Global Arc

This course examines an emergent historical situation as it unfolds: the ongoing financial, social, and humanitarian "crisis" in Greece, including the "refugee crisis." It offers a comparative approach to current Greek cultural production, through literature and film of the past decade and writings drawn from history, anthropology, political science, economics, news sources, and political blogs. We also probe terms like "crisis," exploring how language shapes our understanding of events and how our perceptions of an unfamiliar culture, history, and society are mediated not just by linguistic translation but by market forces and media spin.

Study of a selected theme or topic in comparative literature. Subjects will range from historical and cultural questions (literature and politics, the literature of the avant-garde) to the study of specific literary themes or topics (feminine autobiography, the grotesque in literature).

An exploration of the cultural meanings of the Gothic mode through a study of its characteristic elements, its origins in 18th-century English and German culture and thought, its development across Western national traditions, and its persistence in contemporary culture, including film, electronic media, clothing, social behavior, and belief systems, as well as literature. Films, artifacts, websites, and electronic publications will supplement readings. One three-hour seminar.

What possible relevance could Homer's Iliad have today? Yet for nearly three millennia the epic has inspired countless rewritings, from ancient and early modern drama, to modern translations and continuations, to Hollywood blockbusters and contemporary avant-garde theater. This course traces the influence of the epic across languages, media, and time. Together we will ask vital questions about the formation and reformation of literary canons; the role of translation in the transformation of literary works; and the social, political, and ethical impulses that often motivate our encounters with literary texts.

The idea that the poet "created a world" was a commonplace of Renaissance literary criticism. In this course we will be thinking about how poetry's worldmaking powers responded to changing ideas of what makes up the world - from revolutionary visions of the cosmos to new conceptions of the nature of matter and life - as well as to the new technologies which made these discoveries possible. How do the "creative" qualities of literature interact with an emerging scientific emphasis on facts and "things as they are"? We will consider these and similar questions in the different contexts of early modern Italy and England.

This course examines how political repression has shaped the literature and culture of the modern Mediterranean. Each week we focus on a national space (Albania, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Syria), approaching work from that space in terms of its aesthetic, political, and cultural significance. Through close, historicized, and comparative readings of these texts, we explore the relationship between literature and politics; translation and identity; and representations of state power, authoritarian rule, and struggles for liberation.

This course examines how Arab writers have used the craft of fiction to address major social and political issues such as displacement, labor migration, war, social repression, and dictatorship. The course covers novels from Egypt, the Sudan, Lebanon, Palestine, Morocco, and Iraq. Topics covered include the Lebanese Civil War, the Palestinian struggle, Islamic fundamentalism, and Iraq under the Baathist regime. The course will also look more broadly at experiences of exile and migration and the postcolonial world as reflected in modern Arabic writing. All readings are in English translation.

Post-2000 Israeli cinema offers powerful representations of the local and global forces shaping life in contemporary Israeli society. In this course, through analysis of twelve recent cinematic masterpieces, you'll develop your own vision for a film. We'll discuss both artistic choices and social questions including Israeli women's rights, Arab-Jewish relations, and religious-secular tensions. Weekly assignments culminate in your original screenplay exploring an aspect of contemporary Israeli society. Class time is split between synchronous discussions and asynchronous practicum activities. All films and texts are in English translation.

In our seminar we will read seminal romantic and realist works, exploring the intersections and interactions between them that have proven formative to their internal development and that of their main genres, poetry and prose. Key critical, theoretical, and philosophical considerations of the textual and conceptual issues they raise will also be discussed, with a view to understanding the textual dimensions of the literary history that precedes them and that they continue to produce. Works by Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Hawthorne, Whitman, Melville, Faulkner, among others.

An investigation of the literary, medical and philosophical treatment of women in medieval and early modern Europe. We will consider works by both female and male authors, thus enabling us to compare ways in which women saw themselves with the ways in which they were seen by men. The cult of women as well as misandry and misogyny, and debates centering around such crucial matters as childbirth, witchcraft and the evil eye will be explored. Among the authors we will consider are Hildegard von Bingen, Christine de Pizan, Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, Aphra Behn, Veronica Franco, and William Shakespeare.