The Literature Major
Course Offerings

Prerequisite Courses And Required Courses

LITR 120a, Introduction to Narrative.
Richard Maxwell (Course head)
Ala Alryyes, Moira Fradinger, David Gabriel, David Quint
MW 1.00-2.15
A team-taught course that examines how narratives work and what they do. Emphasis on fictional form, the mechanics of plot, and questions of time and duration. Texts are drawn from a variety of periods and cultures, and include folk-tales, short stories, novels, case studies, graphic novels, and films.

LITR 122b, World Poetry and Performance.
Richard Maxwell (Course head)
Alexander Beecroft, David Gabriel, David Quint
MW 1.00-2.15
Examines lyric and epic poetry, drama, film, song and performance. Texts are 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.

LITR 143b/FILM 240b, World Cinema.
Dudley Andrew
MWF 11.35-12.25; screenings M 6.30 P.M.
An examination of the varieties of films that have been produced around the globe. Different functions served by the medium, particularly since World War II; analysis and contextualization of selected films from four continents.

LITR 300bG/ENGL 300b, Introduction to Theory of Literature.
Haun Saussy
TTh 11.35-12.25, 1 HTBA
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

*LITR 015a/*HUMS 087a, The Experience of Being Foreign.
Alice Kaplan
MW 1-2.15
Memoirs and novels on the experience of being foreign in various nationals and psychological settings. Writers include Nabokov, Tanizaki, Baldwin, and Salih. Readings from a variety of genres, such as autobiography, field notes, and stylistic analysis. Focus on issues of exile, travel, and translation. Enrollment limited to freshman, preregistration required; see under freshman Seminar Program.

*LITR 016a/*GMST 016a/*HUMS 088a, Truth and Lies in Fiction and Film.
Carol Jacobs
MW 2.30-3.45
Exploration of the concepts of truth, fiction, art, and representation in works of literary and filmic fiction. Emphasis on both textual interpretation and theoretical analysis. The relation between linguistic and visual signs and their claims to various kinds of truth. Enrollment limited to freshman. Preregistration required; see under Freshman Seminar Program.

The Ancient World

*LITR 154a/*ENGL 395a, The 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.

LITR 158a/CLCV 254a, Introduction to Greek Literature.
Victor Bers
MW 1-2:15
Survey of the literature of ancient Greece from the Archaic period to the Second Sophistic. Readings and discussion in English.

LITR 159b/CLCV 255b Introduction to Latin Literature.
Kirk Freudenburg
Survey of the literature of ancient Rome from the Republic to the sixth century C.E. Readings and discussion in English.

LITR 160b, Classical Indian Drama and Dramaturgy.
David Mellins
MW 2.30-3.45
A survey of Sanskrit dramas, read in translation, and an exploration of Indian dramaturgical theory. Aesthetic, social, and historical dimensions of Sanskrit drama; the evolution of literary methods applied in dramatic context. Technical specifications for Sanskrit drama as they reflect the ritual and political cultures of classical India.

*LITR 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
*LITR 170a/*GMAN 289aG/*GMST 289a/*HUMS 286a, Passions, 1600-1800
Rüdiger Campe
T 1:30-3:20
The course explores theories of passion from Descartes and Hobbes to Baumgarten, Burke and Kant, and the relationship between passion and literary representation from Shakespeare and Racine to Richardson and Goethe. Theoretical questions concern psychology and epistemology, aesthetics and anthropology. Theatrical performance of passion (17th century) will be at issue as well as narrative representation (18th century).

*LITR 171a /*FREN 301a/*HUMS 269a/*MUSI 269a, The Anglo-Norman World After 1066.
R. Howard Bloch, Margot Fassler.
TTh 11:35-12:50
An introduction to the history, literature, music, and art of the Anglo-Norman world from the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries.

LITR 175a/JAPN 200a, The Japanese Classics.
John Treat
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 place of Japanese literature within the scope of world literature. No knowledge of Japanese required.

LITR 178a/HUMS 420a/MMES 201a/NELC 156aG, Classics: The Arabic-Islamic World.
Beatrice Gruendler
TTh 1-2:15
Survey of salient works from the literary tradition of the Arabic-Islamic world (West Asia, North Africa, and Muslim Spain). Arabic in language, this tradition engages the civilizations of Late Antiquity in an unbroken textual conversation, carried on by authors of diverse ethnic provenance and religious affiliation. Readings in both prose and poetry from the Koran to the Arabian Nights, with attention to the interdependence of the works and their cultural setting, the agendas authors pursued, and the characters they portrayed.

