Courses in GRLL

The Integrated Student Information System (ISIS) is Johns Hopkins' first university-wide, web-based student information system. You can read more about ISIS on the main ISIS webpage, or you can go to the ISIS Course Schedule search page to see our current offerings.

The listings below represent our full catalog of offerings. Courses listed here may not be offered every semester. If you would like to see our current offerings, please view our department's listing in ISIS.

A guide to courses in German & Romance Languages and Literatures:
100-599 courses are undergraduate-level; 600-899 are gradaute-level.
Courses with the prefix 210 are language courses.
Courses with the prefix 211 are culture/civilization courses.
Courses with the prefixes 212, 213, 214, and 215 are literature courses.
Courses with the prefix 360 are interdepartmental courses.
Graduate-level courses do not carry credit.

Jump to:  French Undergraduate | German & Yiddish Undergraduate | Italian Undergraduate | Portuguese Undergraduate | Spanish Undergraduate | Undergraduate Interdepartmental | Department-Wide Graduate | French Graduate | German & Yiddish Graduate | Italian Graduate | Spanish Graduate | Graduate Interdepartmental


French Undergraduate

210.101-102 French Elements
The elements, or beginning, French program provides a
multifaceted approach to teaching language and culture
to the novice French student. From the first day, the students
are "immersed" in a linguistically rich environment
with French as the primary language of the classroom.
The emphasis of the course is on aural-oral proficiency
without neglecting the other basic skills of grammar
structure, phonetics, reading, and writing. Year course;
both semesters must be completed with passing grades to
receive credit. May not be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory
basis. Prerequisite: no previous knowledge of French, or appropriate score on Webcape.
Wuensch 4.5 credits

210.103-104 Learner Managed French Elements
This course is designed for students with scheduling conflicts.
Special section meets two times a week for one and
one-quarter hours. Online materials are designed for one
and one-half more hours a week required for the course.
It must be noted that there is less classroom contact time
in this course, and therefore this course is recommended
for those who have some knowledge of French and need
a review of the language. Only highly self-motivated
students should attempt this course. Year course; must
complete both semesters successfully in order to receive
credit. May not be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory
basis. Prerequisite: No previous knowledge of French or
Webcape score of 0-250. See description for 210.101-102.
Wuensch 4.5 credits

210.201-202 (H) Intermediate French
A two-semester course conducted entirely in French.
Taught in French, this course develops the four communication
skills through multimedia material. Movies and
readings from French-speaking destinations and extensive
study of Manon des Sources. WebCT-based. Prerequisites:
210.101-102 or 210.103-104 or appropriate score
on Webcape exam.
Guillemard 3.5 credits

210.203-204 (H) High Intermediate French
A two-semester intermediate course offering a systematic
review of language structures, conducted exclusively in
French. This course is for students who can express themselves
more fluently in both their written and oral work
and can analyze more difficult texts than in Intermediate
French. Students will study authentic texts, including
film "text," and focus on their written and oral skills. This
is a reading- and writing-intensive course. Prerequisites:
grade of A in 210.101-102, or appropriate score on Webcape
exam. Credit will not be given if previously enrolled
in 210.201-202 or the equivalent.
Roos 3.5 credits

210.205 (H) Introduction to Phonetics
Designed for intermediate-advanced students seeking to
improve their French pronunciation through intensive
oral practice, this course will also explore the different
accents of France and the Francophone world.
Staff 3 credits

210.206 (H) Scientific French
Introduction to the languages of science, technology, and
research in contemporary France. Emphasis on technical
terminology. This course prepares students for the exam
and the certificate offered by the Chambre de Commerce
et d'Industrie de Paris. The course will be conducted in
French, and both oral and written participation will be
required. Prerequisites: 210.201-202 or 210.203-204, or
permission of instructor. More advanced students should
register for 210.305.
Staff 3 credits

210.301-302 (H,W) French Conversation and
Composition I, II
This third-year course is conducted exclusively in French.
It is intended to bridge the intermediate level and more
advanced classes in French literature and cultural studies.
Over two semesters, students will be given the opportunity
to strengthen oral and aural skills through films,
audiotapes, class discussions, oral presentations and written
skills through the writing and correction of essays.
The course will offer students an individualized review of
grammar based on the students' written work. Students
will be presented with a diversity of texts, from current
newspaper articles covering different issues to poems and
literary texts.
Cook-Gailloud 3.5 credits

210.303-304 (H) Business French
Introduction to fundamental aspects of the business
world. The French language as a means of communication
in the business world; commercial and economic
vocabulary, trade and business practices, public and
private sectors. Prepares students for the exam for the
Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de Paris certificate.
Only the second semester of 210.303-304 counts as
credit for the major. Prerequisites: 210.301-302.
Staff 3 credits

210.305 (H) Advanced Scientific French
Prepares students for the exam for the Chambre de Commerce
et d'Industrie de Paris. Same lecture as 210.206,
but texts and assignments are at a more advanced level.
Prerequisites: 210.301-302 or permission of instructor.
Staff 3 credits

210.307 (H) Legal French
Introduction to the language of French legal studies.
Emphasis on legal terminology and logic. Prepares students
for the Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de
Paris certificate. Conducted in French; both oral and
written participation required. Prerequisites: 210.301-302
or permission of instructor.
Staff 3 credits

210.405 (H) French Teaching in Public School
Offers advanced students an opportunity to participate in the partnership between JHU and a neighboring elementary school: they will teach French to young students once a week as part of their Introduction to Foreign Languages. Students in sections one and two will teach once a week and receive three credits. Students in section three will teach twice a week and earn four credits. Weekly meeting will help prepare for teach class session. Students will keep a journal of their experience and submit a final report.
Staff  3 credits

210.500 (W) French Language Independent Study
Staff 3 credits

211.340 (H) Topics in French Cinema: Regards sur
l'enfance
This course will explore different topics in French cinema.
This semester the course will focus on childhood
as depicted in French film. The emphasis of the course
will be discussion and analyses of film sequences in class.
Additional homework assignments will involve vocabulary
and grammar study and an independent project.
Requirements for this course include completion of
Conversation and Composition, or equivalent score on
the Webcape placement test.
Staff 3 credits

211.401-402 (H) La France Contemporaine I, II
Contemporary French culture and society studied
through newspapers, French broadcast news, videos,
and directed readings. During the first semester students
study general trends in French society; during the
second semester they concentrate on French youth and
family. Oral presentation and independent research are
required. Prerequisites: 210.301-302 or 210.301 and permission
of instructor.
Staff 3 credits

211.405 French Doctors:  Insights on 19th and 20th Century Medicine in France
The course presents past and present interactions between society and medicine in France. From Pasteur’s discoveries to the development of humanitarian medicine, we will consider historical and political contexts of the 19th and 20th century France. We will discuss a broad range of readings, from Claude Bernard to Bruno Latour, and films, whenever appropriate. The course raises critical questions of how the evolution of medicine takes part in political issues and social change.
Staff 3 credits

211.414 Body as Vehicle: Antonin Artaud and the French 20th Century Approach to Theatrical Performance
From Greek tragedy to Balinese theater, Antonin Artaud revisits performance through the ritual and emotional experience of physical action on the stage.  Hence, the actor's body operates as a bridge relating traditional forms of expression to theatrical performance, as well as a creative - and sensitive - source of emotions.  This vehicle becomes in the hands of some 20th century practitioners an object of experimentation, inititating the concepts and practices of an Anthropology of the Theater: Artaud's "Theater of Cruelty" caused a scandal.  A thorough sutdy of his works, travels and turbulent life, refeals not only the philosophy of his theatrical approach, but also the way his revolutionaery theories influenced theater practice in France and worldwide.
Staff 3 credits

211.420 (H) Real French: From Slang to Sophistication
This class will teach the realities of the French language
as it is used in French-speaking countries, ranging from
slang to more sophisticated forms of expression. We will
study excerpts of films, literary works, television programs,
political speeches, etc., in order to examine which
level of speech is at work. Prerequisite: 210.301-302 or
supplementary test or by permission.
Cook-Gailloud 3 credits

211.430 L'affaire Dreyfus
Course will focus on the socio-political events that
framed the Dreyfus Affair (anti-Semitism in 19th-century
France, caricatures and polemical writings in the press,
the consequences of the Franco-Prussian War and of the
Commune, the bipolar division that split French society
into Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards), as well as its longterm
effects (the rise of the "intellectual" in public life,
the creation of the Human Rights League, the consolidation
of Zionism which led to the creation of a Jewish
state). Prerequisites: 210.301-302 or supplementary test
or permission.
Cook-Gailloud 3 credits

212.101 (H) What Makes a Novel Interesting? Gilman
 Lecture Course in Humanities
Do novels afford a distinctive kind of knowledge about
society, history, psychology, human beliefs, ethical and
spiritual experiences? How do fictional works retain
their interest and vitality over time? How are perennially
provocative topics such as power, politics, love, sexuality,
social concerns, symbolic figures renewed through
formal inventions in narrative. We will consider the
interrelation of the form and content of novels, reading
some major fictions by Balzac, Hugo, Dickens, Flaubert,
Melville, Perec.
Neefs 3 credits

212.201-202 (H,W) Introduction à la littérature
française I, II
Readings and discussion of texts of various genres from
the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The two semesters
may be taken in either order. This sequence is a prerequisite
to all further literature courses. Students may
coregister with an upper-level course during their second
semester. Prerequisites: both semesters of 210.301-302 or
at least one semester of 210.301-302 with a grade of A and
written permission of the instructor. Note: 210.301-302 are
prerequisites for all undergraduate courses with higher
numbers. These courses count as advanced courses and
carry both university and major credit.
Staff 3 credits

212.306 (H) Gender Issues in the Magrebian Novel
Dean's Teaching Fellowship Course
A survey of francophone Moroccan and Algerian novels produced in the wake of those countries’ struggles for independence. We will investigate the intertwining of historical context, gender issues, and formal experimentation.
Pigott  3 credits

212.307 (H) Tales on Trial:  Storytelling in the Middle Ages
Dean's Teaching Fellowship Course
An investigation into the making and remaking of stories in the Middle Ages, according to aesthetic, moral, and social criteria.  Texts include lais and fabliaus, the Roman de la Rose, Bible adaptations and the Heptaméron.
Patterson 3 credits

212.309 (H) Forever Godard
Dean's Teaching Fellowship Course
This course will explore the dynamic relationship between music, literature, philosophy and politics in the most provocative of Jean-Luc Godard's films.
Reymond 3 credits

212.310 Versailles et la Cour
The extravagant construction of Versailles, the rigorous
order imposed through it on life at court are both part
of Louis XIV's strategy to establish and demonstrate his
absolute control over France. Acknowledging the power
of public media such as the arts and literature, the king
also mobilizes the writers and artists in his political
agenda. Molière produces plays for the festivals at Versailles
and La Fontaine describes the marvels of the park
as it is being constructed. Others, like La Bruyère and
Saint-Simon, analyse the complexities and eccentricities
of the courtly society. Some admire the brilliance of
the Sun King's universe, others discreetly denounce the
growing tyranny of the Crown and ridicule the submissive
behavior of puppet-like courtiers. The underlying theme
of the class will be a reflexion on the complex relationship
between literature and power at a time when most freedoms
are curtailed. The seminar will be held in French.
Jeanneret 3 credits

212.316 (H) 18th-Century French Theater
The development of the drama bourgeois and the theater
criticism of the French Enlightenment. Authors to
be studied include Racine, Le Sage, Marivaux, Voltaire,
Diderot, and Beaumarchais. Prerequisite: 212.201.
Anderson 3 credits

212.317 (H,W) The 18th-Century French Novel
Key novels will be studied from a variety of approaches.
Readings include Marivaux, Montesquieu, Prévost, Diderot,
Crébillon, Rousseau, Laclos, and Voltaire. Prerequisite:
212.201.
Anderson 3 credits

212.318 (H,W) Women in French Literature of the 17th
and 18th Centuries
This course will examine the changes in the relationship
of women to literature in France before the French
Revolution from several points of view: (1) What were
the social and intellectual contexts of gender distinctions?
(2) How did men writing about women differ
from women writing about women? (3) How were these
questions affected by the changing norms of literary productions?
Texts by Mme. de Sévigné, Molière, Mme. de
Lafayette, Prévost, Diderot, Rousseau, Laclos, and Beaumarchais.  Course website:  http://www.wilda.org/Courses/CourseVault/Undergrad/ImageWomen/Syllabus.html
Prerequisite: 212.201.
Anderson 3 credits

