Literature 122b, WORLD POETRY AND PERFORMANCE.
Alexander Beecroft, Richard Maxwell, Eric Bulson    MW 1:00-2:15
Examines lyric and epic poetry, drama, film, song and performance, drawn from a broad range of cultures and time periods, from the ancient Near East to our own time. Emphasis on how poetic and dramatic forms shape the stories they tell, on the social and cultural uses to which these forms are put, on relationship between text and performance and on historical and cross-cultural connections among texts.

Literature 300bG/ENG 300b, INTRODUCTION TO THEORY OF LITERATURE.
Paul Fry    TTh 11:35-12:25
An examination of concepts and assumptions present in contemporary views of literature. Theory of meaning, interpretation, and representation. Critical analysis of formalist, psychoanalytic, structuralist, poststructuralist, Marxist, and feminist approaches to theory and literature.

FRESHMAN SEMINARS

*Literature 002a/*HUMS 002a/*MMES 002a/*NELC 002a, CLASSICAL ARABIC LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION.
Beatrice Gruendler
Thematic exploration of the major genres of classical Arabic literature from the sixth through the fifteenth centuries C.E. Readings from both prose and poetry, with some attention to the historical, sociological, and literary backgrounds of the texts. The agendas authors pursued through their writings; Fictional and historical perspectives on characters portrayed in the literature. Enrollment limited to freshmen. Preregistration required; see under Freshman Seminar Program.

*Literature 088a/*GMST 088a/*HUMS 083a, THE CONCEPT OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE GERMAN TRADITION.
Carol Jacobs Readings in German literature and letters from the eighteenth century to the present that address the concept of knowledge. Exploration of the relationship among art, language, truth, and knowledge. Works by Lessing, Kant, Goethe, Kleist, Friedrich, Schlegel, Tieck, Hoffmann, Freud, Nietzsche, Kafka, Rilke, and Sebald; screenings of selected films. Enrollment limited to freshmen. Preregistration required; see under Freshman Seminar Program.

THE ANCIENT WORLD

*Literature 150a/*HUMS 385a/*LING 111a, SANSKRIT CLASSICS IN TRANSLATION.
Stanley Insler    T 9:25-11:15
Introduction to the chief genres of Sanskrit secular literature set against the background of the cultural history of ancient India. Examination of the various literary styles in comparison with those of other world literary traditions.

*Literature 154b/*ENG 395b, BIBLE AS LITERATURE.
Leslie Brisman    MW 2:30-3:45
Study of the Bible as a collection of works exhibiting a variety of attitudes toward the conflicting claims of tradition and originality, historicity and literariness. Pre-1800 with permission of instructor and completion of supplementary assignments in the language of the King James Bible.

Literature 158a/CLCV 254a, INTRODUCTION TO GREEK LITERATURE.
Egbert Bakker    11:35-12:50
Survey of the literature of ancient Greece from the Archaic period to the Second Sophistic. Readings and discussion in English.

Literature 159b/CLCV 255b, INTRODUCTION TO LATIN LITERATURE.
Kirk Freudenburg    TTh 11:35-12:50
Survey of the literature of ancient Rome from the Republic to the sixth century C.E. Readings and discussion in English.

Literature 160b, CLASSICAL INDIAN DRAMA AND DRAMATURGY.
David Mellins    MW 2:30-3:45
A survey of Sanscrit dramas, read in translation, and an exploration of Indian dramaturgical theory. Aesthetic, social, and historical dimensions of Sanscrit drama; the evolution of literary methods applied in dramatic context. Technical specifications for Sanscrit drama as they reflect the ritual and political cultures of classical India.

*Literature 161b/*CLCV 218b/*HUMS 258b/*THST 218b, DRAMA AND DEMOS.
Timothy Robinson
The major plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes read in translation with attention to their theatricality and to their articulation of contemporary attitudes toward politics, psychology, and the consolidation and disintegration of the Athenian polis during the fifth century B.C. Prerequisite: a course on ancient Greece (history or literature) or in theater studies.

MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN LITERATURE TO 1800.

