Literature and Arts A-16. Lives Ruined by Literature: The Theme of Reading in the Novel
Catalog Number: 0691
Judith Ryan
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 15
An exploration of the theme of reading as presented in the novel from the 18th century to the present. Topics include misreading and escapist reading, confusing fiction with reality, modeling one’s life on fiction, and misusing literature in relations of love and friendship. Attention also paid to narrative point of view; problems of intertextuality; and comedy, tragedy, and parody in the novel. Authors include Goethe, Flaubert, Rilke, Wharton, Nabokov, and Barnes.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts A-17. Childhood: Its History, Philosophy, and Literature
Catalog Number: 4852 Enrollment: Limited to 200.
Maria Tatar
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 15
With the so-called discovery or invention of childhood in the 16th and 17th centuries came a newfound emotional attachment, imaginative investment, and philosophical interest in the child. We explore literature for the child (Alice in Wonderland) as well as literature about the child (Lolita) and investigate how childhood has been constructed, investigated, and represented. Analysis of works by Locke, Rousseau, and Freud, as well as Dickens, J. M. Barrie, Henry James, and Roald Dahl.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts A-22. Poems, Poets, Poetry
Catalog Number: 5808
Helen Vendler
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 6
A study of poetry as the history and science of feeling: readings in major lyric poems of England and America. Emphasis on problems of invention and execution, and on the poet’s choice of genre, stance, context, and structure. Other topics to be raised include the process of composition, the situating of a poem in its historical and poetic contexts, the notion of a poet’s development, the lyric as dramatic speech, and the experimental lyric of the 20th century.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10. Expected to be omitted in 2009-10. This course, when taken for a letter grade, meets the General Education requirement for Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding.
Literature and Arts A-26. Dante’s Divine Comedy and Its World
Catalog Number: 6090
Lino Pertile
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 4
Studies Dante’s Divine Comedy as an enduring work of poetry, a major text of the European literary tradition, and the most comprehensive synthesis of medieval culture. Largely based on textual analysis, the course looks at how literature works in relation to, on the one hand, the language and rhetorical tradition in which it is expressed and, on the other, the culture which it expresses and interprets. Particular attention is paid to the poem’s central philosophical concerns, from the role of the individual in history and society to the relationship between progress and happiness, and between politics and morality.
Literature and Arts A-35. Tragic Drama and Human Conflict
Catalog Number: 0172
Bennett Simon (Medical School)
Half course (fall term). M., W., (F.), at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 3
Introduces the student to the use of psychoanalytic perspectives in enhancing the understanding and appreciation of tragic drama. Focuses on tragedy as a study of the family, emphasizing the problem of how the family at war with itself can procreate and continue. Also discusses the form of tragic drama, particularly with regard to dialogue and storytelling within the plays. Readings include ancient, Shakespearean, and modern tragedies, as well as secondary sources that assist in understanding psychoanalytic concepts. Films and live performances supplement the readings.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10.
[Literature and Arts A-45. Theories of Authorship: Russian Case Studies]
Catalog Number: 0189
Justin Weir
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 14
Surveys central theories of authorship in the western tradition and considers how they have been realized and transformed by Russian writers. We analyze the process by which different concepts of the self, as shaped by Plato, Descartes, Rousseau, and others, have been creatively appropriated by seminal Russian authors, such as Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, and Nabokov, in order to articulate their own ideas of the relationship between writing and identity. Concludes with an examination of how new technology and recent copyright laws have affected post-Soviet notions of authorship.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts A-47. The Perfect Tale: The Art of Storytelling in Medieval France
Catalog Number: 6627
Virginie Greene
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 14
The goal of this course is to present students with medieval literature as creative writing. It focuses on 12th- and 13th-century Old French narratives that influenced greatly the development of European literature and are still a source of inspiration for writers and screenwriters. Our reading of Arthurian romances, epics, chronicles, and short stories explores the innovative techniques that master story-tellers such as Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France developed to start and end a story, build a character, delineate a plot, entertain and educate their readers.
Note: No knowledge of French required.
[Literature and Arts A-48. Modern Jewish Literature]
Catalog Number: 1250
Ruth R. Wisse
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 14
Studies works in different languages and genres that variously interpret the experience of Jews in the 20th century. Explores such issues as what information literature can provide, the relation of language and historical context to artistic strategy, and personal and national perspectives in narrative. Authors include Sholem Aleichem, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Primo Levi, and Saul Bellow.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts A-51. Virgil: Poetry and Reception
Catalog Number: 1565
Richard F. Thomas
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 13
Begins with the Aeneid, paradigmatic epic of the West, from various perspectives, involving literary aesthetics and translation theory, Homeric and other intertextuality, concepts of heroism and anti-heroism, individual choice vs. public responsibility, critique of empire then, now, and in between. Concurrent attention to Virgil tradition in early Christianity, Dante, Milton, Dryden, the Romantics, post-WWI Modernists; influence on music, art, and iconography. Subsequent focus on the Eclogues and Georgics, their place in the traditions of European pastoral and didactic, status as works of early Augustan poetry, and reception from Petrarch to Heaney.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10. Expected to be omitted in 2009-10. This course, when taken for a letter grade, meets the General Education requirement for Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding.
[Literature and Arts A-53. “Athens and Jerusalem”: Self and Other in Classical Greek and Hebrew Literature]
Catalog Number: 8681
Peter Machinist and Bennett Simon (Medical School)
Half course (fall term). M., W., (F.), at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
Examines the representation of “self” and “other” in two literatures foundational to Western culture, Classical Greek and Biblical Hebrew. The premise is the necessity of an “other” in order to define the “self.” Starts with “Athens” and “Jerusalem” as emblematic of the self/other polarity that the West drew out of these literatures. Then explores in them other manifestations of self and other: group identity and group origins, woman and deity as other, the development of heroic selfhood, and the emergence of self-knowledge. Emphasizes throughout how poetic and narrative forms both shape and are shaped by visions of self and other.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
[Literature and Arts A-63. Women Writers in Imperial China: How to Escape from the Feminine Voice]
Catalog Number: 8286
Wilt L. Idema
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 14
Despite the dominance of men as authors, subjects, and readers of literature in imperial China (221 BCE–1911), this same period also saw the emergence and development of a rich tradition of women’s literature. We will discuss what kinds of women have left literary works, and how the marginal status of women’s literature affected the genres women wrote in and the subjects they could deal with. As China’s male literature developed its own tradition of writing in the voice of women, we will pay special attention to the question of how women found their own voice despite this pre-existing “feminine” tradition.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
[Literature and Arts A-64. American Literature and the American Environment]
Catalog Number: 4783
Lawrence Buell
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 9, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 11
A study of selected traditions in American writing that have been formed by perceptions of the American environment. Topics include the cult of wilderness; white images of the American Indian and vice versa; the pastoral, agrarian, and natural history traditions in American prose; and literary responses to urbanization and environmental endangerment. Readings range from 17th-century Puritan texts to contemporary works, with primary emphasis on narrative and nonfictional prose, but some works of poetry are included as well.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. This course, when taken for a letter grade, meets the General Education requirement for Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding.
Literature and Arts A-67. Poetry and Power: The Celtic Bard
Catalog Number: 0631
Catherine McKenna
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 13
The Celtic word “bard” comes from languages now spoken by relatively few. Once, bards were powerful: they could destroy weak, unjust, or greedy kings with their invective, or make good kings prosperous, victorious and fertile. Over time, poets found new ways to use their powers–in love, in politics, in lament. When their languages began to retreat before the advancing tide of English, bards found themselves making poems about language and about poetry itself. We read (in translation, but with glimpses of the originals) poetry of Celtic bards from the Middle Ages to the present, tracing the transformations of power that it undergoes.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10.
[Literature and Arts A-70. The Book of Job and the Joban Tradition]
Catalog Number: 7991
Peter Machinist
Half course (fall term). M., W., (F.), at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
An examination of the biblical book of Job along with related texts, ancient, medieval, and modern, that allow us to establish the literary and philosophical traditions in which Job was composed and the literary and philosophical legacy it has left. Particular focus on the ways the texts play off one another in literary form and expression and in their treatment of such themes as divine justice, human piety, and the nature of the divine-human encounter.
Note: Expected to be given in 2010–11.
Literature and Arts A-72. The Enlightenment Invention of the Modern Self
Catalog Number: 7800
Leo Damrosch
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 15
A study of major 18th-century autobiographical, fictional, and philosophical texts that explore the paradoxes of the modern self at a time when traditional religious and philosophical explanations were breaking down. Writers to be read include Mme. de Lafayette, Boswell, Voltaire, Gibbon, Diderot, Rousseau, Laclos, Franklin, and Blake.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts A-86. American Protest Literature from Tom Paine to Tupac
Catalog Number: 7442
John Stauffer
Half course (fall term). M., W., (F.), at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
This interdisciplinary course examines the rich tradition of protest literature in the US from the American Revolution to the rise of Hip Hop and globalization. Using a broad definition of “protest literature,” it focuses on the production and consumption of dissent as a site of progressive social critique, using a wide variety of print, visual, and oral forms. We examine the historical links between modes of protest and meanings of literature, and explore how various expressions of dissent function as aesthetic, performative, rhetorical, and ideological texts within specific cultural contexts. “Readings” range from novels to photographs and music.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts A-88. Interracial Literature
Catalog Number: 1086
Werner Sollors
Half course (spring term). M., W., (F.), at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 6
This course examines a wide variety of literary texts on black-white couples, interracial families, and biracial identity, from classical antiquity to the present. Works studied include romances, novellas, plays, novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction, as well as some films and examples from the visual arts. Topics for discussion range from interracial genealogies to racial “passing,” from representations of racial difference to alternative plot resolutions, and from religious and political to legal and scientific contexts for the changing understanding of “race.” Focus is on the European tradition and the Harlem Renaissance.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10. Expected to be omitted in 2009-10. This course, when taken for a letter grade, meets the General Education requirement for Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding.
[Literature and Arts A-90. Forbidden Romance in Modern China]
Catalog Number: 7766
David Der-wei Wang
Half course (fall term). M., W., (F.), at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 4
A literary survey of China’s search for affective modernity. Through reading unlikely romances and dangerous liaisons, in fiction as in reality, it examines how writers and readers imagined and enacted the “structure of feeling” of modern China, and how representations of forbidden love generated moral, legal, and political consequences.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
[Literature and Arts A-92. Love In A Dead Language: Classical Indian Literature and Its Theorists]
Catalog Number: 6240
Parimal G. Patil
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 13
An exploration of love in five genres of classical South Asian literature–epic history, story literature, plays, poetic miniatures, and court poetry. We will pay particular attention to the nature of literary genres and practices and how they were theorized by South Asian intellectuals. Especially relevant are theories of poetic language, aestheticized emotion (especially love), and literary ornamentation.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts A-93. The Hebrew Bible and Its Worlds - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 9783
Shaye J.D. Cohen
Half course (fall term). M., W., (F.), at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 3
This course is a survey of the major books, genres, institutions, and ideas of the Hebrew Bible (commonly called the Old Testament). The course will also treat the historical contexts in which the Bible emerged, and the Bible’s role as canonical scripture in Judaism and Christianity.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10. All readings in translation. No prior knowledge of the subject is assumed.
