Column one has the course number and section. Other columns show the course title, days offered, instructor's name, room number, if the course is cross-referenced with another program, and a option to view additional course information in a pop-up window.
Course # (Section)
Title
Day/Times
Instructor
Room
PosTag(s)
Info
AS.211.137 (01)
Freshman Seminar: Borges and Scientific Knowledge
TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
Egginton, William
Gilman 413
GRLL-ENGL
Freshman Seminar: Borges and Scientific Knowledge AS.211.137 (01)
A survey of the stories and essays of the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges focusing on the theory of knowledge he developed over his long career. Special attention will be paid to the implications his ideas have for the mathematical and physical sciences, in particular cosmology.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
Instructor: Egginton, William
Room: Gilman 413
Status: Open
Seats Available: 13/18
PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL
AS.300.324 (01)
Cinema of the 1930s: Communist and Capitalist Fantasies
MW 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Eakin Moss, Anne, McCabe, Nathan
Gilman 208
INST-GLOBAL
Cinema of the 1930s: Communist and Capitalist Fantasies AS.300.324 (01)
Comedy and musical comedy film flourished in the USA during the Great Depression as well as in the USSR during the Stalinist Great Terror. This course will compare films of the era in a variety of genres (musical, epic, Western, drama), examining the intersections between politics and aesthetics as well as the lasting implications of the films themselves in light of theoretical works on film as a medium, ethics and gender.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Instructor: Eakin Moss, Anne, McCabe, Nathan
Room: Gilman 208
Status: Open
Seats Available: 12/25
PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL
AS.300.334 (01)
Love and its maladies
MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
Ender, Evelyne
Gilman 219
Love and its maladies AS.300.334 (01)
Much of what we know about love and desire we owe to fiction’s ability to evoke these experiences. Consider for example that the publication, in Germany, of The Sorrows of Young Werther inspired young men across Europe to dress and behave just like this lover. Just as nowadays film and television represent, as well as mold our conceptions of love, love-stories from the eighteenth-century onwards have given shape to gendered subjectivities in ways that still matter now. As, intriguingly, illness is a recurrent theme in many modern love stories, we will be prompted to decipher signs and symptoms in the bodies of mind of our protagonists. Why is it that in Western cultures, passion is tightly interwoven with a landscape of pain, suffering, and disease? In studying texts that represent major aspects of a romantic sensibility, we are indeed invited to trace the steps of a history of the body increasingly defined by gender and by medical knowledge. The readings for this class (all available in English) include: Austen, Persuasion; Balzac, The Unknown Masterpiece; Barthes, Lover’s Discourse; Goethe; The Sorrows of Young Werther; Mann, Death in Venice; Winterson, Written on the Body.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
Instructor: Ender, Evelyne
Room: Gilman 219
Status: Open
Seats Available: 12/18
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.300.342 (01)
Imagining Climate Change
TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
Lisi, Leonardo
Gilman 208
GRLL-ENGL, INST-IR, ENVS-MAJOR, ENVS-MINOR
Imagining Climate Change AS.300.342 (01)
Climate change poses an existential threat to human civilization. Yet the attention and concern it receives in ordinary life and culture is nowhere near what science tells us is required. What are the causes of this mismatch between crisis and response? What accounts for our collective inability to imagine and grasp this new reality, and how can it be overcome? In pursuit of these questions, we will look at texts from politics, philosophy, literary theory, and religion that frame climate change as a fundamental challenge not only to humanity but to the humanities: the disciplines and modes of thought that we rely on to make sense of the human condition. The second part of the course will examine works of literature and film for examples of how contemporary artists attempt to make the climate crisis visible and intelligible to us.
Introductory survey of foundational texts of modern Western literature and thought. This semester will include works by René Descartes, Max Weber, W. E. B. Du Bois, Virginia Woolf, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno, Michel Foucault, Cora Diamond, and Stanley Cavell. The course is taught in lectures and seminar discussions led by the course faculty.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Instructor: Marrati, Paola
Room: Krieger 302
Status: Open
Seats Available: 17/25
PosTag(s): INST-PT
AS.300.336 (01)
Forms of Moral Community: The Contemporary World Novel
MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Ong, Yi-Ping
Gilman 208
Forms of Moral Community: The Contemporary World Novel AS.300.336 (01)
Literary and philosophical imaginations of moral community in the post-WWII period (1950-2001). Texts include: Coetzee, Disgrace; McEwan, Atonement;Achebe, Things Fall Apart; Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World; Roy, The God of Small Things; Lessing, The Grass is Singing; Mistry, A Fine Balance;Morrison, Beloved; and essays by Levi, Strawson, Adorno, Murdoch, Beauvoir and Barthes on the deep uncertainty over moral community after the crisis of World War II. Close attention to novelistic style and narrative will inform our study of the philosophical questions that animate these works. What does it means to acknowledge another person’s humanity? Who are the members of a moral community? Why do we hold one another responsible for our actions? How do fundamental moral emotions such as contempt, humiliation, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, and regret reveal the limits of a moral community?