LITR 183a/ITAL 310a, Dante in Translation.
Giuseppe Mazzotta
TTh 1-2:15
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.

LITR 189aG/SPAN 300aG, Cervantes' Don Quijote.
Roberto González Echevarría
TTh 2:30-3:45
A detailed study of the Quijote 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.

European Literature Since 1800

LITR 206b/RSEE 255b/RUSS 255b, Studies in the Novel: Tolstoy.
Vladimir Alexandrov
A survey of Leo Tolstoy's legacy. Readings include early stories, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and short later works. Close textual analyses, with primary attention to the interrelation of theme, form, and literary and cultural contexts. Readings and discussion in English.

LITR 208a/RSEE 256a/RUSS 256a, Studies in the Novel: Dostoevsky.
Hilary Fink
MF 11:35-12:50
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 accomplished by discussion of the historical, biographical, literary, and philosophical contexts of Dostoevsky's novels. Readings and discussion in English.

*LITR 211b/*AFAM 365b/FREN 373b, Creole Cultures of the Caribbean.
Christopher L. Miller
Focusing on the French and English Caribbean and on Louisiana, this course analyzes the quintessential but ambiguous American condition: that of the "Creole." Encompassing all non-native cultures, this term is inseparable from issues of race and slavery. Readings of historical and literary texts, both well-known and obscure, from the 18th through the 20th century. Reading knowledge of French required.

*LITR 225b/*CLCV 214b/*HUMS 278b/*MGRK 202b/*WGSS 337b, The Poetry of C.P. Cavafy.
George Syrimis
The course examines the interaction between gender, sexuality, and nationalism in the poetry of C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933). Major focus is given to questions of biography and representation, disclosure and evasion, as well as to Cavafy's aestheticism. The course explores the multiple ways in which Cavafy appeals to and simultaneously resists prevailing notions of writing, desire, language, the Classical tradition and modernity as well as his contribution to our understanding of the history and politics of Greek and gay identity in the twentieth century.

*LITR 226b/*JDST 310b, 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.

*LITR 228bG/*GMAN 309bG/*GMST 309bG/*HUMS 274b, Literacy Ethics: Dinesen and Sebald.
Carol Jacobs.
We will be concentrating on the prose works of Isak Dinesen and W. G. Sebald. In reading these singularly popular writers, we will think through how literature and ethics redefine one another, the way in which the performance of the work of art and, specifically, reflections on the nature of language and representability, demand a rethinking of conscience and moral gesture.

*LITR 230a/*FREN 393a, Modernism and the Avant-Garde.
Jean-Jacques Poucel
TTh 1-2:15
A study of the praxis, politics, and aesthetic of successive avant-gardes from a historical perspective. Specific focus on shifting modes of media and representation, stylistic analysis, and theorizing the context of experiment. Principal works considered are literary, but painting, film and performance also included. Consideration of cubism, Dada, surrealism, situationalists, and the Oulipo. Artists include Apollinaire, Artaud, Baudelaire, Breton, Buñuel, Cendrars, Debord, Duchamp, and Tzara. Essays by Benjamin, Bürger, Lyotard, and Perloff.

LITR 231b/PORT 393b, Modern Brazilian and Portuguese Fiction in Translation.
K. David Jackson
TTh 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.

*LITR 233b/*ENGL 305b, Austen and Brontë and Twentieth-Century Women's Novels.
Katie Trumpener
Beginning with key novels by Austen and Charlotte Bronte, this course exams how twentieth-century British, American and Anglophone writers rewrite, revise and reconcile these works, as prototypes of a woman's novel tradition. Particular attention to narrative voice, reader identification, the novel's function as a record of social norms and as an agent of historical change. Novels by Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret Drabble, Cynthia Ozick, Jean Rhys and others; secondary reading by Virginia Woolf, Edmund Wilson, Edward Said, Claudia Johnson, D.A. Miller.

*LITR 236b/*GMAN 252b/GMST 252b, Traditions of the Novella: Short Narratives in the Nineteenth Century.
Kirk Wetters
Survey of the novella as a narrative form from Goethe to Thomas Mann. Emphasis on narrative technique and the development of literature from Romanticism through Realism to Modernism. Among authors to be studied: Goethe, Kleist, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Eichendorff, Büchner, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Gotthelf, Mörike, Keller, C.F. Meyer, Storm, Fontane and Th. Mann. (Texts and class discussion in English, though students with German will be encouraged to read the originals.)

*LITR 241b/*RUSS 323b, City and Country in the Nineteenth-Century Novel.
Molly Brunson
TTh 1:00-2:15
A study of the thematic, aesthetic, and historical significance of the city and the country in the nineteenth-century European novel. Topics include the idyll and urban development, social mobility, travel and transportation, landscape painting, and literacy narrative and spatial organization. Analysis of novels by Dickens, Balzac, and Tolstoy, as well as historical documents, visual materials, and theoretical texts. Readings and discussion in English.

*LITR 244a/ENGL 343a/MMES 401a/AFST 343aG, Postcolonialism in Africa and the Middle East.
Mokhtar Ghambou
T 3:30-5:20
An introduction to the major thematic concerns and narrative preoccupations of postcolonial literature from Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Focus on language, nationalism, gender, and migrancy. Authors include Salih, Dangarembwa, Rushdie, Naipaul, Kincaid, Said, and Bhabha.

Non-European Literature Since 1800

LITR 251b/JAPN 251bG, Japanese Literature After 1970.
John Treat
Study of the Japanese literature published between 1970 and the present. Writers may include Murakami Ryu, Maruya Saiichi, Shimada Masahiko, Nakagami Kenji, Yoshimoto Banana, Yamada Eimi, Murakami Haruki, and Medoruma Shun. No knowledge of Japanese required.

*LITR 258a/*EALL 250a/*ENGL 297a/*ER&M 350a, Literature on Migration in Asian America and East Asia.
Jing Tsu
T 3:30-5:20
Comparative studies of East Asian and Asian American literatures in migration and diaspora. Focus on issues of native speakers, translation, mother tongues, ethnicity and race, national languages, and colonialism. All readings are in English.

LITR 260a/JAPN 250aG, Modern Japanese Fiction.
Christopher Hill

*LITR 266a/*AFAM 191a/*AFST 330a/*FREN 230a, Francophone African and Caribbean Literature.
Christopher L. Miller
T 1:30-3:20
A comprehensive survey of literature written in French from sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. The context of French colonialism and its institutions; local and global culture; independence and the postcolonial era. Authors include Senghor, Césaire, Sèmbene (including film), Kourouma, Bâ, Belaya, Condé, and Lopes.

*LITR 267b/*EAST 441b, Translation and Modern Literature in East Asia.
Heekyoung Cho
This course explores the place and function of translation in relation to the formation of modern literature in East Asia. Using translation as a pivot, we discuss the construction of modern literary language, the appropriation and creation of literary texts, gender created in and by translation, and the power dynamics inherent in the context of translation.

*LITR 275b/*ENGL 383b/*THST 348b, The Common Wealth of Drama.
Murray Biggs
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.

LITR 293a/PORT 370a/SPAN 383A, Psychology in Literature: Characters on the Margins of Reality.
K. David Jackson
MW 11:35-12:50
Study of characters from world literature who are on the margins of reality in their perceptions or actions. Topics include fantasy, alienation, perversion, deviance, delusion, and ecstasy. Conducted in English.

*LITR 295a/*AFAM352a/*AMST 438a/*ER&M 291a/*WGSS 343a, Caribbean Diasporic Literature.
Hazel Carby
M 9:25-11:15
An examination of contemporary literature written by Caribbean writers who have migrated to, or who journey between, different countries around the Atlantic rim. Focus on literature written in English in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, both fiction and nonfiction. Writers include Caryl Phillips, Nalo Hopkinson, and Jamaica Kincaid.

Literary Theory and Special Topics *LITR 302a, Translation: Theoretical and Practical Issues.
Barbara Harshav
T 9:25-11:25
Exploration of various theoretical and practical problems in translation. Topics include the responsibility of the translator to the text, the author, and the reader; the reliability of translation as a literary mode; the transmission or perversion of culture via translation; and the specific problems involved with the translation of various genres (poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction). (Formerly LITR 201)

*LITR 303a/*GMAN 284aG/*GMST 284a, Narrating Risk and Contingency.
Rüdiger Campe
Th 3:30-5:20
In this course we will focus on narrative works from the era of classical probabilistic philosophies. Beginning with Defoe and Wieland, we will read narrative texts by Defoe, Voltaire, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Poe and others. In the background of our readings we will look at the history of probabilistic thinking and contemporary debates on risk and risk taking. Contingency as a basic element of narration will be discussed throughout.

*LITR 309 b G Latin American intellectual Debates of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Moira Fradinger
This seminar looks at central cultural debates in the region over a period of two centuries, mainly through the literary and political form of the essay. It explores polemics over the idea of America, debates around the Indian question, issues of cultural hybridity, transculturation, negritude, and the discussion over the region's modernity and post-modernity, Authors include de Hostos, Alberdi, Bello, Martí, Sarmiento, Rodó, Ortiz, Vasconcelos, Reyes, González Prada, Mariátegui, Mañach, Cabrera, Zea, Roumain, Césaire, Fanon, Damas, Chamoiseau, Rama, Retamar, Benítez Rojo, Ribeiro, Cornejo Polar, García Canclini, Viñas, and Schwarz. Conducted in Spanish; readings and writing can be done in English as well.

*LITR 311a G Adventures in Literacy
Michael Holquist
T 1:30-3:30
This course is an experiment combining literature, cognitive science, and linguistics. It is an attempt to understand the fundamental difference between speaking and other forms of inscribing information (writing, digitalization, etc.) through a study of the history and neuroscience of the act of reading. Since the subject of the course is militantly interdisciplinary, the seminar brings in frequent guest from departments across the university, including cognitive scientists from Haskins Laboratory. Texts include literary texts (Kafka, Poe, Gogol, Proust), classics in linguistics, and recent work being done on the study of literacy's effects on the brain using fMRI imaging. Students have the opportunity to do their own research under the directorship of eminent experts in relevant fields. A course for graduate students and advanced Yale undergraduates.

*LITR 323b/*ENGL 336b/*THST 303b, The Opera Libretto.
J. D. McClatchy
A selective survey of the genre from its seventeenth-century Italian origins to the present day. The libretto's history, from opera seria to opéra comique to melodrama, featuring original libretti by writers such as Homannsthal, W.S. Gilbert, and Auden. Emphasis on literary adaptations, from Da Ponte and Beaumarchais to Britten and Thomas Mann. Source material includes works by Shakespeare, Schiller, Hugo, Melville, and Tennessee Williams. Readings in English; musical background not required.

*LITR 328a/*GMST 212a/*HUMS 277a/*MGRK 212a, Folktales and Fairy Tales.
Maria Kaliambou
T 2:30-4:20
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.

*LITR 329b/*GMAN 287bG/*GMST 287b, Advocates and Representatives.
Rüdiger Campe
In contradistinction to our familiar thinking on communication as two parties speaking about the world, the course will develop a triangular scene, in which one person speaks on behalf of another person before a third party. This is the model of communication in law (in the idea of advocacy), religion (in the idea of intercession) and politics (in the idea of representation). Readings will be taken from ancient rhetoric (Aristotle, Quintilian), Jewish and Christian religious texts (on the "paraclete" or helper), as well as modern social and literary theory (Parsons, Derrida); we will also examine selected scenes from ancient and modern drama as well as paradigmatic works by Kafka, Canetti and Celan.

*LITR 334b/*GMAN 181b, 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. Poets studied include Brecht, Rilke, Goethe, Frost, and Elizabeth Bishop. Reading knowledge of German or French useful but not required.

*LITR 336a/*GMST 317a/*HUMS 371a, Childhood and Memory.
Henry Sussman
MW 1.00-2.15
Investigation of the centrality of children in nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature and culture. Children's modalities of thinking, playing, and coping. Childhood as a prototype for experimentation and critique. Works by Joyce, Proust, Woolf, Baldwin, Benjamin, and Golding. Some attention to different models of memory from the literatures of psychoanalysis, philosophy, and cognitive science.

*LITR 343aG/*GMAN 304aG/*GMST 304a, Transformation of the Elegy.
Rainer Nägele
Th 1:30-3:20
Concentrating on the elegies of Goethe, Hölderlin, and Rilke, the seminar will analyse the transformation of the classical Greek elegy form in modern times. Students will be encouraged to consult translations as a part of the interpretation of the works, and discussion will be in English, but we will focus on the original German texts; for this reason at least a basic reading knowledge of German is expected.