212.319 (H,W) Literature Confronts Science: Zola
Zola worked with the theories of heredity of his time in
the Rougon-Macquart novels. But he also attempted to
use his understanding of biology and thermodynamics to
reform the theory of the novel in general. This course
will examine these two different effects of science on literature
and try to see what leads an author to undertake
such a project. Prerequisite: 212.201.
Anderson 3 credits

212.320 (H) Alexandre Dumas
The genre of historical romance analyzed through the
novels in the cycle of the Trois Mousquetaires and Le Comte
de Monte Cristo. Attention will be paid to Dumas' use of
17th-century historical accounts and memoirs, and to
film adaptations of the novels.
Anderson 3 credits

212.321 (H,W) French 19th Century: The Equivocal
Birth of Modernity
Reading texts by Chateaubriand, Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert,
Baudelaire, considering also other arts, mainly painting.
Course will examine the literary and aesthetic representation
of modern democratic society in France during
the 19th century.
Neefs 3 credits

212.326 Paris in Literature from Surrealism to the Present

212.402 (H) Le Roi Artur, le Saint Graal, et les
Chevaliers de la Table Ronde
Qui est le roi Artur et pourquoi la legende du saint graal
s'est-elle évoluée autour de sa cour? D'où vient l'idée
d'une chevalerie consacrée à la quête du saint graal?
Pourquoi la France au 12e siècle est-elle devenue le berceau
de ce mythe perdurable? Et, enfin, pourquoi cette
légende a-t-elle exercé une fascination continue sur
l'imagination moderne? En lisant des romans de Chrétien
de Troyes et d'autres auteurs médiévaux, ce cours
tâchera de répondre à de telles questions. On examinera,
pour terminer, quelques traitements cinématographiques
contemporains du thème.
Nichols 3 credits

212.403 (H) Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Prose as a Modern Art
Through a close reading of Flaubert's novel and selective consideration of the drafts, we shall examine the making of that masterpiece of narrative prose, which Flaubert himself conceived under the sign of modern art.  Our central concern, in other words, is with Madame Bovary as a crucial event in aesthetic modernity, one that has had a prodigious afterlife in both literature and visual arts.  Seminar will be taught in French and English.
Neefs, Fried  3 credits

212.406 (H,W) Monsters in the 16th and 17th Centuries
In the Renaissance and the Classical era, monsters are ubiquitous and raise worries that are typical of the beliefs, values, or phantasms of ordinary people. Some monsters are considered as mysterious signs, of supernatural origin, that require interpretation. Others are treated as figures of human misery or products of unconscious fears. Literary texts concerned with monsters show enjoyment in describing the horrific and the alien, and also use different strategies to develop exorcisms of this threat. The main authors studied will be Montaigne, Racine, Perrault and other fairy tales writers. The class will be held, and the papers required will be written in French.
Jeanneret 3 credits

212.407 (H) Banquets, Meals and Table Talk
People meeting for a meal or a drink engage in a particular
ritual, which involves wine, friendship and hence
a special freedom of speech. Meal scenes and food displays,
heavy with symbolical meaning, are frequent in literature.
The seminar will discuss a selection, starting in
Antiquity (Plato, Petronius, the Gospels) and then turning
to novels by Rabelais, Balzac and Zola. The seminar
will be held in French.
Jeanneret 3 credits

212.408 (H) Love, Poetry, Eroticism
The course will develop two approaches to the theme
of love, one historical, one theoretical. The historical
approach will enable us to understand significant
changes in social behavior and ethics. Using the theoretical
approach, we will explore the limits of what is tolerated
in the expression of erotic desire. Texts studied
will be borrowed from a variety of French poets, from
the Renaissance to Romanticism. Course conducted in
French.
Jeanneret 3 credits

212.411 (H,W) Libertinage and Galanterie in 17th- and
18th-Century French Fiction
A study of representations of love, eroticism, and gender in
the novel and theater. From Neo-Platonist ideals to the cruelties
of libertinage, love was seen in turn as an instrument
of social initiation, a civilizing force, a source of dissolution,
a disenchanted game, a heroic ideal or a bitter failure: in
any case, it was the stuff of novels and the kernel of the
literary imagination. Focus on the relationship between
love and the novel as a genre, more specifically on the
strategies of disguise and deceit, the euphemistic veiling
of the body, eroticism, and reading, the shifting boundaries
between feminine and masculine identities. Works by
D'Urfe, Marivaux, Crébillon, Laclos, Denon, Choisy.
Russo 3 credits

212.414 (H) French Masculinities: Fops, Dandies and
Reactionaries
A selection of novels, essays and plays from the 17th
to the 21st century illustrating the intersection of gender,
taste and politics in the construction of a French
masculine identity. From the courtly gentleman, to the
effeminate male, to the Romantic dandy, to the visionary,
post-human man, masculine sexuality is alternately
portrayed as normative ideal, as satire, social critique,
tragi-comedy or utopia. Texts by Crébillon, Marivaux,
Laclos, Stendhal, Chateaubriand, Baudelaire, Proust,
Houellebecq.
Russo 3 credits

212.415 (H) Dumas & Verne: The Spirit of a New Age
Alexandre Dumas' industrial production of the historical
novel and Jules Verne's invention of the novels of
technology embodied opposing modes of the 19th century's
post-Revolutionary optimism. This course investigates
the sources of these new genres and their cultural
impact. Titles to include the Trois Mousquetaires cycle, Le
 comte de Monte-cristo, L'île mystérieuse, le Sphinx des glaces,
Michel Strogoff.
Anderson 3 credits

212.416 (H,W) French Enlightenment
The French Enlightenment was not a monolithic theoretical
and universalizing program as its English name
suggests, but, as Les Lumières implies, a complex historical
event composed of three intertwined strains. This
course will investigate the productive tension between
the Lumières du savoir, the Lumières politiques, and
the Lumières du pouvoir that generated the greatest literary
works from 1710 to the early Revolution. For full
description, see www.wilda.org/Course/CourseVault/
Undergrad/Enlighten/home.html. Prerequisite 212.201
or permission of instructor.
Anderson 3 credits

212.421 (H) Textes et Performances: le théâtre français du 17e au 19e siècle
"Le théâtre français, des classiques aux romantiques". There will be a performance component to this course.
Anderson  3 credits

212.428 (H) Reading Poetry
The course will offer a close reading and interpretation
of prominent poems, from Early Modern to Contemporary,
from Du Bellay and Ronsard to Ponge, Char, Roubaud
and some of the most recent works. This course will
present an opportunity to question the historical variations
of Poetry, of its function and importance in Society.
What mean the changes in poetic forms, how work
the tensions between verse and prose in modern Poetry,
what's interesting in writing and reading Poetry will be
some of the main topics of the course. The students will
be asked to compose and comment on their own French
Poetry Anthology. Course held in French, but including
researches on the poetical translatability.
Neefs 3 credits

212.430 (H,W) Senior Seminar
An in-depth and closely supervised initiation to research
and thinking, oral and written expression, which leads to
the composition of a senior thesis in French.
Staff 3 credits

212.435 (H) Savages, Women, and Eccentrics:
The Invention of Society in Eighteenth-Century France
This course will focus on the Enlightenment taste for
social experiment: from the clash with the primitive
other, to the creation of utopian sexualities, to devising
new and perilous methods of education, novelists, playwrights,
and philosophers seek to develop new conceptions
of the social bond through odd encounters and
the invention of a new human being. Texts by Voltaire,
Diderot, Rousseau, Marivaux, Sade, Mercier, and others.
In French.
Russo 3 credits

212.501-502 Independent Study

German and Yiddish Undergraduate

210.161-162 Elementary German
Introduction to the German language and a development
of reading, speaking, writing, and listening skills
through the use of basic texts and communicative language
activities. Language lab is required. Both semesters
must be completed with passing grades to receive credit.
May not be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.
Mifflin 4.5 credits

210.163-164 Elementary Yiddish
Yearlong course. Includes the four language skills: reading,
writing, listening, and speaking and introduces students
to Yiddish culture through text, song, and film.
Emphasis is placed both on the acquisition of Yiddish as
a tool for the study of Yiddish literature and Ashkenazic
history and culture, and on the active use of the language
in oral and written communication. Both semesters must
be taken with a passing grade to receive credit. Cannot
be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory.
B. Caplan 3 credits

210.261-262 (H) Intermediate German
This course is designed to continue the four skills (reading,
writing, speaking, and listening) approach to learning
German. Readings and discussions are topically based
and expanded upon through audio-visual materials. Students
will also review and deepen their understanding of
the grammatical concepts of German. Language lab is
required. Conducted in German. Prerequisites: 210.161-
162 or equivalent.
Mifflin 3.5 credits

210.263-264 (H) Intermediate Yiddish
This course will focus on understanding the Yiddish
language as a key to understanding the culture of Yiddish-
speaking Jews. Emphasis will be placed on reading
literary texts and historical documents. These primary
sources will be used as a springboard for work on the
other language skills: writing, listening, and speaking.
Prerequisite: 210.164 or equivalent; or two years of German
and permission of instructor.
B. Caplan 3 credits

210.265 (H) German for Professional Communication
in Science and Engineering
This Intermediate level course is designed to provide students
in engineering and sciences with "real life skills"
and cultural background necessary for internship or
research trips to Germany. Taught in German.
Staff 3 credits

210.361 (H,W) Advanced German I. Cultural
Foundations of Modern German Society
Topically, this course focuses on defining moments in
German cultural history of the second half of the 20th
century. Films, texts and other media provide a basis for
discussing events in post-war Germany through reunification
and beyond. A review and expansion of advanced
grammatical concepts and vocabulary underlies the
course. Focus on improving expression in writing and
speaking. Prerequisite: 210.262 or placement by exam.
Taught in German
Mifflin 3 credits

210.362 (H,W) Advanced German Composition and
Conversation II: Contemporary German Issues
Topically, this course focuses on contemporary issues
such as national identity, multiculturalism and the lingering
social consequences of major 20th-century historical
events. Readings include literary and journalistic
texts, as well as radio broadcasts, internet sites, music,
and film. Emphasis is placed on improving mastery of
German grammar, development of self-editing skills and
practice in spoken German for academic use. Introduction/
Review of advanced grammar. Prerequisite: 210.361
or equivalent. Taught in German.
Mifflin 3 credits

210.363-364 (H) Business German
This course sequence is designed as a two-semester intensive
introduction into the language and culture of German
business, commerce, and industry. Combines the
study of foreign language (with its four essential skills:
reading, speaking, writing, and listening comprehension)
with business skills, including Web publishing
through the design and maintenance of a course Web
page. Students will learn basic economic and business
vocabulary; investigate the current status of the German
and European economy; and become familiar with economic
and political structures as well as specific business
practices, customs, and codes of behavior in the business
world. Analysis and discussion of German economic and
business texts and translation of economic and business
materials. Taught in German. Prerequisites: 210.261-262
or equivalent.
Staff 3 credits

210.365 (H) German for Science and Engineering
This course is designed as an introduction to the language
used by scientists and engineers. Analysis of texts,
preparation of presentations, and discussion of topics.
Specific areas of interest to the course members will
guide the selection of materials. While focusing on the
language of science, students will develop their skills
in reading, writing, and oral expression. Prerequisites:
210.261-262 or equivalent.
Staff 3 credits

210.461 (H) Introduction to Literary Genre & Stylistics
Introduction to major literary periods and genres in
German literature. Course will provide a background
for further literary study. Students will develop critical,
interpretive reading skills through the analysis of genre-specific
language, as well as improve written and spoken
German.  Students will have the opportunity to produce their own poetry and prose based on literary models. Readings, discussion and written assignments in German. Prerequisite: 361-362 or equivalent.
Wheeler 3 credits

210.462 (H) Introduction to German Literature
and Culture
This course is designed to introduce students to the
analysis of literary and cultural topics. A variety of 20thcentury
texts and visual media will form the basis for discussion
of literature and cultural phenomena specific to
the time period. This semester will focus on the European
capitals of Zurich, Vienna, and Berlin, thereby offering a European perspective on literary, cultural, and political
events after 1900. Continuities between and differences
among the three German-speaking countries will
be investigated. Attention is given to improving student
writing. Readings, discussion, and written assignments in
German. Prerequisite: 210.361-362 or equivalent.
Staff 3 credits

