printer friendly pageCOMPLIT 61Q: The Literature of Lost Identity
This course will explore tales of lost identity from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. Our stories feature orphans abandoned at birth, young heroes who must hide who they are, even cross-dressed knights on gender-bent adventures. The trials and tribulations of these displaced youths invite us to question what identity means and where it comes from. Are we made in our parents' image? What happens when we are separated from our family, or forced to take up a disguise? Are we defined by our birth and bloodline, or by education and experience? Our readings will include texts by Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, William Shakespeare, Philip Sidney, and Miguel de Cervantes.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Lee, C. (PI)
COMPLIT 70N: Animal Planet and the Romance of the Species (CHINA 70N)
Preference to freshmen.This course considers a variety of animal characters in Chinese and Western literatures as potent symbols of cultural values and dynamic sites of ethical reasoning. What does pervasive animal imagery tell us about how we relate to the world and our neighbors? How do animals define the frontiers of humanity and mediate notions of civilization and culture? How do culture, institutions, and political economy shape concepts of human rights and animal welfare? And, above all, what does it mean to be human in the pluralistic and planetary 21st century? Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-ER
Instructors:
Lee, H. (PI)
COMPLIT 100: CAPITALS: How Cities Shape Cultures, States, and People (DLCL 100, FRENCH 175, GERMAN 175, HISTORY 206E, ILAC 175, ITALIAN 175, URBANST 153)
This course takes students on a trip to major capital cities, at different moments in time: Renaissance Florence, Golden Age Madrid, Colonial Mexico City, Enlightenment and Romantic Paris, Existential and Revolutionary St. Petersburg, Roaring Berlin, Modernist Vienna, and bustling Buenos Aires. While exploring each place in a particular historical moment, we will also consider the relations between culture, power, and social life. How does the cultural life of a country intersect with the political activity of a capital? How do large cities shape our everyday experience, our aesthetic preferences, and our sense of history? Why do some cities become cultural capitals? Primary materials for this course will consist of literary, visual, sociological, and historical documents (in translation); authors we will read include Boccaccio, Dante, Sor Juana, Montesquieu, Baudelaire, Gogol, Irmgard Keun, Freud, and Borges. 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-SI
Instructors:
Daub, A. (PI)
;
Edelstein, D. (PI)
;
Capra, A. (TA)
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Instructors:
Daub, A. (PI)
;
Edelstein, D. (PI)
;
Capra, A. (TA)
;
Giancotti, C. (TA)
;
Hoff, C. (TA)
COMPLIT 101: What Is Comparative Literature?
What is literature, and how has it been imagined, institutionalized, praised, and criticized over the centuries by authors ranging from Aristotle to Schiller, from Arnold to Auerbach, Woolf, Said, Achebe, Spivak and others, who have understood literature as a powerful tool for individual and social change? What does it mean to "compare" literature or study texts that belong or tap into more than one national literary and cultural tradition or consciously posit themselves as participating in international movements (such as European Decadence or Modernism), or authors who live and produce their work in transcultural contexts and often write in different languages, such as Samuel Beckett or Gloria Anzaldúa? How do markers of identity such as gender, sexuality, and race (and our changing conceptions of them over time) factor into our intellectual theories and practices in comparing texts and authors? Along with several case studies of texts and authors that will help us explore and probe these questions, we will also gain familiarity with major theories and developments in the field of comparative literature. NOTE: This course must be taken for a minimum of 5 units and a letter grade to be eligible for WIM credit.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Dierkes-Thrun, P. (PI)
;
McDonald, T. (TA)
COMPLIT 103: The Putin Phenomenon: Culture and Politics in Recent Russian History (SLAVIC 103)
A man who likes to ride horses shirtless. An autocrat who has shaped contemporary Russia and won't let go of the reins. A conniver who interferes in international democratic processes toward his own nefarious ends.nMore than a politician or an individual, "Putin" has become a catch-all that stands in for Russia as a whole. In this course, we'll attempt to separate the man from the myth and to understand the historical and cultural context behind Putin's policies. In the process, we will strive better to grasp contemporary Russian society as a complex and culturally rich environment, not just an oppressed land under the thumb of one man.nIn the course of our analysis, we will examine literary and cultural artifacts and expressive works that engage with political, social, and universal human problems in a Russian and post-Soviet context, interpreting and critiquing those cultural objects with an eye to aesthetic methods and qualities and also how they reflect historical and cultural elements of Russia over a 25-year period. Cultural products to be addressed include literature and film (and one graphic novel) from the Perestroika period through the present day. We will also read President Putin's autobiography, First Person, and several of his speeches, using techniques of literary analysis to parse the particular story about Russia that he aims to convey to Russians. By examining and exploring a range of cultural objects from Russia's recent history, we seek to understand the forces that contributed to social and political change over those years, the effect those changes had on ordinary (and extraordinary) Russians, and how those effects take on meaningful aesthetic form through creative expression.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Underwood, A. (PI)
COMPLIT 110: Introduction to Comparative Queer Literary Studies (COMPLIT 310, FEMGEN 110X, FEMGEN 310X)
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 1880s to today: Oscar Wilde, Rachilde, Radclyffe Hall, Djuna Barnes, James Baldwin, Jean Genet, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Jeanette Winterson, Alison Bechdel and others, discussed in the context of 20th-century feminist and queer literary and social theories of gender and sexuality. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course 110 or 110X for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-ED
Instructors:
Dierkes-Thrun, P. (PI)
COMPLIT 121: Poems, Poetry, Worlds (DLCL 141)
What is poetry? How does it speak in many voices to questions of philosophy, 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. The readings address poetry of several cultures (Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Occitania, Peru) in comparative relation to that of the English-speaking world, and in light of classic and recent theories of poetry.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ED
Instructors:
Greene, R. (PI)
;
Levi, M. (TA)
COMPLIT 123: The Novel and the World (DLCL 143)
Before the Digital Era: the European Design of the Novel. The course will trace the development of the modern literary genre par excellence through some of its great milestones from the 17th century to the present. Works by Austen, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Queiròs, Mann, Roth, Woolf, Lampedusa and Rodoreda.Lazarillo de Tormes, Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Flaubert: Madame Bovary, Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment, Eça de Queirós: The City and the Mountains, Thomas Mann: Death in Venice, Joseph Roth: Radietskymarsh, Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard, Mercé Rodoreda: The Time of the Doves.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-ED
Instructors:
Resina, J. (PI)
;
Zurita, V. (TA)
COMPLIT 124B: European and North African Visions of the American West (AMSTUD 124B, DLCL 124B)
This course is an interdisciplinary investigation of the rewriting of the American West in the Mediterranean context through the transnational lenses of filmmakers and artists of diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds, through primarily cinema, but also graphic novels, novels, and murals. How do these films and novels adopt and adapt the Western genre? How do these artistic endeavors tell us about the enduring aura and stereotypes of the American West mythology? Films: Jacques Audiard, The Sisters Brothers, Sergio Leone, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, David Oelhoffen, Far From Men, Karl May, Winnetou, Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist, Agnès Varda, Mur murs. Special guest: photographer/street artist JR. Readings: Mark Twain, Joan Didion, Romain Gary.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Ulloa, M. (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. Optional: special section with readings and discussions in Hebrew. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
Instructors:
Shemtov, V. (PI)
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