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Fall 2001 Course Offerings: 1A-1BCL 1A:1 16606 TINSLEY MWF 9 123 DWINELLE"Body Politics: reading junctures of sexuality and politics in world literature""We are left with the question, 'Why should feelings of love appear politically ridiculous, why would we ever assume that private love can have no public meaning, or must inevitably be 'driven back'?" --Adrienne Rich From news clips of Bill Clinton denying sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, to front page photos of George W. Bush denying funding to family planning groups that counsel women about abortion North American media images expose "relations" between sexuality and politics as inappropriate, antagonistic, and often best silenced. But have the newspapers got this story right? Are the erotic and the political such strange bedfellows? What interests do the silencing of sexuality serve? How can speaking love and/or sexuality link to political empowerment? This course aims to provide students with an introduction to critical writing and reading while exploring answers to these questions. The class will dialogue with poetry, essays, plays, films, and novels, which enunciate international perspectives on this juncture of personal and political. Reading and discussing texts spanning from Martinique to Guinea, Greece to Japan, civil war North America to Napoleonic France, we will focus not only on how this problematic juncture is culturally constructed in specific spatial and temporal geographies but also how these constructions can be re-thought and re-worked to transform the personal and/as the political. Required texts
CL 1A:2 16609 BEN-YISHAI MWF 10 205 DWINELLE"Law's Stories: Intersections of Law and Literature"We have all read books or seen movies about legal issues. In fact, it sometimes seems the lawyer is today's hero as well as its villain. What makes legal dilemmas so compelling? Are we really a society obsessed with the law? If so, why? This course will examine the various ways in which law is represented in literature and film, from antiquity through the present days. The texts range from Ancient Greek (The Oresteia) and the Hebrew Bible (the story of the Ten Commandments) through Shakespeare to the modern French existential novel (L'étranger) and a South African short story. In addition we will watch two films and read some provocative contemporary essays on the law in American society. The main question we shall raise is: what is the concept of law in each of these texts? What do we mean when we talk about "the law" in a cultural, or more specifically literary, context? Good reading, hopefully, will lead to good writing, but so as not to leave that to chance we will stress close readings as a method of textual analysis, and revision and peer editing as part of an intensive focus on writing skills. Course requirements include regular participation in class discussion, 6 papers (two of which will be substantial revisions), and a final portfolio (papers, revisions and a short retrospective essay). Required texts
Course Reader containing the following:
Films
CL 1A:3 16612 BANBAJI MWF 11 121 WHEELER"Literature and Politics"In this course we will discuss moral and political aspects of literary works. Through a reading of a series of literary and programmatic texts we shall explore the different ways in which literature tries to represent reality and to act upon it. In this context we will raise questions concerning the price that "politically effective" literature exacts in terms of oversimplifications and dogmatism. Required texts
RequirementsStudents will be expected to attend classes, to participate in class discussion, to read carefully the assigned works and to write around 30 pages of thoughtful prose. Additional informal writing assignments, as well as one oral presentation, are required as well. CL 1A:4 16615 HAUSDOERFFER TT 8-9:30 123 DWINELLEActs of Memory and Identity in Film and LiteratureIn this class we will explore a set of issues relating to the role of memory in the construction and maintenance of identity. For example, one issue of particular importance isthe difficulty which characters face in coming to terms with figures from their past which literally haunt them and threaten to destabilize their sense of self in the present (Hamlet, Pedro Paramo, Beloved). On the other hand, these characters seem to depend upon their memory of those that are haunting them. So we will ask, when does the weight of memory threaten to suffocate the present? How much does identity depend upon memory? And, conversely, how much does identity depend upon being remembered (being recognized) by others? Since this course is 1A, the emphasis of our work will be on writing short interpretive essays about the texts we read and the films we watch. In the first half of the semester, students will write one paper per week, 2-3 pages in length, and will revise and rewrite at least 2 of these. In the second half of the semester, students will turn in papers less frequently (about every other week), but the paper length will increase to 4-5 pages, and there will be one intensive rewrite of one of these papers. There will be no major exams, but students should expect frequent pass/fail reading-comprehension quizzes. Required Texts
