Professional Documents
Culture Documents
World Literature
Contact: Jack Iverson, Chair, Foreign Languages and Literatures
Courses in world literature are designed to enable students to pursue their interests in literature beyond linguistic,
cultural, or departmental boundaries. Classes and readings are in English, but students with foreign language proficiency
are encouraged to read in the original language. The courses are taught by the members of the foreign languages and
literatures and Spanish departments. The material may be drawn from various literatures such as Chinese, French, German,
Japanese, and Spanish.
Distribution: Courses completed in world literature apply to the humanities and cultural pluralism distribution areas,
with the following exception:
No distribution: 391, 392
The World Literature minor: A minimum of 18 credits in World Literature. Besides courses listed here, selected
courses in Classics, Environmental Studies, French, German Studies, Spanish, and Theatre will count toward the minor in
World Literature, including Classics 130, 140, 217, 226, and 377; Environmental Studies 217 and 226; French, all 400-
level courses; German Studies all 400-level courses; Spanish, all 400-level courses; and Theater 235, 372, and 377. For
other courses, please consult the World Literature contact person.
201-204 Special Topics in World Literature, Intermediate Level
4 credits
Courses under this category explore selected topics in world literature at the intermediate level. Any current offerings
follow.
the emergence of the 20th and 21st Century Chinese identity. May be taken for credit toward the Asian and Middle Eastern
Studies or Film and Media Studies majors or Chinese minor.
307 Visual Narrations: The Art and Architecture of the Graphic Novel
Not offered 2017-18 4 credits
Since the publication of Maus, graphic novels and comics have come to be understood as challenging, artistic hybrid texts
that employ complex literary and visual strategies to engage diverse themes of historical, social and aesthetic import. In this
course we will study the works of prominent creators within the Hispanic graphic novel tradition alongside renowned
graphic novelists from around the world. After considering the role of translation with respect to graphic narratives, we will
explore the formal qualities and artistic innovations of landmark, transnational works. Theoretical, structural and semiotic
analyses (Scott McCloud, Santiago García, Ana Merino, Thierry Groensteen) will be read together with primary texts.
Readings may include wordless masterpieces (such as the works of Lynd Ward, Frans Masereel, Shaun Tan, Fábio Moon
and Gabriel Bá); experimental texts that overtly deconstruct traditional book formats (such as Guillermo Peña's Codex
Espangliensis, Joe Sacco’s The Great War, Pascal Rabaté's Fenêtres sur rue, matinées, soirées, Richard McGuirre’s Here
and Chris Ware's Building Stories), and highly stylized, intertextual or metafictional masterworks (such as Antonio
Altarriba and Kim’s “La casa del sol naciente” and David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp). All works will be read in English
translation. Course will be taught in English. May be taken for credit toward the Spanish major or the Film and Media
Studies major.
All films are subtitled in English. No prerequisite in Chinese language is required. This course should be of interest to
students in Cinema Studies, Asian Studies, Comparative Literature, Media Studies, and Postcolonial Studies. May be taken
for credit toward the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies or Film and Media Studies majors or Chinese minor.
338 Undoing the Japanese National Narrative through Literature and Film
Not offered 2017-18 4 credits
In this course we focus on the literary works and films of Japan’s post-WWII period from the mid-1940s through the 1970s
and explore the ways in which writers and filmmakers responded to the social and cultural transformations brought about
by war, defeat, occupation, and recovery. The main questions to be addressed include: How did writers and filmmakers
engage with the question of war responsibility in and through their works? What does it mean to “take responsibility for
war”? How do their works, at both levels of form and content, critique and undo the official national narrative that largely
coincided with the modernization theory put forth in the early 1960s? How long does the “postwar” last? Taught in English.
May be taken for credit toward the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies major or Japanese minor.
343 Women Writers in Imperial China: In Search of the “Real” Female Voice
Not offered 2017-18 4 credits
Despite the dominance of men as authors, subjects, and readers of literature throughout the two millennia of imperial China
(221 BCE-1911 CE), this same period also saw the emergence and development of a rich tradition of women’s literature. In
this course, we will discuss what kinds of women wrote literary works, and how the marginal status of women’s literature
affected the genres in which women wrote and the subjects with which they could deal. As China’s male literature came to
develop its own tradition of writing in the voice of women, we will pay special attention to the questions of how women
found their own voice despite this pre-existing feminine tradition. Literary works from different historical periods will
service as a means to learn about the changing historical and social conditions behind women’s writing. We will also put
some long-existing assumptions about pre-modern Chinese women and Chinese society into critical scrutiny. May be taken
for credit toward the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies major or Chinese minor.
387 ST: Inventing Human Rights: Voltaire and the French Enlightenment
Spring Iverson 4 credits
Religious tolerance, free speech, the idea of proportionate punishment, opposition to the slave trade: these and other
principles were articulated in powerful ways by proponents of the French Enlightenment in the years preceding the French
Revolution. This course will trace the efforts of eighteenth-century French writers, led most prominently by Voltaire, to
promote notions of social justice and human rights. We will focus particularly on the ways in which a broad range of
activities allowed these authors to shape public opinion. Voltaire, for example, intervened in the case of Jean Calas, a
French Huguenot who had been tortured and executed on suspicion of killing his son for religious reasons. Reaching
beyond the literary realm, he and his successors used their influence over a rapidly expanding reading public to defend
ideals that remain central to the definition of human rights today. Readings will include works by Beaumarchais, Charrière,
Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire. Conducted in English. Open to first-year students. May be taken for credit toward the
French major. Distribution area: humanities.
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388 ST: Youth and Revolution in 20 Chinese Culture
Fall He 4 credits
The 20th century is alternately known as the age of revolution or the age of the young. The constant refashioning of the
“new generation” is embedded in all major socio-cultural movements in contemporary China and is essential to the way
various Chinese writers and artists locate themselves from the 1920s to the present. It is therefore important to examine
how revolution is defined in terms of generation change and “youth culture”. This course examines questions such as : How
does the public image of Chinese youth change in relation to cultural and political reforms throughout the century? In what
way is Chinese youth culture different as well as intertwined with the flux of global culture? Students will explore these
connections through contextualized reading of literary works, stage productions, film, music and fine arts by or for the
young. The course is designed as an introduction to 20th-century Chinese literature and culture from the vintage point of
youth (self)representation. On the one hand, it will examine the conception and presentation of the young which fuels
cultural and political movements, such as the Cultural Revolution, the Tian Anmen Incident, and post-socialist
depoliticization, and environmentalist movements. On the other hand, it will expand students’ understanding of youth self-
presentation beyond commonly accepted notions of the alternative and the oppositional. May be taken for credit toward the
Asian and Middle East Studies. Distribution: humanities or cultural pluralism.