printer friendly pageCOMPLIT 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
| 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
Instructors:
Truschke, A. (PI)
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
| 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
| 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
| 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
Instructors:
Eshel, A. (PI)
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
Instructors:
Karahan, B. (PI)
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
Instructors:
Cohen, M. (PI)
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
Instructors:
Freidin, G. (PI)
Filter Results: