Many departments in the Division of Literature and Languages offer courses in which the texts are read in translation. Literature courses are described under particular cross-listed departments within the division, with the exception of Literature 400, which is intended to serve all majors in the division. When courses are cross-listed under the sponsoring department, the texts in these courses are often read in the original language, usually in a separate conference; students with appropriate language skills should, for example, register for German 330 rather than Literature 330.
All literature courses fulfill Group A requirements. One unit of a literature course (or one unit in creative writing) may be applied toward the English major. For other majors in the division, literature courses at the 300 level will fulfill the division requirement of two units in a literature outside of the major.
Literature 309 - Introduction to Film Theory
Full course for one semester. The goal of this course is to introduce students to the main ideas and debates on film theory and criticism, from the early days of silent film to the most recent approaches to digital cinema. The discussion will focus on the most significant movements and film schools in Europe, the United States, Latin America, and other parts of the world: realism, formalism, apparatus theory, psychoanalysis, feminism, auteurism, genre criticism, theories of spectatorship and reception, postmodernism, and third world and postcolonial cinema, among others. In addition to theoretical approaches, students will become familiar with cinematic language, including mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound. The course will explore the work of directors such as D.W. Griffith, Sergei M. Eisenstein, F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Buñuel, Vittorio De Sica, Jean-Luc Godard, Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas, Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Ousmane Sembene, Pedro Almodóvar, Agnès Varda, Wong Kar-wai, and Asghar Farhadi. Course includes weekly film screenings. Prerequisite: sophomore standing or consent of the instructor. Conference.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature 400 - Introduction to Literary Theory
Full course for one semester. This course is a historical and analytical introduction to the major theoretical movements of the last 50 years in Western Europe and America. We will trace the philosophical origins and conceptual affiliations of the major developments in these movements. We will unpack the central concepts or master tropes of these theories to think about their function in literary criticism and learn how to use them purposefully. The course will cover structuralism and semiotics, poststructuralism and deconstruction, psychoanalytic theory, poststructuralist Marxist theory, Foucauldian theory and new historicism, postcolonial studies, and gender and feminist studies. The course will be taught as a seminar, with each student responsible for organizing the discussion of a reading or topic. It is designed for literature majors, but non–literature majors with adequate preparation may be admitted at the discretion of the instructors. Prerequisite: junior standing or at least two literature courses. Conference. Cross-listed as English 400.
Literature (Chinese) 325 - Songs to Lost Music: Readings in Ci-Poetry
See Chinese 325 for course description.
Literature (Chinese) 329 - Stranger Things in Medieval China
See Chinese 329 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Chinese) 334 - The Yijing: Text and Tradition of the Book of Changes
See Chinese 334 for description.
Literature (Chinese) 335 - Chineseness, Translated Modernity, and World Literature
See Chinese 335 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Chinese) 346 - From Allegories to Documentaries: Screening Postsocialist China
See Chinese 346 for description.
Literature (Chinese) 348 - Reading for Translation
See Chinese 348 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Chinese) 360 - The Social Life of Poetry in the Tang Dynasty (618–907)
See Chinese 360 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Chinese) 367 - Love in Late Imperial China
See Chinese 367 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Chinese) 369 - Modernizing Sentiments, Sentimentalizing Modernity
See Chinese 369 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Chinese) 374 - Reading Early Chinese Novels: The Four Masterworks
See Chinese 374 for description.
Literature (Chinese) 375 - Chinese Strange Writing: From Ghost Stories to Scientific Fantasies
See Chinese 375 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Chinese) 380 - The Story of the Stone and the Chinese Literary Tradition
See Chinese 380 for description.
Literature (Classics) 362 - Classical Mythology
See Classics 362 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (German) 346 - Introduction to Media Studies
See German 346 for description.
Literature (German) 348 - Literature and Photography
See German 348 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (German) 349 - Cinema and Politics
See German 349 for course description.
Literature (German) 355 - Twentieth-Century Jewish Literature
See German 355 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (German) 358 - The Holocaust and the Limits of Representation
See German 358 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (German) 391 - German Theory I
Introduction to Critical Theory
See German 391 for description.
The Languages of War
See German 391 for description. Not offered 2019–20.
Psy Fi: Psychoanalysis and Literature
See German 391 for description.
Literature (German) 392 - German Theory II
Revolutions in Poetic Language
See German 392 for description. Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Russian) 266 - Russian Short Fiction
See Russian 266 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Russian) 325 - Multicultural Russia
See Russian 325 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Russian) 362 - Red Sci-Fi: Science Fiction in Soviet Literature and Film
See Russian 362 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Russian) 366 - Literature of Destruction
See Russian 366 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Russian) 371 - Russian Literature and Culture from Medieval to Romantic
See Russian 371 for description.
Literature (Russian) 372 - Russian Literature: Realism
See Russian 372 for description.
Literature (Russian) 373 - Modern Russian Literature from Chekhov to the Present
See Russian 373 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Russian) 383 - Special Topics in Russian Literature: Russian Romanticism in the Western European Context
See Russian 383 for description. May be repeated for credit.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Russian) 390 - Russian Culture under Putin: Submission and Resistance
See Russian 390 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Russian) 391 - Postcommunist Cultures: Identity, Power, Resistance
See Russian 391 for course description.
Literature (Russian) 392 - Nuclear Literatures: A Comparative Approach
See Russian 392 for course description.
Literature (Russian) 404 - Tolstoy’s Great Novels
See Russian 404 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Russian) 408 - Decadence and Symbolism in Russia and Europe
See Russian 408 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Russian) 409 - Late Tolstoy: From Anna Karenina to a Religious Teaching
See Russian 409 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Russian) 410 - Russian Literature in Revolution: 1917–1932
See Russian 410 for course description.
Literature (Russian) 413 - Russian Formalism, Structuralism, and Semiotics
See Russian 413 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Russian) 436 - Sergei Eisenstein’s Film Art: Decadence, Revolution, and the Mechanics of Ecstasy
See Russian 436 for description.
Literature (Russian) 445 - The Films of S. Kubrick and A. Tarkovsky
See Russian 445 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Spanish) 343 - Don Quixote and Narrative Theory
See Spanish 343 for description.
Literature (Spanish) 344 - Visual Art in Spanish Baroque Literature
See Spanish 344 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Spanish) 361 - Decentering the Human
See Spanish 361 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Spanish) 371 - Sensing Justice: Cinema and Politics of the Senses
See Spanish 371 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Spanish) 378 - Space and Power
See Spanish 378 for description.
Not offered 2019–20.
Literature (Spanish) 383 - From Los olvidados to Roma: Contemporary Mexican Cinema
See Spanish 383 for description.