Global Arc

The lyric as a form of literary art, as distinct from narrative or drama. Readings encompass a variety of lyrical forms and a number of different cultures. Translations will be used. One lecture, one two-hour seminar.

An introductory survey of major representative Latin and vernacular texts in modern English versions, including hagiography, romance, lyric and philosophical poetry, allegory, religious and secular prose, and drama. Special attention will be paid to Christian transformations of classical traditions and to the emergence of the Continental vernaculars of the late Middle Ages. Lecture and preceptorials.

An introduction to the literature of the Renaissance in Europe and in England. Emphasis upon major genres--lyric, drama, pastoral, and prose-fiction--as they arise in Italy, France, Spain, and England. Readings from Boccaccio, Castiglione, Lope de Vega, Sidney, Shakespeare, Erasmus, Rabelais, and Cervantes. Two 90-minute seminars.

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.