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.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II
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.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 12SC:
Ghost Stories: Why the Dead Return and What They Want From Us
Ghost stories haunt our imagination. When the dead return they may scare us or warn us, they may pursue us with violence or burden us with sorrow. They shock us with the "boo" of surprise, just as they frustrate us by their elusiveness. Bloodchilling stories terrify us, but they also provide entertainment. The ghost story is one of the most enduring genres, from classical literature to popular film. Yet behind the door of the story lurk both anxiety and wisdom: anxiety about our own mortality and wisdom about the cultural place of the past, between memory and regret, mourning and forgetting. The undead point to what we have not accomplished, just as they direct us--since the ghost of Hamlet's father--toward deeds. In this seminar, we will explore some of these ghostly ambitions.nDuring the summer, in preparation for the seminar, students will read selected stories and novels and post comments to the course website. When we convene in September, we will discuss the summer findings and proceed to examine a selection of novels that explore ghosts and hauntings. Texts will include Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Peter Straub's Ghost Story, and others. We will also spend some dark and stormy nights with ghost films and even follow the trail to some hauntings at Stanford and in the Bay Area. Students are expected to participate regularly in the CourseWork discussion forum and work in small groups with other course members to discuss and present readings.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 2
COMPLIT 41N:
Borderlands of Literature and Culture
Rather than try to examine the whole of such an extensive body of work by artists of Mexican descent living in Mexico and the United States, the focus will be on the transnational themes of border thinking, memory, and identity (both personal and collective). Looking at the foundational poetry, auto-ethnographies, and narratives by Américo Paredes and Gloria Anzaldúa and how their literary and ethnographic work laid the groundwork for subsequent imaginings in the narratives, poetry, and theory of border thinking and writing. We will explore the trans-frontier cultural conditions under which imaginative literary texts are produced, disseminated, and received. We will consider not only the historical transnational experiences that inform these borderlands texts but the potential futures of Mexico and the United States they imagine.
Last offered: Autumn 2010
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 51Q:
Comparative Fictions of Ethnicity (AMSTUD 51Q, CSRE 51Q)
We may "know" "who" we "are," but we are, after all, social creatures. How does our sense of self interact with those around us? How does literature provide a particular medium for not only self expression, but also for meditations on what goes into the construction of "the Self"? After all, don't we tell stories in response to the question, "who are you"? Besides a list of nouns and names and attributes, we give our lives flesh and blood in telling how we process the world. Our course focuses in particular on this question--Does this universal issue ("who am I") become skewed differently when we add a qualifier before it, like "ethnic"?
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
COMPLIT 57:
Human Rights and World Literature
This course will have three interactive 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 component will consist of readings from various global locations that involve human rights in various ways, predominantly as they interface with environmental issues. Finally, this course will involve students in creating and populating a website that will be not only the archive of our work in class but also build a set of resources to be shared with others (at the time of this writing I am finding partners at different locations that may be able to speak to us online from their locations). Students will thus come away from this class with a good introduction to human rights history and philosophy; a set of insights into a variety of imaginative workings-out of human rights and environmental justice issues from different global locations, and a rich web resource.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 101:
What is Comparative Literature?
Introduction to theories about reading and theories about thinking. How should we best read novels, plays, short stories, poetry, and a variety of other forms of literary expression? Which ideas get taken across borders by literature, and which ideas do not? What role has literature played in human societies in different times and places? Fulfills the Writing-in-the-Major requirement. Gateway to the Comparative Literature Major.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 110:
Introduction to Comparative Queer Literary Studies (COMPLIT 310, FEMST 110)
Introduction to the comparative literary study of important gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, and transgender writers and their changing social, political, and cultural contexts from the 1890s to today: Wilde, Gide, Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Radclyffe Hall, E.M. Forster, Thomas Mann, Georges Bataille, James Baldwin, Jean Genet, Jeanette Winterson, Sarah Waters, Audre Lorde, discussed in the context of 20th-century feminist and queer literary and social theories of gender and sexuality (Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, Julia Serano, and others).
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 111:
German Capstone: Reading Franz Kafka (COMPLIT 311C, GERMAN 190, GERMAN 390, JEWISHST 147, JEWISHST 349)
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. (Meets Writing-in-the-Major requirement)
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 112:
Oscar Wilde and the French Decadents (COMPLIT 312, FRENCH 112, FRENCH 312)
Close reading of Oscar Wilde's work together with major texts and authors of 19th-century French Decadence, including Symbolism, l'art pour l'art, and early Modernism. Points of contact between Wilde and avant-garde Paris salons; provocative, creative intersections between (homo)erotic and aesthetic styles, transgression; literary and cultural developments from Baudelaire to Mallarmé, Huysmans, Flaubert, Rachilde, Lorrain, and Proust compared with Wilde¿s Salomé, Picture of Dorian Gray, and critical writings; relevant historical and philosophical contexts. All readings in English; all student levels welcome.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 115:
Nabokov in the Transnational Context (COMPLIT 315, SLAVIC 156, SLAVIC 356)
Nabokov's techniques of migration and camouflage as he inhabits the literary and historical contexts of St. Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, America, and Switzerland. His early and late stories, last Russian novel "The Gift," "Lolita" (the novel and screenplay), and "Pale Fire." Readings in English. Russian speakers will be encouraged to read Russian texts in original.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 11SC:
Worlds (No Longer) Apart
What (if anything) do supermall shoppers in the Philippines, a Filipino taxi driver in Paris, and television viewers in Nepal have to do with a legal case in Canada, two young Japanese on a pilgrimage to Graceland, and a South Asian lawyer/liquor store owner trying to reclaim his property in Uganda from where he lives, in Mississippi?nn This course uses literary narratives, films, and historical research to examine new textures of contemporary life, where "borders" seem hard-pressed to contain culture. Texts include Pico Iyer, Video Night in Kathmandu, Mira Nair's film Mississippi Masala, and M.G. Vassanji, No New Land. New forms of identity have emerged that reflect the cultural changes that have accompanied such movements. Nevertheless, we will not idealize such phenomena either; we will want also to carefully observe the binding power of nations. The result will be a finer-tuned sense of "globalization" and the "local" and the "global." nn The course emphasizes creative thinking and discussion. Students are expected to do the reading and be well prepared for every session with not only questions, but tentative answers. Each student will participate in one group presentation as their final project.