210.561 (H) German Language Independent Study
Mifflin

211.202 (H) Freshman Seminar: A Thousand Years of
Jewish Culture
This course will introduce students to the history and culture
of Ashkenazi Jews through their vernacular, Yiddish,
from the settlement of Jews in German-speaking lands in
medieval times to the present day. Particular emphasis
will be placed on the responses of Yiddish- speaking Jews
to the challenges posed by modernity to a traditional
society: Should a Jew be religious or secular? Should the
Jewish future be in Europe, the Land of Israel, or elsewhere?
Should Jews create a specific Jewish culture, or
participate in the culture of their non-Jewish neighbors?
Texts will include fiction, poetry, memoir, song, and film.
All readings and discussion will be in English.
B. Caplan 3 credits

211.211 (H) Introduction to Yiddish Culture
This course will explore a thousand years of European
Jewish culture through its vernacular, Yiddish. Topics
covered will demonstrate the geographical, intellectual,
and artistic breadth of this culture, and will include the
history of the Yiddish language, selections of pre-modern
and modern Yiddish literature, folklore, the press, film,
theater, and song. All readings will be in English.
B. Caplan 3 credits

213.251 (H) Freshman Seminar on Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche continues to be one of the most
radical and influential philosophers of the West. Famous
and infamous for announcing the death of God and the
advent of the superhuman, his irreverence for philosophical
tradition culminated in the call to philosophize
with a hammer? (so as to demolish the constructions of
Western metaphysics). He embarrassed the old philosophers
exposing their, as he put it, clumsy lovemaking
with truth. And he stunned generations of intellectuals
after him with his idea of the eternal return of the same.
But Nietzsche was also a hilariously funny writer, a lightfooted
and poetic thinker, a bold defender of the experiences
of the body, a tender human being, and a sharp
critic of German narrow-mindedness. This seminar offers
an introduction to Nietzsche's work and a first journey
into a world of German thought, culture, and literature.
Readings and discussion will be in English.
Pahl 3 credits

213.252 (H) Freshman Seminar: What Is a University?
Although the first European universities date back to the
ninth century, the idea of a modern research institution is
of fairly recent provenance. In this course we will discuss
some of the most important works from the 18th and 19th
centuries that provided the theoretical framework for
institutions like Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago. A
consistent concern of the course will be the relation of the
university to the state, and of education to moral edification
and civic duty. Enrollment limited to 20 freshmen.
Tobias 3 credits

213.253 (H) Freshman Seminar:  The Berlin Wall: Divided Stories in Literature and Film
With the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago, one of the most powerful symbols of the Cold War came down. For decades, the division between East and West Germany had been a decisive factor in German literature and film from both states in several respects. Political censorship in the GDR and West German publishing policies determined the conditions for art production. They created specific audiences and shaped the role of the public intellectual. The Berlin Wall could also be said to have contributed to certain trends like the aesthetics of coldness and the poetics of observation. The course examines the relationship between aesthetics and politics in German-German literature and film from 1961 to the present. Readings include: Christa Wolf; Uwe Johnson; Wolf Biermann; Reiner Kunze; Günter Grass; Sarah Kirsch; Ingo Schulze; Anna Funder. Films: Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987), Sonnenallee (Sun Lane) (Leander Haussmann, 1999); Good Bye Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker, 2003); The Lives of Others (von Donnersmarck, 2007).
Strowick  3 credits

213.314 (H) Berlin and Modernity
Explanation of literature and film from early 20th century.
Focus will be on literary movements which developed
in Berlin (Expressionism, Neue, Sachlichkeit,
Agitprop) and effects of urban life on artistic technique.
Readings in German, discussion in English.
Tobias 3 credits

213.316 (H) Story, Song, Food and Film: Modern
Yiddish Identities
To cling to Jewish tradition or to embrace secular ideals?
To engage with non-Jewish culture or utterly ignore
it? To express oneself as a Jew through religion, politics,
or the arts? This course will examine a range of Jewish
responses to modernity through the prism of Yiddish language
and culture. The topic will be explored through
a number of media, including text, song, and film. The
course will include a small Yiddish language component,
although all readings will be in English.
B. Caplan 3 credits

213.322 (H) Fin de siècle Vienna
Exploration of the major currents in turn-of-the-century
Viennese culture: dreams, eroticism, violence, literary
experimentation, and crisis in paternity. Authors to
include Freud, Musil, Schnitzler, Zweig, Trakl, and Wittgenstein.
Readings and discussion in English.
Tobias 3 credits

213.331 (H) Detective Fiction in its Nascence
The detective novel has roots in German Romanticism.
Kleist and E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote novellas concerning
historical crimes and mysteries from the past. We will
read several 18th and 19th C mysteries as well as contemporary
essays on the detective genre. Readings and
discussion in German. Prerequisites: German 361/362.
Tobias 3 credits

213.333 (H) Transformation in Modern Jewish
Literature
This course will be an advanced-undergraduate, writing-intensive
examination of the theme of transformation
as a defining metaphor for the Jewish encounter with
modernity, from Reb Nakhman of Breslov at the beginning
of the 19th century to Tony Kushner at the end
of the 20th. Among the topics we will consider are the
means by which Jewish authors adapt modern literary
forms such as the novel, the short story, and the drama to
the needs of Jews at a recurring moment of historical and
political transition; we will also consider the negotiation
between fantasy and realism as a means of representing
the interaction of local tradition with global modernity.
An additional consideration of the question of language
will inform our discussion of works written in Yiddish,
Hebrew, German, Russian, and English. These issues will
be juxtaposed against historical developments such as
the gradual industrialization of Eastern Europe, political
anti-Semitism, immigration, Zionism and other nationalist
movements, warfare, the Holocaust, and changing
notions of gender and family roles. All readings and discussions
conducted in English.
M. Caplan 3 credits

213.336 (H,W) Dancing About Architecture: Jewish
Humor and the Construction of Cultural Discourse
Are all Jews funny, or only the ones from New York? This
course will be an advanced-undergraduate, writing-intensive
examination of literary, theatrical, cinematic, and
televised representations of Jewish culture focusing on
the construction of cultural discourse through comedy.
Taking as a point of departure Sigmund Freud's Jokes and
Their Relation to the Unconscious, we will consider the joke
as a mode of narration and cultural coding with specific
resonances for the Jewish encounter with modernity.
Among the topics to be addressed in this course will be
the origins of modern Jewish humor in traditional modes
of storytelling and study; the problems of anxiety and otherness
articulated and neutralized through humor; the
significance of Jews in creating popular culture through
mass mediums (particularly though not exclusively in
the United States) as well as the role of these mediums
in transmitting and translating Jewish references to the
general culture; the status of the Yiddish language as
a vehicle for satire and a vehicle of resistance between
tradition and modernity; the uses and abuses of Jewish
stereotypes and the relationship of Jewish humor to anti-
Semitism; the connections between Jewish humor and
other modes of minority discourse; and the question of
translation of Jewish humor both from Yiddish into other
languages and from the Jewish in-group to a post-ethnic audience. Authors and performers to be examined will include Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn, Sholem Aleichem,
Franz Kafka, Moshe Nadir, Dzigan and Schumacher, the
Marx Brothers, Phillip Roth, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks,
Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, and Sascha Baron Cohen. All
readings and discussions conducted in English.
M. Caplan 3 credits

213.343 (H,W) The Holocaust in Modern Literature:
The Limits of Representation
This course will be an advanced-undergraduate, writingintensive
examination of literary, memoiristic, philosophical,
and cinematic representations of the Nazi genocide
of European Jewry during World War II. In addition to
the problems of defining this genocide against larger
catastrophes of world war, totalitarianism, racism, and
the technologies of mass destruction, we will consider
this event as a moment of crisis in the historical, moral,
and ideological understanding of European modernity
that underscores the limits of language, subjectivity,
and representation. Parallel to these discussions we
will also consider the Holocaust in the context of Jewish
responses to anti-Semitism, the role of the Holocaust in
generating subsequent models for Jewish cultural representation,
and the role of the Holocaust in underscoring
the anomalous position of Jews within the history of modern
Europe. Works to be considered will be taken from
Czech, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Polish,
and Yiddish sources, and will include writers and theorists
such as Theodor Adorno, Aharon Appelfeld, Jurek
Becker, Tadeuz Borowski, Jacques Derrida, Raul Hilberg,
Primo Levi, Georges Perec, Philip Roth, I.B. Singer, Art
Spiegelman, and Jirí Weil. All readings and discussions
conducted in English.
M. Caplan 3 credits

213.346 (H) Faust Legends
The legendary figure of Faust, a man who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge, self-fulfillment and power, has attracted continuous interest from writers, artists, composers and thinkers over the last 400 years. This course will analyze the various transformations of the Faust legend as they emerged in German literature since the 18^th century. It will focus especially on how the different treatments of the legend adapt the motif to its particular historical situation, and where exactly the elements of (dis)continuity lie. By means of close readings, the seminar will also investigate the multiple forms and genres by which the legends have been represented, as narrative texts, dramas, poems or films.  Authors include: Lessing, Klinger, Goethe, Grabbe, Heine, Hesse, Lasker-Schüler, Klaus Mann, Brecht. We will also consider F.W. Murnau's and P. Gorski’s film versions of Faust, as well as I. Szabó’s movie Mephisto based on Klaus Mann’s novel of the same title. Readings and discussions in German.
Krauss  3 credits

213.353 (H) Realism
Introduction to mid- and late-19th-century literature focusing
on the reinvention of the sentimental narrative, the
tension between the natural and the supernatural, and the
emphasis on local or regional folklore. Authors include
Keller, Stifter, Droste-Hülshoff, Storm, Fontane. Readings
and discussion in German. Prerequisites: 091.201-202 or
equivalent.
Tobias 3 credits

213.354 (H) Yiddish Literature in Translation
This course will provide an overview of the major figures

and tendencies in modern Yiddish literature from the
beginning of the 19th century to the present. Focusing
primarily, though not exclusively, on prose narratives, we
will examine this literature in its aesthetic, historical, and
cultural dimensions. Topics for discussion will include
the traditional functions assigned to Yiddish in East
European Jewish culture; the attitude toward Yiddish
expressed by rival early-modern social movements; the
increasing politicization and secularization of most East
European Jewry throughout the 19th century; the reaction
of Yiddish culture to the upheavals caused by immigration,
revolution, and world war; and inevitably the
aftermath of Yiddish culture following the Holocaust. All
readings will be in English and will include such central
figures as Reb Nakhman Breslover, Mendele Moykher-
Sforim, Y.L. Peretz, Sholem Aleichem, I.B. Singer, and
Avrom Sutzkever, among others. Prior knowledge of Jewish
culture helpful, but not required; no knowledge of
Yiddish required. Cross-listed with Jewish Studies.
Caplan  3 credits

213.362 Sigmund Freud

The course will examine Freud's writings from a two-fold perspective: On the one hand, we will analyze the contributions of psychoanalysis to modern thought. Lining himself up with Copernicus and Darwin, Freud considers his concept of the "unconscious" a further insult to mankind's narcissism and revolution of thought. In this respect, psychoanalysis affects a vast array of concepts of modern thought such as subject, language, sexuality, morality, culture, history, religion and art which we will discuss alongside with key terms of psychoanalysis (unconscious, repetition, transference etc.). On the other hand, the course will address the specific relation between psychoanalysis and literature. Throughout Freud's writings, literature enjoys vivid interest. Not only are psychoanalytic concepts (e.g. Oedipus complex, narcissism, the uncanny) crucially informed by literary texts, but also Freud's Interpretation of Drea proves to be a theory of representation and reading. We will investigate the ways in which literature and psychoanalysis are involved with each other considering narrative forms, performative aspects and aspects of the genre (novel, novella).

