Results for COMPLIT

Preference to sophomores. Focus is on several of the best and lesser known plays of Shakespeare, on theatrical and other kinds of playing, and on ambiguities of both gender and playing gender.

Theater as performance and as literature. Historical tension between text and spectacle, thought and embodiment in western and other traditions since Greek antiquity. Dramas read in tandem with theory, live performances, and audiovisuals.

The multiple layers of culture and history in Istanbul, a city on two continents between East and West, have inspired great art and literature. The class focuses on the idea of "inbetweenness" through art, literature, music, and popular culture seen chronologically. In addition to discussing literary, historical, and academic texts we will explore visual genres such as advertising, architecture, caricature, documentary, film, and miniature painting. Readings and discussion in English.

How has Western culture constructed the world's oceans since the beginning of global ocean exploration? How have imaginative visions of the ocean been shaped by marine science, technology, exploration, commerce and leisure? Readings might include voyage accounts by Cook and Darwin, sailors' narratives by Equiano and Dana, poetry by Coleridge, Bishop and Walcott, novels by Melville, Verne, Conrad and Woolf. Visual culture might include paintings by Turner and Redon, and films by Jean Painlevé, Kathryn Bigelow, Jerry Bruckheimer and James Cameron. Critical texts will be drawn from interdisciplinary theorists of modernity and mobility, such as Schmitt, Wallerstein, Corbin, Latour, Deleuze + Guattari, and Cresswell.

(Staff)

In-depth engagement with a range of Dostoevsky's genres: early works (epistolary novella Poor Folk and experimental Double), major novels (Crime and Punishment, The Idiot), less-read shorter works ("A Faint Heart," "Bobok," and "The Meek One"), and genre-bending House of the Dead and Diary of a Writer. Course applies recent theory of autobiography, performance, repetition and narrative gaps, to Dostoevsky's transformations of genre, philosophical and dramatic discourse, and narrative performance. Slavic students read primary texts in Russian, other participants in translation. Course conducted in English. For graduate students; undergraduates with advanced linguistic and critical competence may enroll with consent of instructor.

Masters of German 20th- and 21st-Century literature and philosophy as they present aesthetic innovation and confront the challenges of modern technology, social alienation, manmade catastrophes, and imagine the future. Readings include Nietzsche, Freud, Rilke, Musil, Brecht, Kafka, Doeblin, Benjamin, Juenger, Arendt, Musil, Mann, Adorno, Celan, Grass, Bachmann, Bernhardt, Wolf, and Kluge. Taught in English. Undergraduates enroll in 222 for 5 units, graduate students enroll in 322 for 8 units.

This course examines the ways literary and medical writers have used the narrative form to explore the ethics of care in what has been called the developing world. We will begin with a call made by the editor-in-chief of The Lancet for a literature of global health -- modeled on the social reform novels of the nineteenth century, which are meant to have helped readers develop a modern public health conscience. We will study global health ethics as a field initially rooted in philosophy and policy that address questions raised by practice in resource-constrained communities abroad. And we will spend the quarter understanding how colonial and world literatures may deepen and even alter these questions. Readings will be selected from Albert Schweitzer, Aime Cesaire, Albert Camus, Frantz Fanon, Antonio Olinto, Ben Okri, Amitav Ghosh, Anne Fadiman, and Paul Farmer.

Close reading and analysis of erotic-sexual and aesthetic-stylistic transgression in selected works by Wilde, Schnitzler, Joyce, Barnes, Bataille, Burroughs, Thomas Mann, Guenter Grass, Kathy Acker, Junot Diaz and others. Along with understanding the changing cultural, social, and political contexts of what constitutes "transgression" or censorship, students will gain knowledge of influential theories of transgression by Foucault, Blanchot, and contemporary queer and feminist writers.

Classical Arabic reading course. Instructor approval required. Pre-requisite: minimum two years of Arabic at Stanford or equivalent.

Course is open to undergraduate and graduate students. Aims to familiarize students with Ottoman Turkish script and develop competence in reading Ottoman Turkish texts in print. Selected readings will range from poetry to prose, from newspaper and journal articles to reference works.

A broad engagement with Indian cinema: its relationship with Indian politics, history, and economics; its key thematic concerns and forms; and its adaptation of and response to global cinematic themes, genres, and audiences. Locating the films within key critical and theoretical debates and scholarship on Indian and world cinemas. Goal is to open up what is often seen as a dauntingly complex region, especially for those who are interested in but unfamiliar with its histories and cultural forms.

Refining advanced reading skills in modern Turkish through intensive reading and translation. Emphasis on Turkish cultural, historical, literary, and political texts depending on students¿ academic interests. Prior knowledge of Turkish and/or consultation with the instructor is necessary.

Today Iranian plays¿both in traditional and contemporary styles¿are staged in theater festivals throughout the world play their role in forming a universal language of theater which combine the heritages from countries in all five continents. Despite many obstacles, some Iranian plays have been translated into English and some prominent Iranian figures are successful stage directors outside Iran.nnForty six years ago when ¿Theater in Iran¿ (a monograph on the history of Iranian plays) by Bahram Beyzaie was first published, it put the then contemporary Iranian theater movement--which was altogether westernizing itself blindly --face to face with a new kind of self-awareness. Hence in today¿s generation of playwrights and stage directors in Iran, all know something of their theatrical heritage. nnIn this course we will spend some class sessions on the history of theater in Iran and some class meetings will be concentrating on contemporary movements and present day playwrights. Given the dearth of visual documents, an attempt will be made to present a picture of Iranian theater to the student.nnStudents are expected to read the recommended available translated plays of the contemporary Iranian playwrights and participate in classroom discussions.

Focus is on Virgil's Aeneid and its influence, tracing the European epic tradition (Ariosto, Tasso, Camoes, Spenser, and Milton) to New World discovery and mercantile expansion in the early modern period.

Theater as performance and as literature. Historical tension between text and spectacle, thought and embodiment in western and other traditions since Greek antiquity. Dramas read in tandem with theory, live performances, and audiovisuals.

This graduate seminar will serve three primary purposes: 1) we will create and inspire a dialogue to help us think through the application of comparative literary study in non-academic contexts, 2) we will refine our ideas by applying them in various exercises and settings, and, as a result, 3) we will need to investigate what is meant by the phrase "critical thinking." nnBroadly speaking, this seminar represents a forum for thinking creatively about the unique skills of a doctoral student as well as the specific challenges that await when pursuing career opportunities outside of academia. The goal is to come out of the seminar with a heightened appreciation of the humanities skill set in applications that may present new opportunities for the student. Texts will be highly cross-disciplinary, drawing from legal, financial, and technological traditions and mediums. No prerequisites required.

Topics will include: theories of the novel's origin; novelistic subjectivity; voice and text; body and text; the problem of the quotidian; democracy, revolution and novelistic form; and the peculiar dynamic of the novelistic trinity (author, character, reader).

How has Western culture constructed the world's oceans since the beginning of global ocean exploration? How have imaginative visions of the ocean been shaped by marine science, technology, exploration, commerce and leisure? Readings might include voyage accounts by Cook and Darwin, sailors' narratives by Equiano and Dana, poetry by Coleridge, Bishop and Walcott, novels by Melville, Verne, Conrad and Woolf. Visual culture might include paintings by Turner and Redon, and films by Jean Painlevé, Kathryn Bigelow, Jerry Bruckheimer and James Cameron. Critical texts will be drawn from interdisciplinary theorists of modernity and mobility, such as Schmitt, Wallerstein, Corbin, Latour, Deleuze + Guattari, and Cresswell.