| Units: 2
COMPLIT 121:
Poems, Poetry, Worlds
What is poetry? How does it speak in many voices to questions of history, society, and personal experience? Why does it matter? The reading and interpretation of poetry in crosscultural comparison as experience, invention, form, sound, knowledge, and part of the world. Readings include: classical Chinese poetry, English Romantic poetry, and modern Arabic, American, Brazilian, Japanese, German, Spanish poetry, with specific attention to landscape, terrain, the environment, and the role of the poet.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 122:
Literature as Performance (COMPLIT 322)
Theater as performance and as literature. Historical tension between text and spectacle, thought and embodiment in western and other traditions since Greek antiquity. Dramas read in tandem with theory, live performances, and audiovisuals.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 123:
The Novel, The World (ENGLISH 184)
Literary inventiveness and social significance of novelistic forms from the Hellenistic age to the present.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 132A:
Dynasties, Dictators and Democrats: History and Politics in Germany (GERMAN 132)
Key moments in German history through documents: personal accounts, political speeches and texts, and literary works. The course begins with the Prussian monarchy and proceeds to the crisis years of the French Revolution. Documents from the 1848 revolution and the age of Bismarck and German unification follow. World War I and its impact on Germany, including the rise of Hitler, as well as the aftermath, divided Germany in the Cold War through the fall of the Berlin Wall. Taught in German.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
COMPLIT 141A:
The Meaning of Arabic Literature: a seminar investigation into the nebulous concept of adab
An investigation into the concept of literature in mediaeval Arabic. Was there a mediaeval Arabic way of thinking? We look to develop a translation for the word "adab," a concept that dominated mediaeval Arabic intellectual culture, and is related in some ways to what we mean today when we use the word literature. Our core text is a literary anthology from the 900s in Iraq and we try, together, to work out what literature meant for the author and his contemporaries. Readings, assignments and, class discussion all in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2012
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 142:
The Literature of the Americas (AMSTUD 142, CSRE 142, ENGLISH 172E)
A wide-ranging overview of the literatures of the Americas inncomparative perspective, emphasizing continuities and crises that are common to North American, Central American, and South American literatures as well as the distinctive national and cultural elements of a diverse array of primary works. 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--the Harlem Renaissance, the Beats, magic realism, Noigandres--in unaccustomed conversation with each other.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 144A:
Istanbul the Muse: The City in Literature and Film
The multiple layers of culture and history in Istanbul, a city on two continents between East and West, have inspired great art and literature. The class focuses on the idea of "inbetweenness" through art, literature, music, and popular culture seen chronologically. In addition to discussing literary, historical, and academic texts we will explore visual genres such as advertising, architecture, caricature, documentary, film, and miniature painting. Readings and discussion in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 145:
Reflection on the Other: The Jew in Arabic Literature, the Arab in Hebrew Literature (AMELANG 126, JEWISHST 106)
How literary works outside the realm of western culture struggle with questions such as identity, minority, and the issue of the other. How the Arab is viewed in Hebrew literature and how the Jew is viewed in Arabic literature. Historical, political, and sociological forces that have contributed to the shaping of the writer's views. Arab and Jewish (Israeli) culture.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 145B:
Ideas of Africa in Atlantic Writing (COMPLIT 345B, FRENCH 145B, FRENCH 345B)
This course examines the ways Anglophone and Francophone writers from the African, Caribbean and North Atlantic have represented Africa as a geographic, aesthetic and political space where one may think through problems of history, community and identity formation, art, language and the author's function. The course begins with Equiano and may include DuBois, Césaire, Senghor, Maryse Condé, Bessie Head, Phillip Gourevitch, Antjie Krog, and Barack Obama. Graduate students read in original French.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 146:
Asian American Culture and Community (AMSTUD 146, ASNAMST 146S, CSRE 146S)
An examination of the history, art and culture of Vietnamese Americans, and their contemporary experiences in the South Bay. The course will combine in-class learning with a major conference featuring prominent artists and scholars on the Vietnamese Diasporic community. A service learning component requires community work at a service organization in San Jose. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center). Course can be repeated once.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
COMPLIT 146A:
The Arab Spring in Arabic Literature (COMPLIT 347)
An examination of the events of 2011 in the Middle East through literature. We will read short stories, poetry, graphic novels, and blogs in order to try and work out whether the revolution could have been predicted, and how it took place. Prerequisite: two years of Arabic at Stanford, or equivalent.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 148B:
Indian Epics: Past and Present (RELIGST 108)
The Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the two great epics of India, have been crucial texts in South Asian literature and culture for millennia. In this course, we will explore the diverse forms and impacts of both epics from their Sanskrit versions, first composed more than 2,000 years ago, into retellings through newer media forms well into the twenty-first century. We begin with abridged translations of both the Mahabharata (including the Bhagavadgita) and the Ramayana. We will discuss the major literary, religious, and social themes of each text as well as subsequent retellings in Sanskrit and vernacular languages. Throughout the course we will also investigate the modern lives of the Indian epics, including their transformations into Indian television serials, film versions of both narratives (from India and America), and invocations of the epic stories in contemporary political disputes. In addition to gaining exposure to some of the foundational texts for the study of South Asia, students will cultivate the ability to fruitfully analyze texts and stories from different cultures.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 149A:
Classical Arabic Poetry: An Introduction (COMPLIT 346)
The primary litmus test of proficiency in the Arabic language is, and has always been, a command of classical Arabic poetry. Study and memorize the great lines of Arabic poetry with a manual that has stood the pedagogical test of time from the eleventh century until today. Questions of literary merit, poetic technique, metaphor, and divine and human linguistic innovation are all raised by the text that we will read together. Readings in Arabic, assignments and discussion in English. Prerequisite: two years of Arabic at Stanford, or equivalent.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 151A:
Philosophies, Literatures, and Alternatives (COMPLIT 351A)
Aristotelian poetics and mediaeval Arabic literary theory. Nietzsche's irony and Philosophies and literatures, together and apart, dominate the last two millennia of human thought. How might they best be read? Are philosophy and literature two different ways of thinking, or are they just two separate institutional histories? This course starts with familiar Greeks, moves onto unfamiliar Arabs, confronts old Europe, and ends with contemporary Americans arguing.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 154A:
Film & Philosophy (FRENCH 154, ITALIAN 154, PHIL 193C, PHIL 293C)
Issues of freedom, morality, faith, knowledge, personal identity, and the value of truth explored through film; philosophical investigation of the filmic medium itself. Screenings to include Twelve Monkeys (Gilliam), Ordet (Dreyer), The Dark Knight (Nolan), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Allen), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Kaufman). Taught in English.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 154B:
Poetic Thinking Across Media (GERMAN 154, JEWISHST 144B)
Even before Novalis claimed that the world must be romanticized, thinkers, writers, and artists wanted to perceive the human and natural world poetically. The pre- and post-romantic poetic modes of thinking they created are the subject of this course. Readings include Ecclestias, Zhaozhou Congshen, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Kafka, Benjamin, Arendt, and Sontag. This course will also present poetic thinking in the visual arts--from the expressionism of Ingmar Bergman to the neo-romanticism of Gerhard Richter.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 157:
Contemporary Turkish Cinema and Society (COMPLIT 357)
An examination of contemporary Turkish cinema in a social and political context. The course will focus on films and directors that revived Turkish cinema in the mid-1990s with a focus on key issues pertaining to belonging, denied identities, masculinity, nationalism, silencing of women, urbanization. There will be approximately two hours of film screening and two hours of classroom discussion/seminar each week. All films have English subtitles.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 162:
American Poetry and Secular Prayer
This course will explore the practice of "secular prayer" in early- and mid-20th Century North American poetry. We will look at diverse poetic examples of meditation, contemplation, exegesis and revelation in order to consider how and why poetry has maintained a particular relation to the sacred, even amidst a secular cultural and intellectual context. We'll also consider how this question has played out in several key strands of 20th century literary theory, with particular emphasis on New Criticism and Eco-Criticism. Primary readings will include the poetry of T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Audre Lorde, George Oppen, Robert Bly, Mary Oliver, Charles Wright and Jan Zwicky.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 168:
Imagining the Oceans (COMPLIT 368, ENGLISH 168, ENGLISH 368, FRENCH 168, FRENCH 368)
How has Western culture constructed the world's oceans since the beginning of global ocean exploration? How have imaginative visions of the ocean been shaped by marine science, technology, exploration, commerce and leisure? Readings might include voyage accounts by Cook and Darwin, sailors' narratives by Equiano and Dana, poetry by Coleridge, Bishop and Walcott, novels by Melville, Verne, Conrad and Woolf. Visual culture might include paintings by Turner and Redon, and films by Jean Painlevé, Kathryn Bigelow, Jerry Bruckheimer and James Cameron. Critical texts will be drawn from interdisciplinary theorists of modernity and mobility, such as Schmitt, Wallerstein, Corbin, Latour, Deleuze + Guattari, and Cresswell.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 171:
Ethics of Jihad
Why choose jihad? An introduction to Islamic ethics. Focus on ways in which people have chosen, rejected, or redefined jihad. Evaluation of the norms in moments of ethical and political choice. Topics include jihad in the age of 1001 Nights, jihad in the Arab Renaissance, jihad in Bin Laden's sermons, and the hashtag #MyJihad. All readings and discussion in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER
COMPLIT 181:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSGEN 81, ENGLISH 81, FRENCH 181, GERMAN 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)
Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track: majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature. Issues may include authorship, selfhood, truth and fiction, the importance of literary form to philosophical works, and the ethical significance of literary works. Texts include philosophical analyses of literature, works of imaginative literature, and works of both philosophical and literary significance. Authors may include Plato, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Borges, Beckett, Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas, Pavel, and Pippin. Taught in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 190:
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in Dialogue with Contemporary Philosophical, Social, and Ethical Thought (COMPLIT 390, SLAVIC 190, SLAVIC 390)
Anna Karenina, the novel as a case study in the contest between "modernity" and "tradition," their ethical order, ideology, cultural codes, and philosophies. Images of society, women and men in Tolstoy v. those of his contemporaries: Marx, Mill, Nietzsche, Weber, Durkheim, Freud. Open to juniors, seniors and graduate students. Requirements: three interpretive essays (500-1000 words each). Analysis of a passage from the novel; AK refracted through a "philosophical" prism and vice versa (30% each); class discussion and Forum (10%).
