printer friendly pageCOMPLIT 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/
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER, WAY-A-II
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 and Writing 2 credit.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, Writing 2, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Berman, R. (PI)
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
Instructors:
Barletta, V. (PI)
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: Win
| Units: 3-5
Instructors:
Kurtz, G. (PI)
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.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
Instructors:
Shemtov, V. (PI)
;
Tadmor, J. (PI)
COMPLIT 135: From Maize to AI: The Nonhuman From Pre-Columbian Times to the Present (COMPLIT 235)
This course is structured thematically around the concept of the nonhuman from pre-Columbian times to the present. In each unit, we explore texts authored by different Indigenous groups during early colonial times, and we progress to contemporary writing about the nonhuman. The units cover a wide range of topics including plants, earthquakes, the underworld, nonhuman animals, maize, water, AI, and ghosts. This study of the nonhuman offers students a comprehensive understanding of the impact of colonialism and coloniality on climate change. We engage with a diverse array of texts, including codices such as the Codex de la Cruz-Badiano, Codex Telleriano-Remensis, Codex Vaticanus-Latinus A, the Popol Vuh, and Guaman Poma's chronicles. We also read works by contemporary Indigenous authors such as Yasnaya Elena Aguilar Gil, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Natalie Diaz, Ruperta Bautista, and Irma Pineda, as well as non-Indigenous authors from the hemisphere, like Maricela Guerrero, Eleni Sikelianos, CD Wright, Jazmina Barrera, Yuri Herrera, and Maria Melendez. The course also includes an introduction to pictographic reading of Nahua texts (Classical Nahuatl).
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Pieck, R. (PI)
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
Instructors:
Eagleman, D. (PI)
;
Landy, J. (PI)
;
Bahia, G. (TA)
...
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Instructors:
Eagleman, D. (PI)
;
Landy, J. (PI)
;
Bahia, G. (TA)
;
Choh, P. (TA)
;
Gedik, M. (TA)
;
Mehrish, D. (TA)
;
Zhan, M. (TA)
COMPLIT 146: Living Through Catastrophe (COMPLIT 349)
How have people managed to confront moments of catastrophe, and how might we confront our own tumultuous times? We will address today's tremendously difficult historical realities---genocide, ecocide, fascism, racial hatred, political extremism, and the demise of the biosphere. Each of these can be taken as symptoms of something profoundly wrong. We will see how writers as far distant as Ovid and as close by as Octavia Butler have imagined radically different relations between humans and the world, and help us reconsider the way we spend our time on this planet.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
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: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Burleson, L. (PI)
;
Molefe, M. (PI)
;
Moya, P. (PI)
...
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Instructors:
Burleson, L. (PI)
;
Molefe, M. (PI)
;
Moya, P. (PI)
;
Saldivar, R. (PI)
;
Therieau, M. (PI)
;
Touma, A. (PI)
;
Burleson, L. (TA)
;
Chen, K. (TA)
;
Ocasal, C. (TA)
;
Verghese, N. (TA)
COMPLIT 176: Forms of Poetry at Home and Abroad: A Workshop (DLCL 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 haibun, zuihitsu, tanka, ghazal, qa¿¿da, pantoum, rondeau, triolet, villanelle, sijo, jintishi, and landay? 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 manifested in English-language poetry. Previous experience with creative writing not required.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
Instructors:
Santana, C. (PI)
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