COMPLIT 10N:
Shakespeare and Performance in a Global Context
Preference to freshmen. The problem of performance including the performance of gender through the plays of Shakespeare. In-class performances by students of scenes from plays. The history of theatrical performance. Sources include filmed versions of plays, and readings on the history of gender, gender performance, and transvestite theater. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade. In AY 2020-21, a 'CR' grade will satisfy the WAYS requirement.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 10SC:
The Cult of Happiness: Pursuing the Good Life in America and China (CHINA 10SC)
What is happiness? Might writing your own (mock) obituary help you find happiness? What else can you do to be happy? What has happiness to do with the good life? Does happiness define the meaning and purpose of life for people everywhere? In this course, we combine reading, discussion, group activity, and fieldtrip to figure out, collectively over the course of 2.5 weeks, what happiness is all about. We consider what philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, neuroscientists, writers, and artists have to say about happiness and reflect on its relationship to wealth, wisdom, health, love, pleasure, justice, community, spirituality, and mortality. We give equal weight to Chinese and Western sources and interrogate deeply held assumptions through the lens of cross-cultural inquiry. During the summer, students read a novel and a popular treatise. In September, we review these texts and place them alongside scholarly works, movies, short fiction, and social commentary as we interrogate the chimera of happiness. In addition, we will experiment with meditation, short-form life writing (including mock obituaries!), and service-learning. We meet daily for lectures and seminar discussion. Students submit three short reflective papers and three online commentaries, and in small groups make an oral presentation and do a creative exercise.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 2
COMPLIT 11Q:
Shakespeare, Playing, Gender
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.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 15SC:
Who Belongs at Stanford? Discussions of a Different Sort of Education (CSRE 11SC)
You've finished your first year of university. You have taken the required first year courses, you hope you have explored enough, you are anxious about choosing a major. You know the campus fairly well, you have perhaps made some friends, you have some sort of routine. But you have the nagging feeling that so much of this is simply an illusion. The question then becomes, do you throw your faith, mind, and your body into that illusion (everyone else seems to), or do you risk the chance of missing a step by spending some time in Sophomore College reflecting on the immediate past and the future, with others who have similar questions. You may feel that the generalizations you heard in Year 1 about liberal education seem remote from your life experiences; you may have wished you could have engaged in more in-depth discussions, but that there was not time or interest in approaching the subject matter as you would have wanted to. We are then faced with the very important question: What happens when 'diverse' populations are recruited to places like Stanford, and then asked to constrain or reshape their diversity for the sake of belonging? We will discuss how this small-scale exercise in intellectual exploration can be read as a correlate for how individuals and societies work. What kinds of identities, values, stories count, and which do not? Liberal ideologies and principles may sound nice, but liberalism tends to flounder when presented with practical real-world issues like employment, health care, police brutality, pandemics, environmental degradation, and yes, education. There are two required texts for the course, first, Brazilian educator Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. What Freire proposes is a way of teaching and learning that is the antithesis of what he calls the 'banking model of education.' The banking model works this way, schools deposit learning into your account, and you withdraw it when you need it. Little, if any thought, is placed upon what exactly that currency is, and why it's of any value. Freire's pedagogy is exactly the opposite-people act together to determine their learning goals - what they want to accomplish in the world--negotiate how best to arrive at those goals. They belong to the community because they are the creators of that community. The second texts are essays by the seminal Black feminist scholar, bell hooks. Author of more than 30 books, hooks started life in poverty in rural Kentucky, then won admission to Stanford, and went on to be a prolific writer, educator, and activist. She was deeply influenced by Freire. Ultimately, the task that both Freire and hooks addressed was to alter the condition of oppression through approaching the idea of education in a radically different manner. All remaining readings, activities, speakers, will be the product of our collective discussions come to the first day of class with your ideas, thoughts, and music (see below). This summer we will aim to do the following: Get to know and trust each other, and to support each other's explorations, questions, tentative answers. Pause and reflect on things that we feel we have not been able to really grapple with yet. Learn how others have challenged normative ideas about what an educational community might look like. Think of ways of sustaining our support for each other into the sophomore year.
Last offered: Summer 2022
| Units: 2
COMPLIT 21Q:
Wilde's Worlds: Oscar Wilde in the International Context
This course introduces you to Oscar Wilde's life and works in various international literary, artistic, social, and cultural contexts in the European fin de siecle, as well as to Wilde's posthumous reception as an international iconic figure of LGBTQ+ literary and cultural history. We will consider Wilde's own roots in Irish culture; his love for Ancient Greece and Rome in the context of Oxford Hellenism; the influence of French and Belgian Decadence and Symbolism on The Picture of Dorian Gray and Salome (which we will read side by side with writings by Joris-Karl Huysmans, Stephane Mallarme, and Rachilde); Wilde's interest in the visual and decorative arts; Wilde's joyful dandyism and vibrant queer literary networks in Paris and London; the impact of Wilde's 1895 trials and imprisonment for "acts of gross indecency"; Wilde's reception in countries such as Germany, Japan, Russia, and the U.S.; and the vibrant posthumous afterlife of Wilde's work and persona in dance, opera, films, musicals, cartoons, and popular culture from the 1900s to today. Studying Oscar Wilde's life and works in such comparative and international contexts opens a door to the historical 1890s, while also giving us the chance to understand and appreciate Wilde's legacy as a queer artist and cultural trailblazer that still speaks to us in our own time. This course will emphasize close reading, analytical writing, and honing your presentation skills as you learn to understand and appreciate the many worlds of Oscar Wilde from the 1890s to today.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, Writing 2
COMPLIT 31:
Texts that Changed the World from the Ancient Middle East (HUMCORE 111, JEWISHST 150, RELIGST 150)
This course traces the story of the cradle of human civilization. We will begin with the earliest human stories, the Gilgamesh Epic and biblical literature, and follow the path of the development of law, religion, philosophy and literature in the ancient Mediterranean or Middle Eastern world, to the emergence of Jewish and Christian thinking. We will pose questions about how this past continues to inform our present: What stories, myths, and ideas remain foundational to us? How did the stories and myths shape civilizations and form larger communities? How did the earliest stories conceive of human life and the divine? What are the ideas about the order of nature, and the place of human life within that order? How is the relationship between the individual and society constituted? This course is part of the Humanities Core: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
COMPLIT 36A:
Dangerous Ideas (ARTHIST 36, EALC 36, ENGLISH 71, ETHICSOC 36X, FRENCH 36, HISTORY 3D, MUSIC 36H, PHIL 36, POLISCI 70, RELIGST 36X, SLAVIC 36, TAPS 36)
Ideas matter. Concepts such as progress, technology, and sex, have inspired social movements, shaped political systems, and dramatically influenced the lives of individuals. Others, like cultural relativism and historical memory, play an important role in contemporary debates in the United States. All of these ideas are contested, and they have a real power to change lives, for better and for worse. In this one-unit class we will examine these "dangerous" ideas. Each week, a faculty member from a different department in the humanities and arts will explore a concept that has shaped human experience across time and space.
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
4 times
(up to 4 units total)
COMPLIT 37Q:
Zionism and the Novel (JEWISHST 37Q)
At the end of the nineteenth century, Zionism emerged as a political movement to establish a national homeland for the Jews, eventually leading to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. This seminar uses novels to explore the changes in Zionism, the roots of the conflict in the Middle East, and the potentials for the future. We will take a close look at novels by Israelis, both Jewish and Arab, in order to understand multiple perspectives, and we will also consider works by authors from the North America and from Europe. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
COMPLIT 43:
Modernity and Politics in Middle Eastern Literatures (HUMCORE 131)
This course will investigate cultural and literary responses to modernity in the Middle East. The intense modernization process that started in mid 19th century and lingers to this day in the region caused Arabic, Persian, and Turkish literary cultures to encounter rapid changes; borders dissolved, new societies and nations were formed, daily life westernized, and new literary forms took over the former models. In order to understand how writers and individuals negotiated between tradition and modernity and how they adapted their traditions into the modern life we will read both canonical and graphic novels comparatively from each language group and focus on the themes of nation, identity, and gender. All readings will be in English translation. This course is part of the Humanities Core: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 44:
Humanities Core: How to be Modern in East Asia (CHINA 24, HUMCORE 133, JAPAN 24, KOREA 24)
Modern East Asia was almost continuously convulsed by war and revolution in the 19th and 20th centuries. But the everyday experience of modernity was structured more profoundly by the widening gulf between the country and the city, economically, politically, and culturally. This course examines literary and cinematic works from China and Japan that respond to and reflect on the city/country divide, framing it against issues of class, gender, national identity, and ethnicity. It also explores changing ideas about home/hometown, native soil, the folk, roots, migration, enlightenment, civilization, progress, modernization, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and sustainability. All materials are in English. This course is part of the Humanities Core: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 46:
Atlantic Folds: Indigeneity and Modernity (HUMCORE 135)
The Atlantic as an infinite doubling of ancient and modern. The Atlantic as an endless, watery cloth of African, American, and European folds, unfolding and refolding through bodies and ideas: blackness, whiteness, nature, nurture, water, blood, cannibal, mother, you, and I. The Atlantic as a concept, a space, a muse, a goddess. The Atlantic as birth and burial. One ocean under God, divisible, with salt enough for all who thirst. Authors include: Paul Gilroy, Gilles Deleuze, Chimamanda Adichie, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Davi Kopenawa, Pepetela, Beyoncé, and José Vasconcelos. This course is part of the Humanities Core: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 51Q:
Comparative Fictions of Ethnicity (AMSTUD 51Q, CSRE 51Q)
Explorations of how literature can represent in complex and compelling ways issues of difference--how they appear, are debated, or silenced. Specific attention on learning how to read critically in ways that lead one to appreciate the power of literary texts, and learning to formulate your ideas into arguments. Course is a Sophomore Seminar and satisfies Write2. By application only
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
COMPLIT 55N:
Black Panther, Hamilton, Diaz, and Other Wondrous Lives (CSRE 55N)
This seminar concerns the design and analysis of imaginary (or constructed) worlds for narratives and media such as films, comics, and literary texts. The seminar's primary goal is to help participants understand the creation of better imaginary worlds - ultimately all our efforts should serve that higher purpose. Some of the things we will consider when taking on the analysis of a new world include: What are its primary features - spatial, cultural, biological, fantastic, cosmological? What is the world's ethos (the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize the world)? What are the precise strategies that are used by the artist to convey the world to us and us to the world? How are our characters connected to the world? And how are we - the viewer or reader or player - connected to the world? Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 57:
Human Rights and World Literature
Human rights may be universal, but each appeal comes from a specific location with its own historical, social, and cultural context. This summer we will turn to literary narratives and films from a wide number of global locations to help us understand human rights; each story taps into fundamental beliefs about justice and ethics, from an eminently human and personal point of view. What does it mean not to have access to water, education, free speech, for example? This course has two components. The first will be a set of readings on the history and ethos of modern human rights. These readings will come from philosophy, history, political theory. The second, and major component is comprised of novels and films that come from different locations in the world, each telling a compelling story. We will come away from this class with a good introduction to human rights history and philosophy and a set of insights into a variety of imaginative perspectives on human rights issues from different global locations. Readings include: Amnesty International, Freedom: Stories Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Andrew Clapham, Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction, James Dawes, That the World May Know, Walter Echo-Hawk, In the Light of Justice, Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide, Bessie Head, The Word for World is Forest, Ursula LeGuin.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 70N:
Animal Planet and the Romance of the Species (CHINA 70N)
Preference to freshmen.This course considers a variety of animal characters in Chinese and Western literatures as potent symbols of cultural values and dynamic sites of ethical reasoning. What does pervasive animal imagery tell us about how we relate to the world and our neighbors? How do animals define the frontiers of humanity and mediate notions of civilization and culture? How do culture, institutions, and political economy shape concepts of human rights and animal welfare? And, above all, what does it mean to be human in the pluralistic and planetary 21st century? Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take course for a Letter Grade.
Last offered: Winter 2019
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
COMPLIT 89:
Investigating Identity Through Filipinx Fiction (ASNAMST 90E, ENGLISH 90E)
This course is both a reading seminar featuring canonical and contemporary Filipinx authors (including Mia Alvar, Carlos Bulosan, Elaine Castillo, Bienvenido Santos, Lysley Tenorio and José Rizal) and a writing workshop where students generate short stories exploring identity. Rizal's seminal novels Noli Me Tangere and El filibusterismo are ¿the earliest artistic expressions of the Asian colonial experience from the point of view of the oppressed¿ and through his work and the work of other Filipinx authors, we discover how both national and individual identities are not only challenged by adversity, trauma, violence, and war but also forged and strengthened by them. Note: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 100:
CAPITALS: How Cities Shape Cultures, States, and People (DLCL 100, FRENCH 175, GERMAN 175, HISTORY 206E, ILAC 175, ITALIAN 175, URBANST 153)
This course takes students on a trip to major capital cities at different moments in time, including Renaissance Florence, Golden Age Madrid, colonial Mexico City, imperial Beijing, Enlightenment and romantic Paris, existential and revolutionary St. Petersburg, roaring Berlin, modernist Vienna, and transnational Accra. While exploring each place in a particular historical moment, we will also consider the relations between culture, power, and social life. How does the cultural life of a country intersect with the political activity of a capital? How do large cities shape our everyday experience, our aesthetic preferences, and our sense of history? Why do some cities become cultural capitals? Primary materials for this course will consist of literary, visual, sociological, and historical documents (in translation).
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
COMPLIT 101:
What Is Comparative Literature?
What makes comparative literature a distinct field? More than simply reading literature from different places and times, at base comparative literature emerges from a cosmopolitan and anthropological project, attempting to use literature (as an aesthetic object) as a particular index to Otherness. This means at its best comp lit also engages with (directly or indirectly) issues of ethics and responsibility. We will read early studies of folklore (Stith Thompson), philosophical texts of Otherness (Hegel, Fanon, Derrida, Levinas), feminist critique (Butler, Beauvoir), and anthropologists writing in a literary vein (Clifford). Finally, we address how the "human" finds itself offset by its environment (Tsing). Literary works include Al-Koni, The Bleeding of the Stone, Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, Carpentier, The Kingdom of This World; Gao Xingjian, Soul Mountain (excerpts), Goethe, The East-West Divan (excerpts), LeGuin, "Those who walk away from Omelas," and Rhys, The Wide Sargasso Sea.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 102:
Film Series: Understanding Turkey Through Film (COMPLIT 302)
Join us in our quest to understand the great transformation in Turkey and its impact on its people through cinema. Set against the backdrop of the expansion of capitalism and the fundamental cultural, political and social change in the last decade, the movies in this series tell the uneasy stories of individuals whose lives are affected by this disruptive change. By examining the link between the individual experiences and societal change, the films confront issues such as globalization, gender and racial hierarchies, urban transformation, state repression, male domination, and the women's struggle in Turkey. We will watch eight Turkish films for this course. After introductions by Dr. Alemdaroglu or Dr. Karahan that artistically, historically, and politically contextualize the films we will have a discussion and Q&A session led by instructors or invited guest scholars of Anthropology, Film Studies, Political Science, Women and Gender Studies or film directors themselves. The students and interested Stanford community will be provided with the streaming links for the movies at the beginning of each week to screen them on their own time, and the discussion sessions will be held on the scheduled class time on Thursday. All films will be in Turkish with English subtitles.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 1-2
COMPLIT 104:
Reading In Depth: Deep Time in Theory, Literature and Visual Art
What can the humanities teach us about deep time? Can human beings even conceive of the vast and unfathomable timescales presupposed by geology? The challenge that deep time poses to the human imagination - a challenge that has grown all the more urgent to address in light of our current environmental crisis - will be approached in this course 1. By considering how artists and writers create their own scales of measure in relation to deep time 2. By taking seriously claims of non-human animism in diverse cultural traditions 3. By examining how rhythms of human and non-human life are inscribed in specific literary and artistic works. Assignments in this seminar/arts practicum course will be creative and multimedia in kind. The course includes field trips to the Redwood forest and to the Hopkins Marine Station.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 104N:
Film and Fascism in Europe (FILMEDIA 105N, FRENCH 104N, ITALIAN 104N)
Controlling people's minds through propaganda is an integral part of fascist regimes' totalitarianism. In the interwar, cinema, a relatively recent mass media, was immediately seized upon by fascist regimes to produce aggrandizing national narratives, justify their expansionist and extermination policies, celebrate the myth of the "Leader," and indoctrinate the people. Yet film makers under these regimes (Rossellini, Renoir) or just after their fall, used the same media to explore and expose how they manufactured conformism, obedience, and mass murder and to interrogate fascism. We will watch films produced by or under European fascist regimes (Nazi Germany, Italy under Mussolini, Greece's Regime of the Colonels) but also against them. The seminar introduces key film analysis tools and concepts, while offering insights into the history of propaganda and cinema. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 107:
Why is Climate Change Un-believable? Interdisciplinary Approaches to Environmental Action
The science is there. The evidence is there. Why do people still refuse to recognize one of the greatest threats to human existence? Why can't, why won't they believe the truth? The time to act is slowly evaporating before our eyes. To answer this question requires an interdisciplinary approach that investigates many of the ways global warming has been analyzed, imagined, represented, and evaluated. Thus we welcome students of any major willing to embark on this common project and to participate fully. We will challenge ourselves to move between and amongst texts that are familiar and those we will bring into the conversation. There will be much that we miss, but we hope this course will at least begin a serious conversation in a unique way. The course will run on two parallel tracks: on the one hand, we will delve into textual representations and arguments; on the other hand, we will attempt to develop a sensibility for how climate change makes itself manifest in the physical world through a series of workshops and site visits in the Bay Area. The first track of this course will center on the discussion of three science fiction novels: The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh, The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, and Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. The second track of this course is comprised of a series of workshops that aims to develop spatial and material literacy relevant to climate change awareness. It will engage topics such as: scale, atmosphere, measure, material reciprocity, and garbage repurposing. One of the primary goals of this course is to not only understand the problem of climate change, but also how to best act upon it. Thus the required final assignment for this class can be a recommendation for action based on a critical review of the topic of climate change and already existing activism. It can take the form of a paper, a video, an installation art project, a podcast, etc.. But in all cases your work must analytically engage the specific medium of literary expression.