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-EthicReas, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
COMPLIT 194:
Independent Research
(Staff)
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Bender, J. (PI);
Berman, R. (PI);
Brookshaw, D. (PI);
Cohen, M. (PI);
Dierkes, P. (PI);
Eshel, A. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Greenleaf, M. (PI);
Gumbrecht, H. (PI);
Karahan, B. (PI);
Key, A. (PI);
Lee, H. (PI);
Moretti, F. (PI);
Mudimbe-Boyi, E. (PI);
Palumbo-Liu, D. (PI);
Parker, P. (PI);
Saldivar, J. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Wang, B. (PI)
COMPLIT 199:
Senior Seminar: J.R.R. Tolkien and Junot Diaz's Speculative Narratives
Major terms of speculative narratology; how different literary, cinematic, and popular culture narratives by (and about) Tolkien and Diaz raise issues of coloniality, power and race, stir public debates and contribute to understanding planetary literature. Readings include texts by Tolkien and Diaz, Frye, Fanon, Quijano, Mignolo, Jameson, Badiou, Butler, Moya, and Perez. Satisfies the capstone seminar requirement for the major tracks in Philosophy and Literature. CL Senior majors only and minors with permission.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
COMPLIT 219:
Dostoevsky: Narrative Performance and Literary Theory (SLAVIC 251)
In-depth engagement with a range of Dostoevsky's genres: early works (epistolary novella Poor Folk and experimental Double), major novels (Crime and Punishment, The Idiot), less-read shorter works ("A Faint Heart," "Bobok," and "The Meek One"), and genre-bending House of the Dead and Diary of a Writer. Course applies recent theory of autobiography, performance, repetition and narrative gaps, to Dostoevsky's transformations of genre, philosophical and dramatic discourse, and narrative performance. Slavic students read primary texts in Russian, other participants in translation. Course conducted in English. For graduate students; undergraduates with advanced linguistic and critical competence may enroll with consent of instructor.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 222A:
Wrestling with Modernity: German Literature and Thought from 1900 to the Present (GERMAN 222, GERMAN 322)
Masters of German 20th- and 21st-Century literature and philosophy as they present aesthetic innovation and confront the challenges of modern technology, social alienation, manmade catastrophes, and imagine the future. Readings include Nietzsche, Freud, Rilke, Musil, Brecht, Kafka, Doeblin, Benjamin, Juenger, Arendt, Musil, Mann, Adorno, Celan, Grass, Bachmann, Bernhardt, Wolf, and Kluge. Taught in English. Undergraduates enroll in 222 for 5 units, graduate students enroll in 322 for 8 units.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5-8
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 226A:
Queer Literature and Film (FEMGEN 226A)
Close analysis of major works of LGBTQ literature, film, and visual art from the 1890s to today. Students will gain deeper knowledge and appreciation of historical and contemporary forms of queer representation in various national literatures, film, and visual art; understand relevant social and political debates; and gain a basic knowledge of feminist and queer theory. Course will include an optional online component to reach out to the public (class website queerlitfilm.wordpress.com, social media).