Literature and Arts B-20. Designing the American City: Civic Aspirations and Urban Form
Catalog Number: 3243
Alex Krieger (Design School)
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 15
An interpretive look at the American city in terms of changing attitudes toward urban life. City and suburb are experienced as the product of design and planning decisions informed by cultural and economic forces, and in relationship to utopian and pragmatic efforts to reinterpret urban traditions in search of contemporary alternatives. Topics include: persistent ideals such as the single-family home, attitudes toward public and private space, the rise of suburbs and suburban sprawl, cycles of disinvestment and renewed interest in urban centers, and impacts of mobility and technology on settlement patterns.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts B-21. The Images of Alexander the Great
Catalog Number: 2267
David G. Mitten
Half course (fall term). M., W., (F.), at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
The images of Alexander the Great are examined within various cultural contexts ranging from 4th-century BCE Greece to 20th-century America. Various art forms (including sculpture, coins, and paintings) illuminate Alexander’s personality and career and the development of his legend. Course explores how images reveal the complex relationship between a strong individual personality and artistic conventions. Special attention is paid to the importance of political imagery and how the images of Alexander reflect changing ideas of rulership. Where, if anywhere, is the “truth” in these images? Original objects in the Sackler collection and Boston Museum of Fine Arts are emphasized.
[Literature and Arts B-23. The Japanese Woodblock Print]
Catalog Number: 4914
Yukio Lippit
Half course (spring term). M., W., at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 6
This course provides a thorough introduction to the woodblock print – Japan’s most celebrated artistic medium – from its emergence in the mid 17th century to the present. Technical developments, major genres, and master designers are explored within the context of the print’s relationship to the urban culture of early modern and modern Japan. Other issues to be studied include censorship, theatricality, the construction of social roles, Western influence, the representation of war, and Japonisme. Special emphasis is placed on an examination of habits of pictorial representation and protocols of viewing unique to the Japanese print medium.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts B-24. Constructing Reality: Photography as Fact and Fiction
Catalog Number: 5649
Robin E. Kelsey
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 4
Historically, photographs have been exceptionally persuasive records of places, people, and events. This course will consider photographs from a broad range of cultural sites and activities, including battlefields, expeditions, laboratories, slums, farms, factories, political rallies, and crime scenes, to investigate the ways in which photographers, viewers, and institutions have negotiated the interplay of photography’s rhetorical and evidentiary dimensions. Featured photographs and practices will be drawn from various countries and historical moments. Particular attention will be given to fostering skills in visual analysis and historical interpretation.
[Literature and Arts B-27. Majesty and Mythology in African Art]
Catalog Number: 5822
Suzanne P. Blier
Half course (fall term). M., W., (F.), at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
Examines the royal arts of Africa, at once providing an overview of key themes in royal African art and discussing what these arts reveal about the nature of kingship generally. The diverse ways that African rulers have employed art and architecture to define individual and state identity are considered in the context of key traditions from West, Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa. Among the topics to be discussed are palace architecture, royal regalia, status prerogatives, women of the court, divine kingship, state cosmology, royal burial, enthronement ceremonies, dynastic history, and the importance of art in diplomacy and war.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
[Literature and Arts B-35. The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent: Art, Architecture, and Ceremonial at the Ottoman Court]
Catalog Number: 1678
Gülru Necipoglu-Kafadar
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 14
“Golden Age” of Ottoman-Islamic visual culture in the 16th century, considered within its ceremonial and historical contexts, focusing on architecture, miniature painting, and decorative arts. Stresses the transformation of Byzantine Constantinople into Ottoman Istanbul, formation of an imperial architectural style, and artistic contacts with contemporary European and Islamic courts. Considers art and architecture of Safavid Iran and Mughal India as a comparative backdrop. Discusses the role of centralized court ateliers in propagating canons of taste, the emphasis on decorative arts in a culture that rejected monumental sculpture and painting, and representations of the East by European artists in the Orientalist mode.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts B-49. Modernisms 1865–1968
Catalog Number: 7619
Benjamin Buchloh
Half course (spring term). M., W., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
This course introduces the complex and contradictory history of modernism in the visual arts of Europe and the US, focusing on central figures (e.g. Manet, Picasso, Duchamp, Warhol) and movements (e.g. Cubism, Dada, Soviet Avant-garde), as much as on the key concepts of that history. Lectures will emphasize the methodological diversity developed within recent art history to theorize and historicize Modernism. Readings will comprise key texts by artists, historians, and critics.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10.
[Literature and Arts B-51. First Nights: Five Performance Premieres]
Catalog Number: 0144
Thomas Forrest Kelly
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 3
A study of five famous pieces of music, both as timeless works of art and as moments of cultural history. Close attention is given to techniques of musical listening, and to the details of the first performance of each work, with a consideration of the problems involved in assembling such a picture. Works studied are Beethoven, Symphony no. 9; Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique; Stravinsky, Le sacre du printemps; Handel, Messiah; Monteverdi, Orfeo. The course concludes with the first performance of a new work especially commissioned for this course.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. This course, when taken for a letter grade, meets the General Education requirement for Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding.
Literature and Arts B-52. Mozart
Catalog Number: 3672
Robert D. Levin
Half course (fall term). M., W., F., at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 6
The course will examine a different domain of Mozart’s oeuvre each time it is taught, this time treating the piano sonatas. The origin of sonata forms precedes study of a representative selection of the 18 piano sonatas. Style and rhetoric will be central concerns, and attention will be given to evolution in interpretative style through listening to historic as well as recent recordings. The assigned works will be demonstrated by live performances by the professor.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10.
[Literature and Arts B-62. The Politics of Music]
Catalog Number: 0535
Alexander Rehding and Eric M. Nelson
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 12
Since Greek antiquity, political philosophers have been both alarmed and tantalized by the power of music. They have feared its tendency to inflame the mind, but they have also coveted its ability to inspire loyalty to public undertakings. Musicians too have recognized the power of their art to shape the polis, and they have routinely used the medium to comment on debates in political philosophy. This course will examine what political philosophers from Plato to Nietzsche have had to say about music, and what composers from Handel to Gershwin have had to say–through their music–about political philosophy.
Note: Expected to be given in 2010–11.
[Literature and Arts B-63. Bach in His Time and Through the Centuries]
Catalog Number: 1520
Christoph Wolff
Half course (spring term). M., W., at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 3
A study of the music of J.S. Bach in various contexts, focusing on selected vocal and instrumental compositions with particular attention to biographical perspectives, style, genre, and the music of major contemporaries. Beyond this, the encyclopedic nature of Bach’s creative output, which renders him one of the most seminal figures in the history of music, lends itself to an examination of his relationship to musical traditions from the Middle Ages through the Baroque, as well as his influence on compositional techniques and aesthetics from the 18th through the 20th century.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
[Literature and Arts B-68. Opera]
Catalog Number: 0940
Anne C. Shreffler
Half course (spring term). M., W., (F.), at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 6
Opera combines dramatic, musical, and visual experiences. It can be intensely moving as well as intellectually stimulating; it offers interior monologues and thrilling virtuosity, a private aesthetic experience and public display. It has flourished in different cultures and has served a wide variety of interests. Our main focus will be on listening to the music of five selected operas and understanding how the music shapes the drama. We shall also reflect on the dramatic content of the librettos and on the operas’ historical positions. Students are encouraged to take advantage of live opera in the Boston area.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts B-78. Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World
Catalog Number: 2093
Kay Kaufman Shelemay
Half course (spring term). M., W., (F.), at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 4
Many musical traditions at the turn of the 21st century cross geographic boundaries. Nowhere are diverse music traditions more prominently represented in public performance and maintained in private practice than in North America, where centuries of immigration and an increasingly multiethnic population have given rise to a complex musical environment. “Soundscapes” explores a cross-section of the different musical styles that coexist and interact in today’s society, examining their relationship to their historical homelands and to their present-day settings.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts B-82. Sayin’ Something: Jazz as Sound, Sensibility, and Social Dialogue
Catalog Number: 9532
Ingrid Monson
Half course (fall term). M., W., (F.), at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 4
An examination of jazz improvisation as a musical and social process. Key themes are learning to listen from the “bottom of the band up,” and understanding why jazz is a music that is perceived to “say something” about social issues. The social issues addressed are racial segregation, interracial encounter through music, the impact of the struggle for civil rights on the music, and the politics of aesthetic modernism in jazz. Musical examples drawn from throughout the history of the music will illustrate this ongoing dialogue between the musical and the social.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10.
[Literature and Arts B-85. American Musicals and American Culture]
Catalog Number: 2449 Enrollment: Limited to 150.
Carol J. Oja
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 15
During much of the 20th century, the Broadway musical stood at the center of American culture, producing tunes and tales that became the hits of their day. It commented–wittily, satirically, relentlessly–on the ever-shifting social and political landscape, with subjects ranging from new immigrants to poverty, power, westward expansion, and issues of race. This course explores the musical artistry and cultural resonances of a cluster of iconic Broadway musicals on stage and screen, including Shuffle Along, Show Boat, Stormy Weather, The Cradle Will Rock, Oklahoma!, and Pacific Overtures. Readings focus on primary sources drawn from Harvard’s illustrious Theatre Collection.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
[Literature and Arts C-18. Hindu Myth, Image, and Pilgrimage]
Catalog Number: 7384
Diana L. Eck
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 13
An exploration of the religious worlds and gods of Hindu India–Vishnu, Krishna, Shiva, and Devi–through readings in the classical Puranas, the Ramayana, and devotional poetry. Studies the visual images through which the gods are envisioned and embodied and the meaning of such a repertoire of images. Tracks the relationship of these gods to the living landscape of temples and pilgrimage sites in India today.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. For students under the Core requirement, counts as either Literature and Arts C or Foreign Cultures, but not both.
[Literature and Arts C-20. The Hero of Irish Myth and Saga]
Catalog Number: 7817
Tomás Ó Cathasaigh
Half course (spring term). M., W., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
A study of the ways in which the hero is represented in early Irish sources, especially in the saga literature. The texts reflect the ideology and concerns of a society which had been converted to Christianity, but continued to draw on its Indo-European and Celtic heritage. The biographies of the Ulster hero, Cú Chulainn, of his divine father, Lug, and of certain king-heroes are studied in depth. The wisdom literature, and archaeological and historical evidence will be taken into account.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
[Literature and Arts C-28. Icon-Ritual-Text: Reading the Culture of Medieval Rus’]
Catalog Number: 2798
Michael S. Flier
Half course (spring term). M., W., (F.), at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 4
An introduction to the culture of the medieval East Slavs, precursors of the Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians. The course examines icon and fresco painting, architecture, ritual, music, folklore, and literature in historical and social context for clues to the evolution of an apocalyptic worldview, extending from the Christianization of Rus’ in the 10th century, through the reign of Ivan the Terrible, to the advent of Peter the Great at the end of the 17th century.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. All readings in English.
Literature and Arts C-30. How and What Russia Learned to Read: The Rise of Russian Literary Culture
Catalog Number: 7952
William Mills Todd III
Half course (spring term). M., W., (F.), at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 3
An exploration in the Russian imperial period (18th–19th centuries) of the development of a secular literary tradition. Focus on institutions of literature, issues of literature and ideology, and the refraction of cultural problems in literary form. Reading of novels by Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy in social and historical context.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10. No knowledge of Russian required.
Literature and Arts C-40. The Chinese Literati
Catalog Number: 5226
Peter K. Bol
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 1, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 15
Examines from literary, philosophical, and historical perspectives the creation in later imperial China of an enduring national culture, which flourished through dynastic change and foreign conquest. Particular attention is given to the role of the literati and their work as poets, essayists, novelists, painters, moral philosophers, and political thinkers. Themes include the relation of culture to political authority, the search for grounds for individual responsibility, the literary and artistic representation of the self, growing ambivalence toward political service, and the rise of individualism. Introduces Chinese approaches to interpreting literary, artistic, and philosophical works.