Literature 172aG/CHNS 200aG, MAN AND NATURE IN CHINESE LITERATURE.
Kang-I Sun Chang    TTh 1:00-2:15
An exploration of concepts of man and nature in traditional Chinese literature, with special attention to aesthetic and cultural meanings. Topics include Taoism, Buddhism, and lyricism; body and sexuality; contemplation and self-cultivation; travel in literature; landscape and the art of description; images of Utopian communities as compared to the Western notion of Utopia; ideas of self-identity; dream, pilgrimage, and allegory (as seen in the Journey to the West and The Tower of Myriad Mirrors). All readings in translation; no knowledge of Chinese required.

Literature 175b/JAPN 200b, THE JAPANESE CLASSICS.
Edward Kamens    TTh 2:30-3:45
Prose narratives, poetry collections, and plays from the eighth through the nineteenth centuries. Topics include the relation of gender to modes of writing, recurring themes of nature, love, warfare, and the supernatural, and the place of Japanese literature within the scope of world literature. No knowledge of Japanese required.

Literature 183a/ITAL 310a, DANTE IN TRANSLATION.
Giuseppe Mazzotta
A critical reading of Dante’s Divine Comedy and selections from the minor works, with an attempt to place Dante’s work in the intellectual and social context of the late Middle Ages by relating literature to philosophical, theological, and political concerns. One discussion section conducted in Italian.

Literature 189aG/SPAN 300aG, CERVANTES’ DON QUIJOTE.
Roberto González Echevarría    TTh 2:30-3:45
A detailed study of the in the aesthetic and historical context of Renaissance and baroque Spain. Topics include the significance of the Quijote for modern European and Latin American fiction. Readings also include Cervantes’ Exemplary Stories and Elliott’s Imperial Spain. Conducted in English; a section in Spanish available depending on demand.

*Literature 190a/*FREN 210a/*HUMS 241a, RENAISSANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
R. Howard Bloch    TTh 11:35-12:50
A study of the major literary, intellectual, and visual forms of the High Middle Ages.

Literature 196/*JDST 312a/*HUMS 259a, HEBREW POETRY IN MUSLIM SPAIN.
Peter Cole    M 2:30-4:30
Introduction to the Golden Age of Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Andalusia from the tenth century through the twelfth. Major figures of the period and the cultural and philosophical questions they confronted. The Judeo-Arabic social context in which the poetry emerged; critical issues pertaining to the study and transmission of this literature. Readings from the works of several poets. Readings in translation. Additional readings in Hebrew available.

EUROPEAN LITERATURE SINCE 1800

Literature 206b/RSEE 255b/RUSS 255b, STUDIES IN THE NOVEL: TOLSTOY.
Vladimir Alexandrov    MW 1:30-2:20
A survey of Leo Tolstoy’s legacy. Readings include early stories, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and short later works. Close textual analysis, with primary attention to the interrelation of theme, form, and literary and cultural contexts. Readings and discussion in English.

Literature 208a/RSEE 256a/RUSS 256a, STUDIES IN THE NOVEL: DOSTOEVSKY.
Kate Holland    MW 1:30-2:20
The literary and intellectual legacy of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Focus on Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov; consideration of several short stories and novellas. Special attention to Dostoevsky’s concept of modernity. Close textual analysis is accompanied by discussion of the historical, biographical, literary, and philosophical contexts of Dostoevsky’s novels. Readings and discussion in English.

*Literature 216a/*GMAN 305aG/*GMST305a/*HUMS 238a, OEDIPUS AND FAUST: TRAGEDIES OF KNOWLEDGE.
Rainer Nagele    W 1:30-3:20
Close reading of the Sophoclean Oedipus and Goethe’s Faust Part I with particular attention to the two heroes in relation the desire of knowledge. Lectures and discussion in English. Reading knowledge in German required.

*Literature 161b/CLCV 218b/*HUMS 258b/*THST 218b, DRAMA AND DEMOS
. Timothy Robinson
The major plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes read in translation with attention to their theatricality and to their articulation of contemporary attitudes toward politics, psychology, and the consolidation and disintegration of the Athenian polis during the fifth century B.C. Prerequisite: a course on ancient Greece (history or literature) or in theater studies.

*Literature 220b/*CZECH 301b/*RSEE 300b, MILAN KUNDERA: THE CZECH NOVELIST AND FRENCH THINKER.
Karen von Kunes
Close readings of Kundera’s novels. Analysis of the author’s aesthetics and artistic development, and his ties to French, German, and Spanish literatures, as well as to history, philosophy, music, and art. Topics include paradoxes of public and private life, the irrational in erotic behavior, the duality of body and soul, the interplay of imagination and reality, the function of literary metaphor, and the art of composition. Readings and discussion in English.

Literature 223b/ENGL 360b/HUMS 243b/THST 223b, THE FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN DRAMA.
Murray Biggs    MW 10:30-11:20
Three representative plays by each of the seven principals of early modern western drama: Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw, O’Neill, Pirandello, Brecht.

*Literature 226a/*JDST 310a, READINGS IN HEBREW POETRY.
Benjamin Harshav    T 1:30-3:20
Modernism in Hebrew poetry. Poets studied vary from year to year. Prerequisite: a high level of reading Hebrew texts in poetry and criticism. Students may take a second time. Poets studied vary yearly; may be repeated for credit.

*Literature 230a/FREN 390a, MODERNISM AND THE AVANT-GARDE.
Jean-Jacques Poucel    MW 2:30-3:45
A study of the praxis, politics, and aesthetics of successive avant-gardes from an historical perspective. Specific focus on shifting modes of representation, stylistic analysis, and contextualizing artistic experiment. Principal works considered are literary, but painting and film are also included. Consideration of cubism, Dada, surrealism, situationists, the Oulipo, and the Extreme Contemporary. Writers include Apollinaire, Artaud, Baudelaire.

Literature 231b/PORT 393b, MODERN BRAZILIAN AND PORTUGUESE FICTION IN TRANSLATION.
K. David Jackson    MW 1-2:15
An introduction to the major writers in modern Brazilian and Portuguese literatures, including J.M. Machado de Assis, Clarice Lispector, João Guimãraes Rosa, Fernando Pessoa, and José Saramago. Conducted in English.

*Literature 236a/*RUSS 319a, CRIMINALITY AND THE NOVEL.
Kate Holland    T 1:30-3:20
Criminals and criminality as they are represented in the nineteenth-century European novel. Topics include the criminal as social deviant, the novelistic narrator as criminologist, the language of criminals, crime in the city and in the provinces, political crimes, sexual crimes, and changing interpretation of the cause of crime. Readings include novels by Balzac, Gogol, Hugo, and Dostoevsky, and nonfictional writings by Vidocq and Nechaev. Readings and discussion in English.

*Literature 243a/*ENGL 430a, BRITISH LITERATURE OF THE SIXTIES.
Nigel Alderman    M 1:30-3:20
An examination of British novels, drama, and poetry of the 1960s. Selected authors include Spark, Beckett, Stoppard, Larkin, Plath, and Hill. Relevant selections of music, films, and television programs are also included.

NON-EUROPEAN LITERATURE SINCE 1800

*Literature 261a/TAML 170a, LITERATURES OF SOUTH INDIAN LANGUAGES.
Elayaperumal Annamalai    MW 2:30-3:45
Introduction to literature in translation from four South Indian Languages, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu. Works from the modern colonial and postcolonial periods are illustrative of South Indian society and, more broadly, South Asian society. Readings and discussion in English.

*Literature 269a/*AFST 343a/ENGL 343a, INTRODUCTION TO POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURES.
El Mokhtar Ghambou    TTh 11:35-12:25
An introduction to the literatures and theories of postcolonialism. Focus on issues of language and nationalism, migrancy, cultural geographics, and questions of race, ethnicity, and gender. Caribbean, African, and South Asian literature in the Anglophone tradition, including works by Ngugi, Rushdie, George Lamming, Derek Walcott, Assia Djebar, and Edward Said.

Literature 270a/ENGL 328a/ER&M 310a, FICTION WITHOUT BORDERS.
Shameem Black    MW 1:30-2:20
Contemporary fiction from the United States, South Asia, South Africa, China, Britain, and the Middle East that explores the changing relationships between literature and globalization. Works by Aleksandar Hemon, J.M. Coetzee, Salman Rushdie, Chu Tien-wen, Ruth Ozeki, Amitav Ghosh, Amitava Kumar, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Julian Barnes, Orhan Pamuk, and Gish Jen.

*Literature 271a/*THST 369a/*AFAM 369a/*AMST 370a/*ENGL 364a, AFRICAN AMERICAN THEATER.
Paige McGinley    T 3:30-5:20
Intensive study of African American dramatic literature and theater history. Topics include the theater of the Harlem Renaissance, Federal Theater Project, and Black Arts Movement, and plays by Bonner, Hansberry, Kennedy, Bullins, Shange, and Wilson.

*Literature 273a/*ENGL 302a, INTERNATIONAL BRITAIN.
Tanya Agathocleous    TTh 1-2:15
Twentieth-century British and Commonwealth literature, predominantly fiction, in the context of war and decolonization. Authors include Virginia Woolf, Kazuo Ishiguro, Michael Ondaatje, Pat Barker, Salman Rushdie, and J.M. Coetzee. Topics include historical change, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, trauma and memory, and the reconstitution of ethics.

*Literature 275a/*ENGL 383a/*THST 348a, THE COMMON WEALTH OF DRAMA.
Murray Biggs    MW 4-5:15
Study of plays in English from or about former British colonies, both before and after independence, including Ireland, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, the West Indies, and the Indian subcontinent.

*Literature 288a/*PORT 389a/*SPAN 341a, FAULKNER, ROSA, AND RULFO: REGIONALISM AND MODERNISM IN THE AMERICAS.
Paulo Moreira    TTh 11:35-12:50
Comparative readings of short stories by William Faulkner, João Guimarães Rosa, and Juan Rulfo, Twentieth-century masters of modern narrative. The conjunction of prose inspired by modernist experimentations and an attachment to the local and rural margins. Readings and discussion in English; texts available in the original languages.

Literature 292a/PORT 396a, MODERN BRAZILIAN LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION.
K. David Jackson    MW 1-2:15
Study of major writers, movements, and works in modern Brazilian literature, including drama, poetry, essay, memoirs, and fiction. Introduction to canonical writers, works, and movements, including naturalism, realism, modernism, social realism, innovative writing, and postmodern trends. General introduction to key concepts in Brazilian civilization. Conducted in English.

*Literature 296b/*PORT 392bG, BRAZIL’S MODERN ART MOVEMENT.
K. David Jackson    Th 9:25-11:15
Brazilian modernism in literature and the arts, centered on Sao Paulo’s “Modern Art Week” of 1922, in the perspective of the European avant-gardes (cubism, futurism, surrealism) and Brazilian production. Themes include the Cannibal Manifesto and cultural independence from Europe; avant-garde practices in literature and the arts, from the 1920’s to the construction of Brasilia and San Paulo Concrete Poetry. Special attention to major authors- - Oswald de Andrade, Mario de Andrade, Manuel Bandeira, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Murilo Mendes, Joao Cabral, Haroldo & Augusto de Campos—and artists Villa-Lobos, Portinari, Di Cavalcanti, and Tarsila do Amaral. Includes influential visitors to Brazil, as well as radio, film, and music of the period.

*Literature 297a/*PORT 350aG, NOVELS OF MACHADO DE ASSIS.
K. David Jackson Th 9:25-11:15 The novelistic world of J.M. Machado de Assis, a master of nineteenth-century Brazilian novel. Examination of the author’s skepticism, narrative innovations, social critique, and encyclopedic referentiality. Readings and discussion in English; texts available in Portuguese.