Films
CL 1A:5 16618 LARSEN TT 9:30-11 220 WHEELER"Soil"The most tangible figure for any inhabited place is its soil. In this class we will investigate the deployment of soil as both symbol and material fact in various texts and traditions, along with the commonly associated practices and concepts of agriculture, property, nationhood and belonging. We will also learn the essential principles of composting. This might be the class for you! Required texts
CL 1A:6 16621 HOCHBERG TT 9:30-11 123 DWINELLE"Women and Death"Why do so many works of literature, film, and opera, end with the death of the heroine? Why is the "death scene" so often graphic and detailed? What is it about death that makes it so intriguing? And what are the relationship between gender and death? Sex and death? Giving birth and death? These questions and more will be discussed throughout the semester as we engage a variety of texts, films, and operas. Required texts
In addition there will be a reader including short stories, essays, and poetry. Every student is required to own his/her own reader. We will also watch two operas (film version) and a couple of films. CL 1A:7 16624 ZUMHAGEN TT 11-12:30 121 WHEELER"Presto-Change-o: Identity, Transformation, Mutation, and Deception"In this course we will examine various literary and filmic representations of personal transformations with an eye to exploring the fictional and historical protagonists different negotiations with and performance of their changing gender, race, and monstrous identities. Required texts
A course reader will include essays by Freud, Nietzsche, and Butler as well as stories by Hoffman, Poe, Borges and Cortazar and poetry by A. Rich, Emily Dickinson and Ingeborg Bachmann. Films will include two of the following:
Students will be required to read assigned works carefully, participate in class discussions, produce approximately 30 pages of thoughtful prose (in the form of 5 short papers of increasing length, two of which will be subject to extensive revisions) as well as several informal writing assignments and to offer one oral presentation. CL 1A:8 16627 HORNBY TT 11-12:30 125 DWINELLE"Fiction of Elsewhere"In this course we will examine the role of space in literature, focusing on the manner in which different types of spaces are navigated and explored. We will question the treatment of space (real and fantastic) in fiction and ask how the nowhere of imagination finds its representation in literature and film; how such spaces are navigated within the text; what happens when characters go too far, or not far enough; whether or not return is possible; and what happens when no one goes anywhere at all. This course will be a writing intensive class, with short written assignments due frequently. Some of these short papers will undergo revision. There will be a longer paper due at the end of the term. Poetry and critical texts on the aesthetics of space will be provided in a course reader. Required texts
CL H1A 16603 GOLD TT 9:30-11 222 WHEELER"Triumph of the Anti-Nietzsche: Neurotics in Twentieth Century Fiction and Film"This course's primary objective is to hone students' composition skills. In conjunction with our work on writing, we will read, view, and discuss literature and film which showcase neurotic personalities. We will attempt to determine whether the neurotic is a distinctly modern type, this type's identifying characteristics, and the nature of its special comic appeal. The class will also examine one possible intersection between twentieth century popular culture and nineteenth century philosophy, specifically the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Is the neurotic an anti-Nietzschean figure whose very mode of existence undermines Nietzschean ideals, subverting, in particular, Nietzsche's concept of the will? Also, along with what these characters' neurotic preoccupations reveal about areas of more general societal unease, we will consider the problem funny female neurotics pose for feminism. Finally, we will round out our discussion by comparing the modern neurotic to his most famous forbear, Hamlet, and to a few classical predecessors as well. Required texts
CL 1B:1 16630 LIU MWF 9 222 WHEELER"Weapons of the Weak"Does writing necessarily perpetrate an act of epistemological violence? Contemporary cultural critics often understand the relation between power and social marginality to be a question of representation rather than a matter of the distribution of material benefits. Writing a book, however, presupposes a certain degree of complicity between the writer and the paradigm of cultural normativity in which the relationship between the powerful and the powerless becomes thinkable in the first place. How does one, then, assert one's cultural identity in a language that has historically oppressed or even sought to erase that identity? How can literature possibly serve as a "weapon of the weak"? This course examines a generically diverse range of literary texts drawn from various cultures and time periods in an attempt to understand the possibility, limits, and techniques of the representation of socially marginal subjects (defined in terms of gender, class, sexual orientation, age, race, ethnicity, or along other axes of power) in literature. We will investigate the extent to which language permits the adequate expression of the experience of social marginalization, and the way in which social marginality insistently becomes cultural unintelligibility in these narratives. Writing assignments, active participation in class discussions, a willingness to engage in copious reading, religiously regular attendance and frequent compliments on your instructor's hairstyle are the requirements for this course. Required texts
CL 1B:2 16633 VITALE MWF 10 121 WHEELER"Monsters, Mayhem, Madness"Who is the 'Other'? Through what markers do we recognize an encounter with 'otherness'? This course will attempt to examine the ways in which a series of literary and cultural discourses structurally depend on the exorcism of that which 'deviates from the norm'. Through an interrogation of 'tropes of exteriority', we will examine the way the texts in question stage an encounter between social order and an 'otherness' which is described as chaotic, ghostly, monstrous, or insane. Investigating the language and symbols through which otherness is recognized, we will use these very markers to 'de-construct' the language of social normativity which they form and enforce. In doing so, we will attempt to display the potential for social critique (in terms of race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.) which becomes possible when such discourses of normativity are placed in an encounter their own constitutive limits. Course Requirements: 30 pages of written work, divded between 2 longer papers (7-10 pages) and a series of shorter papers (3-4 pages). The Grade will also depend upon class participation and a short in-class presentation. Required texts
Films
Course Reader: Selections by Bataille, Deleuze, Buechner, Kleist, Borges, Kafka, and Poe.M CL 1B:3 16636 RUPP MWF 10 123 DWINELLE"Strange Pursuits - (Freud or Fiction?)"This Reading & Composition course wants to do what it says - that is, we will read clues and compose probable causes. We workers in texts are after all a kind of detective hot on the heels of something that ended in a deed (or dead) - a symptom or text - and now we are called in to say something illuminating about it, like, how come it is here? who or what did this? where did this start? how to make the clues speak? what do they tell us? Freud will help us set the stage but also become part of the puzzle since what he thought would explain the thing has meanwhile morphed into more mystery. In any case, it is rather strange, is it not, that we can so much enjoy what makes normal life processes and procedures fail- even to the point of delivering a (safely fictional) corpse. Much of this enjoyment (or Freud-e) surely lies in its aftermath - the clever moves of the sleuth. And that'll be our task, too: to read our texts like sleuths and then compose our findings to construct a plausible case. Required texts
Reader
CL 1B:4 16639 INCIARTE MWF 11 20 WHEELERThis class will introduce students to a varied selection of literary texts. Through in-class examination of these texts, plenty of discussion, writing exercises and workshops, and short critical presentations, students will improve their skills in expository prose. We will explore several genres and styles, and many of the themes that appear and reappear in the literatures of different cultures. Required texts
In addition, we will be seeing some films. Recommended Style Manuals
CL 1B:5 16642 ZOU TT 8-9:30 222 WHEELER"Madness and Modernist 'Making Strange'"This course examines madness as a general concept that points to the opposite of being normal. We will first look at narrative texts in which madness erupts as extraordinary events in both the characters' own lives and the texts, and ask why we have to take madness seriously. What is madness? What does madness do to the narrative? And what does madness tell us about the normal, the ordinary, and the familiar? We will contrast/compare the formulation of madness in classical texts with the rendering of "the strange" in modernist texts. Is the modernist "making strange" of the ordinary an expansion of the depiction of madness? If so, how do you characterize this modernist version of "madness"? And again, what does the modernist depiction of "the strange" tell us about the ordinary? We will start with a few poems, and then read narrative texts by Lu Xun, William Shakespeare, Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, and Yu Hua. Required texts