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 228D:
Introduction to Digital Humanities: Concepts, Technologies, Tools (COMPLIT 338D)
In this course, we will explore the perspectives of scholars who have thought about what "digital humanities" means and the technologies and tools that are shaping new kinds of research, scholarship, and publishing. Topics will include history of the digital humanities, textual studies, electronic literature, computational and new media, and emerging work around text, image, and new media curation and visualization. This seminar is ideal for anyone interested in digital methods and digital in the humanities, teaching with new digital methods, or to learn about all the digital humanities projects at Stanford.nnThis course is organized as a mix of seminar and workshop and will be featuring a new platform called "Lacuna Stories," designed for Stanford students, that presents multiple platforms, media, and texts to digitally engage with narratives surrounding 9/11; active engagement by all participants is expected. Students may contribute to the field with a creative final project that they develop over the course of the quarter if they select the 3-unit option.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-3
COMPLIT 229:
Literature of Global Health (FRENCH 229, HUMBIO 175L, MED 234)
This course examines the ways literary and medical writers have used the narrative form to explore the ethics of care in what has been called the developing world. We will begin with a call made by the editor-in-chief of The Lancet for a literature of global health -- modeled on the social reform novels of the nineteenth century, which are meant to have helped readers develop a modern public health conscience. We will study global health ethics as a field initially rooted in philosophy and policy that address questions raised by practice in resource-constrained communities abroad. And we will spend the quarter understanding how colonial and world literatures may deepen and even alter these questions. Readings will be selected from Albert Schweitzer, Aime Cesaire, Albert Camus, Frantz Fanon, Antonio Olinto, Ben Okri, Amitav Ghosh, Anne Fadiman, and Paul Farmer.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
COMPLIT 236:
Literature and Transgression (FEMGEN 236)
Close reading and analysis of erotic-sexual and aesthetic-stylistic transgression in selected works by Wilde, Schnitzler, Joyce, Barnes, Bataille, Burroughs, Thomas Mann, Guenter Grass, Kathy Acker, Junot Diaz and others. Along with understanding the changing cultural, social, and political contexts of what constitutes "transgression" or censorship, students will gain knowledge of influential theories of transgression by Foucault, Blanchot, and contemporary queer and feminist writers.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 243B:
Readings in Avicenna and al-Jurjani
Classical Arabic reading course. Instructor approval required. Pre-requisite: minimum two years of Arabic at Stanford or equivalent.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 245:
Introductory Ottoman Turkish
Course is open to undergraduate and graduate students. Aims to familiarize students with Ottoman Turkish script and develop competence in reading Ottoman Turkish texts in print. Selected readings will range from poetry to prose, from newspaper and journal articles to reference works.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-3
COMPLIT 247:
Bollywood and Beyond: An Introduction to Indian Film (FILMSTUD 250B, ICA 250)
A broad engagement with Indian cinema: its relationship with Indian politics, history, and economics; its key thematic concerns and forms; and its adaptation of and response to global cinematic themes, genres, and audiences. Locating the films within key critical and theoretical debates and scholarship on Indian and world cinemas. Goal is to open up what is often seen as a dauntingly complex region, especially for those who are interested in but unfamiliar with its histories and cultural forms.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 248A:
Reading Turkish I
Designed to develop reading competence in Turkish for graduate students (undergraduates should consult the instructor). An introduction to the structures of Turkish language necessary for reading. Essential grammar, syntax points, vocabulary, and reading skills will be emphasized. The goal is to enable you to read Turkish at an advanced level in a relatively short period of time. It 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.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 248B:
Reading Turkish II
Continuation of language and reading development from Reading Turkish I. Open with consent of the instructor to undergraduates who have already taken Reading Turkish I.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-4
COMPLIT 248C:
Advanced Turkish for Research
Refining advanced reading skills in modern Turkish through intensive reading and translation. Emphasis on Turkish cultural, historical, literary, and political texts depending on students¿ academic interests. Prior knowledge of Turkish and/or consultation with the instructor is necessary.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-4
COMPLIT 249A:
The Iranian Cinema: Image and Meaning (ICA 249A)
This course will focus on the analysis of ten Iranian films with the view of conducting a discourse on the semiotics of Iranian art and culture.nnEach session will be designated to the viewing of a film by a prominent Iranian film-maker. Students are expected to prepare for class by having previously examined other available films by the film-maker under consideration.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 1-3
COMPLIT 249B:
Iranian Cinema in Diaspora (ICA 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.nnThese 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.nnIn 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:nnWhat changes in aesthetics and point of view of the filmmaker are caused by the change in his or her work environment?nnThough unwantedly these films are made outside Iran, how related are they to the known (recognized) cinema within Iran?nnAnd in fact, to what extent do these films express things that are left unsaid by the cinema within Iran?
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-3
COMPLIT 249C:
Contemporary Iranian Theater
Today Iranian plays¿both in traditional and contemporary styles¿are staged in theater festivals throughout the world play their role in forming a universal language of theater which combine the heritages from countries in all five continents. Despite many obstacles, some Iranian plays have been translated into English and some prominent Iranian figures are successful stage directors outside Iran.nnForty six years ago when ¿Theater in Iran¿ (a monograph on the history of Iranian plays) by Bahram Beyzaie was first published, it put the then contemporary Iranian theater movement--which was altogether westernizing itself blindly --face to face with a new kind of self-awareness. Hence in today¿s generation of playwrights and stage directors in Iran, all know something of their theatrical heritage. nnIn this course we will spend some class sessions on the history of theater in Iran and some class meetings will be concentrating on contemporary movements and present day playwrights. Given the dearth of visual documents, an attempt will be made to present a picture of Iranian theater to the student.nnStudents are expected to read the recommended available translated plays of the contemporary Iranian playwrights and participate in classroom discussions.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-3
COMPLIT 252A:
An Introduction to Classical Arabic Poetry: the Shakespeare of the Arabs (al-Mutanabbi)
Study, memorize, and criticize the work of al-Mutanabbi, a poet who in his twenties led a failed desert revolution. The mature and cynical poet he became was embarrassed by the claims he made in his youth to be a prophet who received new Quran from God. How did he get away with this? Engage with a literary and political society wholly unlike our own. Readings in Arabic, discussion in English. Prerequisite: two years of Arabic at Stanford or equivalent.
| Units: 2-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 252B:
An Introduction to Classical Arabic Prose: the Shakespeare of the Arabs (al-Jahiz)
Learn how to read the Arabic of Iraq in the 800s. Discover how close it is to Modern Standard Arabic. Engage with the politician, philosopher, theologian, and satirist who is still acknowledged today as the master of Arabic prose writing. Readings in Arabic, discussion in English. Prerequisite: two years of Arabic at Stanford or equivalent.
| Units: 2-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
COMPLIT 253:
Honoré de Balzac (FRENCH 253)
Working through a selection of novels by the author widely considered as a founder of western (19th-century) "Literary Realism." Balzac's will be contextualized within his life and the French culture and literature of his time. We will also approach, from a philosophical point of view, the emergence and functions of "Literary Realism." Another focus will be Balzac's work as exemplary of certain traditions within Literary Criticism (particularly Marxist Literary Criticism). Taught in English.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 262A:
Explosions of Enlightenment (GERMAN 262A)
Eighteenth-century culture seen as permeated by intellectual and artistic practices and plays pushing principles of reason and rationality to an extreme that becomes self-undercutting. Such obsessions and practices are becoming more visible and prominent now, as the traditional concept of "Enlightenment" (synonymous with the 18th century) is undergoing a profound transformation. Among the protagonists of this seminar will be: Diderot as a philosopher and novelist; Lichtenberg as a scientist and writer of everyday notes; Goya, accusing violence and obsessed with nightmarish visions; Mozart as the excessive master of repetition and variation.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 264:
Walter Benjamin (GERMAN 264A)
Walter Benjamin's work as cultural historian, critic, literary author and philosopher, seen from the trajectory of a German-Jewish intellectual life in the context of the first half of the 20th century. Providing such a historical perspective will be the condition for an actively critical reading of Benjamin's works; a reading that -- counter to the predominant Benjamin-reception -- will try to distinguish between works of purely biographical and historical interest and those Benjamin texts that prove to be of great and lasting intellectual value. Taught in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 265:
Histories and Futures of Humanistic Education: Culture and Crisis, Books and MOOCs (DLCL 265, EDUC 217X)
Features of online education as they relate to the humanities and notions of engaged critical learning. Collaborative course, working in tandem with Professor Cathy Davidson's Duke course, The History and Future of High Education, using live chats, Google documents, and other forums to interact with students at Duke and other universities nationally. Each campus uses a syllabus linked to each instructor's angle into this general subject, but many readings and exercises in common. Seeing this as a critical moment in education, to connect this topic to its historical, cultural, political, and ethical implications. The Stanford course looks at early discussions about education and culture (Arnold's Culture and Anarchy) and then works through a key moment in the mid-20th century whose premises still have influence: the Two Cultures (humanities, sciences) debate. Radical responses to educational reform in France and the US in the late 60s, and the changing state of funding, value, and cultural critique in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The idea of education as a personal, collective, and intellectual endeavor which is shaped by and shapes societies. Focus on the idea of the public good and the relation between education and a democratic society.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 271A:
Futurity: Why the Past Matters (GERMAN 271)
Drawing on literature, the arts, political discourse, museums, and new media, this course asks why and how we take interest in the watershed events of the modern era; how does contemporary culture engages with modern, made-made disasters such as the World Wars or 9/11? Readings and viewings include the literature of G. Grass, W. G. Sebald, Ian McEwan, Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy; the cinema of Kathryn Bigelow and Steven Spielberg; speeches by Barak Obama; and the theoretical writing of Walter Benjamin, Hayden White, Fredric Jameson, among others. Taught in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 283:
Masterpieces of Hebrew Literature from the Bible to the Present (JEWISHST 243)
This course presents and reflects on some of the canonical works of Hebrew literature, from biblical era to the present. Discussing works such as the Wisdom Books and selections from the Midrash; and reflecting on important periods such as the Golden Age of Jewish Culture in Spain, the Renaissance, and contemporary Israeli literature, we will highlight linguistic innovation, as well as crucial thematic and philosophical concerns. Readings include the Book of Job, Psalm, Ibn Gabirol, Mapu, Rachel, Goldbegr, Agnon, S. Yizhar, Amichai, Oz and more.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
COMPLIT 310:
Introduction to Comparative Queer Literary Studies (COMPLIT 110, FEMST 110)
Introduction to the comparative literary study of important gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, and transgender writers and their changing social, political, and cultural contexts from the 1890s to today: Wilde, Gide, Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Radclyffe Hall, E.M. Forster, Thomas Mann, Georges Bataille, James Baldwin, Jean Genet, Jeanette Winterson, Sarah Waters, Audre Lorde, discussed in the context of 20th-century feminist and queer literary and social theories of gender and sexuality (Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, Julia Serano, and others).
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 311C:
German Capstone: Reading Franz Kafka (COMPLIT 111, GERMAN 190, GERMAN 390, JEWISHST 147, JEWISHST 349)
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. (Meets Writing-in-the-Major requirement)
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 312:
Oscar Wilde and the French Decadents (COMPLIT 112, FRENCH 112, FRENCH 312)
Close reading of Oscar Wilde's work together with major texts and authors of 19th-century French Decadence, including Symbolism, l'art pour l'art, and early Modernism. Points of contact between Wilde and avant-garde Paris salons; provocative, creative intersections between (homo)erotic and aesthetic styles, transgression; literary and cultural developments from Baudelaire to Mallarmé, Huysmans, Flaubert, Rachilde, Lorrain, and Proust compared with Wilde¿s Salomé, Picture of Dorian Gray, and critical writings; relevant historical and philosophical contexts. All readings in English; all student levels welcome.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 315:
Nabokov in the Transnational Context (COMPLIT 115, SLAVIC 156, SLAVIC 356)
Nabokov's techniques of migration and camouflage as he inhabits the literary and historical contexts of St. Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, America, and Switzerland. His early and late stories, last Russian novel "The Gift," "Lolita" (the novel and screenplay), and "Pale Fire." Readings in English. Russian speakers will be encouraged to read Russian texts in original.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 31SI:
What is Neoconservatism? The Movement's History and Ideas
Its thinking from its communist roots, through the changes of the 60s, the rise of conservatism in the 80s, and the invasion of Iraq. Readings include Irving Kristol, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Daniel P. Moynihan, and David Brooks. Guest lecturers from supporters and critics.
| Units: 2
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 321A:
From Enlightenment to Realism: German Literature 1750-1900 (GERMAN 221, GERMAN 321)
How German writers respond to the rise of historical awareness in the long nineteenth century. The role of historical precedents and models, especially Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman legacies, the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the French Revolution and its aftermath. The vexed relation between cultural production, material circumstances and political agency. The belatedness of German modernity and the anomalous character of Germany's development. France as a screen for the projection of nationalist and utopian fantasies. Authors include Herder, Goethe, Fichte, Heine, Büchner, Marx, Nietzsche, Fontane. Taught in German. Undergraduates enroll in 220 for 5 units, German graduate students enroll in 320 for 8 units.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5-8
COMPLIT 321B:
Anthropology and Literature: Problems of Representation, Power, and Textuality (ANTHRO 321A)
How are literary and social scientific forms of cultural description, evocation, and interpretation related? The seminar reads classic texts as well as recent experiments, addressing issues of genre, rhetoric, epistemology, translation, authority, and collaboration. The emphasis is on writing as a situated practice¿embodied, relational, and historically circumscribed. Authors may include Malinowski, Mead, Benedict, Lévi-Strauss, Geertz, Taussig, Leiris, Conrad, Achebe, Said, Barthes, Kroeber, Le Guin, and selected contemporary ethnographies. Examples from film, visual culture, and performance art may also be included.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 322:
Literature as Performance (COMPLIT 122)
Theater as performance and as literature. Historical tension between text and spectacle, thought and embodiment in western and other traditions since Greek antiquity. Dramas read in tandem with theory, live performances, and audiovisuals.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 325:
Rethinking Comparative Literary Study Outside of Academia
This graduate seminar will serve three primary purposes: 1) we will create and inspire a dialogue to help us think through the application of comparative literary study in non-academic contexts, 2) we will refine our ideas by applying them in various exercises and settings, and, as a result, 3) we will need to investigate what is meant by the phrase "critical thinking." nnBroadly speaking, this seminar represents a forum for thinking creatively about the unique skills of a doctoral student as well as the specific challenges that await when pursuing career opportunities outside of academia. The goal is to come out of the seminar with a heightened appreciation of the humanities skill set in applications that may present new opportunities for the student. Texts will be highly cross-disciplinary, drawing from legal, financial, and technological traditions and mediums. No prerequisites required.
| Units: 2
COMPLIT 328:
Literature, Narrative, and the Self (FRENCH 328, ITALIAN 328)
The role of narrative in the well-lived life. Are narratives necessary? Can they, and should they, be literary? When might non-narrative approaches, whether literary or otherwise, be more relevant? Is unity of self something given, something to be achieved, or something to be overcome? Readings from Aristotle, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, MacIntyre, G. Strawson, Velleman; Ricoeur, Brooks; Shakespeare, Stendhal, Musil, Levi, Beckett, Morrison; film. Taught in English.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 334B:
Concepts of Modernity II: The Study of Culture in the Age of Globalization (ENGLISH 334B, MTL 334B)
A survey of 20th-century theory with focus on the concept of culture and methods of studying it from diverse disciplines including, anthropology, historical sociology, literary and cultural studies. Discussions will emphasize modernization, transmodernization and globalization processes in their relations to culture broadly understood, cultures in their regional, national and diasporic manifestations, and cultures as internally differentiated (high and low culture, subcultures, media cultures).