Strowick  3 credits

213.372 (H) Literature and Dream
Dreams seem to be mysterious and enigmatic. Since the Renaissance, their particular forms of imagination have attracted the interest of both scientists and literary authors. As the other or dark side of reason, dreams provoke scientific claims for order; literature, however, explores the relation, if not affinity of dreams to poetic representation. Still, science and literature are oriented toward each other. Both discourses generate knowledge of dreams but in different ways. By means of close readings, the seminar will analyze the knowledge of dreams produced by literature and examine how this knowledge in its formal figuration differs from philosophical, anthropological and psychological theories of dreams. Authors to include: Kant, Moritz, Karl Friedrich Pockels, Salomon Maimon, Goethe, Jean Paul, Novalis, Kleist, Schopenhauer, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Freud, Schnitzler, and Kafka. Readings and discussions in German.
Krauss  3 credits

213.377 (H) Mermaids and Water Sprites
Many stories have been told about different kinds of water
people. What kind of fascination does life in the water
hold? What is so interesting about these hybrid creaturemen
with webs between their fingers, and women with fishtails?
What is lost when these amphibians settle on land for
good? We will read literary texts from different periods to
pursue these questions. Readings and discussion in German.
Prerequisite: 213.361-362 or special permission.
Pahl 3 credits

213.380 Ghost Stories, Haunted Houses and Other
Occult Phenomena (H)
From the eighteenth-century poet E.T.A. Hoffmann to
the modern writer W.G. Sebald, German authors have
been obsessed with uncanny phenomena that blur the
line between the natural world and the supernatural and
animate creatures and inanimate things. We will explore
these encounters with ghosts, automatons, and other
apparitions. Readings in English and German; discussion
in English.
Tobias 3 credits

213.382 (H) Orphans: Literature's Pursuit of Paternity
This course will examine how literature reflects on the source of its own images and scenarios through the motif of orphans.  As will become evident in our discussions, orphans do not merely constitute a figure among others in literary works.  Instead they have a special function as an allegory of literature itself which is of uncertain origin.  Authors to include Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, Tieck, Kleist, Stifter, Hofmannstahl, and Walser.
Tobias  3 credits

213.386 (H) German-Jewish Thought Since the
Enlightenment
Survey of trends in German-Jewish thought since Haskala
(Enlightenment). Emphasis on debate regarding
Deutschtum and Judentum in 18th and 19th centuries;
rationalist interpretations of Judaism; rediscovery of
mysticism in 20th-century and anti-rationalist tendencies.
Readings in German and English; discussion in English.
Prerequisites: 091.201-202 or equivalent.
Tobias 3 credits

213.395 (H) Literature and Photography
Investigation of the intersection of literature and photography
in 20th-century fiction. How does the frozen
image of photography affect narrative representation?
The syllabus will include works conceived as collages
(Sebald, Roth) as well as theoretical works (Sontag, Barthes,
Benjamin) and literary texts indebted to the visual
arts (Rilke, Baudelaire, Calvino, Bernhard).
Tobias 3 credits

213.399 (H) Realism
The course will examine German realism in two respects.
First, we will analyze how narrative techniques create
what Roland Barthes has called the "reality effect." Secondly,
we will explore how the poetics of realism and
media technologies (e.g. photography, stereoscopy)
are intertwined. Forms of temporal and spatial representation
as developed in the German literature of the
second half of the 19th century call into question the
opposition between realism and modernism. Readings
will include: Gottfried Keller, Adalbert Stifter, Wilhelm
Raabe, Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, Conrad Ferdinand
Meyer. The course will be conducted in German.
Strowick 3 credits

213.404 (H) German - Jewish Culture, 1900-1930
Jews were an essential part of German culture in the early 20th century. The “Golden Twenties” would not have been possible without Jewish writers, intellectuals, and artists. At the same time Jews created their own subculture, often called a “Jewish Renaissance”. We will analyze some of the most significant cultural creations of German Jews, against the political background before, during, and after the First World War, the rise of antisemitism, and the fragile integration of Jews into German society.
Brenner  3 credits

213.408 (H) The Literatures of Blacks and Jews in the
20th Century
This course will be a seminar comparing representative
narratives and poetry by African, Caribbean, and African-
American authors of the past 100 years, together with
European and American Jewish authors writing in Yiddish,
Hebrew, and English. This comparison will examine
the paradoxically central role played by minority, "marginal"
groups in the creation of modern literature and
the articulation of the modern experience. Among the
topics to be considered in this course will be the question
of whether minority literatures require a distinct interpretive
strategy from mainstream literary traditions;
the problem of political discrimination and the question
of identity politics in the creation, and interpretation,
of literature; the commonalities of historical experience
between Black and Jewish peoples; and the challenge of
multiculturalism in modern society. Authors discussed
will include, among others, Sholem Aleichem, Charles
Chesnutt, Sh. Ansky, Jean Toomer, Sh. Y. Agnon, Amos
Tutuola, Bernard Malamud, Caryl Phillips, and Anna
Deavere Smith. All readings and discussions conducted
in English; enrollment open to graduate and advanced
undergraduate students.
M. Caplan 3 credits

213.410 (H) Modernism and the Metropolis
This course will be an advanced-undergraduate, writing-intensive
examination of the theme of urban space in
literature (poetry, drama, fiction) from Europe, Africa,
and the United States, spanning the mid-19th century
until the mid-20th century, and drawing from English,
French, German, Hebrew, and Yiddish sources. Among
the topics we will consider are the role of mobility and
urbanization in creating modern culture, the dislocations
and juxtapositions that constitute urban culture,
and the aesthetic role of modernist literature in reflecting
the kaleidoscopic experience of the city through
techniques such as free verse, multimedia theater, and
stream-of-consciousness narration. Authors discussed will
include, among others, Charles Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot,
Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, Allen Ginsburg, Bertolt Brecht,
Knut Hamsun, Dovid Bergelson, Sh. Y. Agnon, André
Breton, Chinua Achebe, and John Kennedy Toole. All
readings and discussions conducted in English.
M. Caplan 3 credits

213.419 (H) Critical Love: The Theory and Practice of
Literary Criticism
"The Sandman," a fantastic, ironic, and uncanny story
by the German Romantic E.T.A. Hoffmann will function
as the cornerstone of this course. Around this self-reflexive
piece of literature we will study some of the most
important approaches to literary criticism from continental
philosophy, German romanticism, psychoanalysis,
hermeneutics, post-structuralism, deconstruction,
postcolonial feminism, and queer theory. The course
will explore our amorous relations to literary texts and
develop an ethics of transformative reading. Readings
and discussion in English.
Pahl 3 credits

213.429 (H) The Lyric
Survey of 19th- and 20th-century German lyric poetry
for beginning graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
Course will focus on intersection of theoretical
writings on the lyric with lyric form itself. Authors
include Eichendorf, Brentano, Heine, Droste-Hülshoff,
Hoffmannstahl, George, Trakl, Rilke, Bachmann, Celan.
Prerequisites: 091.201-202 or equivalent.
Tobias 3 credits

213.440 (H) Franz Kafka: The Power of Writing
The course analyzes texts by Franz Kafka from a twofold
perspective. Inasmuch as his work tirelessly addresses
processes of administration, law, punishment, knowledge
production and family structures, it can be considered
an analysis of modern institutions and forms of power by
means of literature. But these forms of power also inform
Kafka's poetic practice. His literary techniques relate to
modern communication systems (postal system) and
media technologies used in modern bureaucracy (typewriter,
phonograph/sound writer, telephone). In close
readings we will examine how the specific performative,
rhetorical and material character of Kafka's texts contribute
to the power of writing or what Deleuze/Guattari call
a minor literature. The course will also explore Kafka's
impact on 20th-century literary theory and philosophy
(Benjamin, Canetti, Deleuze/Guattari). Readings and
discussions in German.
Strowick 3 credits

213.450 (H) Decadence
Early 20th-century literature has been identified variously
as nihilist, fascist, revolutionary, and anti-bourgeois. This
course will explore the complex political dimensions of a
movement that sought to fashion a purely aesthetic existence.
We will trace the development of this movement
from the turn-of-the-century in Vienna to the Roaring
'20s in Berlin. Authors to include Musil, George, Hofmannsthal,
Nietzsche, Rilke, and Mann. Readings in English
and German, discussions in English and German.
Tobias 3 credits

213.501-502 Independent Study
Staff

213.509-510 (H) German Honors Program
Staff

Italian Undergraduate

210.151-152 Italian Elements
Course helps students develop basic listening, reading, writing, speaking, and interactional skills in Italian.  The content of the course is highly communicative, and students are constantly presented with real-life, task-based activities.  Course adopts a continuous assessment system (no mid-term and no final).  May not be taken Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory.
Zannirato 3.5 credits

210.251-252 (H) Intermediate Italian
Course provides further development of students' language skills through intensive listening, speaking, reading, writing and interactional activities on topics of increasing complexity.  Course adopts a continuous assessment system (no mid-term and no final).  May not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory. Prerequisites: 210.151-152 or equivalent.
Zannirato 3.5 credits

210.351-352 (H,W) Advanced Italian Conversation
and Composition
Course presents a systematic introduction to a variety of complex cultural and historical topics related to present-day Italy, emphasizing intercultural comparisons, interdisciplinarity, and encouraging a personal exploration of such topics.  Course adopts a continous assessment system (no mid-term and no final), and is conducted entirely in Italian.  May not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory. Prerequisites: 210.251-252 or equivalent.
Zannirato 3.5 credits

210.354 Learning to Learn a Foreign Language
Course presents an overview of contemporary foreign language (L2) learning theories and methodologies, and encourages a critical reflection on previous and current L2 learning experiences. Participants will draw from Second Language Acquisition research and learn how to be more effective L2 learners. Course taught in English with examples in English, French, Italian and Spanish.
Zannirato  3 credits

210.451 (H,W) Corso di Perfezionamento
This task-based course is designed to prepare students
to acquire Effective Operational Proficiency in Italian,
(C1 level of the Common European Framework). By
the end of the course, successful students will be able
to: 1) understand a wide range of demanding, longer
texts, and recognize implicit meaning; 2) produce clear,
well-constructed, detailed texts on complex subjects; 3)
express themselves fluently and spontaneously without
much obvious searching for expressions; 4) use language
flexibly and effectively for social, academic, and professional
purposes. Extensive independent work required.
No S/U option. Prerequisites: 210.352 with a grade of
B+ or higher, or appropriate placement exam score and
interview with language program director.
Zannirato 3.5 credits

211.221 (H) Italian Matters, Italian Manners
This is an introductory course to Italian culture relying
on a tradition of books of conduct including the Middle
Ages, the Renaissance, and today.
Forni 3 credits

211.357 (H) Mafia Wars in Literature and Film
The course will examine the discourse of and about
mafia wars in literature, film, and television. We will read
the mafia novels of Sicilian authors Vitaliano Brancati
and Leonardo Sciascia, analyze the legendary films made
from their novels (e.g., Cadaveri Eccellenti by Francesco
Rosi), as well as discuss possibilities of the translation of
the classic mafia tale into comedy as in such films as Mio
cognato (2003) by Alessandro Piva. The representation
of the mafia in the U.S. will be a theme of the course
as exemplified in Coppola's Godfather trilogy, or in the
format of evening entertainment in the mafia soap TV
series The Sopranos. Course taught in Italian.
Wegenstein 3 credits

211.358 (H) Bodyworks: Body, Medicine and Technology in the 21st Century
This course analyses concepts and representations of the human body under the influence of new technologies. In an interdisciplinary framework, evidence from both scientific (medical) and artistic “body talk” will be taken into account. For instance, we will look at the latest medical body imaging technology developed at our own university, and ask why and how we can read these images; we will also read bodily narratives of the visual and the virtual by such feminist authors as Jewelle Gomez and Elisbeth Vornarburg, who emphasize a body that transgresses human — especially gender — boundaries; finally, we will examine the status of the human body in art installations, and ask if the body is re- or de-emphasized in these new media environments. Readings will include the anthology re: skin, ed. Mary Flanagan and Austin Booth , The MIT Press 2006.
Wegenstein 3 credits

211.581 Independent Study Italian Civilization
Staff 3 credits

214.251 (H) Survey of Italian Literature
An overview of the key texts of the Italian literary canon
from the Middle Ages to the present. Taught in Italian.
Staff 3 credits

214.340 (H,W) Holocaust & Film
This course examines the question of the Holocaust and
its representation in the filmic media. We will analyze
such themes as post-traumatic documentary (e.g., Night
and Fog, Alain Resnais 1955), the resistance to representation
(Shoah, Claude Lanzmann 1985), Holocaust drama
and the ethics of entertainment (e.g., Schindler's List,
Steven Spielberg 1993), the question of filmic adaptation
(e.g., The Grey Zone, Tim Blake Nelson 2002 based
on Primo Levi's The Drowned and the Saved 1986), and
the new genre of confessional first person video-diary
(e.g., Two or Three Things I Know About Him, Malte Ludin
2005). On this last theme we hosted a two-day symposium
"The Holocaust: Children of the Perpetrators Confront
Their Parents' Nazi Past through Documentary Film", in
March '09. The symposium featured three international
documentary filmmakers and their recent films: The End
of the Neubacher Project, Marcus Carney 2007, Fatherland,
Manfred Becker 2006, and Two or Three Things I Know
About Him, Malte Ludin 2005, in which the filmmakers'
children of Nazi perpetrators are asking the question
"Who am I in relation to my father's deeds?" The symposium
further included a number of experts on the topic
of Holocaust, commemoration, and documentary film.
Students were involved in the preparation and the panel
discussions of the symposium. This class is reading-intensive
and writing-intensive; weekly response papers will be
written about the films and the course topic at large. All
films will be screened with English subtitles.
Wegenstein 3 credits

214.342 (H) Documentary Film and Ethics
This class will look at questions of how documentary filmmakers have attempted to and indeed changed the law by making such documentaries as "Capturing the Friedmans," "Super Size Me," and "The Corporation." It will look at the area of human rights films, and the ethical filmic intention of mobilizing communities, or helping people in need with films such as “The Thin Blue Line,” “Darwin’s Nightmare” and “Sand and Sorrow.” We will analyze which documentary genre can address issues of information, mobilization, convincement, truth and propaganda with which means of expression (e.g., direct cinema). Overall, the ethics of all these attempts of filmmaking will be examined cross-culturally and historically.
Wegenstein  3 credits

214.344 (H) Love of Poetry and Poetry of Love
This course examines love poems in which poetry is seen as an ally of love in the conquest of the object of desire. It is a course on the  pleasure of writing and the pleasure of reading. Part of it is theoretical and part of it is an analysis of a number of outstanding   poems in the Italian tradition—from the Middle Ages to the Novecento. Among the examined theorists are Aristotle, Foscolo, Freud and the Russian Formalists. Among the chosen poets are Dante, Petrarca, Cino da Pistoia, Leopardi, Pascoli, Gozzano and Saba. Class discussion is in English. Texts are read in the original and in English.
Forni 3 credits

214.352 (H) Writing and Wonder:  Books, Libraries, and Discovery, 1350-1550
The invention of printing occurred amid two centuries of intense development in the conduct and material means of European scholarship. The transition from writing by hand to movable type was accompanied by a revolution in scholarship that involved a new attitude to Classical and Biblical antiquity, the recovery of neglected and "lost" works, the formation of secular libraries, and the development of tools for the study of ancient handwriting, writing materials, and the history of language and of history itself. The revolution in attitudes to and uses of the book eventually transformed every discipline related to reading, writing, and the organization of knowledge. Topics to be covered include writing as an object of wonder, the transformation of a mythology of writing into a true history of books, writing, and libraries, the scientific study of writing and of language, and the representation of writing and books in the art and literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Extensive use will be made of Johns Hopkins' large collection of books published before 1600, and student projects will be oriented toward reliving the experiences of scholars in this period, including via computer-assisted means.
Celenza, Stephens  3 credits

214.359 (H) 3 Renaissance Books of Conduct
A reading of Erasmus, Castiglione, and Della Casa on
conduct.
Forni 3 credits

214.361 (H) The World of Dante
This course focuses on the social, cultural, political,
and moral concerns that shape Dante's Divine Comedy.
Together with selected cantos from Inferno, Purgatory,
and Paradise, students read parts of Dante's New Life and
On World Government.
Forni 3 credits

214.363 (H) Dante in Translation, Divine Comedy,
Inferno
A lecture and discussion course which focuses on readings
from Dante's Divine Comedy. The structural aspect of
the poem, as well as the historical and theological ones
will be emphasized. One paper and final examination.
Forni 3 credits

214.364 (H,W) Italian History in the Italian Novel
This course examines the different ways in which Italian
writers of the past two centuries have included historical
events in their novels. A. Manzoni's The Betrothed, G.
Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard and E. Morante's
History: A Novel are among the examined works.
Forni 3 credits

214.366 (H) Literature and Ethics
This course focuses on the moral implications of the
acts of reading and writing literature. Aristotle, Horace,
Dante, Boccaccio, and Freud are among the featured
authors.
Forni 3 credits

214.368 (H) Italian Novel of the 20th Century
Forni  3 credits

214.370 (H) Magic and Marvel of the Italian
Renaissance
Discover the Magic and Marvels-both literal and figurative
of Italian literature between 1350 and 1550. Poets,
philosophers, political theorists, dramatists, and fiction
writers ponder the nature of humanity, in itself and in
its relations with the supra-human beings described by
religion and literature. Readings include Machiavelli?s
Prince and Ariosto's Orlando furioso, the epic romance that
inspired works as varied as Spenser's Faerie Queene and
Cervantes' Don Quixote.
Stephens 3 credits

214.371 (H) The Name of the Rose and the Middle Ages
Umberto Eco's acclaimed novel as an introduction to
the study of the Middle Ages. An optional third hour for
readers and speakers of Italian.
Stephens 3 credits

214.373 (H) Italian Comedy
For students who have completed Intermediate Italian
(210.251-252). Readings and discussion, in Italian, of the
grand tradition of comedy, satire, and humor in Italian
literature: from the humor of the Middle Ages through
the rebirth of the theater around 1500, to the modern classics of
opera, stage, and film. Class will be paced to build linguistic
and literary competence; emphasis on reading,
writing, speaking, and recitation. If enrollment suffices,
a one-act play can be produced. Readings in Dante, Boccaccio,
Machiavelli, Ariosto, Goldoni, Mozart's librettist
Da Ponte, Pirandello, Calvino; films by Toto, Roberto
Benigni, and others.
Stephens 3 credits

214.379 (H) Intellectual World of the Italian
Renaissance
This course will allow students to explore the intellectual
background to the 15th-century Italian Renaissance. Most
Italian intellectuals from the late 14th century through to
the early 16th century wrote, not in Italian, but in a "new"
Latin, like the Latin used in ancient Rome, rather than
(what they saw as) the inauthentic Latin of medieval universities
and the Church. Recent scholarship has allowed
us to have greatly increased access to these authors who
wrote in the era between Dante (1265-1321) and Niccolo
Machiavelli (1469-1527). Thinkers such as Leonardo Bruni (perhaps the best-selling author of the 15th
century), Lorenzo Valla (who is now emerging as a major
philosopher of language), and Marsilio Ficino (whose
influence on literature and the arts in his own era is comparable
to that of Freud in ours), are comparatively little
known today. But their work represented the intellectual
backbone of Renaissance Italy and was widely diffused
in succeeding centuries in early modern Europe. This
course will allow students to explore this forgotten legacy
and thus to understand a missing chapter.
Celenza 3 credits

214.380 Italian Short Fiction
Course will read major examples of the short story and
novella, beginning with contemporary writers and working
backward through several centuries of Italian fiction
to build vocabulary and literary-historical knowledge.
Taught entirely in Italian.
Stephens 3 credits

214.390 (H) Machiavelli in Context
This seminar course will offer students the chance to
read most of Machiavelli's major works in English translation.
In addition, Machiavelli will be examined both in
the context out of which he emerged-the Latinate Italian
humanism of the 15th century - and in the context
in which he carried out his daily activities the bustling
day- to-day world of Florentine politics. A separate section
will be offered for students with adequate reading
knowledge of Italian, in which we will read Machiavelli's
Prince in Italian, in a new, definitive critical edition.
Celenza 3 credits

214.391 (H) Western Intellectual History 1200-1500
High and late medieval philosophy will be covered in
its historical context. Thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas,
William of Ockham, and Lorenzo Valla will be treated,
as will the contexts for high and late medieval learning,
such as universities, courts, and the new, "state" libraries
of the 15th century in Italy.
Celenza 3 credits

214.420 (H) Italian Neorealismo and Its Impact on the
International Documentary Film Tradition
This course starts out by revealing the birth of the Italian
New Realist movement in the early 1940s, when Roberto
Rossellini and others made their first documentaries
for the fascist istituto LUCE. We will then analyze the
highlights of the Italian new realist film movement with
the films and scripts by Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio de Sica,
Luchino Visconti, and others; the second half of the
semester will be dedicated to the question of the Italian
new realist cinema's impact on other international documentary
movements and traditions of the 20th century,
from the French Nouvelle Vague to the US and Canadian
Direct Cinema movement, from the Scandinavian
Dogme films to such reality TV phenomena as FOX's
recent "The moment of truth." Screenings will be held
in original language with English subtitles. Readings to
be announced.
Wegenstein 3 credits

214.462 (H) Story and History in Italian Novecento
Prose texts, considered classics of contemporary Italian
literature will be read and studied in their historical context.
Works by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Giorgio
Bassani, Italo Calvino, and Primo Levi will be read in
Italian.
Forni 3 credits

214.479 (H) The Divine Comedy: An Intensive Reading
in English
A reading and discussion of Dante's masterpiece, the
Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, in its entirety, in English
translation. Concentration on its structure and relation
to the most pressing theological, philosophical, social,
and political problems of Dante's time. Its ongoing relevance
to our own concerns about ethics, government,
art, and mortality.
Stephens 3 credits

214.561-562 Italian Independent Study

214.563 Italian Internship

Portuguese Undergraduate

210.177-178 Portuguese Elements
This one-year course is conducted entirely in Portuguese.
It introduces students to the basic language skills: reading,
writing, listening, speaking. The focus of the course is on
oral communication with, however, extensive training in
written and listening skills. Language lab is required. Students
must complete both semesters with passing grades
to receive credit. No satisfactory/unsatisfactory.
Bensabat-Ott 3.5 credits

210.277-278 (H) Intermediate/Advanced Portuguese
This one-year course is conducted entirely in Portuguese.
Emphasis is placed on vocabulary building, ease and fluency
in the language through the use of a multifaceted
approach. Materials used immerse students in the cultures
of Brazil, Portugal, and Portuguese-speaking Africa, and
reflect the mix of cultures at work in the contemporary
Lusophone world. Lab work required. Both semesters
must be completed with passing grades to receive credit.
No satisfactory/unsatisfactory. Prerequisites: 210.177-178
or placement exam.
Bensabat-Ott 3.5 credits

210.391-392 (H,W) Advanced Portuguese: Language and
Literature
This third-year Portuguese course focuses on reading,
writing, and oral expression. Under the supervision of
the instructor, students will read one or two complete
works by major Brazilian, Portuguese, and/or Afro-Portuguese
writers each semester, followed by intensive writing
and oral discussion on the topics covered. Grammar
will be reviewed as necessary. Lab work required. The
course is conducted entirely in Portuguese. Prerequisites:
210.177-178 or placement exam.
Bensabat-Ott 3.5 credits

211.394 (H,W) Brazilian Culture and Civilization
This course is intended as an introduction to the culture
and civilization of Brazil. It is designed to provide students
with basic information about Brazilian history, art,
literature, popular culture, theater, cinema, and music.
The course will focus on how indigenous Asian, African,
and European cultural influences have interacted to create
the new and unique civilization that is Brazil today.
The course is taught in English, but ONE extra credit
will be given to students who wish to do the course work
in Portuguese. Those wishing to do the course work in
English for 3 credits should register for section 1. Those
wishing to earn 4 credits by doing the course work in
Portuguese should register for section 2. The sections
will be taught simultaneously.
Bensabat-Ott 3 credits or 4 credits

Spanish Undergraduate

210.111-112 Spanish Elements I, II
Development of the four basic language skills of reading,
writing, listening, and speaking. Extensive use of an
online component delivered via WebCT, sustained class
participation, and three hourly exams (no midterm and
no final). Both semesters must be completed with passing
grades to receive credit. May not be taken satisfactory/
unsatisfactory.  Prerequisite:  appropriate score on Webcape exam.
Tracy 4.0 credits

210.211-212 (H) Intermediate Spanish I, II
Continues building on the four essential skills for communication
presented in Spanish Elements courses.
Extensive use of an online component delivered via
WebCT, sustained class participation, and three hourly
exams (no midterm and no final). May not be taken satisfactory/
unsatisfactory. Prerequisites: Spanish Elements
I and II, or appropriate score on Webcape exam.
Weingarten 4.0 credits

210.311-312 (H) Advanced Spanish I, II
Advanced Spanish I and II are designed to improve the four skills: Reading, writing, listening, and speaking, essential for
communication. Students will engage in more formal levels of communication by discussing assigned literary and non-literary topics.  They will increase their listening skills through movies and other listening comprehension exercises.  This course also focuses on refinement of grammar and vocabulary acquisition. Students are exposed to a deeper understanding of the cultures of the Spanish speaking world. Extensive use of an online component delivered via WebCT, sustained class participation, and three hourly exams (no midterm and no final). May
not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory. Prerequisites:
210.212 or appropriate score on Webcape exam.
I. Gonzalez 3 credits

210.313 (H) Medical Spanish
Students will increase their vocabulary and practice
grammar structures closely related to the medical and
health administration professions. All language skills are
equally emphasized. Highly recommended to students in
any of the health-related majors. There will be an intensive
online component. May not be taken satisfactory/
unsatisfactory. Prerequisites: 210.311 (Advanced Spanish
I) or appropriate score on Webcape exam.
Ramos 3 credits

210.314 (H) Business Spanish
Students will increase their vocabulary and practice grammar
structures closely related to trade and business practices
in the public and private sectors. All language skills
are equally emphasized. Highly recommended to students
majoring in Business and International Relations.
There will be an intensive online component. May not be
taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory. Prerequisites: 210.311
(Advanced Spanish I) or appropriate score on Webcape.
Ramos 3 credits

210.315 (H) Legal Spanish
Students will increase their vocabulary and practice
grammar structures closely related to judicial services.
All language skills are equally emphasized. Highly recommended
to students majoring in law, business and
international relations. There will be an intensive online
component. May not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory.
Prerequisites: 210.311 (Advanced Spanish I) or
appropriate score on Webcape exam.
Ramos 3 credits

210.316 (H) Conversational Spanish
This course is designed for students who have attained
an advanced level of proficiency in Spanish 210.312 and
wish to improve their oral skills by focusing on the use
of standard, spoken Spanish with an emphasis on colloquial
and idiomatic expressions. Students are exposed
to a deeper understanding of the cultures of the Spanish-
speaking world through movies and other listening
comprehension exercises. The course will mainly focus
on conversation and vocabulary acquisition. This course
is highly recommended for students going to JHU study
abroad programs. Prerequisite: 210.311 (Advanced Spanish I) or appropriate score on Webcape exam.
Ramos, Sanchez-Serrano 3 credits

210.317 (H) Advanced Composition Spanish
This third-year course aims at improving the students'
reading and writing skills by focusing on various types of
texts. Students will also engage in more formal levels of
written communication on both literary and non-literary
topics. The course also focuses on refinement of grammar.
Prerequisite: 210.312 (Advanced Spanish II) or appropriate score on Webcape exam.
Sanchez-Serrano 3 credits

210.411(H,W) Curso de traducción para las
professiones
Students will learns the basics of translation theory and
be presented with the tools needed (specialized dictionaries,
web resources, etc.) for the translation of literature,
business, medical, legal, technological, political, and
journalistic texts from Spanish to English and English
to Spanish. May not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory.
Prerequisites: 210.313, 210.314, or 210.315.
Ramos 3 credits

210.412 (W) Spanish Language Practicum
The Spanish Language Practicum involves a specially designed project related
to student's minor concentration. Provides an opportunity
to use Spanish language in real world contexts. May
be related to current employment context or developed
in agencies or organizations that complement student's
research and experimental background while contributing
to the improvement of language proficiency. May
not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory. Prerequisite:
210.411.
Sanchez-Serrano 3 credits

210.413 (H,W) Curso de perfeccionamiento
This course is designed for students who, having attained
an advanced level of proficiency, wish to master Spanish
grammar as well as oral and written expression. The
course seeks to acquaint the students with a wider range
of idiomatic expression and usages than they have previously
managed.  This course is highly recommended for native speakers.  May not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory.
Prerequisites: 210.311 and 210.312 or 210.317
plus one of the following: 210.313, 210.314 or 210.315;
or appropriate score on Webcape exam.
Sanchez-Serrano 3 credits

211.280 Modern Latin American Culture
An introduction to the literature and culture of Latin-
America from the formation of independent states
through the presenting light of the social, political, and
economic histories of the region. Taught in Spanish. May
not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory. Prerequisites:
210.311 (Advanced Spanish I) or appropriate score on Webcape exam.
Staff 3 credits

211.290 Modern Spanish Culture
This course will explore the fundamental traits of Spanish
culture as it has developed in the 20th to the 21st
centuries (although the first weeks will serve as a general
overview of the historical development of Spain). Class
time will focus on discussion of different texts, movies,
songs, pictures, and paintings, considering their relation
to the specific historical, political, and social contexts.
The active participation of students in debates and discussions
is fundamental. In addition, students will be
expected to make oral presentations on assigned topics.
Prerequisites: 210.311 (Advanced Spanish I) appropriate score on Webcape exam.
Sanchez-Serrano 3 credits

211.291 (H) Modern Central American and Hispanic
Caribbean Literature and Culture
An introduction to the literature and culture of Central
America and the Hispanic Caribbean from the formation
of independent states through the present in light
of the social, political, and economic histories of the
region. Taught in Spanish. Prerequisites: Intermediate
Spanish 210.212 or 210.213 or appropriate S-Cape score.
Staff 3 credits

211.576 (H) Independent Study Spanish Civilization
Staff 3 credits

215.231 (H,W) Introduction to Literature in Spanish
The main objective of this course is to examine and discuss
specific authors and topics in literature in Spanish
from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The course
is designed to cover a selection of Hispanic texts from
Spain and Latin America. Literary genres to be studied
will include narratives, poetry and drama. The bulk of
each class session will be dedicated to the discussion of
the assigned readings. This course is taught in Spanish.
This course is required for the major in Spanish.
Staff 3 credits

215.320 (H,W) Introduction to Spanish Golden Age
Literature
This course is designed to familiarize the student with
the key aspects and the main figures of the literary developments
of Spanish Golden Age (16th-17th century), a
period of great flourishing in poetry, prose and drama in
Spain. In the process, the students acquire general reading
and research skills, which they apply to specific topics
and issues. This course is taught in Spanish.
Staff 3 credits

215.321 (H) Trips to the Other World:  Heaven and Hell in Hispanic Literature
Dean's Teaching Fellowship Course
This course will explain why Hispanic writers representing the other world have been less guided by religious concerns about the afterlife as concerned to find solutions to political, moral, or existential problems in their own world.
Lloret  3 credits

215.336 (H) Don Quijote
A close reading and discussion primarily in Spanish of
Cervantes' masterpiece, with concentration on its major
themes and contributions to the formation of the modern
novel. Prerequisite: Advanced Spanish or equivalent.
Sieber 3 credits

215.337 (H) Teatro español del siglo de oro
Sieber 3 credits

215.339 (H) Borges and Philosophy
In this course we will read some of the most important
works of the Argentinian writer, thinker, and critic Jorge
Luis Borges, as they intersect with fundamental questions
in modern philosophy. The relation of Borges to thinkers
like Kant, Leibniz, Heidegger, and Derrida will be at the
core of our discussions.
Egginton 3 credits

215.340 (H,W) Narrating Self and Nation in Modern
Latin American Literature and Film
The course will focus on a critical reading of major modern
Latin American writers. We will read entire books as
well as selections from major works from the following
authors. J.F. Sarmiento, Euclides da Cunha, Machado de
Assis, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Nerua, Octavio Paz, J.M.
Arguedas, Carlos Fuentes, Clarise Lispector, Diamela
Eltit and Bolano. The course will view five recent Latin
American films also.
Castro-Klarén 3 credits

215.341 (H,W) Introduction to the Study of Latin America
An interdisciplinary approach to the study of Latin America since Independence. The course will reply of a historical approach to the the study of literature, art and the formation of cultural epochs and periods.
Castro-Klarén  3 credits

215.342 (H) Introduction to Latin America: The
Formative Years
The course will explore the cultural continuities and
fractures in the unfolding of life in the Andes from the
appearance of the first urban center on the coastal valleys
2000BC to the aftermath of the Spanish conquest
at about 1600. Readings will be taken from archaeology
and anthropology. Andean and Christian myths of origin
and theories of state formation will be examined along
with the chronicles written by Spanish conquistadores,
Indian and Mestizo intellectuals.
Castro-Klarén 3 credits

215.346 (H) Contemporary Latin American Novel
This course explores the contemporary Latin American
novel, including work by Machado de Assis, Teresa de la
Parra, Jose Maria Arguedas, Rosario Castellanos, Clarise
Lispector, Carlos Fuentes, and Garcia Marquez.
Castro-Klarén 3 credits

215.347 (H) 20th-Century Latin American Literature
A survey of the major Latin American prose writing in
the 20th century.
Castro-Klarén 3 credits

215.354 (H) El Caribe/The Caribbean
The Caribbean in art and literature from Shakespeare's
The Tempest to contemporary writers in English and Spanish.
(Cross-listed with Film and Media Studies and Program
for Comparative American Cultures.)
E. Gonzalez 3 credits

215.355 (H) Film and Literature in Spanish
Learning to discuss film and literature through Spanish
and Latin American sensibilities.
E. González 3 credits

215.357 (H) Realism, Magic, Religion, Amor y Locura
Three classics of realismo mágico studied in reference
to religious and magical phenomena and cross-cultural
conceptions of madness and passion. Gabriel García
Márquez (El amor en los tiempos del cólera and El amor y
otros demonios; Isabel Allende (La casa de los espíritus); and
Laura Restreo (Delirio). Taught in Spanish.
E. González 3 credits

215.370 (H) Studies in Spanish and Latin American
Poetry
In this course we will approach the question of what
poetry is and how to read it through the examples of
two Spanish poets Federico García Lorca and Antonio
Machado and two Latin American poets Ruben Darío
and Pablo Neruda. We will read their work in the context
of questions opened up by the German philosopher
Martin Heidegger around the nature of poetry and its
relation to human being. The course will be taught in
English with readings in Spanish.
Egginton 3 credits

215.371 (H) Modern Spanish Literature
A survey of the literature of Spain from the 18th through the 20th Centuries.  This course will be taught in Spanish.
Egginton  3 credits

215.380 (H) Autobiography, Testimonio and Memoir
The course will analyze the autobiographies, memoirs
and fictional autobiographies of several Latin American
canonical writers. Starting with the memoirs by Domingo
Sarmiento and Romulo Gallegos, moving through Borges
and Jose Maria Arguedas we will go on to Rigoberta Menchu's
testimonio and finalize with the memoirs of Garcia
Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa.
Castro-Klarán 3 credits

215.440 (H) Picaresque Novel in Spain
This course will consist of close readings of the Lazarillo
de Tormes, selections from Mateo Aleman's Guzman
de Alfarache, and three of Cervantes' Novelas ejemplares.
These texts reveal the impact that Spanish fiction exerted
on Golden- Age Spanish literary history and on the European
novel in general. Conducted in Spanish. Prerequisite:
Advanced Spanish or permission of instructor.
Sieber 3 credits

215.441 (H) Borges, Cortázar, Bioy Casares and Their Time
The course introduces students to the study of Argentine literary culture in the first three quarters of the twentieth century.  Its objective is to instruct the students in methods of close reading and develop perspectives in critical thinking.
Castro-Klarén 3 credits

215.447 (H) Borges and His Times
An examination of Borges' life and major works. Taught
in Spanish. Prerequisite: Advanced Spanish or instructor's
consent.
Castro-Klarén 3 credits

215.451 (H) El Cine de Almodóvar
From Pepi to Hable con ella, the films will be studied in
form, content, and socio-political terms.
E. González 3 credits

215.452 (H) Che Guevara and Magical Realism
His detractors often compare him to Hitler while many of his admirers see in him a saint and a martyr like Jesus Christ.  Cuban school children are taught to be like him.  Che was killed in 1967, the same year in which Gabriel García Márquez published Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitute).  We will study Guevara's life as a militant revolutionary through his own writings and the exorbitant style known as realismo mágico, crafted by García Márquez, one of Che's great admirers.  Four movies will anchor our visual take on the myth and the man: Los diarios de motocicleta (Walter Salles, 2004), Che I and Che II (Steven Soderbergh, 2008), and Wall Street (Oliver Stone, 1987).  The nineteen-eighties narcotraffic boom in Colombia and the cocaine-driven financial high times during the late Reagan years will frame our study.
E. González 3 credits

215.453 (H) The Cuban Diaspora
In sites such as Havana, Miami, Washington, New York,
London, Madrid, currents in urban culture among
Cubans on the island and elsewhere. Taught in Spanish.
Prerequisite: Advanced Spanish.
E. González 3 credits

215.454 (H) Medieval and Contemporary Literatures
and Cultures Face Off
Taking into account comparative studies in medieval and
modern literatures and theory, this seminar examines
ways in which these temporally distant and apparently
incommensurable cultural productions reflect on and
dialogue with one another. Classes will discuss modern
works and selections from medieval texts including Tirante
el blanco and Amadís de Gaula face to face with Alejo Carpentier's
Los pasos perdidos; Cárcel de amor and El collar de la
paloma with Gabriel García Márquez's El amor en los tiempos
del cólera, and Siete infantes de Lara and Poema del Cid with
Crónica de una muerte anunciada. Additional texts include
El amor y otros demonios (García Márquez), El beso de la mujer
araña (Manuel Puig), Eric y Enide (Manuel Vázquez Montalbán),
and El señor de los últimos días (Homero Aridjis).
Theory includes psychoanalysis, the location of medievalism
in the development of contemporary critical theory,
and studies on spatialization and temporality.
E. González/Altschul 3 credits

215.455 (H) Cuban Noir
The genre of noir in and around detective fiction as
portrayed in novels, short stories, and movies. Readings
and viewings centered on mutual influences and flow
between Cuba and the U.S., from Hemingway and the
Mafia to the now foreclosed cultural openings between
the two countries in the 1990s. Taught in Spanish.
E. González 3 credits

215.456 (H) Gauchos, Negros, Gitanos
Study of the literature and music inspired by three groups
of great liminal influence in the cultural and political
affairs of their respective nations. Gauchos (Argentina).
Afro Hispanics (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo).
Gitanos (Spain). Attention given to popular and learned
myths and stereotypes and the history of efforts to establish
self-identity. Conducted in Spanish. Prerequisite:
Advanced Spanish or permission of instructor.
E. González 3 credits

215.457 (H) Literature and Film: The Case of
Manuel Puig
Close reading of select works by Manuel Puig, the outstanding
Argentine writer of his generation. Readings
examined in relation to relevant movies and film theory.
Taught in English. Readings in Spanish and English.
E. González 3 credits

215.458 (H) Cuba and its Culture since the Revolution
We will study the visual and textual arts, cinema, political culture, and blogosphere; reaching back to the first phases in the building of the revolutionary state apparatus and its sovereign mandate.  Taught in Spanish.
E. González  3 credits

215.460 (H) Modern Mexico and the Culture of Death
We will examine the cultural resonance of death in Mexico's
colonial and postcolonial history and the impact
of the 1910 revolution in the nation's popular and elite
self-image. Emphasis placed on the visual arts, literature,
music, and the view of Mexico created by foreign writers
and artists.
E. González 3 credits
 
215.467 (H) Mexico en su Literatura y su Artes
Estudio del Mexico contemporaneo en su literatura, música,
pintura y cine. Clase dictada enteramente en español.
E. González 3 credits 

215.486 (H) Reliving the Past in Contemporary Spain:  Memories of al-Andalus
Este curse se centrará en la novela española después de la década de los 80, y especialmente en la novela histórica que retoma la temática de al-Andalus, la sociedad multiétnica y multiconfesional de la Iberia medieval.  Con estas novelas se llevará la discusión en clase tanto hacia la historia medieval como hacia el significado de la recuperación de la memoria histórica en la ficción española moderna, especialmente en lo tocante a la incorporación de España a "Europa" y a la inmigración "mora" en la actualidad.
Altschul 3 credits

215.487 (H) Islam in America
This course examines the presence of Islam in Latin America. We will examine problems associated with the understanding of the conquest of America as continuation of the reconquest of Muslim Spain and of Spain’s Moorish or Oriental character, especially as it played a role in the Latin American landscape. Concentrating in the 19th- and 20th-century we will read Latin American representations of “the Orient” in fictional works. Among others, texts by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Pascual Almazán, Juan José Nieto, Jorge Luis Borges, Homero Aridjis, and Roberto Arlt. Class discussions conducted in Spanish.
Altschul  3 credits

215.488 (H) Postcolonial Middle Ages
This course focuses on perspectives on the literatures and cultures of the Middle Ages that have stemmed from renewed recognition of medieval times as marked by cultural contact, conquest, and colonization. The course examines both postcolonial theory and its relationships with medieval Iberia through topics such as mimicry, race relations, hybridity, settlement and transculturation, feminization of enemies, nationalism, temporality and periodization. Taught in Spanish.
Altschul 3 credits

215.491 (H) Muslim Spain
From 711 to 1492 the Iberian Peninsula was a multilingual
and multiethnic society inhabited by members of the three
monotheistic faiths. This course will discuss the interactions
and literatures of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian
peoples of Iberia during medieval times. Readings include
Ibn Hazm, Shem Tov, Petrus Alfonsus, and Juan Manuel,
as well as Kalilah wa Dimnah and Sendebar.
Altschul 3 credits

215.496 (H) Formations of the Unconscious: Buñuel,
Garcia Lorca and Dali
In this course we will study the enormous contribution to
art, literature, and thought made by three Spaniards in
the early part of the 20th century. Buñuel, Garcia Lorca,
and Dali each revolutionized his specific artistic medium,
and were influential in each other's lives and work as well.
We will examine their body of work and their relationship
to psychoanalysis, particularly the work of Jacques Lacan,
whose seminar we will also be reading.
Egginton 3 credits

215.525-526 Spanish Independent Study
Staff 3 credits

Undergraduate Interdepartmental Courses

360.130 Introduction to Latin American Studies I
Kurlat-Ares 3 credits

360.133 Great Books at Hopkins
Great Books at Hopkins is designed for first-year students, and explores some of the greatest works of the literary and philosophical tradition in Europe and the Americas.  In lectures, panel sessions, small seminars, and multimedia presentations, professors from a variety of academic disciplines lead students in exploring authors across history. Close reading and intensive writing instruction are hallmarks of the course, as is a changing reading list that includes, for this fall, Homer’s Odyssey, Dante’s Inferno, Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, and others.
Staff 3 credits

360.233 Feminist and Queer Theory
This course is an introduction to theories of feminism,
gender, and sexuality. It examines classic and recent
texts and considers problems and cases from a variety
of cultures and historical periods in local, national, and
global contexts.
Pahl 3 credits

360.323 Culture in Society in Modern Latin America
(Cross-listed with History, and Women, Gender, and
Sexuality.)
Castro-Klaren, Knight 3 credits

360.324 Modern Latin America II
(Cross-listed with History.)
Castro-Klaren, Knight 3 credits

360.391 (H) Manuscripts, Texts, Hypertexts:
History of the Book
This course will trace the history of the codex (the
book) to its apparent dissolution in the age of television
and the Internet. We will discuss the technology of
the book as it interacts with the dissemination of knowledge
and literature by examining topics such as orality
and literacy, book manufacture and layout, intellectual
property and reproducibility. (Cross-listed with History
of Science and Technology.)
Staff 3 credits

360.410 Light and Enlightenment: Newton's Opticks
and 18th-Century Culture
This seminar will examine the Newtonian legacy for
Enlightenment culture through a close study of his influential
book, the Opticks. Special attention will be paid
to the impact of this book on the sciences of electricity,
heat, light, and chemistry and on the literature, philosophy,
and painting of the Enlightenment. Open to upper
division undergraduates and graduate students. (Crosslisted
with History of Science and Technology.)
Kargon, Anderson 3 credits

360.443 (H) Subverting the Text
Seminar examines the process of subverting texts.
Cases include Cartesian/Newtonian physics, phlogiston
chemistry, Darwinian biology, Rousseau's Botanical Letters,
Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopedia, the Munich
1937 exhibit Degenerate Art and staging non-theatrical
literature. (Cross-listed with History of Science and
Technology.)
Anderson, Kargon 3 credits

360.453 (H,S) Culture of Reasons
This seminar is a close examination of how the changing
understanding of Newtonianism (and its translation
across language, disciplinary, and cultural barriers) transformed
the worlds of arts and letters. It will also discuss
related 18th-century attempts to articulate social, moral,
and political issues relating to gender and class and conclude
with a close reading of the anti-Newtonian movement
and a final discussion of the continuing relevance of
issues of Newtonianism and cultural translation to modern
humanistic research. A full description of the course,
including the proposed syllabus can be found at www
.wilda.org/Courses/CourseVault/Grad/Newtonianism.
Taught with 360.653. (Cross-listed with History of Science
and Technology.)
Anderson, Kargon 3 credits

Department-Wide Graduate Courses

210.610-611 Methodology and Instructional Practices
in Foreign Language Teaching
Yearlong course required for all incoming teaching assistants
in the Department of German and Romance Languages;
involves a series of workshops which will focus on
an overview of the tenets of second language acquisition
(SLA) and the research which informs current teaching
practice. Students will both study the current state of
the second language acquisition profession and look at
different methods and techniques for effective second
language teaching and learning. The focus of the course
will be on the practical applications of the theoretical
foundations of SLA. The course will encourage the students
to become critical observers of their own language
teaching.
Sanchez, Mifflin, Zannirato

212.-, 213.-, 214.-, and 215.605  The Idea of Literature
European languages document the evolution of the concept of literature from a generic term indicating the body of writings produced in a particular country or period to one that more particularly signifies works endowed with an aesthetic quality. The concept of literature thus seems to take form in connection with the emergence of a critical discourse, the search for a standard of taste. The dream of founding a “science littéraire” modeled on the principles of structural semiotics searching for an elusive “literariness”, literature as a system, a set of formal features, not a collection of discrete, ineffable individuals; it thus involved a rejection of the aesthetic, or at least a reconsideration of its assumptions. This course will pursue the question of "The Idea of Literature" simultaneously from a philosophical and a historical perspective; in moving from formalist literariness to the rediscovery of categories like the ethical, the subject, the reader, the author, and the aesthetic, we will ask such questions as: Can there be a return to an aesthetic education, as some wish, and what would that be? Would such a move resuscitate the ghost of Hume’s gentleman scholar, which the New Critics tried to do away with? Is there a way of formally distinguishing between literature and its various contexts? Authors will include Hume, Kant, Taine, Lanson, Sainte-Beuve, Brunetière, Arnold, Proust, Benjamin, Bréton, Sartre, Bourdieu, De Man, and Eco.
Egginton, Russo

212.692 Research Methods
Seminar and lab in the methods, resources, and systems
of research for graduate students of literature.
Waterman

212.673 Graduate Seminar in Film and Film Theory:
European Auteurs
This course examines the notion of the "auteur," which
has been in use for European filmmakers since the New
Wave (1959-1963). After studying the theory of the
auteur since the 1960s, we will focus on two directors
from each of four national traditions: Federico Fellini
and Michelangelo Antonioni from Italy; Jean-Luc Godard
and Agnès Varda from France; Rainer Werner Fassbinder
and Werner Herzog from Germany; and Julio Medem
and Pedro Almodóvar from Spain. At stake will be the
historical circumstances of the rise of the European
auteur, with special regard to factors that differentiate
the national traditions in question. Theoretical readings
will include Cinema 2: the Time-Image (Gilles Deleuze) and
The Cinema Effect (Sean Cubitt).
Wegenstein

French Graduate

210.601 French for Reading and Translation
Intensive study of French grammar structure plus experience in reading and translating expository prose. Students do independent work (vocabulary acquisition and translation) in their particular field of study. Designed for graduate students in other departments who need to complete a language requirement in French. Open to undergraduates only with the permission of the language coordinator.

210.603 Cours de Perfectionnement
In this course, graduate students will reach grammatical fluency while learning how to explain French effectively to undergraduate learners.  Online component.  Mandatory depending on diagnostic test score.
Staff

210.612 Teaching French:  Theory & Practice

212.603 Senses of the Imagination in Medieval Thought and Lyric
The inner and outer senses are crucial factors of perception in the Middle Ages.  Above them all was the imagination: the dynamic master sense governing mental activity from emotion to language and representation. This course will study the theory of the imagination and its achievements, particularly in lyric poetry, music, and visual arts.
Nichols

212.606 Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Prose as Modern Art
Through a close reading of Flaubert's novel and selective consideration of the drafts, we shall examine the making of that masterpiece of narrative prose, which Flaubert himself conceived under the sign of modern art.  Our central concern, in other words, is with Madame Bovary as a crucial event in aesthetic modernity, one that has had a prodigious afterlife in both literature and visual arts.  Seminar will be taught in French and English.
Neefs, Fried

212.608 Thinking With Dreams: Poetry and Philosophy
in the Middle Ages
Medieval authors composed dream fictions as a useful
framework for mediating between the everyday world
and the otherworld of divine providence. Conceived as
a liminal space where the virtual might confront the real,
dream worlds offered a mechanism for epistemological
debate ranging from pious allegory to bold exposition
of heterodox thought. The seminar will look at classical
theories of dreams from Plato and Aristotle to Cicero,
then read key works of the genre like Macrobius's Commentaire
sur le songe de Scipion, the anonymous Vision de
Saint Paul, Guillaume de Loris's & Jean de Meun's Le
Roman de la Rose, Christine de Pisan's La Cité des Dames,
Villon's Le Testament.
Nichols

212.609 Le Théâtre et Ses Censeurs (17 ème Siècle)
Far from being the expression of wisdom and order,
as literary history would have it, 17th century theater,
either tragic or comic, challenged the morality and
rationality of the time. Its assault on conventional values,
whether those of religion, of sex, or of poetics, upset
censors of different sorts, who tried to tame or silence
it. We will meditate on the flamboyance and courage of
the great playwrights and show that their plays allow the
expression of what is usually repressed the world of
desires and fantasms. The quarrels around Corneille's
Le Cid and Molière's infamous trilogy (L'Ecole des femmes,
Tartuffe, Don Juan) will be center stage. Under such pressure,
self-censorship was also active; the balance between
provocation and restraint will be studied through the
example of Racine. The seminar will be held in French.
Jeanneret

212.610 The Sacred and the Secular: The Manuscript
Codex, 1200-1500
This course discusses manuscript production and
consumption in the high Middle Ages, including relations
of text and image. It concentrates particularly on
manuscript evidence for reading practices, in monastic,
private, and courtly contexts. After the initial meeting
classes will be held in the Walters Art Museum, where students will be able to examine original
manuscript material, and will be introduced to the
many different ways in which manuscripts can be displayed
and studied to provide insights into medieval art
and culture.
Nichols/Noel

212.613 Marivaux and French Taste
A travers la lecture des oeuvres les plus significatifs dans
la vaste production théâtrale, narrative et journalistique
de Marivaux, nous allons explorer l'écriture des Lumières
avant la montée des philosophes, en particulier les rapports
entre les Lumiéres et ce qu'on nomme l'esthétique
rococo. Parmi les sujets traités: les suites de la querelle des
Anciens et des Modernes; le burlesque et la parodie; la
controverse du marivaudage et du néologisme; la théâtralisation
de l'écriture; le bel esprit et la critique du sublime.
Russo

212.616 Rousseau
Anderson

212.617 Eighteenth-Century French Theater
The development of the drame bourgeois and the theater
criticism of the French Enlightenment. Authors to
be studied include Racine, Le Sage, Marivaux, Voltaire,
Diderot, and Beaumarchais.  Course website:  http://www.wilda.org/Courses/CourseVault/Grad/Theater/Syllabus.html.
Anderson

212.618 Les Lumieres: reseaux de communication au 18e siecle
Les réseaux des littérateurs et penseurs au 18e siècle, leurs modes de communication et influences réciproques, et les effets de ces communications sur leur production littéraire, par exemple chez les newtoniens (Buffon, Diderot, Voltaire, etc.), mais aussi chez les antinewtoniens (Marat, etc.).
Anderson

212.619 The Aesthetics of the French Enlightenment
Anderson

212.620 The Encyclopédie
In its attempt to realize fully the potential of a group
description of knowledge, the Encyclopédie of Diderot and
d'Alembert displays the program of the philosophes in
a particularly intense and idiosyncratic form. This intellectual
dialogue will be studied through the investigation
of several different subjects treated in the Encyclopédie;
for example, the theory of the encyclopedia itself, history,
natural history, literature, medicine, theories of
language.
Anderson

212.622 The Making of the Work:  Introduction to Genetic Criticism
Sketches, Drafts, Copies, Final Manuscript: what do we learn reading work’s preparatory manuscripts, before printing? The seminar will stress some esthetical interrogations raised by the study of the Working Process: narrative imagination, formal conception, what is an ending? the making of narrative prose, the Form and the Shape of the Poem, what can be and endless work?… the seminar will be an introduction to Genetic Criticism theory and methodology. We’ll examine some paradigmatic examples: Stendhal’s Vie de Henry Brulard, Flaubert’s Three Tales, Proust’s La Recherche du temps perdu (Le Temps retrouvé), Ponge’s La Fabrique du pré.
Neefs

212.623 The Narrative Prose as a Modern Art: From
Flaubert to Proust
Seminar will examine the new aesthetic purpose of narrative
prose, from Flaubert to Proust, also considering the
importance of prose in poetry (Baudelaire, Rimbaud,
Mallarmé), including a study of the manuscripts and the
genetic process of Flaubert's and Proust's writing.
Neefs

212.627 Litterature, Mythes, Religions au 19ème siecle
Le dix-neuvième siècle est le temps d'une interrogation
profonde, nouvelle, sur les mythes et les religions. Des
formes nouvelles d'études mythographiques et d'histoires
des religions apparaissent. La littérature occupe une
place privilégiée dans cette interrogation. Le séminaire
s'attachera essentiellement aux oeuvres littéraires et aux
écritures de la modernit: Chateaubriand, La Vie de
Rancé, Balzac, Le Curé de Village, Nerval, Les Filles du feu,
Les Chimères, Flaubert, La Tentation de saint Antoine, Victor
Hugo, La fin de Satan, Baudelaire, Les fleurs du mal, tout
en considérant le contexte idéologique nouveau (Renan,
Michelet, Quinet principalement).
Neefs

212.628 Racine
A partir de la lecture de l'ouevre de Racine on se propose
d'analyser la poétique de la passion tragique et la spécificite
de l'écriture dramatique classique.
Russo

212.634 The Medieval Voice
This seminar will investigate the multiple dimensions
of the medieval voice: grammatical, logical, musical,
and poetic. Topics to be discussed include the relation
between sound and voice, the elements of writing, rational
and irrational noise, tone and timbre, syllabification,
and rhyme. Authors to be discussed include Aristotle, Prisican,
Boethius, Anselm, Guilhem de Peitieus, Raimbaut
de Vaqueiras, Arnaut Daniel, Dante, Gervais de Bus and
Eustache Deschamps.
Heller-Roazen

212.638 Literature and Politics I: Equality
Writing about equality during the French Revolution:
In this seminar we will be looking at three categories of
readings: those dealing with theoretical questions, those
dealing with places and events, and those which explicitly
address the literary and aesthetic issues of writing about
the Revolution.
Anderson

212.639 Changing Practices and Cultures of Literacy
What does it mean to read? Who reads, how, and how
have those practices changed from the late 17th century
to the early 21st? How do the material conditions of publication
and the material support of the text affect readership
and interpretation? How do authors of literary works
embody such issues within their texts? To be discussed
within the French context from Molière through modern
digital humanities research environments and to focus
critically on recent work in the history of the book.
Anderson

212.645 Pascal, A Philosophical Anthropology
Close reading of Pascal's Pensées, Lettres Provinciales and
other writings, primarily set against the background of
Augustine, Montaigne, and Descartes, but also extending
forward to Rousseau, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche as
well as contemporary critical theory. We will study a series
of issues ranging from Christian vs. modern anthropology,
existential analytics of subjectivity, rhetorical theory.
Primary readings in French where applicable. Seminar
language to be determined at first meeting dependent
on seminar composition. Also open to humanities, history,
and religious studies graduate students.
Abecassis

212.653 The Psycho-Picaresque Modernist Novel
Centered on Marcel Proust, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, and
Albert Cohen, we will study four modernist novels thematically
(the specific nature of the French moral(iste)
imagination coupled with the traditional trope of the
wayward quest) and narratologically (action as pure parody,
subjective interiority as narrative, etc.). Readings:
La prisonniare, La fugitive, Voyage au bout de la nuit, Belle du
seigneur and critical essays on modernism, the picaresque,
and narratology distributed in class.
Abecassis

212.661 Post-Revolutionary Passions
Coming to terms with the Enlightenment, the French
revolution and the collapse of the political and spiritual
authority that grounded the old regime, post-revolutionary
thinkers confronted critically the responsibility of the
intellectual and the nature of ideological violence; they
reinvented the sacred in an attempt to shape a new self
and redraw the boundaries between reason and belief.
Classes in English, readings in French (some available in
translation). Works by Constant, De Stahl, Chateaubriand,
De Maistre, Ballanche, Tocqueville, Michelet, Taine.
Russo

212.662 Why Does Theory Matter to Literature?
A critical and historical approach to the notion of theory
in literary studies. In English, reading knowledge of
French. Cross-listed with Humanities.
Russo

212.667 Contextualizing the French Enlightenment
Novel
The French Enlightenment novel studied in the intellectual
and historical context of its time. Texts from Montesquieu,
the Encyclopedie, Diderot, Rousseau, Laclos,
Voltaire, Buffon, Rtif de la Bretonne. Please see provisional
syllabus at www.wilda.org/Courses/CourseVault/
Grad/ContextNovel/Syllabus.html.
Anderson

212.672 Francophone Postcolonial Studies:  African and Caribbean Representations of Europe
This course will examine representation of Europe, mostly but not exclusively France and Paris in the fiction produced by writers from the former French colonies, from the 1950's to the present.
Moudileno

212.680 L'Opinion Changée Quant Aux Fleurs
Since Greek antiquity the comparison of words with flowers
has been a common place in European theories of
poetry and language. If there was a science dedicated to
this strange relation, its name could be anthology. The
question to be found at the heart of the consideration
of words as flowers (not just as fleurs rhetoriques) is the
question of expressivity in general: the expressive or
inexpressive character of words as well as flowers. The
discussion of this peculiar pressure on words (as well as
on flowers), its implications and complications, in order
to express expressivity itself, will turn around poems by
Angelus Silesius, Holderlin and Leopardi, La Ginestra,
Baudelaire's sketches for a preface to Les fleurs du mal,
Mallarmé's Les fleurs and Crise de vers, an essay by Bataille,
Le langage des fleurs, a book by Jean Paulhan, Les fleurs de
Tarbes, as well as recently published dossier by Francis
Ponge, entitled L'opinion changée quant aux fleurs. Readings
in French, Italian and German, discussion in French
and English.
Schestag

212.690 What About Aesthetics?
During the 20th century, artists, historians of art, and
philosophers tried to deny the meaning and even the relevance
of aesthetics. Modernity developed in counteraction
with aesthetics. How and why did this happen? Today
we are witnessing a new rise of interest in aesthetics for
ethical and social reasons. Pleasure, disgust, compassion,
surprise, the whole aesthetical system could become the
basis of an ethical new deal. Emotions, feelings, empathy
are studied by neuro- and cognitive sciences and are
given a second conceptual life. Reading books, watching
movies, hearing music, looking at paintings, etc., could
help us to live together, deepen our experience and contribute
to educate us as human beings. What is aesthetics,
what does an aesthetical point of view mean? Do we need
aesthetics to understand and/or analyze works of art?
Can works of art contribute to our self-improvement? To
explore these issues, we shall study in this seminar two
decisive periods, crossing the French and the German
development of aesthetics: 1) the birth of aesthetics in
the 18th century; 2) its key point at the end of the 19th
century.
Cohn

212.696 Literature Confronts Science: Zola
Zola worked with the theories of heredity of his time in
the Rougon-Macquart novels. But he also attempted to
use his understanding of biology and thermodynamics to
reform the theory of the novel in general.
Anderson

212.698 Esthétique et politique

212.706 The Invention of the Grail Legend: Identity
and the Language of Romance
Since the 19th century, the legend of the Holy Grail,
Arthur, Merlin, and the knights of the Round Table
have conveyed both the past and present of what we
mean by medieval. The Grail has come to define the
hope of romance, and its darker, destructive facets, an
ambivalence perfectly captured by Henry James's novel
The Golden Bowl. So pervasive has the Grail become in
Western culture, that we have all but forgotten that this
legend was invented in 1200 by a French cleric. He
wanted to claim a crucial relic of Christ's Passion for
France. The Grail is that object, although, as Umberto
Eco's Baudolino ironically notes, a relic invented by
romance, for its own ends. The Grail thus becomes a
symbol of romance's ability to make history, to create
fictional truth. By studying Grail romances of Chrétien
de Troyes, Robert de Boron, Malory, and others, the
seminar will pose the question of what is romance and
how it came to define French history and identity. It will
also ask how something so quintessentially French, came
to be universalized, its French origins largely forgotten.
Nichols

212.707 Trust and Truth: Artistic Value and
Aesthetical Property
The impact of photography, cinema, and even television
on the system of Fine Arts as well as their social success
leads to a question on the veracity of art. The compassion
that images produce and the disgust they arouse beyond
their historical value as documents, take us back to their
truth content. What can truth mean outside the realm of
propositions? Can we say that trust is the sensible quality
of truth? From an analysis of literary, plastic and musical
works, we shall wonder about the possibility of a morality
of art works. We shall confront this ethical view with the
close of the paradigm of art's autonomy.
Cohn

212.708 Testimony and Literature in the 20th-Century
The 20th century produced an enormous number of testimonies.
One can even say that it invented the genre of
witnessing. The seminar will study testimonies in variety
of languages about extreme historical situations (World
Wars, totalitarianism, colonial wars, genocides, etc.).
Through a close and careful reading of some of these
texts, we shall try to formulate general problems pertaining
at the same time to literary analysis, historical investigations,
and political, ethical, juridical, anthropological
issues. We'll read works written in French by Benjamin
Fondane, