(same as HISTORY 171G) This course will focus on recurring patterns in Western (and particularly American) writings about and visual representations of Chinese culture, society and politics from the mid-1800s to the present. Readings will include selections from memoirs, travel writings and reportage and a survey of Chinese history. Some attention will also be paid to what Chinese travelers have thought about the United States in various eras. Lectures will be supplemented by occasional showings of scenes from feature films and documentaries, and by in-class discussions in which students analyze the readings, looking in part at how contemporary American ideas about China and press coverage of current events such as the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games continue to be shaped by the often romanticized or demonizing presentations of the country that proliferated during earlier periods of U.S. history.

(same as ENGLISH 102D) Partition along sectarian lines was a feature of British withdrawal from several colonies during the twentieth century, including the partition of Ireland into North and South (1922) and of the Indian sub-continent into India and Pakistan (1947). The partition of countries ramifies into other “partitions”--of the psyche, of ethnic groups and families, of communities and once undivided locales. Because the cherished independence of the new nation-states was predicated upon the violence of partition, their dominant cultural narratives tend to variously demonize, misrepresent, disavow or shun the “others” on the far side of the divide. Paradoxically, therefore, partition is often surrounded by silence and discursive invisibility even as it is widely acknowledged as a watershed event. Our writers call attention to the difficulties of writing partition, difficulties that arise from the complex relationship between memory (collective and personal), trauma, and narrative. The contrastive potential of different genres, a central concern in E102 and Lit.J. courses, is of abiding interest to these writers, and accordingly we’ll read across a wide range of genres. We’ll read murals and contemporary Irish poetry; literary journalism, memoir and oral testimony (Urvashi Butalia); short stories (Saadat Hasan Manto); and novels (Seamus Deane and Bapsi Sidhwa). Requirements include an essay, midterm and final along with full participation, which will be monitored by unannounced quizzes.

(same as ENGLISH 102C) This course will provide a survey of early-nineteenth-century British literature and culture. Our focus will be on poetry--the writings of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Byron--but we will also read major novels of the period. As we proceed, we will set these literary texts against the background of contemporary writings in aesthetics, landscaping, and painting. Requirements will include a midterm, final, long essay, and a couple of shorter essays.

(same as E ASIAN 110) Our general purpose in this course is to consider the fiction originally written in Chinese (and some Japanese) by writers from Hong Kong and Taiwan since the late nineteenth century to the present. Towards this goal we read extensively in the body of translations currently available, theoretically contemplate and critically engage with the ideas and styles authors adopt and create, and discuss the ethics of writing or interpreting literature. In particular, we meditate on the notion of normative and positive criticism and how it relates to issues such as gender and the body, national allegory and postcolonialism, and the political uses of literature.

Grading is based on two short writing assignments, three exams, an as yet undetermined number of quizzes, and class participation. All readings, assignments, and discussions are conducted in English - no Chinese language skills necessary.

(same as AFAM 111B) In this course students will study artworks created by African Americans beginning chronologically with government sponsored art programs in the 1930s and ending with contemporary art of the twenty-first century.

(same as FLM&MDA 114) Stanley Kubrick remains one of the most paradoxical figures in American cinema, a maker of personal films who avoided publicity, an intellectual who produced popular entertainment, and a master of film technique whose work approached technology with skepticism. This course will consider the relation of his films to their literary sources through close readings of novels including Barry Lyndon, Lolita, Spartacus, Dream Novel, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange and other short fiction. Students should be prepared to read several hundred pages per week. Our goal will be to understand the practice of cinematic adaptation and the diverse traditions of understanding Kubrick's legacy. Course requirements include take-home midterm and final research paper.

(same as WOMN ST 120A) This course will focus on ART, SCIENCE, FICTION, and TECHNOPOLITICS . What do art, science, and politics have to do with each other? Do technologies transcend politics? What happens to feminist politics when the information revolution dawns, when technology fixes gender troubles, or when fiction imagines a different world? This course is a brief introduction to the vast experimental area at the intersection of arts and science. Students engage with a range of material drawn from film, fiction, historical and theoretical non-fiction, world events, and public sphere discourse.

(same as FLM&MDA 130) This course provides an historical overview of Latina/o access to, and representation in, U.S. film, television and other media, with periodic attention to developments in the current mediascape. Special emphasis will be placed on the role played by language, the "gendering" of U.S.-Latina/o stereotypes, the impact of foreign and immigration policy on mainstream portrayals, community-rooted media initiatives, and the lasting contributions of producers, performers, screenwriters, directors, critics, and audience members to the screen agency and enfranchisement of Latinas/os as a regionally and socially diverse group. A range of genres and technical formats will be analyzed, including documentary and experimental film, video and digital art. Students will gain exposure to critical vocabulary linked to film and media analysis, and will become familiar with recurring patterns in, and challenges facing, Latina/o audiovisual representation, as well as the creative profiles of leading directors, performers, and media hosts.

(same as COM LIT 142) City, Memory, Intertext - This course will explore the significance of the city as a "memory theater, that is, as a repertoire of cultural sites situated in historical cities and at the same time deployed in an intertextual network in literary works. We will trace how the new forms of city-space that became prominent around the turn of the 18th to the 19th centuries became available as cultural narratives during the 19th and 20th.

The course will begin with a consideration of the pre-Romantic and Romantic concept of landscape, especially as a touchstone of aesthetic experience and judgment in the period. The flight from the city articulated in Wordsworth's "Residence in London" (The Prelude, Bk. 7) led to a differentiated theme of anti-nature in Baudelaire. In the writings of Poe, and then in the fiction of the mid-century (Dickens), the aura of landscape as a sheltering precinct came to be replaced by the phenomenon of the metropolis as site of new forms of human agglomeration and cultural commerce.

Our course will study this development in literature dealing with three metropolitan centers: London, Paris, and New York, with works by Wordsworth, Baudelaire, Poe, Dickens, and Bellow. Critics and theorists will include Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Raymond Williams, and T.J.Clark.

(same as GERMAN 150) This class will give you an overview of the political, social, and cultural developments in Germany since 1945 while putting a special emphasis on the time since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Working with an open definition of “culture,” we will read texts in various media (newspapers, academic writing, literature, film) and discuss diverse manifestations of both high and popular culture. We will deal with issues such as the German perception of America, problems between East and West Germany and national identity, coming to terms with the Nazi past, the legacy of communism, ethnic and religious minorities in Germany, and the roles of women in contemporary German society.

In this course, you can expect to gain an understanding of the complexities of Germany’s post-war history and the intricate relationship between culture, history, and politics through weekly introductory lectures, class discussions, and group work. Weekly written homework assignments and response papers will allow for a deepening of your understanding of issues discussed in class.

No knowledge of German is necessary; all materials and discussions will be in English.

(same as ART HIS 167) Frida Kahlo’s work was once likened to “a ribbon around a bomb.” This lecture course considers Latin American art from the end of the Mexican Revolution to the present moment, with an emphasis on precisely this conjunction between the beautiful and the explosive. The class examines how Latin American artists have utilized indigenous traditions as well as avant-garde innovations. Special focus is placed on performance and conceptual work under the dictatorial regimes in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. In addition, it includes art from Colombia, Cuba and Mexico, as well as Californian Chicano artistic practices.