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 335A:
Materialism and Literature (ILAC 335)
Exploration of vibrant materialism (Bennet, Latour) and historical materialism (critical theory) as a basis to approach Latin American commodity novels, i.e., those that revolve around bananas, coffee, etc. Literary works by J.E. Rivera, García Márquez, Asturias, Neruda, Magnus, and others. Taught in Spanish.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 338:
The Gothic in Literature and Culture (ENGLISH 338, 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.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 338D:
Introduction to Digital Humanities: Concepts, Technologies, Tools (COMPLIT 228D)
In this course, we will explore the perspectives of scholars who have thought about what "digital humanities" means and the technologies and tools that are shaping new kinds of research, scholarship, and publishing. Topics will include history of the digital humanities, textual studies, electronic literature, computational and new media, and emerging work around text, image, and new media curation and visualization. This seminar is ideal for anyone interested in digital methods and digital in the humanities, teaching with new digital methods, or to learn about all the digital humanities projects at Stanford.nnThis course is organized as a mix of seminar and workshop and will be featuring a new platform called "Lacuna Stories," designed for Stanford students, that presents multiple platforms, media, and texts to digitally engage with narratives surrounding 9/11; active engagement by all participants is expected. Students may contribute to the field with a creative final project that they develop over the course of the quarter if they select the 3-unit option.
| Units: 1-3
COMPLIT 345B:
Ideas of Africa in Atlantic Writing (COMPLIT 145B, FRENCH 145B, FRENCH 345B)
This course examines the ways Anglophone and Francophone writers from the African, Caribbean and North Atlantic have represented Africa as a geographic, aesthetic and political space where one may think through problems of history, community and identity formation, art, language and the author's function. The course begins with Equiano and may include DuBois, Césaire, Senghor, Maryse Condé, Bessie Head, Phillip Gourevitch, Antjie Krog, and Barack Obama. Graduate students read in original French.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 346:
Classical Arabic Poetry: An Introduction (COMPLIT 149A)
The primary litmus test of proficiency in the Arabic language is, and has always been, a command of classical Arabic poetry. Study and memorize the great lines of Arabic poetry with a manual that has stood the pedagogical test of time from the eleventh century until today. Questions of literary merit, poetic technique, metaphor, and divine and human linguistic innovation are all raised by the text that we will read together. Readings in Arabic, assignments and discussion in English. Prerequisite: two years of Arabic at Stanford, or equivalent.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 347:
The Arab Spring in Arabic Literature (COMPLIT 146A)
An examination of the events of 2011 in the Middle East through literature. We will read short stories, poetry, graphic novels, and blogs in order to try and work out whether the revolution could have been predicted, and how it took place. Prerequisite: two years of Arabic at Stanford, or equivalent.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 351A:
Philosophies, Literatures, and Alternatives (COMPLIT 151A)
Aristotelian poetics and mediaeval Arabic literary theory. Nietzsche's irony and Philosophies and literatures, together and apart, dominate the last two millennia of human thought. How might they best be read? Are philosophy and literature two different ways of thinking, or are they just two separate institutional histories? This course starts with familiar Greeks, moves onto unfamiliar Arabs, confronts old Europe, and ends with contemporary Americans arguing.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 357:
Contemporary Turkish Cinema and Society (COMPLIT 157)
An examination of contemporary Turkish cinema in a social and political context. The course will focus on films and directors that revived Turkish cinema in the mid-1990s with a focus on key issues pertaining to belonging, denied identities, masculinity, nationalism, silencing of women, urbanization. There will be approximately two hours of film screening and two hours of classroom discussion/seminar each week. All films have English subtitles.
Terms: Win
| 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 H. U. Gumbrecht is required. May be repeated for credit. Taught in English.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
for credit
COMPLIT 360B:
The Theory of the Novel (ENGLISH 360B)
Topics will include: theories of the novel's origin; novelistic subjectivity; voice and text; body and text; the problem of the quotidian; democracy, revolution and novelistic form; and the peculiar dynamic of the novelistic trinity (author, character, reader).
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 368:
Imagining the Oceans (COMPLIT 168, ENGLISH 168, ENGLISH 368, FRENCH 168, FRENCH 368)
How has Western culture constructed the world's oceans since the beginning of global ocean exploration? How have imaginative visions of the ocean been shaped by marine science, technology, exploration, commerce and leisure? Readings might include voyage accounts by Cook and Darwin, sailors' narratives by Equiano and Dana, poetry by Coleridge, Bishop and Walcott, novels by Melville, Verne, Conrad and Woolf. Visual culture might include paintings by Turner and Redon, and films by Jean Painlevé, Kathryn Bigelow, Jerry Bruckheimer and James Cameron. Critical texts will be drawn from interdisciplinary theorists of modernity and mobility, such as Schmitt, Wallerstein, Corbin, Latour, Deleuze + Guattari, and Cresswell.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 369:
Introduction to Graduate Studies: Criticism as Profession (DLCL 369, FRENCH 369, GERMAN 369, ITALIAN 369)
A number of faculty will present published work and discuss their research and composition process. We will read critical, theoretical, and literary texts that address, in different ways, "What is a World?" Taught in English.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 371:
China in the World (CHINLIT 371)
How aesthetics and politics intertwine and break apart in Western and Eastern traditions. Aesthetics for understanding culture, morality, and power in crosscultural contexts. Readings include Hegel, Kant, Marcuse, Lukacs, and Adorno; and Chinese thinkers Wang Guowei, Lu Xun, Li Zehou, and Mao. Prerequisite: CHINLIT 127/207 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2-5
| Repeatable
for credit
COMPLIT 390:
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in Dialogue with Contemporary Philosophical, Social, and Ethical Thought (COMPLIT 190, SLAVIC 190, SLAVIC 390)
Anna Karenina, the novel as a case study in the contest between "modernity" and "tradition," their ethical order, ideology, cultural codes, and philosophies. Images of society, women and men in Tolstoy v. those of his contemporaries: Marx, Mill, Nietzsche, Weber, Durkheim, Freud. Open to juniors, seniors and graduate students. Requirements: three interpretive essays (500-1000 words each). Analysis of a passage from the novel; AK refracted through a "philosophical" prism and vice versa (30% each); class discussion and Forum (10%).
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 396L:
Pedagogy Seminar I (ENGLISH 396L)
Required for first-year Ph.D students in English, Modern Thought and Literature, and Comparative Literature. Preparation for surviving as teaching assistants in undergraduate literature courses. Focus is on leading discussions and grading papers.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2
COMPLIT 399:
Individual Work
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-15
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Bender, J. (PI);
Berman, R. (PI);
Brookshaw, D. (PI);
Cohen, M. (PI);
Dierkes, P. (PI);
Eshel, A. (PI);
Frank, J. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Greenleaf, M. (PI);
Gumbrecht, H. (PI);
Karahan, B. (PI);
Key, A. (PI);
Lee, H. (PI);
Lerer, S. (PI);
Moretti, F. (PI);
Mudimbe-Boyi, E. (PI);
Nightingale, A. (PI);
Palumbo-Liu, D. (PI);
Parker, P. (PI);
Saldivar, J. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Schnapp, J. (PI);
Surwillo, L. (PI);
Wang, B. (PI);
White, H. (PI)
COMPLIT 40Q:
Aesthetics of Dissent: the Case of Islamic Iran (INTNLREL 71Q)
Censorship, Borges tells us, is the mother of metaphors. The Islamic regime in Iran censors all aethetic production in the country. But Iranian dissident artists, from film-makers and fiction writers to composers in a thriving under-ground musical scene, have cleverly found ways to fight these draconian measures. They have developed an impressive body of work that is as sophisticated in style as it is rich in its discourse of democracy and dissent. The purpose of the seminar is to understand the aesthetic tropes of dissent in Iran, and the social and theological roots of rules of censorship. Masterpieces of post-revolutionary film, fiction, and music will be discussed in the context of tumultuous history of dissent in Islamic Iran.
