit into a standard 32-page format, leave room for illustrations and hold the interest of wild and eager small people who are begging for the truth and a good joke? How can one get it past the scrutiny of the money-hungry publishers who make the books and the sometimes over-protective parents and grandparents and librarians who buy the books? We’ll read a number of successful picture books and consider how the authors have solved these problems. Students will be asked to write and revise a number of picture book texts and will have an opportunity to read and critique each others’ work. In addition, we will learn what happens to manuscripts submitted to a publisher and what happens to manuscripts accepted by a publisher. We will consider how to find the right publisher and the right editor. LTWR 110 - SCREEN WRITING Proposed Instructor: Cheryl Dunye In this course students explore techniques and formats used in screenwriting. Upon completion of this course the student will be able to: write a one to five page treatment for a short film / motion picture in the treatment format for both a dramatic and documentary projects; create characters for a screenplay; write a short screenplay; revise a screenplay; cover a screenplay. Course will be taught by writer/director Cheryl Dunye. LTWR 113 - INTERCULTURAL WRITING Instructor: Wai-lim Yip 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 fertilization. LTWR 115 - EXPERIMENTAL WRITING: SUDDEN FICTION Instructor: Sarah Bynum This is a class for storytellers who adore language and have short attention spans. I’m kidding about that last part. In this workshop we will celebrate the virtues of brevity by exploring a variety of highly compressed forms, from prose poems to flash fictions. Be unafraid of writing little, Grace Paley once told her students. By that she did not mean spend little time writing. So in the spirit of Grace Paley, we will be reading and writing with great care and energy and concentration throughout the quarter. We will look at stand-alone pieces as well as longer works made up of very short components. Readings may include works by Lydia Davis, Italo Calvino, Eileen Myles, Christine Schutt, Steven Millhauser, Le Thi Diem Thuy, Anne Carson, Gertrude Stein, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Edgar Wideman and of course Grace Paley. You will be generating and revising new pieces every week, and your work will culminate in a 10 to 15-page chapbook. LTWR 119 - WRITING FOR PERFORMANCE Instructor: Camille Forbes In workshop style, this course will focus primarily on the production of solo performance texts by the students, and the presentation of these texts for critical feedback within the class. While our aim is to create powerful original monodramas, it is nonetheless important that we study the roads traveled and the work produced by those who came before us. For this reason, we will engage the visual, literary and aural products of earlier monologists/monodramatists, examining issues particular to craft, such as the transformation of a text from the page to the “stage: (performance arena), how performativity affects the writing process, and how diction, syntax and meaning shift strategically within the performance text and the performance. LTWR 126 - CREATIVE NON-FICTION: SOCIOLOGY AND LITERATURE Instructor: Mel Freilicher Students will read and write texts which focus on both social issues and on stylistic and literary innovation: not academic sociology, the readings will fall within a range of genres, including feature writing, reportage, (photo) essays, and social text. This includes James Baldwin’s The Evidence of Things Not Seen, excerpts from Agee’s Let us Now Praise Famous Men, Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power, and works by Barthes, Susan Faludi, Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, Jonathan Kozol and others. Several writing exercises will involve analysis of writers’ rhetorical strategies. The readings are also models for how to approach the writing project: to create a portrait of a social scene and/or sub/cultural trend and to discuss its ramifications. In all cases, projects will include interviews, observation, research and student writers consciously positioning themselves in relation to their subject matter (which might range anywhere from remote observer to intimate participant). You will provide first drafts of your projects for everyone in the class. We’ll discuss all student projects in the second half of the quarter; and you will also provide written critiques for about half of these. Revised projects are due finals week. Prerequisite: LTWR 8C. LTWR 129 - DISTRIBUTING LITERATURE Instructor: Eileen Myles This class will be exploring the crucial issue of distribution in writing by doing focused research on collaborations across various media (music, visual, electronic), public installation of writing at social functions and in public places, writing and activism, alternative modes of publication, formation of aesthetic schools of writing, working with kids, touring and organizing public readings and performance, performance itself and improvisational speech practices. Every literary generation invents itself by how it reinvents the modes of distribution. Each class member will work on a group project. There will be readings, field trips and special guests. LTWR 143 - STYLISTICS AND GRAMMAR Instructor: John Granger "Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be in the grammar of the language" (Wittgenstein). This course adopts a lecture-workshop format. An anatomy of grammar in the lectures and discussions (Tuesdays) alternates with workshops (Thursdays) in which students will complete a set of twenty stylistic transformations of some unassuming, page-length composition of their own. Required texts include Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, 2nd ed. (UC Press, 1991); Queneau, trans. Wright, Exercises in Style (New Directions, 1981). There will be a final exam on the subject of grammar for half of the grade. Prerequisite: LTWR 8C. |