Last offered: Summer 2023
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 107A:
Ancient Knowledge, New Frontiers: How the Greek Legacy Became Islamic Science (CLASSICS 47, HUMCORE 121)
What is the relation between magic and science? Is religion compatible with the scientific method? Are there patterns in the stars? What is a metaphor? This course will read key moments in Greek and Islamic science and philosophy and investigate the philosophy of language, mathematical diagrams, manuscripts, the madrasa, free will, predestination, and semantic logic. We will read selections from Ibn Taymiya, Ibn Haytham, Omar Khayyam, Baha al-Din al-Amili, and others. This course is part of the Humanities Core, a collaborative set of global humanities seminars that brings all of its students and faculty into conversation. On Tuesdays you meet in your own course, and on Thursdays all the HumCore seminars (in session that quarter) meet together: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 109A:
Murder, Mystery and Memory: Istanbul in Historical Fiction (COMPLIT 309A)
This course serves as an introduction to the genre of historical fiction with a focus on Istanbul as its setting. After a brief overview of the origins of the genre in the early nineteenth century to its worldwide popularity in the twenty-first century, we will read historical novels set in Istanbul at its different moments in time. We will study issues of narration, memory and plot as we explore the relation between literature and history, between historical novel and truth; and discuss what it means to imaginatively and critically engage with the past. Readings will include novels by writers such as Ihsan Oktay Anar, Mathias Enard, Jason Goodwin, Nedim Gursel, Barbara Nadel, and Orhan Pamuk.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 111K:
From Colonialism to K-pop: Race and Gender in South Korean Culture (CSRE 111A, FEMGEN 111A, KOREA 111, KOREA 222)
Some may associate South Korea with the following: BTS, North Korean nukes, Samsung, Hyundai, Squid Games. Some may repeat what South Korea has said about itself: that it is racially homogenous, an ethnic community that can trace their ancestry back 5000 years. Some may wonder how a country that is often perceived as Christian and conservative developed pop culture like K-pop, or queer subcultures, or feminist activism. This class will use South Korea as a case study to think historically and geographically about race and gender through the following topics: when did racial discourses begin to emerge in Korea? What have been South Korea's significant encounters with the figure of the Other in its modern history? How were women implicated in the changing landscape of colonial Korea, the Korean War, Korea's Vietnam War experience, and compressed modernization? How have the influx of migrant labor and North Korean refugees impacted ideas about race in South Korea? And finally, what does K-pop tell us about shifting South Korean views of race and gender? The primary materials that we will analyze will be drawn from Korean fiction, film, and media in translation.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 111Q:
Texts and Contexts: Spanish/English Literary Translation Workshop (DLCL 111Q, ILAC 111Q)
The Argentinian writer and translator, Jorge Luis Borges, once said, 'Cada idioma es un modo de sentir el universo.' How are modes of feeling and perception translated across languages? How does the historical context of a work condition its translation into and out of a language? In this course, you will translate from a variety of genres that will teach you the practical skills necessary to translate literary texts from Spanish to English and English to Spanish. By the end of the term, you will have translated and received feedback on a project of your own choosing. Discussion topics may include: the importance of register, tone, and audience; the gains, in addition to the losses, that translations may introduce; the role of ideological, social-political, and aesthetic factors on the production of translations; and comparative syntaxes, morphologies, and semantic systems. Preference will be given to sophomores but freshman through seniors have enjoyed this course in the past. Course taught in Spanish.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
COMPLIT 114:
Masterpieces: Kafka (GERMAN 150, JEWISHST 145)
This class will address major works by Franz Kafka and consider Kafka as a modernist writer whose work reflects on modernity. We will also examine the role of Kafka's themes and poetics in the work of contemporary writers.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 115:
Vladimir Nabokov: Displacement and the Liberated Eye (COMPLIT 315, SLAVIC 156, SLAVIC 356)
How did the triumphant author of "the great American novel" "Lolita" evolve from the young author writing at white heat for the tiny sad Russian emigration in Berlin? We will read his short stories and the novels "The Luzhin Defense, Invitation to a Beheading, Lolita, Lolita" the film, and "Pale Fire", to see how Nabokov generated his sinister-playful forms as a buoyant answer to the "hypermodern" visual and film culture of pre-WWII Berlin, and then to America's all-pervading postwar "normalcy" in his pathological comic masterpieces "Lolita" and "Pale Fire". Buy texts in translation at the Bookstore; Slavic grad students will supplement with reading and extra sessions in original Russian.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 118:
The Gothic in Literature and Culture (ENGLISH 138E, ENGLISH 238E)
This course introduces students to the major features of Gothic narrative, a form that emerges at the same time as the Enlightenment, and that retains its power into our present. Surveying Gothic novels, as well as novellas and short stories with Gothic elements, we will learn about the defining features of the form and investigate its meaning in the cultural imagination. Gothic narratives, the course will suggest, examine the power of irrational forces in a secular age: forces that range from barbaric human practices, to supernatural activity, to the re-enchantment of modern existence. We will also consider the importance for Gothic authors and readers of the relation among narrative. spectacle and the visual arts. Primary works may include Ann Radcliffe's <e>The Italian, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey</e>, Victor Hugo's <e>The Hunchback of Notre Dame</e>, E.T.A. Hoffman's <e>The Sandman</e>, Mary Shelly's <e>Frankenstein</e>, and Edgar Allen Poe's <e>The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym</e>. We may also do a section on vampires, including Bram Stoker's <e>Dracula</e>, and its remake in film by F.W. Murnau and Werner Herzog. Critical selections by Edmund Burke, Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, and Terry Castle, among others.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 119:
The Turkish Novel (COMPLIT 319)
Designed as a survey, this course will examine the modern Turkish novel from the early days of the Republic to the present day. We will examine the aesthetic, political, and social aspects of the Turkish novel by reading major samples of national, historical, philosophical, village, and modernist novels. Discussions will be conducted in English. Students will have an option to read the primary sources in Turkish or in English. Contact Burcu Karahan for meeting time and place.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 121:
Poems, Poetry, Worlds
What is poetry? Why does it matter? How does it speak in many voices to questions of history, society, and personal experience? Readings will consider poetry as a cross-cultural way of thinking, through feeling, form, invention, sound, and language. The poetry of several cultures will be considered in comparative relation to that of the English-speaking world and in light of classic and more recent theories of poetry.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 122:
Literature as Performance:
Focus is on the evolution of dramatic literature through some of its great milestones from antiquity to present. Readings include selected plays (alongside video recordings/film adaptations) and secondary works on theater and performance. Through readings, discussion, and written work, students will analyze theater as an embodied genre that moves in time, space and thought. Works by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Chekhov, Beckett, Ibsen, Hansberry, Williams, and Soyinka.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 122A:
Radical Poetry: The Avant-garde in Latin America and Spain (ILAC 122A)
The first few decades of the 20th century ushered in a dynamic literary and aesthetic renewal in Spain and Latin America. Young poets sought a radical change in response to a rapidly changing world, one marked by the horrors of World War I and the rise of a new technological urban society. This course will focus on the poetry and attendant manifestos of movements such as Creacionismo, Ultraismo, Estridentismo, Surrealismo and other -ismos. How did the European avant-garde (e.g. Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism) inform such aesthetic turns? In what ways did poetry assimilate modern visual culture while questioning established poetics? Authors may include Aleixandre, Borges, Cansino-Assens, G. Diego, G. de Torre, Huidobro, Larrea, Lorca, Maples Arce, Neruda, Tablada, and Vallejo. Taught in Spanish.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 123:
The Novel (DLCL 143)
This course traces the global development of the modern literary genre par excellence through some of its great milestones, with an emphasis on Asian, American, and African novels and innovative approaches.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 123A:
Resisting Coloniality: Then and Now (ILAC 123A)
What are the different shapes that Western colonialism took over the centuries? How did people resist the symbolic and material oppressions engendered by such colonialist endeavors? This course offers a deep dive into history of the emergence of Western colonialism (alt: Spanish and Portuguese empires) by focusing on literary and cultural strategies of resisting coloniality in Latin America, from the 16th century to the present. Students will examine critiques of empire through a vast array of sources (novel, letter, short story, sermon, history, essay), spanning from early modern denunciations of the oppression of indigenous and enslaved peoples to modern Latin American answers to the three dominant cultural paradigms in post-independence period: Spain, France, and the United States. Through an examination of different modes of resistance, students will learn to identify the relation between Western colonialism and the discriminatory discourses that divided people based on their class, gender, ethnicity, and race, and whose effects are still impactful for many groups of people nowadays. Authors may include Isabel Guevara, Catalina de Erauso, el Inca Garcilaso, Sor Juana, Simón Bolívar, Flora Tristán, Silvina Ocampo, Jorge Luis Borges, and Gabriel García Márquez. Taught in Spanish.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
COMPLIT 125J:
Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Beyond: Place in Modern Japan (JAPAN 125, JAPAN 225)
From the culturally distinct urban centers of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka to the sharp contrasts between the southernmost and northernmost parts of Japan, modern Japanese literature and film present rich characterizations of place that have shaped Japanese identities at the national, regional, and local levels. This course focuses attention on how these settings operate in key works of literature and film, with an eye toward developing students' understanding of diversity within modern Japan. FOR UNDERGRADS: This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit
| Units: 2-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 126:
Persian Poetry: Text, Space, and Image (ARTHIST 206A, ARTHIST 406A, COMPLIT 226)
Featuring several sessions led by distinguished artist Ala Ebtekar, this course traces the nexus of word and image across a millennium of Persian poetry. Our aim is to look at how texts have been represented through images and enacted in public performances, from the tenth century to the present. Topics will range from high to popular culture and include the visual representation of narrative in illuminated manuscripts, the function of calligraphy on sacred and profane buildings, the performance of poetry in mediaeval courts, the use of images in dramatic tellings of the national epic, and the practice of divination by books. What kinds of space are created in these different instances of text and image coming together? What does it mean for our understanding - and experience - of history if verses from the 13th or 14th century are inscribed on the interior of taxi cabs that navigate through the contemporary Iranian city? And how does an ancient text come alive in a performance that seeks to recreate the space of its origin? These are some of the questions that will be explored through an examination of primary sources (both texts and images) as well as theoretical analyses.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 126C:
Literature, Data, and AI
What kind of data is literature? What different methods are available to scholars who work with it, and what are the philosophical assumptions that underpin those methods? In this course, we will survey major critical approaches to literature from the last century as well as emerging methods from the digital humanities, and try them out for ourselves. Students will construct their own portfolio of texts and each week they will (re)analyze them using a different approach; they will record their findings and reflect on their experiences in a weekly log. The course will comprise asynchronous activities (lectures, presentations, assignments, readings) and one synchronous meeting per week to discuss the readings. Approaches may include: formalism, structuralism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, critical approaches to identity and performance (gender, race, sexuality and disability), network analysis, topic modeling, stylometry, and word embeddings. No prior programming knowledge is expected. This course will not offer detailed training in computational analysis; rather, the focus will be on the theoretical implications of computational tools. All readings will be in English.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 127:
Adventures in Skepticism
Since Descartes' famous decision to doubt what he could not prove, the problem of knowledge has vexed philosophy, psychology, and literature. What do we know for certain? How does this certainty (or uncertainty) relate to what we believe, what we desire, what we fear? And if all knowledge is subject to doubt, then how do we ground ourselves in the world? Do knowledge and identity depend on a metaphysical God? Do they derive from human reason or from an autonomous interiority? Or is "the self" that seeks certainty itself a misunderstanding, merely an effect of language, of history, of narrative, or of the unconscious? This course surveys the modern era's search for certainty, focusing on a few major works of European literature, raising issues that still inform our daily experience: the instability of language; the fragmentation (or multiplicity) of identity; the vicissitudes of the body; and the disruptions of love. Readings may include Descartes, Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Virginia Woolf.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 127B:
The Hebrew and Jewish Short Story (JEWISHST 147B)
Short stories from Israel, the US and Europe including works by Agnon, Kafka, Keret, Castel-Bloom, Kashua, Singer, Benjamin, Freud, biblical myths and more. The class will engage with questions related to the short story as a literary form and the history of the short story. Reading and discussion in English. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
COMPLIT 128:
Literature of the former Yugoslavia (REES 128, SLAVIC 128)
What do Slavoj Zizek, Novak Djokovic, Marina Abramovic, Melania Trump, Emir Kusturica, and the captain of the Croatian national football team have in common? All were born in a country that no longer exists, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1945-1992). This course will introduce masterpieces of Yugoslav literature and film, examining the social and political complexities of a multicultural society that collapsed into civil war (i.e. Bosnia, Kosovo) in the 1990s. In English with material available in Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 131:
Coming of Age in the Middle Ages
It is often said that adolescence is a modern invention, and that people in earlier times expected children to act like adults as soon as they were physically able to do so. But the literature that survives from the European Middle Ages reveals a deep preoccupation with questions of how to form socially-competent individuals. What role did literature play in disseminating norms and models for adult behavior? This course introduces students to a range of works from 1100 to 1500CE that portray the process of becoming an adult or prescribe what it should look like: behavior manuals, treatises, epic narratives, romances, and literary 'letters' from parents to children. Students gain familiarity with a range of historic genres and develop skills in close reading and critical analysis. Readings are in English.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 132A:
Nostalgia as a Global Form
The course will explore the waves of nostalgia that have swept the globe in the past decades. We will look at contemporary expressions of nostalgia across different media, including literature, cinema, art, spoken word, street art and social media. We will examine nostalgic narratives related to a variety of cultural phenomena such as exile, migration, colonialism, globalization and technological advancements. We will focus on case studies from various countries such as Israel, the former Soviet Union, India and the UK, and explore them in their specific cultural context, while also exploring nostalgia as a global trend of Late Modernity. Our readings will be accompanied by fundamental theoretical texts on nostalgia, including writings by Svetlana Boym, Fred Davis, Zygmunt Bauman and others.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 3
COMPLIT 133:
Literature and Society in Africa and the Caribbean (AFRICAAM 133, AFRICAST 132, COMPLIT 233A, CSRE 133E, FRENCH 133, JEWISHST 143)
This course provides students with an introductory survey of literature and cinema from Francophone Africa and the Caribbean in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will be encouraged to consider the geographical, historical, and political connections between the Maghreb, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa. This course will help students improve their ability to speak and write in French by introducing students to linguistic and conceptual tools to conduct literary and visual analysis. While analyzing novels and films, students will be exposed to a diverse number of topics such as national and cultural identity, race and class, gender and sexuality, orality and textuality, transnationalism and migration, colonialism and decolonization, history and memory, and the politics of language. Readings include the works of writers and filmmakers such as Aim¿ C¿saire, Albert Memmi, Ousmane Semb¿ne, Le¿la Sebbar, Mariama B¿, Maryse Cond¿, Dany Laferri¿re, Mati Diop, and special guest L¿onora Miano. Taught in French. Students are encouraged to complete FRENLANG 124 or successfully test above this level through the Language Center. This course fulfills the Writing in the Major (WIM) requirement.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 134A:
Classics of Persian Literature (COMPLIT 234)
Why do poems that were written hundreds of years ago still capture the imagination? How is love configured in the texts of a distant culture? Who sings the tales and who are the heroes? This course offers an introduction to the central works of Persian literature, from the 10th century to the present, across the genres of epic, romance, lyric, and novel. As we become acquainted with texts from a millennium of literary history, we will touch upon questions of performance (music and dance), storytelling, profane and divine love, the nature of spiritual quests, the development of narrative and poetic form, the formal and ethical aspects of translation, and, finally, the meaning of modernity in a non-Western context. Readings include: the Book of Kings by Ferdowsi (d.1020); Layla and Majnun by Nezami (d.1209); The Conference of the Birds by Attar (d.1221); selections from the Masnavi and Divan of Rumi (d.1273); the Rose Garden by Sa`di (d.1292), selections from the Divan of Hafez (d.1390); The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat (d.1951); and selected modern poems. Taught in English.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 138:
Literature and the Brain (COMPLIT 238, ENGLISH 118, ENGLISH 218, FRENCH 118, FRENCH 218, PSYC 126, PSYCH 118F)
How does fiction make us better at reading minds? Why do some TV shows get us to believe two contradictory things at once? And can cognitive biases be a writer's best friend? We'll think about these and other questions in the light of contemporary neuroscience and experimental psychology, with the help of Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison), Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert), season 1 of Westworld (Lisa Joy / Jonathan Nolan), and short readings from writers like Louise Glück, Jorge Luis Borges, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust. We'll also ask what we see when we read; whether the language we speak affects the way we think; and why different people react differently to the same book. Plus: is free will a fiction, or were you just forced to say that?