*Literature 305b/*GMAN 210bG/*GMST 210b/*HUMS 239b, SELF-REFERENTIALTY IN LITERATURE AND ART.
Kirk Wetters    W 3:30-5:20
What happens when a work of art or literature reflects on itself? What happens when the artist is doubled within his or her creation? To what degree is self-representation and self-thematization, in one form or another, indispensable to all representation? What are the effects? To what extent are such “meta-” configurations a uniquely modern (or postmodern) preoccupation? Guided by these questions, we will examine exemplary works from a wide variety of periods and literary genres: Shakespeare’s “Richard II,” Diderot’s “Paradox of the Actor,” Goethe’s “Werther” and “Tasso,” poetry of Holderlin’s poetry of the poet” and Rilke’s “Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.” These readings will be coupled with relevant theoretical work (Fr. Schlegel, Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, Louis Marin). The myth of Orpheus, one of the oldest and most enduring figures of the artist, will be discussed in three central works from the history of opera: Monteverdi’s “Orfeo,” Mozart’s “Magic Flute” and Schoenberg’s “Moses and Aron.”

*Literature 323b/*ENG 336b/*THST 303b, THE OPERA LIBRETTO.
J. D. McClatchy    M 1:30-3:20
A selective survey of the genre from its seventeenth-century Italian origins to the present day. Though we will cover the libretto’s history, from opera seria to opera comique to melodrama, and feature original libretti such as those by Hofmannsthal, W.S. Gilbert, and Auden, the seminar will concentrate on literary adaptations, from Da Ponte and Beaumarchais to Britten and Thomas Mann. All material will be read in English, and a musical background is not required. Source material will include Shakespeare, Schiller, Hugo, Melville, and Tennessee Williams.

*Literature 328a/*MGRK 212a/*GMST 212a, FOLKTALES AND FAIRY TALES.
Maria Kaliambou    M 1:30-3:20
History of the folktale from the late eighteenth through the late nineteenth centuries. Basic concepts, terminology, and interpretations of folktales, with some attention to twentieth-century theoretical approaches. Performance and audience, storytellers, and gender-related distinctions. Interconnections between oral and written traditions examined in narratives from western Europe and Greece.

*Literature 334a/GER 177a, PROBLEMS OF LYRIC.
Howard Stern    MW 4:00-5:15
Masterpieces of European and American Lyric studied in relation to the various determinants of poetry: grammar and logic, meter and rhyme, self-consciousness and performativity, myth and theme. Reading knowledge of German or French useful but not required; other languages may be brought into independent projects. Poets studied include Brecht, Rilke, Goethe, Frost, and Elizabeth Bishop.

*Literature 335b/*MGRK 211b/*CLCV 211b/ *HUMS 263b/*WGSS 248b, LITERATURE AND WAR IN THE GREEK TRADITION.
George Syrimis    F 1:30-3:20
The emergence of literary genres influenced by the experience of war. Readings from both ancient and modern texts, with a focus on the Greek tradition. War as inhuman violence, honorific endeavor, necessary evil, sacred cause, and gendered conflict. The ways in which the literature of war explores what it means to be human.

*Literature 337a/ITAL 305a, ITALIAN FOOD AND LITERATURE.
Risa Sodi    MW 2:30-3:45
The intersection of food and literature in Italy from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Dante, Boccaccio, and the earliest cookbooks) to the modern age (the futurists, Calvino, and others). Discussion of foodways, or how food is tied to religions, holidays, gender roles and identities, and domestic economics. Consideration of film.

Literature 338b/FREN 384b/FILM 362b/ITAL 384b/JDST 289b, REPRESENTING THE HOLOCAUST.
Maurice Samuels, Millicent Marcus    TTh 11:35-12:50
The Holocaust as it has been depicted in books and films, ans as written and recorded by survivors in different languages and national contexts. Questions of aesthetics and authority, language and its limits, ethical engagement, metaphors and memory, and narrative adequacy to record historical truth. Interactive discussions about films (Life Is Beautiful, Schindler’s List, Shoah), novels, memoirs (Primo Levi, Charlotte Delbo, Art Spiegelman), commentaries, theoretical writings, and testimonies from Yale’s Fortunoff Video Archive.

*Literature 340a/*GMAN 230a/*GMST 230a/*HUMS 100a, RESEARCH AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS PRACTICUM
. Kirk Wetters    W 3:30-5:20
This seminar is intended to aid Juniors in designing and preparing for their senior projects, but it will also double as an advanced foundational course in literary and critical theory. The first part of the course will focus “classic” texts from central critical and theoretical discourses, which currently inform interdisciplinary work in the humanities. Readings will include influential (but compact) texts by Nietzsche, Freud, Lukacs, Benjamin, Adorno, Szondi and de Man. In some cases, these critical texts will in some cases be paired with literary works (for example E. T. A. Hoffmann and Freud, Beckett with Adorno). The second half of the course will be oriented toward the pragmatics of research, including library skills, with an emphasis on the management of primary vs. secondary sources. Each student will develop their own project to present and discuss; additional readings will be generated based on students’ individual interests and priorities. (Junior Seminar for German and German Studies; knowledge of German required only for German majors.)

*Literature 341/*HUMS 262a/*MGRK 210a/*RLST 212a/ *WGSS 247a, RELIGION AND LITERATURE: IRREVERENT TEXTS.
George Syrimis    F 1:30-3:20
The complex relationship between religion and literature from the nineteenth century to the present. Focus on the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions. Modernity and tradition, the legitimacy of ritual, the relationship between church and state, and the reception of antiquity. The emergence of modern discourses of gender and sexuality in light of religious practice and dogma.

Literature 345b/FREN 269b, FRANCO-BELGIAN COMIC STRIPS.
Catherine Labio    T 1:30-3:20
Franco-Belgian comic strips, or bandes dessinées (B.D.), as a narrative and visual art from historical, formal, theoretical, and cultural perspectives. B.D.’s by Hergé, Franquin, Peyo, uderzo and Goscinny, Bretécher, and Tardi, as well as by contemporary small-press authors. Other works include medieval illuminated manuscripts, Renaissance woodcuts, eighteenth-century prints, and nineteenth-and early twentieth-century pioneer works by Doré, Busch, Töpffer, Masereel, and Windsor McKay. Theoretical readings on the relationship between text and image and narratology. Comparison of B.D.’s with American comics and Japanese manga and inquiry into the role played by B.D.’s in the growth of comics as a global phenomenon.

FILM

Literature 352a/FILM 340a/HUMS 257a, ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY FILM THEORY.
Francesco Casetti    MWF 10:30-11:20; screenings Sunday 7-9 pm
A survey of contemporary theoretical issues in the study of film. Conceptualizations of the cinematic apparatus, the body, and the senses. After FILM 150a or LITR 300b or with permission of instructor.

Literature 353b/FILM 310b, THEORY OF TV AND MEDIA.
John MacKay    MWF 1:30-2:20
Historically contextualized consideration of major issues in the study of visual and aural media, with a focus on screen and console-based media (film, radio, television, internet). Topics to be covered include theories od medium as they relate to theories of media; the interrelationships between television, cinema, radio and internet; newsreel, documentary, and TV news; and the interactions between mass media and alternative visual practices. Open to interested graduate students.

*Literature 357a/*ENGL 321a/*HUMS 246a, VISUAL CULTURE IN LITERATURE, DRAMA, AND FILM.
Edward Barnaby    T 3:30-5:20
A discussion of texts that address the transformation of visual culture and the act of seeing in modern industrial society. The dynamics such texts reveal in relationships between individuals and mass culture, authenticity and commodity, theory and ideology. Questions of imperialism, rationalism, industrialism, voyeurism, tourism, and realism are inscribed in landscape, architecture, painting, photography, theater, and cinema.

*Literature 360b/*FILM 363b, LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA.
Moira Fradinger    W 1:30-3:20 An introductory overview of Latin American cinema, with an emphasis on post WWII films produced by the four major industries of the region; Cuba, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. Examines each film in its historical and aesthetic aspects, and in light of questions of national cinema and of “third cinema”. Pre-1945 as well as contemporary examples will be included. Taught in English; knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese useful.

*Literature 375a/FILM 462a, REAL FRENCH FILM: RENOIR, BAZIN, ROHMER.
Dudley Andrew    Th 9:25-11:15
Examination of an abundance of Bazin’s critical writings, alongside an analysis of the filmmaker he most revered, Renoir, and the one he most influenced, Rohmer. Reading knowledge of French.

*Literature 379b/*FILM 466bG/*GMST 370b, THE FILMS OF FASSBINDER, HERZOG, AND WENDERS.
Brigitte Peucker    T 3:30-5:20
Close study of the three major directors of the New German Cinema. Topics include questions of authorship, cultural politics, intermediality, and postmodernism. Readings in English; conducted in English.

*Literature 390b/*FILM 389b/*AMST 390b, GENRE STUDY: THE WESTERN.
Aaron Gerow    TTh 1-2:15
An exploration of approaches to the film genre, using the Western as a case study. Ways in which the Western has served to define the concept of genre; attempts by scholars to delineate what is and is not a Western. The Western genre’s relationship to other media and to the American West; its usage in defining American and racial identity. Native American, European, and Japanese attempts to critique, appropriate, and redefine the Western.

*Literature 391a*Film 441aG/*RSEE 321aG/RUSS 245aG, RUSSIAN FILM.
John MacKay    Th 1:30-3:20 Screenings SU 7 P.M.
An historical overview of the development of Russian film with special attention to the classics of directors such as Eisenstein and Vertov. Russian film examined in terms of its contribution to film theory and practice and of the specific historical and cultural contexts of the major films.

CORE SEMINARS

Two seminars are required for all Literature majors; nonmajors may be admitted with permission of the instructor.

*Literature 404a/*ENGL 337a, STORIES OF THE STRANGE.
Richard Maxwell    MW1:00-2:15
The genre of the fantastic or folkloric tale collection traced through a range of Western and European cultures, with particular focus on issues of narration and audience. Texts include The Thousand and One Nights, the lays of Marie de France, Charles Perrault’s Mother Goose Tales, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Jan Potocki’s Manuscript Found in Saragossa, Washington Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra, and Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men.

*Literature 405b/*GMAN 412bG/*GMST 412b/*HUMS 304b, LACAN: REREADING FREUD.
Rainer Nagele    TH 1:30-3:20 Close reading of the major essays of Jacques Lacan’s Ecrits with some excerpts from his seminars. Consideration of Lacan’s claim that his was a faithful rereading of Freud’s work.

*Literature 408a/*FREN 242a, WORD AND IMAGE.
Catherine Labio    T 2:30-4:20
An introduction to the complex relationship that was obtained between text and image in Europe and the United States since the Middle Ages. Drawing on the extensive resources of Yale’s art galleries and libraries, we shall be analyzing a wide variety of examples of text and image, from medieval illuminated manuscripts to contemporary art, including painting, prints, architecture, and comics.

*Literature 414b/ENGL 397b, THE 18TH CENTURY EUROPEAN NOVEL.
Katie Trumpener    MW 1:00-2:15
Eighteenth-century novels reground fiction in everyday documents; letters, diaries, travelogues, and confessions. Their formal experiments raise questions about cultural identity, historical experience, social roles, and the vicissitudes of knowledge.

*Literature 416a/*ENGL 242a/*HUMS 305a, THE ENLIGHTMENT TODAY: LITERATURE AND SECULARIZATION.
Ala Alryyes    W 7:00-8:50
Major texts of the European enlightenment. Themes include the relationship of the individual to family and society, the political function of the body and pornography, the theatricality of the self and education, the limitations of language and communication, the rights of women, and the value of history. For English majors, pre-1800 with permission of the instructor and the director of undergraduate studies.

*Literature 418b/FREN 449b/HUMS 253b, FICTIONS OF CAPITAL.
Catherine Labio    W 2:30-4:20
Advanced seminar on the relationship between literature, art, and finance. Topics under consideration include: verbal and visual treatments of the financial revolutions, bubbles, and crashes that have occurred since the Tulip Mania of 1636/37, the fictional nature of capital, the semiotics of money, verbal and visual representations of financiers and speculators. Works by Defoe, Hogarth, Montesquieu, Balzac, Melville, Mamet, Lombardi, Easton, Ellis, Debord, and Baudrillard.

*Literature 431b/*GMST 315b/*GMAN315bG*HUMS 368b, SYSTEMS AND THEIR THEORY.
Henry Sussman    M 3:30-5:20
Conceptual systems that have, since the outset of modernity, furnished a format and platform for rigorous thinking at the same time that they have imposed on language the attributes of self-reflexivity, consistency, repetition, purity, and dependability. Texts by Kant, Hegel, Bergson, Kafka, Proust, and Borges.

*Literature 432b, LITERATURES OF WW II: HOMEFRONT NARRATIVES.
Katie Trumpener    M 9:25-11:15
Quotidian civilian experiences of World War II examined from a pan-European perspective. The kinds of literary reflection war occasioned; how civilians experienced the relationship between history and everyday life, both during and after the war; children’s experience of war, and ways that home front, occupation and concentration camp memories shaped postwar avant-garde aesthetics. Works analyzed include wartime and postwar fiction, diaries, memoirs, and films.

*Literature 439a, GRAPHIC FORMS.
Eric Bulson    W 9:25-11:15
This course looks at a variety of literary forms (novels, poems, manifestoes, epics) and considers how they have evolved alongside, and often in response to, visual media (photography, film, television, internet). We will be reading manifestos, graphic novels, commix, manga, and bande dessinée from around the globe.

*Literature 448a/*FILM 473a/*HUMS 234a, AMERICAN-FRENCH FILM RELATIONS AND THE CULTURE OF COMMITMENT 1930-1965.
Dudley Andrew, David Bromwich T 1:30-3:20
Cultural interchange between France and the United States during the middle of the twentieth century. Focus on film, fiction, and criticism, with some attention to jazz. Discussion of how the arts of each culture were received by the other and what effects this had on cultural politics and artistic style.

*Literature 451a, AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND FICTION.
Katerina Clark    T TH 1:00-215
Close reading of a variety of works of fiction that present themselves as autobiographies. Texts include works by Augustine, Rousseau, Goethe, Joyce, Sartre, and Coetzee, as well as slave narratives and trial confessions.

*Literature 456b/*GMST 456bG/*HUMS 340b, INTERPRETATION AND AUTHORITY.
Carol Jacobs    T 1:30-3:20
Close reading of works on problems of authority and interpretation by Sigmund Freud, Roland Barthes, Paul de Man, and Walter Benjamin. Exploration of their writing as a performance that questions simplistic notions of truth. Consideration of the problem of how to interpret texts that unsettle the very nature of interpretation.

*Literature 480a, TOPICS IN LITERARY THEORY: PSYCHOANALYSIS IN LITERATURE AND FILM.
Moira Fradinger    W 7-8:50
In-depth examination of a field of literary theory; topics change annually, and the course can be taken more than once. The topic for 2008 is concepts in psychoanalytic theory that bridge the clinical world, literary and critical theory, and film and gender studies. Foundational works by Freud and Lacan are considered together with literary and theoretical texts in order to explore the link between the arts and psychoanalytic theory. Concepts from the clinical field that have material not otherwise offered by the department, must terminate in at least a term paper or its equivalent, and must have the approval of the director of undergraduate studies. Enrollment limited to Literature majors.

Literature 488a or b, DIRECTED READING AND/OR INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH.
Barry McCrea
Special projects in an area of the student’s particular interest set up with the help of a faculty advisor and the director of undergraduate studies. Projects cover material not otherwise offered by the department, must terminate in at least a term paper or its equivalent, and must have the approval of the director of undergraduate studies. Enrollment limited to Literature majors.

SENIOR COURSES

Literature 492a or b and 493a or b. THE YEARLONG SENIOR ESSAY.
DUS
An extended research project. Students must petition the curriculum committee for permission to enroll by the last day of classes in the term preceding enrollment in LITR 492a or b. For students expecting to graduate in May, the senior essay is due in the office of the director of undergraduate studies according to the following schedule: (1) by September 12, a three-page prospectus signed by the student’s advisor; (2) by January 23, a full rough draft (not notes); (3) by April 17, the completed essay. December graduates should consult the director of undergraduate studies for required deadlines. The minimum length for a yearlong senior essay is forty pages.  

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