printer friendly pageJEWISHST 148: Writing Between Languages: The Case of Eastern European Jewish Literature (JEWISHST 348, SLAVIC 198, SLAVIC 398)
Eastern European Jews spoke and read Hebrew, Yiddish, and their co-territorial languages (Russian, Polish, etc.). In the modern period they developed secular literatures in all of them, and their writing reflected their own multilinguality and evolving language ideologies. We focus on major literary and sociolinguistic texts. Reading and discussion in English; students should have some reading knowledge of at least one relevant language as well. This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit. In 2020-21, a 'letter' or 'CR' grade will satisfy the WAYS requirement.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI, WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Safran, G. (PI)
JEWISHST 150: Texts that Changed the World from the Ancient Middle East (COMPLIT 31, HUMCORE 111, 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/
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
JEWISHST 155D: Jewish American Literature and Film (AMSTUD 145D, ENGLISH 145D, REES 145D)
From its inception, Jewish-American literature has taken as its subject as well as its context the idea of Jewishness itself. Jewish culture is a diasporic one, and for this reason the concept of Jewishness differs from country to country and across time. What stays remarkably similar, though, is Jewish self-perception and relatedly Jewish literary style. This is as true for the first-generation immigrant writers like Isaac Bashevis Singer and Anzia Yezierska who came to the United States from abroad as it is for their second-generation children born in the United States, and the children of those children. In this course, we will consider the difficulties of displacement for the emigrant generation and their efforts to sustain their cultural integrity in the multicultural American environment. We'll also examine the often comic revolt of their American-born children and grandchildren against their (grand-)parents nostalgia and failure to assimilate. Only by considering these transnational roots can one understand the particularity of the Jewish-American novel in relation to mainstream and minority American literatures. In investigating the link between American Jewish writers and their literary progenitors, we will draw largely but not exclusively from Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Ruttenburg, N. (PI)
JEWISHST 242G: Myth and Modernity (COMPLIT 222A, GERMAN 222, GERMAN 322, 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 contact him directly at eshel@stanford.edu and answer these 2 questions: "Why do you want to take this course?" and "What do you think you can add to the discussion?" Applications will be considered in the order in which they were received. Enrollment is limited to 20 students.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
JEWISHST 243A: Hannah Arendt: Facing Totalitarianism (COMPLIT 353B, GERMAN 253, GERMAN 353)
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
The Origin of Totalitarianism,
The Human Condition, Between Past and Future,
Men in Dark Times,
On Revolution,
Eichmann in Jerusalem, and
The Life of the Mind, 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.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
JEWISHST 249: The Algerian Wars (CSRE 249, FRENCH 249, HISTORY 239G)
From Algiers the White to Algiers the Red, Algiers, the Mecca of the Revolutionaries in the words of Amilcar Cabral, this course offers to study the Algerian Wars since the French conquest of Algeria (1830-) to the Algerian civil war of the 1990s. We will revisit the ways in which the war has been narrated in literature and cinema, popular culture, and political discourse. A special focus will be given to the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962). The course considers the racial representations of the war in the media, the continuing legacies surrounding the conflict in France, Africa, and the United States, from Che Guevara to the Black Panthers. A key focus will be the transmission of collective memory through transnational lenses, and analyses of commemorative events and movies. nReadings from James Baldwin, Assia Djebar, Albert Camus, Frantz Fanon, Mouloud Feraoun. Movies include "The Battle of Algiers," "Days of Glory," and "Viva Laldjérie." nTaught in English.
Last offered: Spring 2018
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
KOREA 21: Humanities Core: Love and Betrayal in Asia (CHINA 21, HUMCORE 21, JAPAN 21)
Why are lovers in storybooks East and West always star-crossed? Why do love and death seem to go together? For every Romeo and Juliet, there are dozens of doomed lovers in the Asian literary repertoires, from Genji's string of embittered mistresses, to the Butterfly lovers in early modern China, to the voices of desire in Koryo love songs, to the devoted adolescent cousins in Dream of the Red Chamber, to the media stars of Korean romantic drama, now wildly popular throughout Asia. In this course, we explore how the love story has evolved over centuries of East Asian history, asking along the way what we can learn about Chinese, Japanese, and Korean views of family and community, gender and sexuality, truth and deception, trust and betrayal, ritual and emotion, and freedom and solidarity from canonical and non-canonical works in East Asian literatures. N.B. This is the second of three courses in the East Asian track. These courses offer an unparalleled opportunity to study East Asian history and culture, past and present. Take all three to experience a year-long intellectual community dedicated to exploring how ideas have shaped our world and future.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
KOREA 21Q: Humanities Core: Love and Betrayal in Asia (CHINA 21Q, HUMCORE 21Q, JAPAN 21Q)
Why are lovers in storybooks East and West always star-crossed? Why do love and death seem to go together? For every Romeo and Juliet, there are dozens of doomed lovers in the Asian literary repertoires, from Genji's string of embittered mistresses, to the Butterfly lovers in early modern China, to the voices of desire in Koryo love songs, to the devoted adolescent cousins in Dream of the Red Chamber, to the media stars of Korean romantic drama, now wildly popular throughout Asia. In this course, we explore how the love story has evolved over centuries of East Asian history, asking along the way what we can learn about Chinese, Japanese, and Korean views of family and community, gender and sexuality, truth and deception, trust and betrayal, ritual and emotion, and freedom and solidarity from canonical and non-canonical works in East Asian literatures. N.B. This is the second of three courses in the East Asian track. These courses offer an unparalleled opportunity to study East Asian history and culture, past and present. Take all three to experience a year-long intellectual community dedicated to exploring how ideas have shaped our world and future.
Last offered: Winter 2019
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
KOREA 24: Humanities Core: How to be Modern in East Asia (CHINA 24, COMPLIT 44, HUMCORE 133, JAPAN 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: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Galvane, L. (PI)
;
Lee, H. (PI)
KOREA 101N: Kangnam Style: K-pop and the Globalization of Korean Soft Power
For over a decade now, South Korea has established itself as a tireless generator of soft power, the popularity of its pop-culture spreading from Asia to the rest of the world. This class will look into the economic engine that moves this "cultural contents" industry, and will examine some of its expressions in the form of K-pop. Class meets in East Asia Library (Lathrop Library), Rm 338.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
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