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 139A:
Jaguars and Labyrinths: A Survey of South American Short Fiction (ILAC 139)
10 South American short stories in 10 weeks. We will read tales of jaguars and octopuses, labyrinthic cities and eerie parks, magicians and mediums, time loops and spatial stretches. Each of the works will offer a unique insight into South American literature, history, and culture. We will focus on 20th and 21st century stories that deal with the future of techno-science, the interaction between Western and indigenous worldviews, the intersection of fiction and reality, the relation between the human and the non-human, and the ecological planetary crisis. Authors include Clarice Lispector, Roberto Bolaño, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, João Guimarães Rosa, Vilém Flusser, and Conceição Evaristo. Taught in English, no previous knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese required. Note: Students with a background in Portuguese and/or Spanish may use this course as a platform to enhance their linguistic proficiency and their close-reading skills in the target languages.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 140:
The Pen and the Sword: A Gendered History (FEMGEN 141B, HISTORY 261P, ITALIAN 141)
As weapons, the pen and the sword have been used to wound, punish, and condemn as well as to protect, liberate, and elevate. Historically entangled with ideals of heroism, nobility, and civility, the pen and the sword have been the privileged instruments of men. Yet, throughout history, women have picked up the pen and the sword in defense, despair, and outrage as well as with passion, vision, and inspiration. This course is dedicated to them, and to study of works on love, sex, and power that articulate female experience. In our readings and seminars, we will encounter real and fictive women in their own words and in narrations and depictions by others from classical antiquity to the present, with a special focus on the Renaissance and on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Touching on such topics as flattery and slander through the study of misogynistic, protofeminist, and feminist works in the early modern and modern periods in various European literary traditions, we will consider questions of truth and falsehood in fiction and in life. Course materials span a variety genres and media, from poetry, letters, dialogues, public lectures, treatises, short stories, and drama to painting, sculpture, music, and film works regarded for their aesthetic, intellectual, religious, social, and political value and impact.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 141:
Songs of Love and Longing (COMPLIT 241B, MUSIC 183F, MUSIC 283F)
This course will take us on a journey from the Balkans to South Asia as we explore the nexus of poetry and song practiced by bards across a vast geographic and cultural space. Specifically, we will survey the Persianate genre of ghazal lyric, the storytelling traditions of Central Asia, the spiritual concert of certain Sufi orders, the mystical poems and music of Alevi ashiks in Turkey and the Balkans, the life and legend of Armenian poet-composer Sayat Nova, the spiritual practices of the Kurdish Ahl-e Haqq in Iran, the art forms of khyal and qawwali in India and Pakistan, and the syncretistic mysticism of the Bauls of Bengal. Students will engage in listening exercises, analysis of cinematic examples, and a comparison with the European troubadour tradition. There are no prerequisites for this course apart from a desire to engage with poetry as an existential performance. Taught in English.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 142:
The Literature of the Americas (AMSTUD 142, CSRE 142)
This course will focus on identifying moments of continuity and discontinuity in the literatures of the Americas, both in time and space. We will look at a wide-range of literatures of the Americas in comparative perspective, emphasizing continuities and crises that are common to North American, Central American, and South American literatures, from the colonial period until today. Topics include the definitions of such concepts as empire and colonialism, the encounters between worldviews of European and indigenous peoples, the emergence of creole and racially mixed populations, slavery, the New World voice, myths of America as paradise or utopia, the coming of modernism, twentieth-century avant-gardes, and distinctive modern episodes in unaccustomed conversation with each other.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 142B:
Translating Japan, Translating the West (JAPAN 121, JAPAN 221)
Translation lies at the heart of all intercultural exchange. This course introduces students to the specific ways in which translation has shaped the image of Japan in the West, the image of the West in Japan, and Japan's self-image in the modern period. What texts and concepts were translated by each side, how, and to what effect? No prior knowledge of Japanese language necessary.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 144:
The Idea of the "Poetic": Poetry and Other Arts in the Twentieth Century
In this course, we will explore the relationship between poetry and other art forms. What does it mean to say that something is "poetic," especially when we are talking about a non-poetic genre or artistic medium. Is the "poetic" a formal feature? An aesthetic quality? A stylistic choice? Or a mode of creative faculty? And does the way we talk about the "poetic" inform us of something about poetry itself? Together we will read narrative prose, photographs, films, paintings, and of course, poetry itself. Authors and artists we study might include Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Klee, Fei Ming, Virginia Woolf, Paul Celan, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Michelango Antonioni, Andre Tarkovsky, W.G Sebald, Jia Zhangke, and Gerhard Richter.
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 145C:
Narratives of Enslavement (AFRICAAM 145, CLASSICS 145, CLASSICS 245)
Widely dispersed narratives by and about enslaved persons are our focus. We'll explore the concept of 'slave narrative' by comparing texts from the ancient Mediterranean, the Cape of Good Hope, West Africa and the United States. We'll consider famous autobiographies alongside less familiar material such as court trial records. What are the affordances, what are the limits of such narratives as historical evidence? What notions of enslaved experience emerge? How close can we come to understanding the experiences of the enslaved? How different do such experiences seem when compared across time and space? Note: graduates and advanced undergraduates wishing to read original Greek and Latin texts should register for Reading Greek and Roman Slavery (Classics 142/242) in addition.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 147:
Facts and Fictions: Writing the New World in Early Modernity (1500-1700)
How was knowledge about the colonies in America established? What was the role of fiction in this process? This course introduces students to major problems at the intersection of literature and history. It provides students with an overview of historical and fictional writings that shaped the early modern imagination about colonial spaces in Europe and the Americas. Students will look into the process whereby poets and novelists made unfamiliar places more familiar to their European and American audiences, as well as into how historians used myths and fictions to build knowledge about those foreign places and cultures. Readings span fictional prose, histories, epic poems, philosophical writings, engravings and maps. Authors may include St. Teresa, Camões, Cervantes, Inca Garcilaso, Catalina de Erauso, Mendes Pinto, Bacon, Sor Juana, Antonio Vieira, and Margaret Cavendish. Students will practice close reading techniques and historical analysis, writing papers combining the two. Texts will be available in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 148:
Transcultural Perspectives of South-East Asian Music and Arts (COMPLIT 267, FRENCH 260A, MUSIC 146N, MUSIC 246N)
This course will explore the links between aspects of South-East Asian cultures and their influence on modern and contemporary Western art and literature, particularly in France; examples of this influence include Claude Debussy (Gamelan music), Jacques Charpentier (Karnatak music), Auguste Rodin (Khmer art) and Antonin Artaud (Balinese theater). In the course of these interdisciplinary analyses - focalized on music and dance but not limited to it - we will confront key notions in relation to transculturality: orientalism, appropriation, auto-ethnography, nostalgia, exoticism and cosmopolitanism. We will also consider transculturality interior to contemporary creation, through the work of contemporary composers such as Tran Kim Ngoc, Chinary Ung and Tôn-Thât Tiêt. Viewings of sculptures, marionette theater, ballet, opera and cinema will also play an integral role. To satisfy a Ways requirement, this course must be taken for at least 3 units. WIM credit in Music at 4 units and a letter grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 149:
The Laboring of Diaspora & Border Literary Cultures (CSRE 149, ILAC 149)
Focus is given to emergent theories of culture and on comparative literary and cultural studies. How do we treat culture as a social force? How do we go about reading the presence of social contexts within cultural texts? How do ethno-racial writers re-imagine the nation as a site with many "cognitive maps" in which the nation-state is not congruent with cultural identity? How do diaspora and border narratives/texts strive for comparative theoretical scope while remaining rooted in specific local histories. Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 155:
Rivers That Were: Latin American Ecopoetry (ILAC 155)
For over a century, poetry in Latin America has been tracing the connections between the human and the nonhuman. We will examine closely the ways in which such poetry registers environmental degradation and its disproportionate impacts along axes of race, gender, and class. How does such poetry unearth a history of colonialism and extractivism that continues to manifest socio-politically and economically in the Latin American landscape? What futures do these eco-poets imagine and advocate? In its encounter with the natural world, poetry makes us feel: how might it inspire us to act? Texts include works by Mistral, Neruda, Parra, Cardenal, Pacheco, Aridjis, Calderón, and Huenún. Taught in Spanish.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 156:
Stories at the Border (ENGLISH 155, GLOBAL 120)
How authors and filmmakers represent the process of border-making as a social experience? How do the genres in which they work shape our understandings of the issues themselves? We will explore several different genres of visual and textual representation from around the world that bear witness to border conflict - including writing by China Miéville, Carmen Boullosa, Joe Sacco, and Agha Shahid Ali - many of which also trouble the borders according to which genres are typically separated and defined.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 157:
Time Travel in Abya Yala: Decolonising Time (CHILATST 157)
What if we saw time as malleable? In this course, we will examine how indigenous, latinx, and black artists manipulate experiences of time through music, visual art, and storytelling to reclaim their worlds. Understandings of time have been used to control the populations of Abya Yala (the Americas) since the beginning of the colonial period. But through different cultural understandings of time, experimental bookmaking, and other modes of creative expression, time can be experienced anew. We will pay attention to how different formats for storytelling and art alter our experience of the present. We will also identify how different ways of arranging events, visuals, and words reconfigure the relationships between the past, present, and future. The class will include fictional and theoretical works by Gloria Anzaldúa (Chicana), Manuel Tzoc (K'iche'), Patrick Chamoiseau (Martinique), Kency Cornejo (El Salvador/USA), and Dylan Robinson (Xwélmexw), amongst others.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 158:
Rebelión: Black Resistance in the Caribbean (AFRICAAM 158, HISTORY 177C)
In 1978, Afro-Columbian artist recorded his hit song "Rebelión," including lines such as "esclavitud perpetua," a reference to the 1455 Romanus Pontifex Papal Bull, and lines like "No le pegue a la negra," which evince a slave resistance based on a bond of kinship and affection. This is an introductory course in Caribbean history with a focus on labor and rebellion. In this course, we will discuss slave revolts and revolutions in the Caribbean from the beginning of the Transatlantic Slave trade through present-day labor strikes in the Caribbean. Using Caribbean resistance music as the backdrop to many of our discussions, this course will engage with the metaphors and motifs found in riotous iconography, such as the machete (i.e. "El machete de Maceo," in Celia Cruz¿s "Guantanamera"). Revolts covered include the 1500s slave revolts in Quisqueya, the Haitian Revolution, the 1843 La Escalera conspiracy in Cuba, the 1831 Christmas Rebellion in Jamaica, the Cuban Ten Years War, Little War, and present-day labor strikes in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. We will review and study historical records, as well as take in archival and musical sources. No prior knowledge in Caribbean history is required.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
COMPLIT 161E:
Narrative and Narrative Theory (ENGLISH 161)
An introduction to stories and storytelling--that is, to narrative. What is narrative? When is narrative fictional and when non-fictional? How is it done, word by word, sentence by sentence? Must it be in prose? Can it be in pictures? How has storytelling changed over time? Focus on various forms, genres, structures, and characteristics of narrative. English majors must take this class for 5 units.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 163:
A Brief History of Now: Song and Poetry from Sappho to Taylor Swift (FRENCH 163)
What techniques do singers share between traditions from antiquity to the present? How do they produce a sense of a moment to be seized, a contrast between hope and despair, and here and now? Transhistorical, comparative analysis of lyric modes and conventions such as apostrophe, the desire to sing and uselessness of doing so, when and where they diverge in different lyric genres and traditions. Poets and songwriters include Catullus, Sappho, Li Qingzhao, troubadours, Dante, Labe, Donne, Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, SZA. Each week, students will enrich the discussion by introducing to the class their own suggestions of relevant works.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 164:
Solidarity - Histories, Literatures, Rationales (COMPLIT 364, CSRE 164)
How do we come to care about causes not related to our lives directly? During the Spanish Civil War, people from around the world joined the International Brigade to fight fascism. In our own age, hundreds of thousands of people around the world urge a ceasefire in Gaza. We study moments in history where immediate political interest gives way to a more capacious sense of obligation and commitment.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 165:
Intro to English III: Latinx Literature (CHILATST 12D, ENGLISH 12D, FEMGEN 12D)
Emerging from the demographic, political, and cultural shifts of the late twentieth century, LatinX Literature flourishes in the twenty-first century as a hemispherically American corpus of texts. Like both ChicanX and Puerto Rican literatures before it, LatinX Literature emerges from various movements for social justice to challenge both the Anglo and the Hispanic established literary traditions of the Americas. As a transnational, pluralistic, heterogeneous, and dynamic category that considers the writings of diverse peoples with cultural ties to Latin America residing in the U.S., it complicates and transgresses the linguistic, geopolitical and cultural borders of the Americas, including those of the Afro-Caribbean, Luso-Brazilian, and the Native First Nations. Aligning itself with the issues, styles, and topics of the Global South, LatinX Literature is a product of the kind of 'border thinking' that critic Walter Mignolo has described as a 'pluriversal epistemology that interconnects the plurality and diversity of decolonial projects.' Acknowledging its emergence from literal and theoretical border spaces and decolonizing epistemologies, the 'X' of LatinX intentionally inflects the link to an origin in LGBTQI discourses signifying 'a more inclusive, non-gender-binary designation for LatinX peoples' and as a border literature that articulates heterogeneous ways of making meaning. Authors may include Jesus Colón, Sandra Cisneros, Helena Maria Viramontes, Christina Garcia, Junot Diaz, Ire´ne Lara Silva, Julia Alvarez, Américo Paredes, Daniel Alarcón, Francisco Goldman, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Tato Laviera, Ernesto Quinonez, Erika Sanchez, Elizabeth Acevedo, Luis Valdez, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Fernando Flores, or Oscar Cásares. NOTE: English majors must take this class for 5 units.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 176:
Forms of Poetry at Home and Abroad: A Workshop (ILAC 176)
Poets have long relied on formal structures to write into surprise and wonder. We know of structures such as the sonnet and the sestina, but what about the corrido, ghazal, haiku, jintishi, landay, lira, l¿c b¿t, qa¿¿da, pantoum, romance, rondeau, sijo, than-bauk, and triolet? How might we reimagine poetic forms in English by looking to the past at home and abroad?In this poetry workshop, you will write an original poem each week. Assigned readings will illustrate the development of specific forms from language traditions around the world and the ways in which they've crossed into English-language poetry. Previous experience with creative writing not required.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
COMPLIT 178:
Metamorphosis and Desire: Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton
A recurring motif in the myths of poetry's origins is a metamorphosis provoked by erotic desire, from the nymph Daphne transformed into a laurel tree as she escapes the god Apollo to the bard Orpheus dismembered by impassioned Maenads. This course explores the entanglement of these themes in Renaissance verse across plays by Shakespeare, epic poetry by Spenser and Milton, and narrative poems by Marlowe, Shakespeare, and their contemporaries in continental Europe. We will situate these works amid critical perspectives on desire, love, and gendered subjectivity in early modernity and against the classical background of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses', whose tales of eroticism and transformation shaped so much of Renaissance literary and artistic production.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 1-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 179:
Rumi: Rhythms of Creation (COMPLIT 249)
This course offers a comprehensive introduction to the thought, poetics, and legacy of one of the towering figures of Persian letters, Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273). After discussing the literary ancestors (Sana'i, `Attar), we will trace the mystico-philosophical foundations of Rumi's thought through close readings of the lyrical (Divan-e Shams) and narrative poems (Mathnavi-ye ma`navi), the prose works (Fihe ma fihe), and the letters. Literary analyses will be followed by an exploration of music as a structuring principle in Rumi's work and the role of sama` (spiritual audition) as a poetic practice. From there, we will look at the ritual and symbolism of the dervish dance, the foundation of the Mevlevi order, the interconnectedness of space (architecture) and poetic form that is exemplified in the Mevlevi dervish lodges, and the literary and philosophical echoes of Rumi in Ottoman culture, above all Seyh Galip's masterpiece Hüsn ü Ask (1782). The course will be complemented by digressions on Rumi in contemporary Persian and Turkish music, including live musical performances. Open to undergraduates and graduates. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 181:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSICS 42, ENGLISH 81, FRENCH 181, GERMAN 181, ILAC 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)
Can novels make us better people? Can movies challenge our assumptions? Can poems help us become who we are? We'll think about these and other questions with the help of writers like Toni Morrison, Marcel Proust, Jordan Peele, Charlie Kaufman, Rachel Cusk, William Shakespeare, and Samuel Beckett, plus thinkers like Nehamas, Nietzsche, Nussbaum, Plato, and Sartre. We'll also ask whether a disenchanted world can be re-enchanted; when, if ever, the truth stops being the most important thing; why we sometimes choose to read sad stories; whether we ever love someone for who they are; who could possibly want to live their same life over and over again; what it takes to make ourselves fully moral; whether it's ever good to be conflicted; how we can pull ourselves together; and how we can take ourselves apart. (This is the required gateway course for the Philosophy and Literature major tracks. Majors should register in their home department.)
