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.
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.
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) 324 - Genres of Memory in Medieval China
See Chinese 324 for course description.
Literature (Chinese) 325 - Songs to Lost Music: Ci-Poetry
See Chinese 325 for course description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Chinese) 329 - Stranger Things in Medieval China
See Chinese 329 for description.
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 2020–21.
Literature (Chinese) 346 - From Allegories to Documentaries: Screening Postsocialist China
See Chinese 346 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Chinese) 347 - Modern Sinophone Fiction and Film
See Chinese 347 for description.
Literature (Chinese) 348 - Reading for Translation
See Chinese 348 for description.
Literature (Chinese) 367 - Love in Late Imperial China
See Chinese 367 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Chinese) 369 - Modernizing Sentiments, Sentimentalizing Modernity
See Chinese 369 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Chinese) 374 - Reading Early Chinese Novels: The Four Masterworks
See Chinese 374 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Chinese) 375 - Chinese Strange Writing: From Ghost Stories to Scientific Fantasies
See Chinese 375 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Chinese) 380 - The Story of the Stone and the Chinese Literary Tradition
See Chinese 380 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Classics) 362 - Classical Mythology
See Classics 362 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (French) 392 - French Connections: The Intertwined Histories of French and American Cinema
See French 392 for description.
Literature (German) 346 - Introduction to Media Studies
See German 346 for description.
Literature (German) 349 - Cinema and Politics
See German 349 for course description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (German) 355 - Twentieth-Century Jewish Literature
See German 355 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (German) 358 - Representing Genocide
See German 358 for description.
Literature (German) 372 - Psychoanalysis and Literature
See German 372 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (German) 375 - Thinking Machines: Androids and Automatons in Science and Literature
See German 375 for course description.
Literature (German) 391 - German Theory I
Introduction to Critical Theory
See German 391 for description. Not offered 2020–21.
The Languages of War
See German 391 for description. Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (German) 392 - German Theory II
Revolutions in Poetic Language
See German 392 for description.
Literature (Russian) 266 - Russian Short Fiction
See Russian 266 for description.
Literature (Russian) 325 - Multicultural Russia
See Russian 325 for description.
Literature (Russian) 362 - Red Sci-Fi: Science Fiction in Soviet Literature and Film
See Russian 362 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Russian) 363 - Film Adaptation: When Kurosawa Met Dostoevsky
See Russian 363 for description.
Literature (Russian) 366 - Literature of Destruction
See Russian 366 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Russian) 371 - Russian Literature and Culture from Medieval to Romantic
See Russian 371 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Russian) 372 - Russian Literature: Realism
See Russian 372 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Russian) 373 - Modern Russian Literature from Chekhov to the Present
See Russian 373 for description.
Literature (Russian) 390 - Russian Culture under Putin: Submission and Resistance
See Russian 390 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Russian) 392 - Nuclear Literatures: A Comparative Approach
See Russian 392 for course description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Russian) 408 - Decadence and Symbolism in Russia and Europe
See Russian 408 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Russian) 409 - Late Tolstoy: From Anna Karenina to a Religious Teaching
See Russian 409 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Russian) 410 - Russian Literature in Revolution: 1917–1932
See Russian 410 for course description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Russian) 412 - Literary Translation Workshop
See Russian 412 for course description.
Literature (Russian) 413 - Russian Formalism, Structuralism, and Semiotics
See Russian 413 for description.
Literature (Russian) 436 - Sergei Eisenstein’s Film Art: Decadence, Revolution, and the Mechanics of Ecstasy
See Russian 436 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Russian) 445 - The Films of S. Kubrick and A. Tarkovsky
See Russian 445 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Spanish) 343 - Don Quixote and Narrative Theory
See Spanish 343 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Spanish) 344 - Visual Art in Spanish Baroque Literature
See Spanish 344 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Spanish) 351 - Saints and Sinners: Women in the Early Modern Transatlantic World
See Spanish 351 for description.
Literature (Spanish) 361 - Decentering the Human
See Spanish 361 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Spanish) 371 - Sensing Justice: Cinema and Politics of the Senses
See Spanish 371 for description.
Not offered 2020–21.
Literature (Spanish) 372 - Documentary Resistance in Latin America and Spain
See Spanish 372 for description.