Note: Expected to be omitted in 2009–10. For students under the Core requirement, counts as either Literature and Arts C or Historical Study B, but not both.
Literature and Arts C-50. Russian Imperial Masterworks and Their Post-Histories
Catalog Number: 2786
Julie A. Buckler
Half course (fall term). M., W., (F.), at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 3
Investigates major works of imperial Russian culture (literary, architectural, musical, theatrical) as products of their original historical contexts and in terms of their on-going life as acknowledged “masterworks” in Russia and the West. Works include Rastrelli’s Winter Palace, Falconet’s monument to Peter the Great, Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman, Dostoevsky’s Notes From the Underground, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, and Bely’s Petersburg, as well as the imperial capital city of St. Petersburg itself. How have these masterworks been variously renewed and reinterpreted since their initial reception?
[Literature and Arts C-51. Revolution and Reaction: The Rise and Fall of the Russian Avant-Garde]
Catalog Number: 6984
John E. Malmstad
Half course (spring term). M., W., F., at 11, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 4
An introduction to the radical transformations of Russian culture between 1890–1930, with particular attention to the “isms,” avant-garde and otherwise, that shaped society and the arts during a period of rapid modernization and experimentation: Symbolism, Futurism, Cubo-Futurism, Suprematism, Constructivism. Focuses on developments in literature, art, music, ballet, and film, their interaction and relation to the historical context.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. All readings in English. For students under the Core requirement, counts as either Literature and Arts C or Foreign Cultures, but not both.
[Literature and Arts C-56. Putting Modernism Together]
Catalog Number: 8437
Daniel Albright
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
Just as a pine or a willow is known from the shape of its branching, so human culture can be understood as a growth-pattern, a ramifying of artistic, intellectual, and political action. This course tries to find the center of the Modernist movement (1872–1927) by studying the literature, music, and painting of the period, to see whether some congruence of effort in all these media can be found. By looking at the range of artistic production in a few key years, we come to know this age of aesthetic extremism, perhaps unparalleled in Western history.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.
Literature and Arts C-61. The Rome of Augustus
Catalog Number: 1101
R. J. Tarrant
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 14
Roman culture and society in a period of radical transformation, the lifetime of the first emperor, Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE). Focuses on the interplay between a new set of political realities and developments in literature, the visual arts, and the organization of private and social life. Readings (all in translation) from Catullus, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Livy, Propertius, Ovid, and Tacitus, with special attention to the two great masterworks of the period, Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Most lectures illustrated with slides.
Note: For students under the Core requirement, counts as either Literature and Arts C or Historical Study B, but not both.
[Literature and Arts C-65. Repression and Expression: Literature and Art in Fin-de-siècle Germany and Austria]
Catalog Number: 4312
Peter J. Burgard
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 12
Examines German and Austrian literature and art of the period 1880–1920 in terms of gender, sexuality, and language. Begins with readings of Nietzsche and Freud that establish the thematic parameters of investigation and that enable an understanding of the extent to which this period in cultural history is grounded in their ideas. Discussions of individual texts and paintings focus on how problems of gender, sexuality, and language both intersect and reflect one another in the literature and art of the age. Readings include Nietzsche, Freud, Wedekind, Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal, Mann, Musil, Kafka. Artists include Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Kirchner, Marc, Kandinsky.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. No knowledge of German required.
[Literature and Arts C-70. From the Hebrew Bible to Judaism, From the Old Testament to Christianity]
Catalog Number: 5275
Shaye J.D. Cohen
Half course (spring term). M., W., (F.), at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 3
The Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians call the “Old Testament” and Jews call the “Bible,” are the basis of both Judaism and Christianity. In this course we shall survey how this work of literature, through interpretation and re-interpretation, spawned two different cultural systems. Topics to be surveyed include: canon and prophecy; exegesis and Midrash; Shabbat and Sunday; temple, synagogue, church; the Oral Torah and the Logos; sin and righteousness; messiah and redemption.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10.