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 184:
Reading Rumi
Introduction to the work of Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) in the original Persian. Through close readings of the poems and prose texts we will explore the ways in which Rumi's thought informs his poetic language and continues to resonate with us today. Topics to be touched upon in connection with the primary texts include: Islamic philosophy; theories of literature in the Arabo-Persian world; poetic genres in medieval Persian literature; meter, rhyme, and metaphor; and, finally, fundamental questions of translation and translatability. Special emphasis will be placed on understanding Rumi within the historical context. Readings in Persian. Two years of Persian at Stanford or equivalent required. Counts for the Persian track in the MELLAC minor.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 184A:
Poetry and Mysticism (COMPLIT 284A)
This course explores the interfaces of poetic and mystical speech across times and cultures. Topics include performance; subjectivity; spiritual/erotic love; linguistic fragmentation; the limits of language; and, finally, the question of apophasis as a subversive act. Sources range from the 10th to the 20th century and include Ramon Llull, Santa Teresa, Saint John of the Cross, the Judaic tradition, Hallaj, Rumi, Persianate Sufism, Meister Eckhart, Angelus Silesius, Paul Celan, Simone Weil, Georges Bataille, Juan Goytisolo, and Andrei Tarkovsky. Taught in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 184B:
Nationalism, Cultural and Political (COMPLIT 384, ILAC 184, ILAC 384)
Is there a non-political nationalism? Does the term "post-nationalism" designate a political reality? Or does "transnational" add meaningfully to the more traditional term "international" in reference to dynamics occurring between or among nations? The seminar will analyze the emergence of the concept "nationalism" with Herder's political writings, the opposition between cultural nation and political state, the connection between democracy and the rise of the nation state and the reaction against nationalism in the wake of authoritarian movements in the 20th century and the challenge to popular sovereignty connected with the problematization of the nation. Texts by Rousseau, Herder, Fichte, Weber, Berlin, Huizinga, Miguel de Unamuno, Prat de la Riba, Eugeni d'Ors, Ortega y Gasset, among others. Taught in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 188:
In Search of the Holy Grail: Percival's Quest in Medieval Literature (COMPLIT 388, GERMAN 188, GERMAN 388)
This course focuses on one of the most famous inventions of the Middle Ages: the Holy Grail. The grail - a mysterious vessel with supernatural properties - is first mentioned in Chrétien de Troyes' "Perceval," but the story is soon rewritten by authors who alter the meaning of both the grail and the quest. By reading three different versions, we will explore how they respond differently to major topics in medieval culture and relevant to today: romantic love, family ties, education, moral guilt, and spiritual practice. The texts are: Chrétien de Troyes' "Perceval," Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzival," and the anonymous "Queste del Saint Graal." All readings will be available in English.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 188A:
Women, Wheat, and Weather? Lessons from Italy and the Global South for the 21st Century (COMPLIT 288, FRENCH 188, FRENCH 288, ITALIAN 188, ITALIAN 288)
The Global South - a symbolic Mediterranean stretching from the Caribbean to India - lures the civilized man with the promise of excellent weather, voluptuous women, and good food. Already in antiquity, Sicily, the southernmost province of what is today modern Italy, was known as "the granary of Rome," supplying the Empire with wheat. Still today, the South is associated with vacation, underdevelopment, superstition, the mafia, la dolce vita: "The South is the problem; the North the solution," Boaventura de Sousa Santos succinctly puts it. In this course, we will move beyond the three W's by focusing on Italy from the point of view of "Southern Thought" ("pensiero meridiano"). We will read 20th/21st-century literary, philosophical, anthropological, and sociological texts from the Global South (Franco Cassano, Roberto M. Dainotto, Salman Rushdie, Gayatri Spivak, de Sousa Santos, Frantz Fanon, Homi Bhabha, Achille Mbembe, Carla Lonzi) to discuss such relevant topics as community and belonging (Elena Ferrante), technology and globalization (Luigi Pirandello; Fernando Pessoa), virus and contagion (Albert Camus), as well as race and gender (Igiaba Scego) from a Southern critical perspective. What counterhegemonic, non-binary, and renewable alternatives do the south of Italy and the Global South in general offer to understand these issues, and to the Western and Northern European emphasis on reason (the Cartesian "cogito"), individualism, and objectivity? We will have guest speakers from the Council of the EU and USAID specialized in international development, as well as conversations with authors. Taught in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 194:
Independent Research
(Staff)
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Barletta, V. (PI);
Berman, R. (PI);
Daub, A. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Greenleaf, M. (PI);
Huber, M. (PI);
Karahan, B. (PI);
Landy, J. (PI);
Lee, H. (PI);
Palumbo-Liu, D. (PI);
Parker, P. (PI);
Resina, J. (PI);
Saldivar, J. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Santana, C. (PI)
COMPLIT 199:
Senior Seminar
What is theory, and how (and why) do we do it in Comparative Literature? Senior seminar for Comparative Literature Senior majors only.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
COMPLIT 202:
Feminist and Queer Theories and Methods Across the Disciplines (FEMGEN 103, FEMGEN 203)
(Graduate Students register for PHIL 279A or FEMGEN 203) This course is an opportunity to explore a variety of historic and current feminist and queer perspectives in the arts, humanities, and social science research. NOTE: This course must be taken for a letter grade and a minimum of 3 units to be eligible for WAYS credit. The 2 unit option is for graduate students only.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 204A:
Digital Humanities Across Borders (DLCL 204)
What if you could take a handwritten manuscript, or a pile of 100 books, and map all the locations that are referenced, or see which characters interact with one another, or how different translators adapted the same novel -- without reading through each text to manually compile those lists? Digital humanities tools and methods make it possible, but most tools and tutorials assume the texts are in English. If you work with text (literature, historical documents, fanfic, tweets, or any other textual material) in languages other than English, DLCL 204 is for you. No previous programming or other technical experience is required, just a reading knowledge of a language other than English (modern or historical). We'll cover the whole process of using digital tools, from start to finish: text acquisition, text enrichment, and analysis/visualization, all of which have applications in a wide range of job contexts within and beyond academia.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 205:
The Power of Myth (COMPLIT 313, ILAC 205, ILAC 305)
Is myth a form of thought or is it that which opposes thinking? How does myth create worldviews and engage the emotions? Is myth a universal language or is it a set of cultural dialects? In this seminar myth will be approached from several directions: its classic distinction from logos, its relation to history, its underwriting of ideology, its anthropological applications, and its contemporary uses in advertising. We will consider modern cases of popular myths, in particular the complementary figures of erotic seduction: Carmen (the femme fatale) and Don Juan.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 206:
Travel Literature, Empire and the (Un)making of Masculinities (FEMGEN 206F)
This course will investigate the interconnection between travel writing and gender politics between roughly 1850 and the present. How does travel gender space? How does travel writing express and subvert understandings of masculinity? How do gender nonconforming bodies travel and narrate travel?
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 207B:
Emergent Thinking: Abolition and Climate Change (AFRICAAM 207, CSRE 207)
Gesturing toward adrienne maree brown's notion of 'emergent strategy,' this course asks us to think in the most radical and imaginative ways possible about two systemic failures that animate what Achille Mbembe has called 'necropolitics' decisions on who lives, and who dies: the police, and climate change. We will look at both the material aspects of police and prison abolition, and climate change and environmental justice, and theoretical approaches to the same. Using works by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Angela Davis, Alex Vitale, Dino Gilio-Whittaker, Candace Fukijane, Ben Ehrenreich, Amitav Ghosh, Ursula LeGuin and Octavia Butler, our texts put the imagination and the political will to work. This seminar course will be capped at 25 enrollments. I expect to offer this course annually.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 208:
The Cosmopolitan Introvert: Modern Greek Poetry and its Itinerants
Overview of the last century of Greek poetry with emphasis on modernism. Approximately 20 modern Greek poets (starting with Cavafy and Nobel laureates Seferis and Elytis and moving to more modern writers) are read and compared to other major European and American writers. The themes of the cosmopolitan itinerant and of the introvert, often co-existing in the same poet, connect these idiosyncratic voices. The course uses translations and requires no knowledge of Greek but original texts can also be shared with interested students. Note: The course is open to both undergraduate and graduate students
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 210:
Poetic Forms
A comparative discussion of the development and history of major poetic forms, from the Sonnet to Terza Rima and to prose poems. Special attention will be given discussing different rhythms and rhymes, and to translating forms. The readings will include poems by French, Yiddish, English/American and Hebrew writers. Part of the work will include experimenting with writing and/or translating poems that follow the poetic forms that are discussed in class.
| Units: 4
COMPLIT 212A:
Desiring Machines: Buildings, Maps, and Clouds (ARTHIST 212, ARTHIST 412, COMPLIT 312A, ILAC 212A, ILAC 312A)
Focus is on early modern machines as tools for experience and action. In their break with Freudian psychoanalysis, French theorists Deleuze and Guattari speak of the machine as a tool of desire and attraction itself as "machinic" rather than desire for something that is missing. The goal of this course is to equip students with a different way of thinking by exploring a large group of objects from the early modern world (poems, buildings, costumes, maps, nets, and clouds) that help us to approach the period in a new way.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 213:
Culture and Revolution in Africa (AFRICAAM 213, FRENCH 213E, HISTORY 243E)
This course investigates the relationship between culture, revolutionary decolonization, and post-colonial trajectories. It probes the multilayered development of 20th and 21st-century African literature amid decolonization and Cold War cultural diplomacy initiatives and the debates they generated about African literary aesthetics, African languages, the production of history, and the role of the intellectual. We will journey through national cultural movements, international congresses, and pan-African festivals to explore the following questions: What role did writers and artists play in shaping the discourse of revolutionary decolonization throughout the continent and in the diaspora? How have literary texts, films, and works of African cultural thought shaped and engaged with concepts such as "African unity" and "African cultural renaissance"? How have these notions influenced the imaginaries of post-independence nations, engendered new subjectivities, and impacted gender and generational dynamics? How did the ways of knowing and modes of writing promoted and developed in these contexts shape African futures?
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
COMPLIT 214:
Shipwrecks and Backlands: Getting Lost in Literature (COMPLIT 314A, ILAC 218, ILAC 318)
This course takes students on a journey through tales of getting lost in the Portuguese and Spanish empires. We will read harrowing stories of being caught adrift at sea and mystical interpretations of island desertion. The course begins with sea-dominated stories of Portuguese voyages to Asia, Africa, and Brazil then turns to how the Amazon and the sertão, or backlands, became a driving force of Brazilian literature. Official historians, poets, and novelists imbued the ocean and the backlands with romanticism, yet these spaces were the backdrop to slavery and conquest. Instead of approaching shipwreck and captivity narratives as eyewitness testimonies, as many have, we will consider how they produced 'the sea' and 'the wilderness' as poetic constructions in Western literature while also offering glimpses of the 'darker side' of Iberian expansion. Taught in English with all texts offered both in English and the original Portuguese or Spanish. Optional guest lectures in Portuguese.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 218A:
Japanese Performance Traditions (JAPAN 141, JAPAN 241)
Japanese performance traditions present a distinct challenge to modern Western concepts of gender, performance, self-expression, and even the human body itself. This course introduces the socio-historical underpinnings of these traditions, and invites students to engage in a fundamental questioning of the relationship between performance, gender, and cross-cultural interpretation. This course is designed for students with interests in performance, gender, and media as well as those with an interest in Japan. Genres covered include Noh, Kabuki, Bunraku, and Butoh.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 2-5
COMPLIT 220:
Renaissance Africa (AFRICAST 220E, ILAC 220E, ILAC 320E)
Literature, art, and culture in Central/Southern Africa during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Emphasis on forms of exchange between Europeans and Africans in the Kingdom of Kongo and Angola. Readings in Portuguese and English. Taught in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 221:
Giambattista Vico (FRENCH 212, FRENCH 321, ITALIAN 221, ITALIAN 321)
An intensive reading of Vico's book - New Science. Emphasis will be on Vico's philosophy of history and theories of poetic wisdom, myth, and language. Vico will be put in dialogue with René Descartes, Rousseau, Auguste Compte, Claude Lévi Strauss, and Paul Feyerabend, whose ideas about myth and science converge in striking ways with Vico's.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 222:
Narratives of Modern and Contemporary Korea (KOREA 120, KOREA 220)
This introductory survey will examine the development of South and North Korean literature from the turn of the 20th century until the present. The course will be guided by historical and thematic inquiries as we explore literature in the colonial period, in the period of postwar industrialization, and contemporary literature from the last decade. We will supplement our readings with critical writing about Korea from the fields of cultural studies and the social sciences in order to broaden the terms of our engagement with our primary texts.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 222A:
Myth and Modernity (GERMAN 222, GERMAN 322, JEWISHST 242G, JEWISHST 342)
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. Note for German Studies grad students: GERMAN 322 will fulfill the grad core requirement since GERMAN 332 is not being offered this year. NOTE: Enrollment requires Professor Eshel's consent. Please complete the following form to be considered for the class: https://forms.gle/zq3EwGWc1Ff7xn7T9. Enrollment is limited to 20 students. Students will be notified about their acceptance by March 20th and given a permission code. UPDATE 3/2/23 - There was a problem with the original form. Please edit your response to include your name.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 225:
Word and Image (ARTHIST 265A, ARTHIST 465A, ITALIAN 265, ITALIAN 365)
What impact do images have on our reading of a text? How do words influence our understanding of images or our reading of pictures? What makes a visual interpretation of written words or a verbal rendering of an image successful? These questions will guide our investigation of the manifold connections between words and images in this course on intermediality and the relations and interrelations between writing and art from classical antiquity to the present. Readings and discussions will include such topics as the life and afterlife in word and image of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," Dante's "Divine Comedy," Ludovico Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso," and John Milton's "Paradise Lost;" the writings and creative production of poet-artists Michelangelo Buonarroti, William Blake, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti; innovations in and correspondences between literature and art in the modern period, from symbolism in the nineteenth century through the flourishing of European avant-garde movements in the twentieth century.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 226:
Persian Poetry: Text, Space, and Image (ARTHIST 206A, ARTHIST 406A, COMPLIT 126)
Featuring several sessions led by distinguished artist Ala Ebtekar, this course traces the nexus of word and image across a millennium of Persian poetry. Our aim is to look at how texts have been represented through images and enacted in public performances, from the tenth century to the present. Topics will range from high to popular culture and include the visual representation of narrative in illuminated manuscripts, the function of calligraphy on sacred and profane buildings, the performance of poetry in mediaeval courts, the use of images in dramatic tellings of the national epic, and the practice of divination by books. What kinds of space are created in these different instances of text and image coming together? What does it mean for our understanding - and experience - of history if verses from the 13th or 14th century are inscribed on the interior of taxi cabs that navigate through the contemporary Iranian city? And how does an ancient text come alive in a performance that seeks to recreate the space of its origin? These are some of the questions that will be explored through an examination of primary sources (both texts and images) as well as theoretical analyses.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 228:
Critical Translation Studies (JAPAN 123, JAPAN 223)
This course does not teach students how to translate, but rather how to incorporate translation into their critical thinking. Critical translation studies comprises wide-ranging ruminations on the complex interplay between languages, cultures, power, and identity. How can we integrate translation into our thinking about the processes that shape literary, political, ethical, and aesthetic sensibilities, and what do we stand to gain by doing so? Course readings introduce key works from inter-lingual perspectives that range across English, Hebrew, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Tagalog, Bengali, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, and Québécois. (Students need only have some knowledge of a language other than Standard American English to productively engage with the readings.) Class discussions and workshop assignments are designed to prepare students to integrate critical thinking about translation into their own research and intellectual interests.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 230:
Re-Orienting Modernity: Lepers, Hermits, Mutes
Lepers, hermits, mute dervishes, hallucinating doppelgangers, and the possessed: do these marginal figures stand for the paradoxes of modernity far from the Western center? What does modernity mean for the Global South, in particular the Islamic East? Is there an indigenous modernity, beyond Western influence? In the course, we will look at how key texts and films produced in the run-up to Iran¿s 1979 Islamic Revolution build on a modernist aesthetic while at the same time displacing the West¿s claims to progress and enlightenment. Drawing on postcolonial theories, the recent transnational turn in literary studies, and close analyses of the works themselves, we will examine ideas of center and periphery, power, identity, and selfhood in order to re-orient our understanding of modernity. As a final project, students may choose to submit a critical essay, film, collection of poems, and/or an original work of art. Open to undergraduates and graduates. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 231B:
Cultural Hybridity in Central-Eastern Europe (SLAVIC 160, SLAVIC 360)
Historically shaped by shifting borders and mixing of various cultures and languages, identities in-between have been in abundance in Central-Eastern Europe. This course offers a comprehensive study of the oeuvre of several major Central-European authors of modernity: the Ukrainian-Russian Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852), the Czech-German-Jewish Franz Kafka (1883-1924), the Austrian-Galician-Jewish Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895), the Ukrainian-Galician Olha Kobylyans¿ka (1863-1942), the Russian-German Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861-1937), the Jewish-Polish-Galician Bruno Schulz (1892-1942), and the Polish-Argentinean Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969). Performing their selves in two or more cultures, these writers were engaged in identity games and produced hybrid texts with which they intervened into the major culture as others. In the course, we will apply post-structuralist and post-colonial concepts such as minor language, heterotopia, in-betweenness, mimicry, indeterminacy, exile, displacement, and transnationalism to the study of the writers oeuvres. We will also master the sociolinguistic analysis of such multi-lingual phenomena as self-translation, code-switching, and calquing and examine various versions of the same text to uncover the palimpsest of hybrid identities.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 2-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 233A:
Literature and Society in Africa and the Caribbean (AFRICAAM 133, AFRICAST 132, COMPLIT 133, CSRE 133E, FRENCH 133, JEWISHST 143)
This course provides students with an introductory survey of literature and cinema from Francophone Africa and the Caribbean in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will be encouraged to consider the geographical, historical, and political connections between the Maghreb, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa. This course will help students improve their ability to speak and write in French by introducing students to linguistic and conceptual tools to conduct literary and visual analysis. While analyzing novels and films, students will be exposed to a diverse number of topics such as national and cultural identity, race and class, gender and sexuality, orality and textuality, transnationalism and migration, colonialism and decolonization, history and memory, and the politics of language. Readings include the works of writers and filmmakers such as Aim¿ C¿saire, Albert Memmi, Ousmane Semb¿ne, Le¿la Sebbar, Mariama B¿, Maryse Cond¿, Dany Laferri¿re, Mati Diop, and special guest L¿onora Miano. Taught in French. Students are encouraged to complete FRENLANG 124 or successfully test above this level through the Language Center. This course fulfills the Writing in the Major (WIM) requirement.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 234:
Classics of Persian Literature (COMPLIT 134A)
Why do poems that were written hundreds of years ago still capture the imagination? How is love configured in the texts of a distant culture? Who sings the tales and who are the heroes? This course offers an introduction to the central works of Persian literature, from the 10th century to the present, across the genres of epic, romance, lyric, and novel. As we become acquainted with texts from a millennium of literary history, we will touch upon questions of performance (music and dance), storytelling, profane and divine love, the nature of spiritual quests, the development of narrative and poetic form, the formal and ethical aspects of translation, and, finally, the meaning of modernity in a non-Western context. Readings include: the Book of Kings by Ferdowsi (d.1020); Layla and Majnun by Nezami (d.1209); The Conference of the Birds by Attar (d.1221); selections from the Masnavi and Divan of Rumi (d.1273); the Rose Garden by Sa`di (d.1292), selections from the Divan of Hafez (d.1390); The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat (d.1951); and selected modern poems. Taught in English.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 236:
Literature and Transgression (FEMGEN 236)
Close reading and analysis of erotic-sexual and aesthetic-stylistic transgression in selected works by such authors as Baudelaire, Wilde, Flaubert, Rachilde, Schnitzler, Kafka, Joyce, Barnes, Eliot, Bataille, Burroughs, Thomas Mann, Kathy Acker, as well as in recent digital literature and online communities. 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 and conceptual limits by Foucault, Blanchot, and contemporary queer and feminist writers.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 236A:
Casablanca - Algiers - Tunis : Cities on the Edge (CSRE 140S, FRENCH 236, FRENCH 336, HISTORY 245C, JEWISHST 236A, URBANST 140F)
Casablanca, Algiers and Tunis embody three territories, real and imaginary, which never cease to challenge the preconceptions of travelers setting sight on their shores. In this class, we will explore the myriad ways in which these cities of North Africa, on the edge of Europe and of Africa, have been narrated in literature, cinema, and popular culture. Home to Muslims, Christians, and Jews, they are an ebullient laboratory of social, political, religious, and cultural issues, global and local, between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. We will look at mass images of these cities, from films to maps, novels to photographs, sketching a new vision of these magnets as places where power, social rituals, legacies of the Ottoman and French colonial pasts, and the influence of the global economy collude and collide. Special focus on class, gender, and race.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 237:
Fascism after Fascism (GERMAN 237)
When World War II ended, most of the states that described themselves as "fascist" ended with it. Nevertheless, fascism haunted postwar democracy as an ever-present threat. The question of what exactly had characterized fascism, and what parts of it persisted within liberal democracies themselves, were continuously and contentiously debated. This question has emerged all the more forcefully in recent years as "illiberal," or "right-wing populist," movements and governments have begun to question the basic premises of liberal democracy. What was fascism, and what would it mean for it to return? This course considers writings by philosophers, historians, journalists and writers, and moves from early anti-fascist writings to critiques of online movements and neo-reactionaries.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 238:
Literature and the Brain (COMPLIT 138, ENGLISH 118, ENGLISH 218, FRENCH 118, FRENCH 218, PSYC 126, PSYCH 118F)
How does fiction make us better at reading minds? Why do some TV shows get us to believe two contradictory things at once? And can cognitive biases be a writer's best friend? We'll think about these and other questions in the light of contemporary neuroscience and experimental psychology, with the help of Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison), Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert), season 1 of Westworld (Lisa Joy / Jonathan Nolan), and short readings from writers like Louise Glück, Jorge Luis Borges, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust. We'll also ask what we see when we read; whether the language we speak affects the way we think; and why different people react differently to the same book. Plus: is free will a fiction, or were you just forced to say that?
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 238A:
Dante's "Inferno" (ITALIAN 238A, ITALIAN 338A)
Intensive reading of Dante's "Inferno" (the first canticle of his three canticle poem The Divine Comedy). Main objective: to learn how to read the Inferno in detail and in depth, which entails both close textual analysis as well as a systematic reconstruction of the Christian doctrines that subtend the poem. The other main objective is to understand how Dante's civic and political identity as a Florentine, and especially his exile from Florence, determined his literary career and turned him into the author of the poem. Special emphasis on Dante's moral world view and his representation of character. Taught in English.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 238B:
Dante's "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso" (ITALIAN 238B, ITALIAN 338B)
Reading the second and third canticles of Dante's "Divine Comedy." Prerequisite: students must have read Dante's "Inferno" in a course or on their own. Taught in English. Recommended: reading knowledge of Italian.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 239:
Queer Theory (FEMGEN 239, GERMAN 239)
Do we really need a theory in order to be queer? Queer Theory emerged in response to feminist thought, and the study of the history of sexuality, building on their insights, but also uncovering their blind spots. Without Queer Theory, few of the discourses around desire, power and gender identity that we take for granted on college campuses today would exist. Yet there is also a real risk that reality has left the theory behind. In this course, we will try to answer the question: What do we need queer theory for? Do we still need it? And if so, of what kind? The course is designed to introduce students to core texts of queer theory, and to connect them to current debates, be this around trans rights, the representation of homosexuality or the fight against campus sexual assault.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 240:
Rainer Maria Rilke: Poetry and the Meaning of Life (GERMAN 130, GERMAN 233)
One of the greatest poets of the modern era, Rilke offers in his poetry lasting images of nature, love, and aesthetic beauty. At the same time, Rilke's poetry is a unique form of human thought. Many of his poems are poetic meditations on the meaning of human life in a world of great uncertainties. Other poems express poetic wisdom regarding the human condition of finitude, spiritual orientation, and our ability to persevere in the face of pain and loss. This course will serve as an introduction to Rilke's poetry and its place in the modernist canon while discussing its capacity to offer insight, comfort, and hope. NOTE: Enrollment requires Professor Eshel's consent. Please complete the following form to be considered for the class. https://forms.gle/znuNUNhHwpf5pb2EA. Enrollment is limited to 20 students. Students will be notified about their acceptance by March 20th and given a permission code. UPDATE 3/2/23 - There was a problem with the original form. Please edit your response to include your name.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 240C:
Dreams and Visions: A Comparative Poetics.
This course offers an introduction to esoteric narratives of dreams and visions from antiquity to the present. Sources include the ancient Babylonian dreams of Gilgamesh; Jewish Merkabah mysticism; Cicero's Dream of Scipio and its resonance in mediaeval philosophy and cosmogony; hermetic tales of the prophet Muhammad's nocturnal ascension; Islamic mysticism, illuminationism, and dream literature; the practice of dream interpretation with the Kurdish Ahl-e Haqq; the role of dreams and visions in Islamic hagiographical texts; Emanuel Swedenborg's Journal of Dreams; and, finally, the cosmo-ecological thought of the Yanomami people of Brazil with its reversal of day and night. While a nod to Freud's Interpretation of Dreams will be indispensable, our focus will be on primary texts from across the world (poems, prose, and anthropological accounts) and their relevance to the shaping of alternative world views.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 241B:
Songs of Love and Longing (COMPLIT 141, MUSIC 183F, MUSIC 283F)
This course will take us on a journey from the Balkans to South Asia as we explore the nexus of poetry and song practiced by bards across a vast geographic and cultural space. Specifically, we will survey the Persianate genre of ghazal lyric, the storytelling traditions of Central Asia, the spiritual concert of certain Sufi orders, the mystical poems and music of Alevi ashiks in Turkey and the Balkans, the life and legend of Armenian poet-composer Sayat Nova, the spiritual practices of the Kurdish Ahl-e Haqq in Iran, the art forms of khyal and qawwali in India and Pakistan, and the syncretistic mysticism of the Bauls of Bengal. Students will engage in listening exercises, analysis of cinematic examples, and a comparison with the European troubadour tradition. There are no prerequisites for this course apart from a desire to engage with poetry as an existential performance. Taught in English.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 242:
Poetry Workshop in Spanish (ILAC 242)
Latin American and Spanish poetry approached through elements of craft. Assignments are creative in nature and focus on the formal elements of poetry (meter, rhythm, lineation, rhetorical figures and tropes) and the exploration of lyric subgenres (e.g. ode, elegy, prose poem). Students write original poems throughout the quarter. No previous experience with creative writing is required. Course taught in Spanish. Enrollment limited.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
COMPLIT 243:
The Age of Beloveds: Inflections of Desire in Persian and Ottoman Literature
This course follows the trajectory of Islamicate love poetry from its emergence in medieval Persian letters to the court of the Ottoman Sultans. Our point of departure will be the emergence of a unique doctrine of love in Persian literature between the 11th and the 14th centuries, from the confluence of courtly, romantic and mystical ideas. Tracing the gradual imbrication of sacred and profane desire, we will study the advice on marital love in early Mirrors for Princes, the exaltation of heterosexual love in romances, the recasting of love in the context of a mystical erotology, and, finally, the enduring legacy of this discourse of love in ghazal poetry. We will then explore the theme of love, oscillating between heterosexual, homoerotic, and mystical in Ottoman lyric poetry by Sufi, Sultan, and woman poets, spreading over four hundred years until the 19th century. In looking at these texts, we will touch upon questions regarding the ideals and realities of love in Persian and Ottoman society, the protean nature and all-encompassing scope of longing in Perso-Ottoman letters, and the metaphysical implications of the hierarchical structure underlying the Persianate codes of love. Open to undergraduates and graduates. Taught in English.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 243A:
From Idol to Equal: Changing Images of Love in 20th-Century Persian and Turkish Literature
This course will explore the changing images of love in pivotal works of modern Persian and Turkish literature. Classes will include close readings and discussions of poems, short stories, and plays with particular attention to the constellation of lover/beloved, the theme of romantic love, and the cultural and historical background of these elements. Our starting point will be the adoption of the novel as a form in the late 19th century. From there, we will explore different figurations of love in key texts of the 20th century up to the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1978) and the coup d'état in Turkey (1980). Themes will include the end of empire and the demise of the concubine, the portrayal of the homeland as lover, secularization and the lifting of the veil, the figure of the female pioneer, the conflict of western and eastern morals, the prostitute as a new paradigm, the emergence of female writers, and avantgarde conceptions of love. Open to undergraduate and graduate students. All readings and discussions will be in English.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 243B:
Arabic Poetry: Advanced Readings in Arabic Literature and Science II
Arabic poetry from the present day to the 500s. This class will be taught entirely in Arabic. Open to undergraduates with four years or more of Arabic.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
for credit
COMPLIT 243G:
Adab and Ilm: Advanced Readings in Arabic Literature and Science I
Sufism, Quranic exegesis, adab, hands-on manuscript work in Special Collections, and more. Texts will be in Arabic and discussion will be in English. Advanced reading in Arabic literature (adab) and science (ilm) for graduate students. Open to undergraduates with four years or more of Arabic.
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
for credit
COMPLIT 244:
Literature and Technology from Frankenstein to the Futurists (ENGLISH 244, ITALIAN 244, ITALIAN 344)
Overview of defects and disorder across crystalline, amorphous, and glassy phases that are central to function and application, spanning metals, ceramics, and soft/biological matter. Structure and properties of simple 0D/1D/2D defects in crystalline materials. Scaling laws, connectivity and frustration, and hierarchy/distributions of structure across length scales in more disordered materials. Key characterization techniques. Pre-reqs: MATSCI 211 (thermo), 212 (kinetics)
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 244:
Modern Persian Poetry
Drawing on poems, songs, and films in addition to theoretical texts, this course retraces the struggle for a modern poetic language in Iran from the time of the Constitutional Revolution (1905/6) to the Islamic Revolution (1978/79), and beyond. Topics include: the unresolved relationship between tradition and modernity; poetry as a vehicle of enlightenment and revolution; the quest for a new poetic expression of love; the emerging possibility of a female voice in Persian poetry; the construction of historical memory through literature; responses to the experience of modern alienation; the figure of the poet as dissident; and the subversive force of poetic form itself. Poets to be read are Iraj, Bahar, Nima, Shamlu, Sepehri, Akhavan Sales, Forugh, and Esma'il Kho'i as well as some non-canonical figures. Open to undergraduates and graduates. Taught in English.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 245:
Introductory Ottoman Turkish
This course is an introduction to basic orthographic conventions and grammatical characteristics of Ottoman Turkish through readings in printed material from the 19th and 20th centuries. Selected readings will range from poetry to prose, from state documents, newspaper and journal articles to reference works. Course is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Prior knowledge of modern Turkish is required (Completion of COMPLIT 248A, COMPLIT 248B Reading Turkish I&II and COMPLIT 248C Advanced Turkish OR AMELANG 184 & 185 First & Second Year Turkish OR a solid knowledge of Turkish grammar.) Please contact the instructor for more information.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2-4
COMPLIT 245A:
Arabic Cultures/Conversations
Arabic Cultures in Conversations. We will meet once a week for an hour to talk in Arabic about poetry, music, and culture.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 1
COMPLIT 248A:
Reading Turkish I
Reading Turkish I is an introduction to the structures of the Turkish language necessary for reading. It is designed to develop reading competence in Turkish for graduate students. Undergraduates should consult the instructor before enrolling for the course. Essential grammar, syntax points, vocabulary, and reading skills will be emphasized. This is not a traditional language course that takes an integrated four-skill approach; since the goal is an advanced reading level, the focus is mainly on grammar, reading comprehension, and translation. With full concentration on reading, we will be able to cover advanced material in a short amount of time. The course is conducted in English, but students will be exposed to the sounds of Turkish, and will have the opportunity to practice pronunciation in class. NOTE: COMPLIT 248A Reading Turkish I is followed by COMPLIT 248B Reading Turkish II in the Winter and COMPLIT 248C Advanced Turkish for Research in the Spring.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 248B:
Reading Turkish II
This course is the continuation of COMPLIT 248A Reading Turkish I, which served as an introduction to the structures of the Turkish language necessary for reading. It is designed to develop reading competence in Turkish for graduate students. Undergraduates should consult the instructor before enrolling for the course. Essential grammar, syntax points, vocabulary, and reading skills will be emphasized. This is not a traditional language course that takes an integrated four-skill approach; it focuses only on reading, and as a result we will be able to cover advanced material in a short amount of time. This course is conducted in English, but students will be exposed to the sounds of Turkish, and will have the opportunity to practice pronunciation in class. COMPLIT 248B is followed by COMPLIT 248C Advanced Turkish for Research in the Spring.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 248C:
Advanced Turkish-English Translation
This course is the continuation of COMPLIT 248A Reading Turkish I and COMPLIT 248B Reading Turkish II. Refining advanced grammar, reading, and translation skills in modern Turkish through intensive reading and translation from a variety of source texts. Emphasis on Turkish cultural, historical, literary, and political texts depending on students' academic interests. Prerequisites COMPLIT 248A & B or prior knowledge of Turkish and consultation with the instructor is necessary.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 249:
Rumi: Rhythms of Creation (COMPLIT 179)
This course offers a comprehensive introduction to the thought, poetics, and legacy of one of the towering figures of Persian letters, Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273). After discussing the literary ancestors (Sana'i, `Attar), we will trace the mystico-philosophical foundations of Rumi's thought through close readings of the lyrical (Divan-e Shams) and narrative poems (Mathnavi-ye ma`navi), the prose works (Fihe ma fihe), and the letters. Literary analyses will be followed by an exploration of music as a structuring principle in Rumi's work and the role of sama` (spiritual audition) as a poetic practice. From there, we will look at the ritual and symbolism of the dervish dance, the foundation of the Mevlevi order, the interconnectedness of space (architecture) and poetic form that is exemplified in the Mevlevi dervish lodges, and the literary and philosophical echoes of Rumi in Ottoman culture, above all Seyh Galip's masterpiece Hüsn ü Ask (1782). The course will be complemented by digressions on Rumi in contemporary Persian and Turkish music, including live musical performances. Open to undergraduates and graduates. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 249B:
Iranian Cinema in Diaspora (GLOBAL 249B)
Despite enormous obstacles, immigrant Iranian filmmakers, within a few decades (after the Iranian Revolution), have created a slow but steady stream of films outside Iran. They were originally started by individual spontaneous attempts from different corners of the world and by now we can identify common lines of interest amongst them. There are also major differences between them. These films have never been allowed to be screened inside Iran, and without any support from the global system of production and distribution, as independent and individual attempts, they have enjoyed little attention. Despite all this, Iranian cinema in exile is in no sense any less important than Iranian cinema inside Iran. In this course we will view one such film, made outside Iran, in each class meeting and expect to reach a common consensus in identifying the general patterns within these works and this movement. Questions such as the ones listed below will be addressed in our meetings each week: What changes in aesthetics and point of view of the filmmaker are caused by the change in his or her work environment? Though unwantedly these films are made outside Iran, how related are they to the known (recognized) cinema within Iran? And in fact, to what extent do these films express things that are left unsaid by the cinema within Iran? NOTE: To satisfy a WAYS requirement, this course must be taken for a minimum 3 units and a letter grade. Please contact your academic advisor for University policy regarding WAYS.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 1-3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 249C:
Contemporary Iranian Theater (GLOBAL 249C)
Today, Iranian plays both in traditional and contemporary styles are staged in theater festivals throughout the world and 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. Forty-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, today's generation of playwrights and stage directors in Iran, all know something of their theatrical heritage. In 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. Students are expected to read the recommended available translated plays of the contemporary Iranian playwrights and participate in classroom discussions. NOTE: To satisfy WAYS requirements, you must enroll in the course for a minimum of 3 units. Please contact your academic advisor for more information regarding University WAYS requirements.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 250B:
The Oceanic Novel: Woolf, Conrad, Duras, Tournier, Condé, Ortese (COMPLIT 350B, FRENCH 250, FRENCH 350, ITALIAN 250, ITALIAN 350)
This course will examine novels situated by, on, or in the sea. Its guiding questions: how do the immense breadth and depth of the sea relate to human interiority, self-discovery, and the shadow world of dreams? Does the sea mark a boundary, or a dissolution of that boundary? Novels include 'To The Lighthouse,' 'The Secret Sharer,' 'The Sailor from Gibraltar,' 'Friday,' 'Crossing the Mangrove,' and 'The Iguana.'