LITR 347b/HUMS 349b, History & Critique of Semiotics.
David Larsen
Meaning is derived from raw phenomena, relayed through interpersonal communication, and variously engaged in the work of art. And yet it is said to have one vehicle: the sign. This seminar is on the conveyance of meaning in all its aspects, combining an introduction to contemporary semiotic theory with a historical survey of semiotic thought, and experimenting with their uses in contemporary humanistic inquiry.

*LITR 349aG/*GMAN 354aG/*GMST 354a/HUMS 345a/PHIL 411a, Adorno's Aesthetic Theory.
Rainer Nägele
W 3:30-5:20
Close reading of Adorno's "Ästhetische Theorie". Reading knowledge in German required.

Film *LITR 350b/*FILM 410b/*GMAN 406ab Theatricality in Film.
Brigitte Peucker
Examination of the multiple implications of theatricality in and for the cinema. Theatricality as excess; the appropriation of theatrical modes for film; theatricality as modernist self reflexivity; performance and the relation of theatricality to subjectivity (performing the self); ritual and reenactment in film;theatricality and the real; the matieral impage.

LITR 351a/FILM 333a Early Film Theory & Modernity.
Francesco Casetti
MW 10:30-11:20
Introduction to film theory from its beginnings to c.1930, including its emphasis on the spectator's experience. Ways in which early theory highlighted characteristics of modern life such as speed, economy, contingency, and excitation. The role of national identity in defining topics of theoretical research explored through comparison of American and European debates.

*LITR 354a/*HUMS 282a/*FILM 450aG, Media: The Logic of Repetition.
Francesco Casetti
T 1:30-3:20
An analysis of such common film practices as adaptation, remake, prequel, sequel, quotation, formula and genre that also operate in fiction, TV, painting, and in every art. Examples will be taken from various media, as repetition is examined from the point of view of semiotics (Barthes, Eco) cultural history (Benjamin) and philosophy (Deleuze).

*LITR 357a/*ENGL 321a/*HUMS 246a, Visual Culture in Literature, Drama, and Film.
Edward Barnaby
Th 1.30-3.20
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.

*LITR 360a/*FILM 363a, Radical Cinemas of Latin America.
Moira Fradinger
W3:30-5:20; Screenings M 7-9pm
An introductory overview of Latin American cinema, with an emphasis on post-World War II films produced in Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. Examination of each film in its historical and aesthetic aspects, and in light of questions concerning national cinema and "third cinema." Examples from both pre-1945 and contemporary films. Conducted in English; knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese helpful but not required.

Core Seminars

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

*LITR 402b/*ENGL 329b, Picture Book to Graphic Novel.
Katie Trumpener
MW 2.30-3.45, I HTBA
History of the picture book from the early modern period to the late twentieth century, focusing on the Anglo-American tradition within a broader European context. The picture book's relationship to the comic strip and comic book, and to the contemporary graphic novel. The complex relations between image and narrative, format and address.

*LITR 403b/*FILM 442b, The City in Literature and Film.
Katerina Clark
TTh 1.00-2.15; screenings T 7P.M.
Consideration of the architecture, town planning, and symbolic functions of various cities in Europe, Latin America, the United States, and East Asia. Discussion of the representation of these cities in literature and film. Works include older Soviet and Chinese films about Shanghai and contemporary films about Hong Kong and Beijing.

*LITR 410a, The Avant-Garde.
Katerina Clark
TTh 1.00-2.15
Study of principal movements in the avant-garde from the first half of the twentieth century, including futurism, Dada, expressionism, constructivism, and surrealism. Discussion of avant-garde works from a range of media and genres in the literary, visual, and performing arts. Definitions of the avant-garde, and its relationship to postmodernism.

*LITR 425b/*FILM 344b, Landscape, Film, Architecture.
Richard Maxwell
MW 11.35-12.50
Movement through landscapes and cityscapes as a key to understanding them. Simulation of travel using movie cameras and other visual-verbal means, as a way to expand historical, aesthetic, and sociological inquiries into how places are inhabited and experienced. Exploration of both real and imaginary places traversed in works by Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, César Aira, Georges Rodenbach, Patrick Keiller, Georges Perec, and Andrei Tarkovsky.

*LITR 429b Fictional Worlds.
Benjamin Harshav
W 1:30-3:20
The construction of fictional worlds in literature, as exemplified in close readings of stories by Joyce, Gogol, and especially the fictions of interpretation in the work of Franz Kafka. All readings in English; papers may be written on texts in other languages.