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Instructor: Ong, Yi-Ping
Room: Gilman 208
Status: Open
Seats Available: 8/15
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.211.477 (01)
Witchcraft and Demonology in Literature and the Arts
TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Stephens, Walter E
Gilman 132
GRLL-ENGL, GRLL-ITAL, ENGL-PR1800
Witchcraft and Demonology in Literature and the Arts AS.211.477 (01)
Who were the witches? Why were they persecuted for hundreds of years? Why were women identified as the witches par excellence? How many witches were put to death between 1400 and 1800? What traits did European witch-mythologies share with other societies? After the witch-hunts ended, how did “The Witch” go from being “monstrous” to being “admirable” and even “sexy”? Answers are found in history and anthropology, but also in theology, literature, folklore, music, and the visual arts, including cinema.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Instructor: Stephens, Walter E
Room: Gilman 132
Status: Open
Seats Available: 8/40
PosTag(s): GRLL-ENGL, GRLL-ITAL, ENGL-PR1800
AS.300.402 (01)
What is a Person? Humans, Corporations, Robots, Trees
T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Levi, Jacob Ezra, Siraganian, Lisa Michele
Gilman 208
What is a Person? Humans, Corporations, Robots, Trees AS.300.402 (01)
Knowing who or what counts as a person seems straightforward, until we consider the many kinds of creatures, objects, and artificial beings that have been granted—or demanded or denied—that status. This course investigates recent debates about being a person in literature and law. Questions examined will include: Should trees have standing? Can corporations have religious beliefs? Could a robot sign a contract? Although our explorations will be focused on these questions, the genre of materials examined will be wide-ranging (including legal essays, philosophy, contemporary novels, and film). Texts will include novels by William Gibson and Lydia Millet, essays by John Dewey and Daniel Dennett, and films such as Ex Machinaand Her.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Levi, Jacob Ezra, Siraganian, Lisa Michele
Room: Gilman 208
Status: Open
Seats Available: 4/15
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.211.361 (01)
Narratives of Dissent in Israeli Society and Culture
TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Stahl, Neta
Krieger 302
INST-GLOBAL, INST-CP
Narratives of Dissent in Israeli Society and Culture AS.211.361 (01)
In this course we will study and analyze the notion of dissent in Israeli society and culture on its various literary and artistic forms. We will examine the emergence and the formation of various political and social protest movements, such as the Israeli Black Panthers, Israeli feminism and the 2011 Social Justice protest. We will discuss at length the history and the nature of dissent in the military and in relation to Israeli wars and will track changes in these relation. Significant portion of the course will be dedicated to the literary, cinematic and artistic aspects of Israeli protest and their influence on Israeli discourse. We will explore the nature and role of specific genres and media such as the Israeli satire, Israeli television, newspaper op-ed and the recent emergence of social media. Students wishing to work in English exclusively for 3 credits should enroll in section one. Students who are fluent in Hebrew and are wishing to attend an additional hour-long Hebrew discussion session per week with Professor Cohen (time TBD in consultation with enrolled students) for 4 credits should enroll in section 2.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
Instructor: Stahl, Neta
Room: Krieger 302
Status: Open
Seats Available: 7/15
PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL, INST-CP
AS.300.344 (01)
Literature and the World
T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Hashimoto, Satoru
Literature and the World AS.300.344 (01)
This course interrogates how modern literature not simply reflects the world but functions as world-making power. What is a world? How do we conceive of, live in, and change it? What if there are multiple worlds? How are literature and other aesthetic forms crucial to tackling these questions? We will survey literary and philosophical texts in a comparative setting, engaging examples from both Europe and East Asia. All readings are in English. Open to graduate students.
Credits: 3.00
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Hashimoto, Satoru
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 12/15
PosTag(s): n/a
AS.300.410 (01)
China in Imagination
TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
Hashimoto, Satoru
Gilman 208
INST-GLOBAL
China in Imagination AS.300.410 (01)
What is China? This question has gained new relevance amid the nation’s recent rise as a global power. We survey how China was imagined, represented, and conceptualized in literature, film, and philosophical writings from mainland China, overseas Chinese communities, East Asia, and the West from the late nineteenth century to the present. Through exploring this complex history, we aim to understand China and the contemporary world in a diversified, historically self-reflective way. Topics of discussion include, but not limited to, representation, identity, form, allegory, exile, diaspora, modernism, translation, world history, and universality. All readings are in English; all films subtitled in English.