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 251A:
Iberian Expansion Through the Looking Glass: One World or Many? (COMPLIT 351A, CSRE 251, CSRE 351, HISTORY 271C, HISTORY 371C, ILAC 251, ILAC 351)
The conquerors, missionaries, and historians who reflected on Iberian overseas expansion during the early modern period often asked themselves a crucial question: was there only one world or many? Were the Americas a 'New World,' unknown to the ancients, entirely detached from the rest of human history? Even after the invasion and occupation of the Americas, many European chroniclers continued to think that the world was divided into three parts - Europe, Asia, and Africa. In their descriptions of the Americas, they drew heavily on histories and travel reports pertaining to other epochs and locales, especially contemporary Asia and ancient Rome. At the same time, indigenous elites and mestizo authors in the Americas used 'Old World' history and news of distant conflicts to reflect on the immediacy of their historical experience. In this course, students will consider the ways in which diverse authors in New Spain (Mexico), Peru, and Brazil contemplated themselves in relation to remote times and places: from Greco-Roman Antiquity to Lutheran Germany, the Ottoman Mediterranean to the Apocalyptic End of Times. Students will analyze the many reflections, distortions, inversions, translations, uncanny resemblances, and strange parallel dimensions that resulted from these intellectual experiments. Primary sources include chronicles, poetry, theater, Afro-Catholic festivals, pictographic codices, feather mosaics, and maps. All texts offered in the original language and in English translation whenever possible. For graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 252A:
Great Arabic Poetry
Introduction to the canon of Arabic poetry from the sixth to the twenty-first century. Imru' al-Qays, al-Mutanabbi, Mahmud Darwish, and more. Readings in Arabic. Two years of Arabic at Stanford or equivalent required. Counts for the Arabic Track in the MELLAC Minor.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 252B:
Great Arabic Prose
Introduction to the best Arabic Literature from the 790s to 2016. Al-Jahiz, Naguib Mahfouz, and much more. Readings in Arabic. Two years of Arabic at Stanford or equivalent required. Counts for the Arabic Track in the MELLAC Minor. Note: This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 253:
Losing My Mind: Madness, Race, and Gender in Latin America (ILAC 253, ILAC 353)
What does it mean to lose our minds? Is the mind even ours to lose? How do race, gender, and social status inform our understandings and experiences of insanity? In this bilingual course we will explore figurations of madness, mental illnesses, and other kinds of crises of the self in Latin American cultural objects, from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. We will examine testimonies of religious experiences, novels, medical treatises, short stories, intimate diaries, and visual materials on disorderly states of mind and fragmented identities produced in territories that are today Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Perú, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic, among others. In our examination of these objects and their historical contexts, we will discuss how colonial and state authorities have used psychiatric labels to control and regulate the lives of Afro-descendants and women in Latin American territories. We will also examine the ways in which men and women of color navigated through these labels in order to evade punishment, engage in creative processes, or simply live their lives. Readings will be in Spanish and English (when translated from Portuguese). Advanced knowledge of Spanish is required.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 254:
The Middle East through Graphic Novel
How do young Middle Easterners grow up and get by? How do states, families, wars, religions, displacement and patriarchy shape their lives? In this course, we will examine the coming of age as children grow up to become adults, learn and negotiate layers of hierarchies of authority, class, gender, and violence in the Middle East /West Asia. We will trace the role of capitalism, colonialism and modernization, which shapes the global history in the meanings and experiences of the youth from major and minor ethnic, language or religious communities of the region. To do so, we will explore the graphic novel genre, a hybrid form that became very popular among Middle Eastern artists and writers who mastered it to narrate their personal stories interwoven in the region's sociopolitical and cultural issues. Through these graphic novels, we will learn not only how to understand the commonalities and differences of the writers' respective societies' history, culture and politics but also how to read words through pictures. Each graphic novel we read will provide us a platform to get into the world of ordinary people making sense of their lives in the unfolding macro processes that affect their families and families. Their stories of struggles, intimacy and resilience will give us a chance to understand the Middle East, beyond the headlines about conflict and deprivation. One graphic novel will be assigned each week. The class is appropriate for beginning students, non-majors, as well as upper level and graduate students, and it may be taken for different levels of credit. All readings will be in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 255:
Black Feminism and Anti-Carceral Resistance (AFRICAAM 355, FEMGEN 255A)
Black feminists throughout the Western Hemisphere have long resisted carcerality, a system that emerged as a response to antebellum Black fugitivity. In this course, we will review Black feminist theory and abolitionist activism, focusing on how the carceral state affects Black women in particular. We will draw from the work of academic scholars such as Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Angela Davis as well as the work of abolitionist activists and community leaders such as Mariame Kaba. Participants in this course will be introduced in depth to contemporary abolitionist demands and to the Black feminist theorists working in tandem with the abolitionist movement.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 257:
Simone Weil, Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, and Adriana Cavarero (COMPLIT 357A, FEMGEN 257X, FEMGEN 357X, FRENCH 257, FRENCH 357, ITALIAN 257, ITALIAN 357)
What does it mean to say the personal is the political, or, in the case of Arendt, that the personal is not political, especially if you are a woman? This course explores how Weil, De Beauvoir, Arendt, and Caverero contend with the question of personhood, in its variegated social, political, ethical, and gendered dimensions. Particular attention will be given to a philosophy of social change and personal transformation, and to the enduring relevance of these women's thought to issues of our day. Texts include selections from "Gravity and Grace," "The Second Sex," "The Ethics of Ambiguity," "The Human Condition," "Between Past and Future," "Stately Bodies," and "Relating Narratives."
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 258A:
Existentialism, from Moral Quest to Novelistic Form (ILAC 211, ILAC 311)
This seminar intends to follow the development of Existentialism from its genesis to its literary expressions in the European postwar. The notions of defining commitment, of moral ambiguity, the project of the self, and the critique of humanism will be studied in selected texts by Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Unamuno, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Joan Sales.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
COMPLIT 259A:
Levinas and Literature (JEWISHST 249A)
Focus is on major works by French phenomenologist Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) and their import for literary studies. Aim is to discuss and evaluate Levinas's (often latent) aesthetics through a close reading of his work in phenomenology, ethics, and Jewish philosophy. If poetry has come to seem barbaric (or at least useless) in a world so deeply shaped by genocide, forced migration, and climate change, Levinas offers a clear and deeply engaged path forward. If you love literature but still haven't figured out what on earth it might be good for, this course is for you. Readings and discussion in English.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 261:
Comparative Methodologies in Black Gender Studies (AFRICAAM 361, COMPLIT 361, FEMGEN 362)
This course takes a comparative methodological approach to Black Gender Studies, introducing students to the important terms and debates that animate this field, such as Spillers' "ungendering" and Saidiya Hartman's "critical fabulation". We will read academic articles, book chapters, and exhibition materials in the fields of literary criticism, history, anthropology, gender studies, and fine art that trace Black Women's and gender expansive people's experiences across the Western Hemisphere. The purpose of this course is to aid graduate students in growing as theorists in their own fields by engaging with the methodologies and terms present in contemporary Black queer and gender studies. We will also learn to conduct historical scholarship via archival sources. Particular attention will be paid to scholarship published in the past decade, especially as it relates to performance, literary criticism, and expansive gender throughout the modern history of the Western Hemisphere.This course is by application only. Please send a statement of interest and your CV to mlrosa@stanford.edu.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 263:
A History of Silence in Literature
An analysis of theological and mystical texts as well as secular works of poetry and prose, from the Middle Ages to the present, exploring both the specific nature and the philosophical implications of silence in literature. Following a historical trajectory, we will first look at silence in medieval thought: as the necessary silence of apophasy in the works of negative theology and as a memory space in accounts of mystical ascension from the Islamic tradition (Bayazid Bastami). After this will come an examination of various moments in more recent literary history: the silence in face of the sublime that pervades the Romantics; the metaphysical uprooting of Büchner's Lenz (1839) that is captured in the paradox of a silence whose screams reach across the horizon; the fragmentation of Hölderlin's late poetry; the crisis of language described in Hofmannsthal's Chandos Letter (1902), prefiguring Wittgenstein; the dissolution of words as a "language of space devoid of dialogue" in Antonin Artaud; the straining away from existence and speech in Beckett's The Unnamable (1953); and, finally, the silence of the breath turn, as an ethical injunction after the Holocaust in Paul Celan. Open to undergraduates and graduates. Taught in English.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 264:
Crossing the Atlantic: Race Identity in the "Old" and"New" African Diasporas (AFRICAAM 264, CSRE 265, FRENCH 264E)
In this course, we will think critically about what we have come to call the African diaspora. We will travel the world virtually while exploring a selection of classic and understudied texts, in order to interrogate the relationship between culture, race, gender and identity in the "old" and "new" African diasporas. From literary texts to popular culture, we will relate each weekly reading to a hot topic. Our goal is to think cross-culturally and cross-linguistically about the themes covered by putting exciting works in conversation. The diverse topics and concepts discussed will include race, class, gender, identity, sexuality, migration, Afro-Caribbean religions, performance, violence, the body, metissage, Negritude, Negrismo, multiculturalism, nationalism, Afropolitanism and Afropean identities.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 264T:
Race, Gender, Justice (CSRE 264S, FEMGEN 264S, TAPS 264S)
The question of justice animates some of the most influential classics and contemporary plays in the dramatic canon. We will examine the relationship between state laws and kinship obligations in Sophocles's Antigone. We will trace the transnational circulation of this text and its adaptations in Gambaro's Argentinian Antigona Furiosa, and Fugard and Kani's South African The Island. We will read Shakespeare's Othello and consider questions of racism, misogyny, and intimate partner violence, investigate the reverberations of these themes in the OJ Simpson trial, and explore its afterlife in Toni Morrison's Desdemona. We will take up questions of sexual violence via John Patrick Shanley's Doubt and Ariel Dorfman's Chilean classic, Death and the Maiden. We will examine themes of police brutality and racial vulnerability in Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight and Aleshea Harris's What to Send Up When it Goes Down. Through close readings of plays, we will explore the inter-articulation of intimacy and violence, intimidation and transgression, vengeance and forgiveness within the context of larger struggles for gender and racial justice. We will read plays in light of contemporary reckonings with the US criminal justice system: the #MeToo movement and the Black Lives Matter movement. While the former appeals to the criminal justice system to restore victims¿ rights, the latter urges a thorough dismantling of the carceral state. How do we understand these divergent responses to augment or abolish punitive structures? Meets WM requirement for TAPS.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 266:
Martin Heidegger: Off the Beaten Track (COMPLIT 363, GERMAN 276)
Martin Heidegger is one of the most influential and contested philosophers of the modern era. This seminar will offer close readings of Heidegger's first book following the Second World War: Martin Heidegger: Off the Beaten Track (Holzwege). We will discuss Heidegger's aesthetic theory ("The Origin of the Work of Art"), his reaction to Hegel's notion of experience, Nietzsche's dictum "God is dead," and Heidegger's unique understanding of poetry, poetics and poetic thinking in "Why Poets?" The seminar will also explore how some of Heidegger's ideas have left a lasting mark in contemporary discussions regarding truth, experience, art, and literature.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 267:
Transcultural Perspectives of South-East Asian Music and Arts (COMPLIT 148, FRENCH 260A, MUSIC 146N, MUSIC 246N)
This course will explore the links between aspects of South-East Asian cultures and their influence on modern and contemporary Western art and literature, particularly in France; examples of this influence include Claude Debussy (Gamelan music), Jacques Charpentier (Karnatak music), Auguste Rodin (Khmer art) and Antonin Artaud (Balinese theater). In the course of these interdisciplinary analyses - focalized on music and dance but not limited to it - we will confront key notions in relation to transculturality: orientalism, appropriation, auto-ethnography, nostalgia, exoticism and cosmopolitanism. We will also consider transculturality interior to contemporary creation, through the work of contemporary composers such as Tran Kim Ngoc, Chinary Ung and Tôn-Thât Tiêt. Viewings of sculptures, marionette theater, ballet, opera and cinema will also play an integral role. To satisfy a Ways requirement, this course must be taken for at least 3 units. WIM credit in Music at 4 units and a letter grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-4
COMPLIT 268:
Socialism: Theory, Literature, Practice (GERMAN 268)
The prospect of socialism has circulated in the cultural and political programs of many countries, and socialist programs have informed the real governance structures in some. This course examines some of the theoretical texts that have described socialism as well as critical responses. In addition, the treatment of socialism in literature will be discussed as well as considerations of the outcomes of institutionalized programs. Readings will include texts by authors such as Marx, Lenin, Hayek, Friedman, Koestler, Steinbeck, Wolf, Brauenig, Wright and others.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 270:
Poetess (Obsolete): Women Poets Take Back Time
Is there a tradition of women poets creating forms against the grain of their time? Close reading of women poets in conjunction with short readings in philosophy of time (Kant, Kierkegaard, Bergson, Heidegger). Syllabus includes Sappho, Dickinson, G Mistral, M Moore, E Bishop, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Plath, N Sachs, G Brooks, Harjo, Cisneros, Szymborska, Students will introduce their favorites. Last weeks: living poet-performers, including our own Stanford talent. Poetry party/Symposium at end.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 281E:
Pirandello, Sartre, and Beckett (COMPLIT 381E, FRENCH 214, FRENCH 314, ITALIAN 214, ITALIAN 314)
In this course we will read the main novels and plays of Pirandello, Sartre, and Beckett, with special emphasis on the existentialist themes of their work. Readings include The Late Mattia Pascal, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Henry IV; Nausea, No Exit, "Existentialism is a Humanism"; Molloy, Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape, Waiting for Godot. Taught in English.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 284A:
Poetry and Mysticism (COMPLIT 184A)
This course explores the interfaces of poetic and mystical speech across times and cultures. Topics include performance; subjectivity; spiritual/erotic love; linguistic fragmentation; the limits of language; and, finally, the question of apophasis as a subversive act. Sources range from the 10th to the 20th century and include Ramon Llull, Santa Teresa, Saint John of the Cross, the Judaic tradition, Hallaj, Rumi, Persianate Sufism, Meister Eckhart, Angelus Silesius, Paul Celan, Simone Weil, Georges Bataille, Juan Goytisolo, and Andrei Tarkovsky. Taught in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 285:
Texts and Contexts: French-English Translation (CSRE 285, FRENCH 185, FRENCH 285)
This course introduces students to the ways in which translation has shaped the image of France and the Francophone world. What texts and concepts were translated, how, where, and to what effect? Students will work on a translation project throughout the quarter and translate texts from French to English and English to French. Topics may include the role of translation in the development of cultures; the political dimension of translation, translation in the context of migration, and the socio-cultural frameworks that shape translations. Case studies: Camus, Chamoiseau, Djebar, Fanon, Sow Fall, Proust. Prior knowledge of French language required.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
COMPLIT 286:
Forming the world: Pragmatism and Aesthetics (GERMAN 286)
This course will explore key pragmatist philosophical and theoretical approaches to literature, the visual arts, and music. How are human lives mediated by and through aesthetic experience, in the realm of the private as well as the public. Rather than positing a metaphysical idea of beauty, the thinkers and artists we engage ask how texts and artworks render us sensitive to our multifaceted contingencies, and how we may speak and write about them. Readings and viewings include R. W. Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Emily Dickinson, Martin Heidegger, John Dewey, T. W. Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Richard Rorty, Terrence Malick, J. M. Coetzee, Bruno Latour, Marilynne Robinson, Nancy Fraser, Rita Felski, Tania Bruguera, Yivve Citton, Richard Moose, Cheryl Misak, and Shannon Sullivan, among others.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 287:
Hope in the Modern Age (GERMAN 287, JEWISHST 287)
Immanuel Kant famously considered "What may I hope?" to be the third and final question of philosophy. This course considers the thinkers, from Immanuel Kant to Judith Butler, who have attempted to answer this question from within the context of modernity. Has revolution replaced religion as the object of our hope? Has Enlightenment lived up to its promises? These topics and more will be discussed, with readings from thinkers including Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Adorno, and Arendt, alongside the literature of writers such as Kafka, Celan, Nelly Sachs, among others, and with particular focus on the question of hope within the German-Jewish tradition.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