*LITR 433a/*ENGL 314a, The Modernist Lyric.
Richard Maxwell
MW 11.30-12.45
Introduction to lyric poetry in Europe and North America, c. 1900-1940, along with several nineteenth-century precursors, emphasizing the ambition of certain works (as though lyric had taken over the function of epic). Poets studied include Baudelaire, Valéry, Rilke, Pound, MacDiarmid, and Brecht. Some knowledge of French or German useful.

*LITR 435bG/*ENGL 348b, The Arabic Novel in Translation.
Ala Alryyes
T 3.30-5.20
Readings from selected modern Arabic novels in translation, with attention to how their themes and forms emulate and diverge from those of the Western novel. Topics include the persistence of orality and the relation between dialect and formal language; the clash between tradition and modernity; the chasm between ordinary lives and official history; defeat and exile; and patriarchy and gender issues. Works by Haykal, Mahfouz, Jabra, Salih, al-Shaykh, and al-Ghitani. Some attention to films and plays.

*LITR 443a, Marc Chagall: Life & Art.
Benjamin Harshav
W 1.30-3.20
The life of Marc Chagall (1887-1985) examined in the context of twentieth-century artistic and political movements. His contributions to revolutionary culture in Russia and the Yiddish avant-garde theater; his Christian iconography and Bible illustrations; his relations with modernist trends of his time. Special attention to the modes of analysis of modern art and the languages of art between Surrealism and fictional mythology.

*LITR 458/*ENGL 256a/HUMS 275a, Class, Desire, and the Novel
Barry McCrea.
M 9:25-11:15
Plots involving social progress and erotic ambition examined in literary works from the seventeenth century to the present. Topics include social ascent or decline, money, the marriage plot, the family and its alternatives, insiders, outsiders, work, sexuality, crime. Novels from France, Spain, Italy, England, America. All readings in English.

*LITR 459a, Narratives of the Hero from Ireland to China.
David Gabriel
T 9.25-11.15
Study of the hero from his appearance at the dawn of literary culture to his present incarnation as the superhero of popular media. Emphasis on the medieval and classical periods. Ways in which heroic narratives relate to each other. Texts include literature from the Germanic, Celtic, Greek, Latin, Indian, and Chinese traditions.

*LITR 460b, Reconsidering the Categories of East and West.
David Gabriel
T 9.25-11.15
Accepted notions of the Western and Eastern worlds examined in literature, film, and other cultural products from regions and peoples who defy or disturb traditional classifications. Examples include indigenous peoples of North America, Central Asia in the post-Soviet world, and countries that occupy a liminal space between East and West, such as Albania and Turkey. Strategies for understanding the culturally unfamiliar without appropriating or negatively affecting it.

*LITR 461a, Greek Tragedy and Genre Film.
Alexander Beecroft
TTh 2.30-3.45
How and why do audiences derive pleasure from watching horrible things unfold on stage and screen? Each week of this seminar will juxtapose one Greco-Roman tragedy (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Senecca) with one genre film (directors including Hitchcock, de Palma, Romero, Fincher and Kubrick) in order to explore the changing individual and communal roles of the representation of violence and suffering. Brief secondary readings from ancient literary theory, psychoanalysis and film theory will frame our discussions.

*LITR 480b Topics in Literary Theory: Psychoanalysis in Literature and Film.
Moira Fradinger
W 3:30-5:20
In-depth examination of a field of literary theory; topics change annually, and the course can be taken more than once. The topic for 2009 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 been imported into theories of culture, society and the arts.

*LITR 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 *LITR 491a or b, The Senior Essay.
Consult the director of undergraduate studies.
An independent writing and research project. The senior essay is due in the office of the director of undergraduate studies according to the following schedule: (1) by September 11 (for LITR 491a) or January 22 (for LITR 491b), a three-page prospectus signed by the student's advisor; (2) by October 23 (for LITR 491a) or March 1 (for LITR 491b), a full rough draft (not notes); (3) by December 4 (for LITR 491a) or April 16 (LITR 491b) the completed essay. The minimum length for an essay is twenty-five pages. Students are urged to arrange a topic and advisor in the term before the term in which the essay is to be written.

*LITR 492a or b and 493a or b, The Yearlong Senior Essay.
Consult the director of undergraduate studies.
Barry McCrea
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 11, a three-page prospectus signed by the student's advisor; (2) by January 22, a full rough draft (not notes); (3) by April 16, 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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