CL 1B:6 16645 YANSON TT 9:30-11 123 WHEELER"Literature of Adultery"The course will look at the theme of adultery as one of the commonly recurring topics in literature. Sexual infidelity, or even the possibility of it, causes personal, social, and political disasters. During the course we will focus on the different historical and cultural treatments of adultery, the reasons why the authors address the topic, the scale of repercussions caused by committing sexual transgression. We will examine how personal conduct can acquire a social and even political significance, how the traditional male and female roles are brought into question by adultery. We will pay close attention to the language of representing adultery: which part of the story gets told, and which part of it remains outside of discussion. Required texts
CL 1B:7 16648 HAFFNER TT 9:30-11 205 DWINELLE"What's in the Box?, or, Detecting Bodies"In the recent movie Jumanji, the success of one of the characters' two thousand hours of psychoanalysis, she says, depends on Robin Williams's having been hacked to pieces by his father in 1969 and hidden in the house's nooks and crannies. Unfortunately for her, he has really been stuck in the "Jumanji" game box, and now he's out and ready to continue playing. Why should that "really" somehow be more real? How is "what's in the box"-an elephant/rhino stampede, giant mosquitoes, a relentless manhunter-related to what's going on outside? What's "really" inside the box? Some think it's a matter of detection. What does the one in the role of detective detect? How is the box's content gendered or sexualized? How does the box's content gender or sexualize the act of detecting, of knowing, the detective's psychic organization(s)? Is it the detective's job to discover the contents, or is the process of detection the ruse allowing the detective to avoid "knowing too much"? If such knowledge is excessive, what could it be excessive to? Why are bodies and body parts always floating around like they just don't fit in? How does Hamlet fit in? For answers, look in the box... Required texts
CL 1B:8 16651 KITTS TT 11-12:30 242 DWINELLE"Laughing Matters"Humor, it has been observed, is like guerrilla warfare. Success depends on traveling light, striking unexpectedly, and getting away fast. Yet how do we spot the contradiction between a funny veneer and serious issues at stake? In this course we will look at literature, music, film, and television from several national and historical contexts that go to the heart of the matter through clever manipulation of techniques which startle and amuse us. We all know that what is funny to one person or group can be irrelevant to others. Which social, psychological, and cultural processes work to make something funny? When is humor most effective? Should horrifying subjects (like genocide) remain untouched by humor or can laughter have a productive purpose, even then? We will address such questions while fulfilling the R&C requirement. Meanwhile students will hone their skills in argumentative writing through the process of revision and working closely with peers, tutors, the teaching assistant or instructor. A long research paper will be required in addition to shorter papers. Students will also have the chance to show off their own humorous talents in oral presentations. Required texts
CL 1B:9 16654 POPKIN TT 11-12:30 123 DWINELLE"Identity in the Wake of Violence"Through a comparison of literatures spanning several centuries and cultures, this course will examine the various ways in which identity can both be destroyed, and constructed, through violence. We will examine the ways in which identity can be torn asunder in the wake of violence, and, how also, paradoxically, it can be constructed through the 'wakefulness' of violence. The literature we will read examines violence from the perspective of perpetrators, bystanders and victims, and often displays the instability of the boundaries between these positions. We will begin with a medieval epic in which violence serves as an attempt to consolidate a civic and religious identity; then we will turn to Marquis de Sade's eighteenth century narrative of brutal sexual violence and examine the ways in which this narrative oddly complements his philosophy of political freedom; we will then move to the nineteenth century with Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata, a text in which a wife murderer claims to have come face to face with the masked, potentially explosive violence at the very center of all relationships; and then we will turn to the twentieth century and look at texts which reflect on slavery, colonialism and the Holocaust. The course readings will also include a reader with theoretical texts by George Bataille, Jacques Derrida, Hegel, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva and Albert Mémmi. Required texts
2A 16657 BALBUENA MW 10-12 222 WHEELER
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