COMPLIT 288:
Women, Wheat, and Weather? Lessons from Italy and the Global South for the 21st Century (COMPLIT 188A, FRENCH 188, FRENCH 288, ITALIAN 188, ITALIAN 288)
The Global South - a symbolic Mediterranean stretching from the Caribbean to India - lures the civilized man with the promise of excellent weather, voluptuous women, and good food. Already in antiquity, Sicily, the southernmost province of what is today modern Italy, was known as "the granary of Rome," supplying the Empire with wheat. Still today, the South is associated with vacation, underdevelopment, superstition, the mafia, la dolce vita: "The South is the problem; the North the solution," Boaventura de Sousa Santos succinctly puts it. In this course, we will move beyond the three W's by focusing on Italy from the point of view of "Southern Thought" ("pensiero meridiano"). We will read 20th/21st-century literary, philosophical, anthropological, and sociological texts from the Global South (Franco Cassano, Roberto M. Dainotto, Salman Rushdie, Gayatri Spivak, de Sousa Santos, Frantz Fanon, Homi Bhabha, Achille Mbembe, Carla Lonzi) to discuss such relevant topics as community and belonging (Elena Ferrante), technology and globalization (Luigi Pirandello; Fernando Pessoa), virus and contagion (Albert Camus), as well as race and gender (Igiaba Scego) from a Southern critical perspective. What counterhegemonic, non-binary, and renewable alternatives do the south of Italy and the Global South in general offer to understand these issues, and to the Western and Northern European emphasis on reason (the Cartesian "cogito"), individualism, and objectivity? We will have guest speakers from the Council of the EU and USAID specialized in international development, as well as conversations with authors. Taught in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 290A:
Magic, Science, and Religion (COMPLIT 390A, FRENCH 290, FRENCH 390, ITALIAN 290, ITALIAN 390)
With the rise of the human sciences in the later nineteenth century, "magic," "science," and "religion" came to be understood as entirely separate domains, with different versions of truth and divergent methods of inquiry. But how has this division broken down in the past 150 years? How is it, for example, that other people's religion is "merely magic"? How does science still draw on religious categories, in particular to claim the universe is meaningful? How have new forms of magic shaped new age, global culture? We will examine these questions by pairing literary texts with readings from anthropology, history of science, religious studies, and cultural criticism. This course is taught in English.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 293:
Literary Translation: Theory and Practice (DLCL 293, ENGLISH 293)
An overview of translation theories and practices over time. The aesthetic, ethical, and political questions raised by the act and art of translation and how these pertain to the translator's tasks. Discussion of particular translation challenges and the decision processes taken to address these issues. Coursework includes assigned theoretical readings, comparative translations, and the undertaking of an individual translation project.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
COMPLIT 302:
Film Series: Understanding Turkey Through Film (COMPLIT 102)
Join us in our quest to understand the great transformation in Turkey and its impact on its people through cinema. Set against the backdrop of the expansion of capitalism and the fundamental cultural, political and social change in the last decade, the movies in this series tell the uneasy stories of individuals whose lives are affected by this disruptive change. By examining the link between the individual experiences and societal change, the films confront issues such as globalization, gender and racial hierarchies, urban transformation, state repression, male domination, and the women's struggle in Turkey. We will watch eight Turkish films for this course. After introductions by Dr. Alemdaroglu or Dr. Karahan that artistically, historically, and politically contextualize the films we will have a discussion and Q&A session led by instructors or invited guest scholars of Anthropology, Film Studies, Political Science, Women and Gender Studies or film directors themselves. The students and interested Stanford community will be provided with the streaming links for the movies at the beginning of each week to screen them on their own time, and the discussion sessions will be held on the scheduled class time on Thursday. All films will be in Turkish with English subtitles.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 1-2
COMPLIT 304:
Voice, Dissent, Resistance: Antiracist and Antifascist Discourse and Action (COMPLIT 104A)
The rise of right-wing movements in the United States and in Europe signal a resurgence of nativist and ethno-nationalist politics that rely heavily on racism to advance fascist politics. This course will explore these phenomena both in terms of their historical development and their present-day appearances. The goal will be to understand how those involved in anti-racist and anti-fascist struggles have invented, created, and practiced discourses and actions that attempt to resist racism and fascism, and to evaluate their merits and weaknesses. Historical, philosophic, journalistic, and creative writings will be the basis of study. This is an experimental course driven by the urgency of recent political events. Students should have open minds and be willing to help shape the course.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 307:
Proust and His World (FRENCH 307A)
This course is a chance to read together Proust's <e>A la recherche du temps perdu</e>. This seven-volume novel is a stylistic tour de force, a brilliant meditation on defining elements of modernity, and an eccentric meander through art, history and the self. We will look closely at Proust's narrative edifice, and its poetic achievements. We will augment our reading of the novel with secondary selections that enable us to explore the many themes and questions raised by the work, ranging from fashion as a serious mode of modern expression to the phenomenology of memory to the decadence of French culture on the eve of the First World War. We'll look at the importance of Proust for structuralist and post-structuralist critics of the 1960s-1980s, whose paradigms continue to resonate today. We'll also consider together the interest and limits of a single-author course, and the value of absorptive, "slow" reading in our multi-tasking era. Supplementary readings might include selections from Charles Baudelaire, John Ruskin, Henri Bergson, Gérard Genette, Gilles Deleuze, Eve Sedgwick, Maurice Samuels, and Caroline Weber. Reading knowledge of French strongly recommended.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 309A:
Murder, Mystery and Memory: Istanbul in Historical Fiction (COMPLIT 109A)
This course serves as an introduction to the genre of historical fiction with a focus on Istanbul as its setting. After a brief overview of the origins of the genre in the early nineteenth century to its worldwide popularity in the twenty-first century, we will read historical novels set in Istanbul at its different moments in time. We will study issues of narration, memory and plot as we explore the relation between literature and history, between historical novel and truth; and discuss what it means to imaginatively and critically engage with the past. Readings will include novels by writers such as Ihsan Oktay Anar, Mathias Enard, Jason Goodwin, Nedim Gursel, Barbara Nadel, and Orhan Pamuk.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 312A:
Desiring Machines: Buildings, Maps, and Clouds (ARTHIST 212, ARTHIST 412, COMPLIT 212A, ILAC 212A, ILAC 312A)
Focus is on early modern machines as tools for experience and action. In their break with Freudian psychoanalysis, French theorists Deleuze and Guattari speak of the machine as a tool of desire and attraction itself as "machinic" rather than desire for something that is missing. The goal of this course is to equip students with a different way of thinking by exploring a large group of objects from the early modern world (poems, buildings, costumes, maps, nets, and clouds) that help us to approach the period in a new way.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 313:
The Power of Myth (COMPLIT 205, ILAC 205, ILAC 305)
Is myth a form of thought or is it that which opposes thinking? How does myth create worldviews and engage the emotions? Is myth a universal language or is it a set of cultural dialects? In this seminar myth will be approached from several directions: its classic distinction from logos, its relation to history, its underwriting of ideology, its anthropological applications, and its contemporary uses in advertising. We will consider modern cases of popular myths, in particular the complementary figures of erotic seduction: Carmen (the femme fatale) and Don Juan.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 314A:
Shipwrecks and Backlands: Getting Lost in Literature (COMPLIT 214, ILAC 218, ILAC 318)
This course takes students on a journey through tales of getting lost in the Portuguese and Spanish empires. We will read harrowing stories of being caught adrift at sea and mystical interpretations of island desertion. The course begins with sea-dominated stories of Portuguese voyages to Asia, Africa, and Brazil then turns to how the Amazon and the sertão, or backlands, became a driving force of Brazilian literature. Official historians, poets, and novelists imbued the ocean and the backlands with romanticism, yet these spaces were the backdrop to slavery and conquest. Instead of approaching shipwreck and captivity narratives as eyewitness testimonies, as many have, we will consider how they produced 'the sea' and 'the wilderness' as poetic constructions in Western literature while also offering glimpses of the 'darker side' of Iberian expansion. Taught in English with all texts offered both in English and the original Portuguese or Spanish. Optional guest lectures in Portuguese.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 315:
Vladimir Nabokov: Displacement and the Liberated Eye (COMPLIT 115, SLAVIC 156, SLAVIC 356)
How did the triumphant author of "the great American novel" "Lolita" evolve from the young author writing at white heat for the tiny sad Russian emigration in Berlin? We will read his short stories and the novels "The Luzhin Defense, Invitation to a Beheading, Lolita, Lolita" the film, and "Pale Fire", to see how Nabokov generated his sinister-playful forms as a buoyant answer to the "hypermodern" visual and film culture of pre-WWII Berlin, and then to America's all-pervading postwar "normalcy" in his pathological comic masterpieces "Lolita" and "Pale Fire". Buy texts in translation at the Bookstore; Slavic grad students will supplement with reading and extra sessions in original Russian.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 316:
Scholarship and Activism for Justice (CSRE 316)
A collective-based course where participants determine readings on scholarship and activism, invite guest speakers, plan activities to put into action our ideas, values, philosophies.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
24 times
(up to 24 units total)
COMPLIT 319:
The Turkish Novel (COMPLIT 119)
Designed as a survey, this course will examine the modern Turkish novel from the early days of the Republic to the present day. We will examine the aesthetic, political, and social aspects of the Turkish novel by reading major samples of national, historical, philosophical, village, and modernist novels. Discussions will be conducted in English. Students will have an option to read the primary sources in Turkish or in English. Contact Burcu Karahan for meeting time and place.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 320A:
Epic and Empire (ENGLISH 314)
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.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 324:
Before the Global South: The Avant-Garde and the Quest for New Knowledges in the Premodern (FRENCH 324)
Contemporary Brazilian, Caribbean, European, and American writers and artists who engage with media, forms, and temporalities of premodern cultures as they develop new epistemologies of the Global South. Readings include Augusto de Campos, Roberto Dainotto, Edouard Glissant, Ezra Pound, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Zrinka Stahuljak, Eliot Weinberger.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 325:
Realism and the Impossible Nation
After thinking about literary realism from the very particular angle of national identity, we will read four big novels - two by the Portuguese writer Jose Saramago (Blindness, and Seeing), Namwali Serpell's brilliant novel of Zambia, The Old Drift, and Gao Xinjian's dazzling and disturbing Soul Mountain. Each of these novels, in very different ways, tackles issues of gender, state politics, and environmentalism, and the idea of human perception and sociality.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 328:
Literature, Narrative, and the Self (FRENCH 328, ITALIAN 328)
It is often said that "life is a narrative," or that "we live our lives in stories." But is this true? Do we always live our lives as narratives? Could we fail to live our lives as narratives? Could we choose not to live our lives as narratives? Even for those who do see their life as a story, will any old narrative do, or is there something special about the examples provided by the literary tradition? How does literary genre factor in? What is closure? And why are middles what they are? Readings from Appiah, Aristotle, Camus, Hume, Nietzsche, Simmel, G. Strawson, Velleman; Brooks, Woloch; Kahneman, Sacks; Shakespeare, Balzac, Sartre, Beckett, Calvino, Levi, Morrison. Films by Ephron, Kaufman, Polley. Taught in English.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 332:
The Transoceanic Renaissance
The emergence of a transatlantic and transpacific culture in the early modern period. How is the Renaissance of Europe and England fashioned in a conversation with the cultural forms and material realities of the colonial Americas? And how do colonial writings expand and complicate the available understanding of the Renaissance? Readings in More, Hakluyt, Léry, Spenser, Camões, Williams, Erauso, Shakespeare, the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 333:
The Interruption of the Machine: Introduction to Sound Studies through Literature (ENGLISH 303A, ITALIAN 302, MUSIC 303, TAPS 302)
This course will introduce students to the field of Sound Studies (methodology, vocabulary, main claims) with a focus on the various sonic articulations of human-machine interactions in literature. The world of fiction as a sonic machine that articulates noise, sound, music, voice, or silence offers an excellent archive. We will read works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Eça de Queirós, Mark Twain, the Italian Futurists, Zora Neale Hurston, and Luigi Pirandello. Secondary readings will include seminal contributions by R. Murray Schafer (the soundscape), Leo Marx (U.S. industrialization), Jacques Attali (noise and music), Mladen Dolar (philosophy and voice), Adriana Cavarero (gender, voice, and the body), Jonathan Crary (culture, aesthetics, and perception), Friedrich Kittler (media), and Daphne Brooks (black feminist sound).
Last offered: Autumn 2022
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 335:
Literatures of the War of 1898: Spain, Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and the United States (ILAC 225)
1898 marked a major shift in the imperial control of the Atlantic and Pacific. This course will address texts from primarily Spain, Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico, the United States, and other regions. Focus on literature and theory regarding empire, Hispanidad, Latinidad, the Caribe, gender, and race. Taught in English with option to do all written work and some readings in Spanish.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 2-5
COMPLIT 336:
Yasar Kemal: Dissidence, Rebellion, and Storytelling in Turkey
This class will address the major works of Yasar Kemal, a prolific novelist and a masterful storyteller of Kurdish descent from Turkey, who throughout his life endured political persecution and imprisonment for his outspoken stance on minority rights and the Kurdish conflict. We will explore his literary career of six decades with a focus on his merging of Kurdish/Turkish oral traditions with modern literary techniques; the language he created that challenged official standard Turkish; his concern for the environment; his contribution to 'the village novel' of 1950s; and the peasants and feudal landlords of his novels to discuss the dissidence and rebellion in Turkish literature. All readings and discussion will be in English.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 338:
The Gothic in Literature and Culture (FRENCH 338)
This course examines the Gothic as a both a narrative subgenre and an aesthetic mode, since its 18th century invention. Starting with different narrative genres of Gothic expression such as the Gothic novel, the ghost tale, and the fantastic tale by writers such as Walpole, Radcliffe, Sade, Poe, and E.T.A. Hoffmann, the course goes on to ask how the Gothic sensibility permeates a wide range of 19th century cultural phenomena that explore the dark side of Enlightenment, from Romantic poetry and art to melodrama, feuilleton novels, popular spectacles like the wax museum and the morgue. If time permits, we will also ask how the Gothic is updated into our present in popular novels and cinema. Critical readings will examine both the psychology of the Gothic sensibility and its social context, and might be drawn from theorists such as Benjamin, Freud, Lacan, Kristeva, and Zizek.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 346:
Comparative Literature Pro-seminar
An introduction to the professional practice of Comparative Literature, the seminar addresses the nature of the discipline, its historical and recent issues, and prospects for the future. Required of all entering Comparative Literature graduate students; others may enroll with permission of the instructor.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-3
COMPLIT 348:
US-Mexico Border Fictions: Writing La Frontera, Tearing Down the Wall (ILAC 348)
A border is a force of containment that inspires dreams of being overcome, crossed, and cursed; motivates bodies to climb over walls; and threatens physical harm. This graduate seminar places into comparative dialogue a variety of perspectives from Chicana/o and Mexican/Latin American literary studies. Our seminar will examine fiction and cultural productions that range widely, from celebrated Mexican and Chicano authors such as Carlos Fuentes (La frontera de cristal), Yuri Herrera (Señales que precederan al fin del mundo), Willivaldo Delgaldillo (La Virgen del Barrio Árabe), Américo Paredes (George Washington Gómez: A Mexico-Texan Novel), Gloria Anzaldúa (Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza), and Sandra Cisneros (Carmelo: Puro Cuento), among others, to musicians whose contributions to border thinking and culture have not yet been fully appreciated such as Herb Albert, Ely Guerra, Los Tigres del Norte, and Café Tacvba. Last but not least, we will screen and analyze Orson Welles' iconic border films Touch of Evil and Rodrigo Dorfman's Los Sueños de Angélica. Proposing a diverse and geographically expansive view of the US-Mexico border literary and cultural studies, this seminar links the work of these authors and musicians to struggles for land and border-crossing rights, anti-imperialist forms of trans-nationalism, and to the decolonial turn in border thinking or pensamineto fronterizo. It forces us to take into account the ways in which shifts in the nature of global relations affect literary production and negative aesthetics especially in our age of (late) post-industrial capitalism. Taught in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 350B:
The Oceanic Novel: Woolf, Conrad, Duras, Tournier, Condé, Ortese (COMPLIT 250B, FRENCH 250, FRENCH 350, ITALIAN 250, ITALIAN 350)
This course will examine novels situated by, on, or in the sea. Its guiding questions: how do the immense breadth and depth of the sea relate to human interiority, self-discovery, and the shadow world of dreams? Does the sea mark a boundary, or a dissolution of that boundary? Novels include 'To The Lighthouse,' 'The Secret Sharer,' 'The Sailor from Gibraltar,' 'Friday,' 'Crossing the Mangrove,' and 'The Iguana.'