| Units: 2
COMPLIT 802:
TGR Dissertation
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 0
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Bender, J. (PI);
Berman, R. (PI);
Brookshaw, D. (PI);
Cohen, M. (PI);
Eshel, A. (PI);
Frank, J. (PI);
Greene, R. (PI);
Greenleaf, M. (PI);
Gumbrecht, H. (PI);
Key, A. (PI);
Lee, H. (PI);
Lerer, S. (PI);
Moretti, F. (PI);
Mudimbe-Boyi, E. (PI);
Nightingale, A. (PI);
Palumbo-Liu, D. (PI);
Parker, P. (PI);
Saldivar, J. (PI);
Saldivar, R. (PI);
Schnapp, J. (PI);
Surwillo, L. (PI);
Wang, B. (PI);
White, H. (PI)
COMPLIT 125:
Past Desire Made Present: The Traditions of Erotic Poetry in Medieval Iran and Europe
Aims to make present and accessible, to our early 21st-century experience, convergences and differences between medieval Persian and medieval European love poetry. Poetry will be dealt with as a discursive and institutional means through which it is possible to make present and tangible that which is absent -- both in space and time. If we accept that medieval Persian and European love poetry conjured up moods of homo- and heteroerotic desire for contemporary audiences, then this desire can also become present for us today through a close reading of those same texts.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 125A:
The Gothic Novel
The Gothic novel and its relatives from its invention by Walpole in The Castle of Otranto of 1764. Readings include: Northanger Abbey, The Italian, The Monk, Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, and Dracula. What defines the Gothic as it evolves from one specific novel to a mode that makes its way into a range of fictional types?
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 129A:
Contemporary Persian Poetry: Encounter of a Thousand-Year-Old Classical Tradition with Modernity
The primacy of poetic expression in Persian culture in the transition from tradition to modernity. Major 20th-century poets in relation to historical events and social change. Authors include: Nima Yushij, Ahmad Shamloo, Sohrab Sepehri, Mehdi Akhavan Sales, Forough Farrokhzad, Nader Naderpour, Fereydoun Moshiri, Esma'il Kho'i, and Afghan and Tajik poets.
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 133:
Gender and Modernism (COMPLIT 333)
Gender and sexuality in trans-Atlantic modernist literature and culture from the 1880s-1930s. Topics include the 19th-century culture wars and the figures of the dandy and the New Woman; modernist critiques of Enlightenment rationality; impact of World War I on gender roles; gender and the rise of modern consumer culture, fashion, design; the modernist metropolis and gender/sexuality; the avant-garde and gender; literary first-wave feminism; homoerotic modernism; modernism in the context of current theories of gender and sexuality.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 135:
Chinese Cultural Revolution: Performance, Politics, and Aesthetics (CHINLIT 190, CHINLIT 290)
Events, arts, films, and operas of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Analysis of political passion, aesthetics, and psychology of mass movements. Places the Cultural Revolution in the long-range context of art, social movements, and politics. Chinese language is not required.
| Units: 4
COMPLIT 143A:
Alla Turca Love: Tales of Romance in Turkish Literature (COMPLIT 342)
An introduction to the theme of romantic love in Turkish literature, with particular attention to key classical and contemporary works that influenced the development of the Turkish literary tradition. Topics include close reading and discussion of folk tales, poems, short stories, and plays with particular attention to the characters of lover/beloved, the theme of romantic love, and the cultural and historical background of these elements. We will begin with essential examples of ghazels from Ottoman court poetry to explore the notion of "courtly love" and move to the most influential texts of 19th and 20th centuries. All readings and discussions will be in English; all student levels welcome.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 160:
The Literature of Dehumanization
An examination of a constellation in Western literature that specifically deals with a borderline state between humanity and animality, showing different approaches to the problem of humanity and non-humanity through some of the major works in the modern Western literary canon. The class explores the different ways in which dehumanization takes place in these texts, and how these texts also suggest a regaining of one's lost humanity. Readings include: Ovid, Marie de France, Shakespeare, Hobbes, Heine, Baudelaire, Tolstoy, Nietszche, Lautreamont, Kafka, Rilke, Celan, and more.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 161:
Co-Existence in Hebrew Literature (AMELANG 175, JEWISHST 146)
Is co-existence possible? Does pluralism require co-existence? Can texts serve as forms of co-existence? The class will focus on these and other questions related to coexistence and literature. Through reading works mostly by Jewish authors writing in Europe, Israel and the US we will explore attempts for complete equality, for a variety of hierarchical systems and for different kinds of co-dependence. Guest speaker: professor Anat Weisman, Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
| Units: 4-5
COMPLIT 213A:
Martin Heidegger (COMPLIT 313A, GERMAN 282, GERMAN 382)
Working through the most systematically important texts by Martin Heidegger and their historical moments and challenges, starting with Being and Time (1927), but emphasizing his philosophical production after World War II. The philological and historical understanding of the texts function as a condition for the laying open of their systematic provocations within our own (early 21st-century) situations. Satisfies the capstone seminar requirement for the major tracks in Philosophy and Literature. Taught in English.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 218:
The work of Luis MartÃn Santos in Mid-Twentieth Century Spain
First published in 1962, "Tiempo de Silencio" is the only book that the young psychiatrist Luis Martin Santos finished during his lifetime, and, although largely overlooked (even in Spain) until the present day, one of the great European novels of the 20th century. It brings to a complex convergence the evocation of Spain's decadent and run-down post-Civil War society with high-modernist literary procedures and (an implicit parody of) phenomenological analysis.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 221A:
Courtly Love: Deceit and Desire in the Middle Ages (FRENCH 234, ITALIAN 234)
A comparative seminar on medieval love books and their reception. We will examine and question the notion of "amour courtois," which arose in the lyrics and romances of medieval France and was codified in Romantic-era criticism. Primary readings will be enriched by thinking about this notion through the lens of modern theories of desire, such as those of Girard, Lacan, and Zizek. Conducted in English with readings in translation.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 224A:
Genocide and The Humanities
We will study the history and current instances of genocide and waysnnin which the humanities deal with these. Mass slaughter would seemnnto be opposed by the supposedly humane nature of the humanities. Yetnneach realm of the humanities has its own constraints. We will studynnhistoriography, memoires, novels, and films in order to recognizennideologies of representation and signifying implications ofnnstructure. By discerning implicit values, students will gain toolsnnthey can use in working to eliminate genocide.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 230A:
The Novel in Europe: The Age of Compromise, 1800-1848
The novel after the French revolution and the industrial take-off. Novelistic form and historical processes ¿ nation-building and the marriage market, political conservatism and the advent of fashion, aristocracy and bourgeoisie and proletariat... ¿ focusing on how stylistic choices and plot structures offer imaginary resolutions to social and ideological conflicts. Authors will include Austen, Scott, Shelley, Stendhal, Puskin, Balzac, Bronte.
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 233:
Baroque and Neobaroque (SPANLIT 293E)
The literary, cultural, and political implications of the 17th-century phenomenon formed in response to the conditions of the 16th century including humanism, absolutism, and early capitalism, and dispersed through Europe, the Americas, and Asia. If the Baroque is a universal code of this period, how do its vehicles, such as tragic drama, Ciceronian prose, and metaphysical poetry, converse with one another? The neobaroque as a complex reaction to the remains of the baroque in Latin American cultures, with attention to the mode in recent Brazilian literary theory and Mexican poetry.
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 240A:
Introduction to Hebrew Literature
The influence of biblical poetry, piyut, and medieval Hebrew poetry on the development of Modern Hebrew poetry. With focus on voice, space, lyrical Subjectivity, Intertextuality, and Poetic Forms. Guest Speakers include Tamar Zwei, Susan Einbinder, Berry Saharoff, and Raymond Scheindlin.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 242A:
Short Stories from South Asia
This course will explore how cultural identities of the nations in South Asia were re-defined after the Partition of India in 1947, the independence of Sri Lanka in 1948 and the formation of Bangladesh in 1971. Comparative/cross-cultural study of stories will be taken up for indepth analysis based on certain themes like partition and violence, myth and narrative, gender and narrative, music and narratology, familial patterns, etc.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 246B:
Ottoman Translation Workshop
This course aims to provide students with training in reading printed Ottoman Turkish texts and translating them into English. Through translation we will explore not only syntactical and lexical problems, but also cultural history and politics as they relate to the texts. Open to undergraduate and graduate students. High intermediate or advanced level of modern Turkish and introductory level of Ottoman Turkish is required. Contact Burcu Karahan Richardson (bkarahan@stanford.edu) for more information.
| Units: 1-2
| Repeatable
for credit
(up to 99 units total)
COMPLIT 250:
Literature, History and Memory (FRENCH 248)
Analysis of literary works as historical narratives. Focus on the relationship history, fiction, and memory as reflected in Francophone literary texts that envision new ways of reconstructing or representing ancient or immediate past. Among questions to be raised: individual memory and collective history, master narratives and alternatives histories, the role of reconstructing history in the shaping or consolidating national or gender identities. Readings include fiction by Glissant, Kane, Condé, Schwarz-Bart, Djebar, Perec, as well as theoretical texts by Ricoeur, de Certeau, Nora, Halbwachs, White, Echevarrîa. Taught in French.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 254:
Modern Chinese Novel: Theory, Aesthetics, History (CHINLIT 174, CHINLIT 274)
From the May Fourth movement to the 40s. Themes include enlightenment, democracy, women's liberation, revolution, war, urban culture, and love. Prerequisite: advanced Chinese.
| Units: 4
COMPLIT 275:
Humanities Education in the Changing University (DLCL 320, GERMAN 250)
Advanced study in the humanities faces changes within fields, the university and the wider culture. Considers the debate over the status of the humanities with regard to historical genealogies and current innovations. Particular attention on changes in doctoral education. Topics include: origins of the research university; disciplines and specialization; liberal education in conflict with professionalization; literature and literacy education; interdisciplinarity as a challenge to departments; education policy; digital humanities; accountability in education, assessment and student-centered pedagogies.
| Units: 3
COMPLIT 281:
Visions of the Future in Literature
Emphasis on personal and collective future as perceived and described in works translated from Hebrew or written originally in English. Focus on novels, short stories, poems and movies that deal both with the future of Israel and the Middle East and the future of individuals in the area. Guest speaker on Science Fiction and the Graphic Novel. The course is part of "The Future of Storytelling" activities organized by Taube Center for Jewish Studies.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
COMPLIT 303D:
Thinking in Fiction
Narrative and cognition in 18th-century fictional, philosophical, scientific, and cultural texts. Probable readings: Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Swift, Defoe, Hume, Lennox, Sterne, Adam Smith, Wollstonecraft, and Bentham.
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 311:
Shakespeare, Islam, and Others
Shakespeare and other early modern writers in relation to new work on Islam and the Ottoman Turk in early modern studies. Othello, Twelfth Night, Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, and other Shakespeare plays. Kyd's Solyman and Perseda, Daborne's A Christian Turned Turk, Massinger's The Renegado, Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, and literary and historical materials.
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 313A:
Martin Heidegger (COMPLIT 213A, GERMAN 282, GERMAN 382)
Working through the most systematically important texts by Martin Heidegger and their historical moments and challenges, starting with Being and Time (1927), but emphasizing his philosophical production after World War II. The philological and historical understanding of the texts function as a condition for the laying open of their systematic provocations within our own (early 21st-century) situations. Satisfies the capstone seminar requirement for the major tracks in Philosophy and Literature. Taught in English.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 324:
Landscapes of the Sublime
The modern notion of the sublime in philosophy, literature, and art, emphasizing its connection to space and landscape. Topics include: how global exploration contributed to the sublime in the late 17th and 18th centuries; the romantic interiorization of the sublime; and the sublime's connection to mimesis, power, work, and technology. Writers may include Milton, Burke, Kant, Deleuze and Guattari, Freud, the Shelleys, Coleridge, Hugo, Baudelaire, and Rimbaud; artists may include Gericault, Turner, Delacroix, and Friedrich.
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 327:
Genres of the Novel (FRENCH 327)
Provides students with an overview of major genres in the history of the modern novel. Novels might include works by Cervantes, Defoe, Lafayette, Radcliffe, Goethe, Balzac, Woolf, and Marquez, coupled with theory by Lukacs, Bahktin, Jameson and Barthes.
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 330:
The Bourgeois
Goal is to define the ruling class of modern times. Social history (Weber, Hirschmann, Marx); literary texts (Defoe, Goethe, Gaskell); and Henrik Ibsen who produced an intransigent criticism of the bourgeois ethos.
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 333:
Gender and Modernism (COMPLIT 133)
Gender and sexuality in trans-Atlantic modernist literature and culture from the 1880s-1930s. Topics include the 19th-century culture wars and the figures of the dandy and the New Woman; modernist critiques of Enlightenment rationality; impact of World War I on gender roles; gender and the rise of modern consumer culture, fashion, design; the modernist metropolis and gender/sexuality; the avant-garde and gender; literary first-wave feminism; homoerotic modernism; modernism in the context of current theories of gender and sexuality.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 342:
Alla Turca Love: Tales of Romance in Turkish Literature (COMPLIT 143A)
An introduction to the theme of romantic love in Turkish literature, with particular attention to key classical and contemporary works that influenced the development of the Turkish literary tradition. Topics include close reading and discussion of folk tales, poems, short stories, and plays with particular attention to the characters of lover/beloved, the theme of romantic love, and the cultural and historical background of these elements. We will begin with essential examples of ghazels from Ottoman court poetry to explore the notion of "courtly love" and move to the most influential texts of 19th and 20th centuries. All readings and discussions will be in English; all student levels welcome.
| Units: 3-5
COMPLIT 353A:
Experiment and the Novel
A double exploration of experiment in the novel from 1750 into the 19th century. Taking off from Zola's "The Experimental Novel," consideration of the novel's aspect as scientific instrument. Taking the idea of experimental fiction in the usual sense of departures from standard practice, consideration of works that seem to break away from techniques of "realism" devised prior to 1750. Possible texts by: Lennox, Sterne, Walpole, Goldsmith, Godwin, Lewis, Shelley, Hogg, Emily Bronte, and Diderot.
| Units: 5
COMPLIT 363:
Ecology, History, Exchange
Readings of novels, ecocriticism. Ghosh, Gordimer, Coetzee, Al-Koni, Ondatjee, Silko.
| Units: 4-5
COMPLIT 364:
Style
The return of a term that was central in 20th-century criticism, and has all but disappeared in recent decades. Focus ison looking at concepts of style from various branches of linguistic and literary theory, and examination of some revealing examples in novels and films. Team taught with D.A. Miller from U.C. Berkeley.
| Units: 5
