Summer 2009 Undergraduate Course Descriptions

CULTURAL STUDIES 170
VISUAL CULTURE SUMMER
SESSION II: August 3 – September 5
Proposed Instructor: Benjamin Balthaser

This course will study the American genre of film developed in the period between 1944 and
1963 and dubbed by French critics "films noirs"for their dark, existential themes, low-key lighting, and anti-social, bleak views of American postwar life.

This course will examine the genre as portable "cultural style" that draws from Grade B gangster films, German expressionism and French surrealism, as well as a response to a specific historical moment of the Cold War.  As an era in which the attempt to contain Soviet influence abroad coincided with an attempt to contain domestic rebellion at home, film noir is recognized as a critical response to the 'official' American story of optimism and national unity.  While mainstream films of the era glorified American efforts abroad or celebrated suburban domesticity, film noir offered a more skeptical look at what could not be contained during the Truman and Eisenhower eras, giving us femme fatales instead of good wives, psychologically complex criminals instead heroes, and ambiguity instead of easy choices between 'good' and 'evil'.  Likewise, as the U.S. attempted to reinforce national borders and create a "security state," this course will also explore the way in which many film noirs are also stories of "border crossings," and resist spatial, racial, and geopolitical logic of Cold War nationalism.

For this class we will see classic film noir movies, including _Double Indemnity_, _Out of the Past_, _Kiss Me Deadly_, and _Touch of Evil_, later films in the noir tradition, such as _Chinatown_, _Blade Runner_, and _Devil in a Blue Dress_, and "film gris" like _Border Crossing_ and _Salt of the Earth_. *This course will also count as a LTEN course.

CULTURAL STUDIES 170 - cancelled
VISUAL CULTURE: VISUAL MEDIA
READING POPULAR CULTURE
SUMMER SESSION II: August 3 – September 5

This course investigates visions of the city constructed in Chinese cinema over 90 years.  We will watch films produced as early as 1922 and as recently as 2007.  Weekly topics include urban entertainment and teahouse culture (1920s), urban corruption and cosmopolitanism (1930s), urban reconfiguration and idealism (1940s), urban reconstruction and socialist virtues (1950s), urban history and revolutionary aesthetics (1960s-1970s), urban transformation and ideological critique (1980s), urban migration and female sexuality (1980s-1990s), urban enigma and male subjectivity (1990s-2000s), urban fantasy and postsocialist nostalgia (1990s-2000s), as well as urban theater and global commercialism (2000s).  No knowledge of the Chinese language is required, but upper-division standing is recommended.  All required films carry English subtitles, and all reading is done in English. 

This course will look at representations of white Europeans and Americans in captivity and bondage, including captives of Barbary pirates and Native Americans, European indentured servants in the 
early Americas, and early 20th-century white female "sex slaves."   

Readings will include Kate McCafferty, Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl; Diane Negra, ed., The Irish in Us: Irishness, Performativity, and Popular Culture; Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters; Des Ekin, The Stolen Village: A Thrilling Account of the 17th- century Raid on Ireland by the Barbary Pirates; Sean O'Callaghan, To Hell or Barbados; James A. Thorne and J. Horace Kimball, Emancipation in the West Indies; Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White; Stephan Talty, Mulatto America; and films Old San Francisco (1927) and The Port of Missing Girls (1938).

This course examines the period (roughly 1920 to the early 1930s) that was known as the New Negro Movement, later referred to as the Harlem Renaissance.  Although the Harlem Renaissance is often thought of as a literary movement, it was much more than this; it was a time of developing racial consciousness expressed through the arts.  Our class will include incorporation of music as well as close readings of major poetry and prose writers studied in the context of cultural history.  We seek to understand the sociocultural significance of the historical moment as well as the texts written during it.

(a) British Literature before 1660: at least one course
(b) British Literature after 1660: at least one course
(c) United States literature before 1860: at least one course,
(d) United States literature after 1860: at least one course.

This course involves, first, the relentless study of forms and, ultimately, employment of the knowledge of those forms in deciphering meaning from passages of some extent. The ultimate goal is an inceptive ability to read Latin. Students who contemplate taking Summer Latin must be aware of the commitment they are in for: a minimum of six hours of homework is required each day, since this course, in six weeks, covers every page normally assigned during three quarters of the academic school year. The reward for this investment is substantial, however: the beginning of an appreciation of what the ancient authors actually wrote. It is highly advisable that students buy the text before the first class and familiarize themselves with pronunciation.  Enrollment is limited.

We will be reading selections from actual Roman authors -- Phaedrus, Seneca, Petronius, Celsus, Pliny, and the scandalous Martial -- which I will be distributing throughout the quarter.  These texts will be accompanied by full vocabulary and some necessary notes.  We will translate these readings carefully, with a wealth of grammatical questions.  I will structure all quizzes and tests so that about one-third of the points will concern grammar as opposed to mere translation.  I am asking you to read not widely but deeply.  There will be weekly quizzes (20%), a midterm (25%), a final (35%), and a paper (20%).  I also reserve the right to institute graded homework assignments if they appear necessary.  The percentages will be adjusted to reflect the amount of homework. One other thing:  I am aware that for many of you, this is the last Latin class you will ever take.  However, Latin 100 is not a terminal Latin class, but is designed to lead to further upper-division study.  It will be conducted accordingly. Prerequisite: LTLA 3 or equivalent

An introduction to Latin American literature, this course offers a selection of authors and genres, introducing students to literary analysis through reading extensive texts in Spanish. Two or more quarters of LTSP 50 are suggested before proceeding to upper-division courses. Prerequisite: LTSP 2C or 2D or 2E or the equivalent.

This course will look at a number of Latin American texts to examine the intersections of gender, sexuality and culture. The writings --principally short fiction written by contemporary male and female writers --will be discussed in tandem with related videos & films. Requirements for the course include 2 short papers, a midterm and a final exam. Works to be studied include those written by Laurini, Vallejo, Poniatowska, Benedetti, Kozameh, García Márquez, Vega, Santos Febres, Cortázar, Yáñez, et al. Films to be discussed in connection to the texts are to be viewed outside of class. Students should have upper-division standing or completed at least one Spanish 50 course prior to enrollment. All coursework, lectures & discussion will be in Spanish. Prerequisites: LTSP 50A, 50B, or 50C

This course introduces the literature and culture of the Hispanophone Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic) as well as of neighboring nations in the circum-Caribbean (Colombia, Panamá, and Venezuela).  The class will analyze literary and cinematic works to help students understand how the Caribbean region has played a large role in twentieth-century world history, in particular cultural and intellectual history.   We examine Caribbean literature from the mid-point of the twentieth century—1950 and the years leading up to the Cuban Revolution—to the present. We will pay particular attention to the Cold War, the rise of Neoliberalism and the Free Trade Economy, and increasing Caribbean migration to the United States and other areas around the world.  Students will be introduced to films, novels, short stories, essays and poetry, plus related criticism.  To this end, selections from such Caribbean/Caribbean diasporic writers as Gabriel García Márquez, Rosario Ferré, Nancy Morejón, Julia Álvarez, and Junot Díaz, among others, will be discussed. Readings, assignments, as well as class discussion will all be in Spanish. Prerequisites: LTSP 50A, 50B, or 50C.

One of the purposes of fairytales is to teach children about the variety of destinies in life.  Fairytales impart knowledge about maturation between an older voice of experience and a younger audience.  They present pictures of future dangers and possibilities.  They use fear and love to help us with our moral decision-making, and they draw maps of socialization for boys and girls, the rich and the poor, rulers and their subjects.

 But folk and fairytales also give us the opportunity to uncover the stories in our own lives.  The aim of this course is two-fold: we will focus on the pedagogical, socializing dimension of the fairytale (textual analysis), and we will study the art of story-telling, for part of the socializing process of fairytales lies in the experience of telling and listening.  We will study the classic European fairytales and their adaptations throughout the world.  We will study Italo Calvino’s collection of Italian folktales, Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose, and several life stories, including Joel ben Izzy’s, The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness and Daniel Wallace’s Big Fish.  We will pay special attention to storytellers, storywriting and our own life stories.  We will discuss the role of fairytales in fiction and pop culture.*This course will also count as a LTEN course.

A reading in English of Cervantes' two Don Quixote novels (1605 and 1615) and an in-depth study of Spanish culture during the period Cervantes was writing.

Writing memoir allows us to reach back across time and reconstruct a moment, event or relationship. We come to a new understanding or clarity about an experience and ourselves in a memoir. We uncover meaning from the past. We make meaning from the past. This class will explore memoir as a type of personal narrative. Memoir is not a simple chronological declaration of events, but offers the reader a more textured understanding of a person. Virginia Woolf noted: “The reason so many memoirs fail is that they focus on the events of what happened and leave out the person to whom things happened.” In this class we will write and read memoirs in order to create a series of short texts, that all explore how an “I” makes sense of life’s experiences. Mining one’s own life for material can be a productive exercise for students of creative non-fiction, fiction and poetry alike. This course will culminate in the creation of a text or collection of shorter works that offer a complex and nuanced look into one life. Our readings will include selections by David Sedaris, Joan Didion, Haven Kimmel, Alice Walker, and Natalie Goldberg. Structured as a workshop, students will write regularly, discuss readings, share their work, and revise their texts for a final portfolio project. Prerequisite: LTWR 8C