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 351A:
Iberian Expansion Through the Looking Glass: One World or Many? (COMPLIT 251A, CSRE 251, CSRE 351, HISTORY 271C, HISTORY 371C, ILAC 251, ILAC 351)
The conquerors, missionaries, and historians who reflected on Iberian overseas expansion during the early modern period often asked themselves a crucial question: was there only one world or many? Were the Americas a 'New World,' unknown to the ancients, entirely detached from the rest of human history? Even after the invasion and occupation of the Americas, many European chroniclers continued to think that the world was divided into three parts - Europe, Asia, and Africa. In their descriptions of the Americas, they drew heavily on histories and travel reports pertaining to other epochs and locales, especially contemporary Asia and ancient Rome. At the same time, indigenous elites and mestizo authors in the Americas used 'Old World' history and news of distant conflicts to reflect on the immediacy of their historical experience. In this course, students will consider the ways in which diverse authors in New Spain (Mexico), Peru, and Brazil contemplated themselves in relation to remote times and places: from Greco-Roman Antiquity to Lutheran Germany, the Ottoman Mediterranean to the Apocalyptic End of Times. Students will analyze the many reflections, distortions, inversions, translations, uncanny resemblances, and strange parallel dimensions that resulted from these intellectual experiments. Primary sources include chronicles, poetry, theater, Afro-Catholic festivals, pictographic codices, feather mosaics, and maps. All texts offered in the original language and in English translation whenever possible. For graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
Last offered: Spring 2022
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 353B:
Hannah Arendt: Facing Totalitarianism (GERMAN 253, GERMAN 353, JEWISHST 243A)
Like hardly any other thinker of the modern age, Hannah Arendt's thought offers us timeless insights into the fabric of the modern age, especially regarding the perennial danger of totalitarianism. This course offers an in-depth introduction to Arendt's most important works in their various contexts, as well as a consideration of their reverberations in contemporary philosophy and literature. Readings include Arendt's <em>The Origin of Totalitarianism</em>, <em>The Human Condition, Between Past and Future</em>, <em>Men in Dark Times</em>, <em>On Revolution</em>,<em>Eichmann in Jerusalem</em>, and <em>The Life of the Mind</em>, as well as considerations of Hannah Arendt's work by Max Frisch, Jürgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib, Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben, and others. Special attention will be given to Arendt's writings on literature with an emphasis on Kafka, Brecht, Auden, Sartre, and Camus. This course will be synchronously conducted, but will also use an innovative, Stanford-developed, online platform called Poetic Thinking. Poetic Thinking allows students to share both their scholarly and creative work with each other. Based on the newest technology and beautifully designed, it greatly enhances their course experience.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 355:
The French-Speaking World: Literature, Culture, and Translation (CSRE 355, FRENCH 355)
A survey of literatures and cultures of the French speaking world outside of Europe. We will examine a variety of literary genres as we explore works from the Caribbean, the Maghreb, West Africa, North America, Asia, and the Indian Ocean. Topics include: the politics of language, the making of literary classics, world literature and translation, decolonization, nationalism, gender, sexuality, race, and identity. Taught in French.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 357A:
Simone Weil, Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, and Adriana Cavarero (COMPLIT 257, FEMGEN 257X, FEMGEN 357X, FRENCH 257, FRENCH 357, ITALIAN 257, ITALIAN 357)
What does it mean to say the personal is the political, or, in the case of Arendt, that the personal is not political, especially if you are a woman? This course explores how Weil, De Beauvoir, Arendt, and Caverero contend with the question of personhood, in its variegated social, political, ethical, and gendered dimensions. Particular attention will be given to a philosophy of social change and personal transformation, and to the enduring relevance of these women's thought to issues of our day. Texts include selections from "Gravity and Grace," "The Second Sex," "The Ethics of Ambiguity," "The Human Condition," "Between Past and Future," "Stately Bodies," and "Relating Narratives."
Last offered: Winter 2021
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 359A:
Philosophical Reading Group (FRENCH 395, ITALIAN 395)
Discussion of one contemporary or historical text from the Western philosophical tradition per quarter in a group of faculty and graduate students. For admission of new participants, a conversation with Professor Robert Harrison is required. May be repeated for credit. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
for credit
COMPLIT 360B:
History and Theory of the Novel: Foundations
Can the novel, as genre, be conceptualized or critically synthesized? This course will approach such a daunting question from its two necessary starting-points: fiction and theory. On the one hand, we'll take up several of those major novels that have so often been viewed as aesthetically foundational: most likely Don Quixote, Emma, Madame Bovary and The Brothers Karamazov. On the other hand, we'll read the major theoretical statements of Lukacs (Theory of the Novel, Studies in European Realism, The Historical Novel) and Bakhtin (The Dialogical Imagination, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics), as well as text-specific criticism. This small group of texts might be seen as both necessary and insufficient to the largest questions of the genre. Our focus will be on closely reading and engaging each text in its inviting and demanding singularity and in building an open, imaginative and wide-ranging dialogue between fictions and theories. (This course might be followed by a class the next year on History and Theory of the Novel: Experiments, extending these questions in a number of further formal, geographic and chronological directions).
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 361:
Comparative Methodologies in Black Gender Studies (AFRICAAM 361, COMPLIT 261, FEMGEN 362)
This course takes a comparative methodological approach to Black Gender Studies, introducing students to the important terms and debates that animate this field, such as Spillers' "ungendering" and Saidiya Hartman's "critical fabulation". We will read academic articles, book chapters, and exhibition materials in the fields of literary criticism, history, anthropology, gender studies, and fine art that trace Black Women's and gender expansive people's experiences across the Western Hemisphere. The purpose of this course is to aid graduate students in growing as theorists in their own fields by engaging with the methodologies and terms present in contemporary Black queer and gender studies. We will also learn to conduct historical scholarship via archival sources. Particular attention will be paid to scholarship published in the past decade, especially as it relates to performance, literary criticism, and expansive gender throughout the modern history of the Western Hemisphere.This course is by application only. Please send a statement of interest and your CV to mlrosa@stanford.edu.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 363:
Martin Heidegger: Off the Beaten Track (COMPLIT 266, GERMAN 276)
Martin Heidegger is one of the most influential and contested philosophers of the modern era. This seminar will offer close readings of Heidegger's first book following the Second World War: Martin Heidegger: Off the Beaten Track (Holzwege). We will discuss Heidegger's aesthetic theory ("The Origin of the Work of Art"), his reaction to Hegel's notion of experience, Nietzsche's dictum "God is dead," and Heidegger's unique understanding of poetry, poetics and poetic thinking in "Why Poets?" The seminar will also explore how some of Heidegger's ideas have left a lasting mark in contemporary discussions regarding truth, experience, art, and literature.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 364:
Solidarity - Histories, Literatures, Rationales (COMPLIT 164, CSRE 164)
How do we come to care about causes not related to our lives directly? During the Spanish Civil War, people from around the world joined the International Brigade to fight fascism. In our own age, hundreds of thousands of people around the world urge a ceasefire in Gaza. We study moments in history where immediate political interest gives way to a more capacious sense of obligation and commitment.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 367:
Introduction to Apocalyptic Thinking
At the time of the European Enlightenment, the talk about the end of the world was taken to be a remnant of religious beliefs or the domain of insane people. The rational mind knew how to eliminate those obstacles to continuous scientific and technological progress. Today the situation has radically changed. Science and technology are the places where the end of the world is predicted. Apocalypse is looming. This seminar will explore various fields where this transformation is taking place. The following menaces will be considered: nuclear war, climate change, gene editing, synthetic biology, advanced artificial intelligence. Among the philosophies that will be summoned: the post-Heideggerian critique of technoscience (Hannah Arendt and Günther Anders), Hans Jonas' Ethics of the Future, the concept of existential risk (Nick Bostrom) and the instructor's concept of Enlightened Doomsaying. Appeal to literary works and films will be part of the program
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 367E:
Contemporary Theory Lab (ENGLISH 367E, ILAC 367E)
This new graduate seminar examines the question of whether a new canon of theoretical monographs-as opposed to influential standalone essays or papers-has coalesced in recent years. We focus on a post-Foucaultian, post-1989 moment, understanding theory as an autonomous, interdisciplinary enterprise that is not subservient or reducible to philosophy or literary criticism but shares many of the core concerns of each discipline. The seminar provides students with a safe space to discuss cutting-edge ideas, arguing for, with, and against influential trends. We will study six to eight monographs in great detail, at least two of which will be determined by class vote. Of special interest are conceptual formations and methodologies that do not have an institutional home or pursue a narrow political agenda. Topics include anticolonial thinking, new materialism, affect studies, and the shadow of the linguistic turn. We may draw from a roster of thinkers such as Bruno Latour, Saidiya Hartman, Verónica Gago, Sianne Ngai, Rob Nixon, Sara Ahmed, Martin Hägglund, Arturo Escobar, Mark Fisher, Wendy Brown, and Fred Moten. Previous experience with theory is recommended. Assignments sequence short papers with revisions, short student presentations, and a final paper. Stanford faculty and outside guests will be a mainstay. Broader community engagement with theory, as well as student integration of the subject matter towards their independent research projects, will be central goals. Open to co-terms, masters, and PhD students in the humanities and social sciences.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 368A:
Imagining the Oceans (ENGLISH 368A, FRENCH 368A)
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? Primary authors read might include Cook, Banks, Equiano, Ricketts, and Steinbeck; Defoe, Cooper, Verne, Conrad, Woolf and Hemingway; Coleridge, Baudelaire, Moore, Bishop and Walcott. Critical readings include Schmitt, Rediker and Linebaugh, Baucom, Best, Corbin, Auden, Sontag and Heller-Roazen. Films by Sekula, Painlevé and Bigelow. Seminar coordinated with a 2015 Cantor Arts Center public exhibition. Visits to the Cantor; other possible field trips include Hopkins Marine Station and SF Maritime Historical Park. Open to graduate students only.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 369:
Introduction to the Profession of Literary Studies (DLCL 369, FRENCH 369, GERMAN 369, ITALIAN 369)
A survey of how literary theory and other methods have been made institutional since the nineteenth century. The readings and conversation are designed for entering Ph.D. students in the national literature departments and comparative literature.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 1-2
COMPLIT 371:
Politics, Aesthetics, Critical Ecology: Artworks and the Environment (CHINA 371)
Climate change and environmental crises have given rise to critique and reflection. This class will bring together issues of aesthetics, politics, and artworks around environmental issues. The introductory phase will involve students with key issues in ecocritical literature by reading Timothy Clark's Literature and the Environment. Moving on to the critical ecology of the Frankfurt School, the class will study the critiques of anthropocentrism, the Enlightenment, and capitalist production as the source for domination over nature and over other humans. We will explore Marxist critiques of capitalist production and alienation in John Foster and Brett Clark's writings about metabolic rifts, toxic colonialism, and alienation of labor and nature. A look at ecological thoughts in the ancient Chinese tradition will be enriched by an inquiry into contemporary Chinese eco-critical literature and film, including Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide and Jia Zhangke's Still Life. Chinese is not required. PhD students are required to write a term paper of 20-25 pages. MA and undergraduate students will write short essays in response to the questions from readings and discussion.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2-5
| Repeatable
for credit
COMPLIT 374:
Wonder: The Event of Art and Literature (GERMAN 274)
What falls below, or beyond, rational inquiry? How do we write about the awe we feel in front of certain works of art, in reading lines of poetry or philosophy, or watching a scene in a film without ruining the feeling that drove us to write in the first place? In this course, we will focus on a heterogeneous series of texts, artworks, and physical locations to discuss these questions. Potential topics include The Book of Exodus, the poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin and of Elizabeth Bishop, the location of Harriet Tubman's childhood, the poetry and drawings of Else Lasker-Schüler, the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, the art of James Turrell, and the films of Luchino Visconti.
Last offered: Winter 2023
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 376:
Introduction to Apocalyptic Thinking (FRENCH 367, POLISCI 237R, POLISCI 337R)
At the time of the European Enlightenment, the talk about the end of the world was taken to be a remnant of religious beliefs or the domain of insane people. The rational mind knew how to eliminate those obstacles to continuous scientific and technological progress. Today the situation has radically changed. Science and technology are the places where the end of the world is predicted. Apocalypse is looming. This seminar will explore various fields where this transformation is taking place. The following menaces will be considered: nuclear war, climate change, gene editing, synthetic biology, advanced artificial intelligence. Among the philosophies that will be summoned: the post-Heideggerian critique of technoscience (Hannah Arendt and G¿nther Anders), Hans Jonas' Ethics of the Future, the concept of existential risk (Nick Bostrom) and the instructor's concept of Enlightened Doomsaying. Appeal to literary works and films will be part of the program.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 377:
Medieval Lyric: How Lyric Moves (FRENCH 377, ITALIAN 377)
Through the study of various vernacular premodern traditions, this graduate level course examines the qualities that make texts "lyric" and place them into conversation with contemporary theories of lyric. The course will situate medieval lyric within the critical discourse of poetics, the Global South, the archive, and anachrony. We will consider the movement of verse within and among various material contexts (song, manuscript, artworks, objects, tombstones). Poets considered: troubadours, trouvères, Galician-Portugese cantigas d'amigo, Stilnovists, Dante, Petrarchan poetry, Jean Renart, Charles d'Orléans, Villon, Pound, Brazilian Concrete Poetry.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 381E:
Pirandello, Sartre, and Beckett (COMPLIT 281E, FRENCH 214, FRENCH 314, ITALIAN 214, ITALIAN 314)
In this course we will read the main novels and plays of Pirandello, Sartre, and Beckett, with special emphasis on the existentialist themes of their work. Readings include The Late Mattia Pascal, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Henry IV; Nausea, No Exit, "Existentialism is a Humanism"; Molloy, Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape, Waiting for Godot. Taught in English.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 384:
Nationalism, Cultural and Political (COMPLIT 184B, ILAC 184, ILAC 384)
Is there a non-political nationalism? Does the term "post-nationalism" designate a political reality? Or does "transnational" add meaningfully to the more traditional term "international" in reference to dynamics occurring between or among nations? The seminar will analyze the emergence of the concept "nationalism" with Herder's political writings, the opposition between cultural nation and political state, the connection between democracy and the rise of the nation state and the reaction against nationalism in the wake of authoritarian movements in the 20th century and the challenge to popular sovereignty connected with the problematization of the nation. Texts by Rousseau, Herder, Fichte, Weber, Berlin, Huizinga, Miguel de Unamuno, Prat de la Riba, Eugeni d'Ors, Ortega y Gasset, among others. Taught in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 388:
In Search of the Holy Grail: Percival's Quest in Medieval Literature (COMPLIT 188, GERMAN 188, GERMAN 388)
This course focuses on one of the most famous inventions of the Middle Ages: the Holy Grail. The grail - a mysterious vessel with supernatural properties - is first mentioned in Chrétien de Troyes' "Perceval," but the story is soon rewritten by authors who alter the meaning of both the grail and the quest. By reading three different versions, we will explore how they respond differently to major topics in medieval culture and relevant to today: romantic love, family ties, education, moral guilt, and spiritual practice. The texts are: Chrétien de Troyes' "Perceval," Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzival," and the anonymous "Queste del Saint Graal." All readings will be available in English.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 390A:
Magic, Science, and Religion (COMPLIT 290A, FRENCH 290, FRENCH 390, ITALIAN 290, ITALIAN 390)
With the rise of the human sciences in the later nineteenth century, "magic," "science," and "religion" came to be understood as entirely separate domains, with different versions of truth and divergent methods of inquiry. But how has this division broken down in the past 150 years? How is it, for example, that other people's religion is "merely magic"? How does science still draw on religious categories, in particular to claim the universe is meaningful? How have new forms of magic shaped new age, global culture? We will examine these questions by pairing literary texts with readings from anthropology, history of science, religious studies, and cultural criticism. This course is taught in English.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 397:
Graduate Studies Colloquium
Colloquium for graduate students in Comparative Literature. Taught in English. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
15 times
(up to 15 units total)
COMPLIT 398L:
Literary Lab (ENGLISH 398L)
Gathering and analyzing data, constructing hypotheses and designing experiments to test them, writing programs [if needed], preparing visuals and texts for articles or conferences. Requires a year-long participation in the activities of the Lab.
Terms: Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 2-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
COMPLIT 399:
Individual Work
For Comparative Literature department graduate students only. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-15
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Barletta, V. (PI);
Berman, R. (PI);
Daub, A. (PI);
Eshel, A. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Greenleaf, M. (PI);
Huber, M. (PI);
Karahan, B. (PI);
Key, A. (PI);
Landy, J. (PI);
Lee, H. (PI);
Palumbo-Liu, D. (PI);
Parker, P. (PI);
Resina, J. (PI);
Saldivar, J. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI)
COMPLIT 680:
Curricular Practical Training
CPT course required for international students completing degree. Prerequisite: Comparative Literature Ph.D. candidate.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-3
| Repeatable
for credit
COMPLIT 802:
TGR Dissertation
Doctoral students who have been admitted to candidacy, completed all required courses and degree requirements other than the University oral exam and dissertation, completed 135 units or 10.5 quarters of residency (if under the old residency policy), and submitted a Doctoral Dissertation Reading Committee form, may request Terminal Graduate Registration status to complete their dissertations.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 0
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Barletta, V. (PI);
Berman, R. (PI);
Daub, A. (PI);
Eshel, A. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Greenleaf, M. (PI);
Huber, M. (PI);
Key, A. (PI);
Landy, J. (PI);
Lee, H. (PI);
Palumbo-Liu, D. (PI);
Parker, P. (PI);
Resina, J. (PI);
Saldivar, J. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI)
