Global Arc

Close readings of literary works of the Enlightenment and romanticism. Readings will focus primarily on the ways in which these works articulate and represent problems of knowledge. In the course of this exploration, it will be necessary to consider the primary topoi and defining oppositions of Enlightenment thought, with their transformations in romanticism. One three-hour seminar.

Modern Western literature in the perspective of its development since the Industrial Revolution. The peculiarity of "modernist'' style exemplified by various genres. Significant philosophical trends that define the parallel development of modern art and thought. Texts from English, German, French, and other literatures. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Exploring literary texts and films that foreground the benefits, but also the ordeals of transnational migration and the traffic in peoples, goods, and ideas throughout the Mediterranean region, with particular stress on contemporary works and issues. Particular attention will be paid to women's experience of the Mediterranean as a realm of adventure as well as the subjection imposed by patriarchal customs, war, and colonization.

Classical mythology in the arts from Ovid to Shakespeare, from Zeuxis to Titian, with a particular emphasis on the subject of love. Introductory discussions on the nature of myth in its relation to the literary and visual arts. Readings will include major literary works from antiquity to the Renaissance integrated with the study of mythological painting, principally from 15th- and 16th-century Italy, including the works of Botticelli, Correggio, and Titian. One three-hour seminar.

Modern Hebrew literature evolved as a poetic struggle over the boundaries of Israeliness, Hebrew language, and Jewish identity; it sprang up on fault lines of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, and religion. This course takes us on a journey through Hebrew literature and its relationship with Israeli society from early Jewish immigration to Palestine through the spoken word archive of contemporary Mizrahi poets. We also encounter pioneering queer authors, Palestinian-Israelis, and a Vietnamese-Israeli poet. Readings are supplemented by pivotal films. All readings and films are in English translation; knowledge of Hebrew not required.

The tragic vision as expressed by Greek, Renaissance, and modern writers who dramatize the relationship between human suffering and human achievement. Readings in Aeschylus, Sophocles, the Old Testament, Shakespeare, Milton, Chekhov, Ibsen, Sartre, Brecht, Beckett, and T. S. Eliot. One lecture, one two-hour seminar.

A study of early to mid-20th century fiction, focusing on the question of modernity both as a literary and a historical-philosophical problem. Attention will be given especially to experimentation with literary form and the relation of narrative forms to specific cultural practices. Authors read in the course include Joyce, Woolf, Kafka, Proust, Beckett, Borges. Students will also study essays reflecting the debates of the period (Brecht, Adorno, Lukács, Benjamin). One three-hour seminar.

A study of the relation between the writing of poetry and the question of modernity as a theoretical and cultural problem. The course will take into account the various experimental movements that opted for poetry as their primary medium (imagism, dadaism, surrealism, futurism), as well as the work of certain poets who have indelibly marked the 20th century's poetic landscape (Yeats, Brecht, Neruda, Cavafy, and others). Students are expected to know at least one of the foreign languages involved well enough to read the original texts. One three-hour seminar.

An introduction to literature as a vehicle of thought about law, morality, and the tensions between them. Readings include ancient legal codes, selected biblical texts, Greek tragedies, Norse sagas, medieval satirical epics, Renaissance drama, 18th-century drama, and modern fiction. Emphasis on revenge codes, the shift from prelegal to legal societies, the Christianization of Germanic law, equity, contract, critiques of law and legal systems. One three-hour seminar.

Literature, art, computer code, social media, news, music and video games--copyright underpins almost everything we read or hear. But it is not an old idea. Why was it invented? For whose benefit? What is a "work" or an "author"? Is copyright still relevant, or is a new framework needed? From Balzac and Dickens to Facebook, from Bizet to Broadway musicals, this new course invites students to think about the philosophical and cultural issues raised by copyright in the past and present--and for the future. Taught jointly by a professor of Comparative Literature and a practicing intellectual property lawyer; for students in all disciplines.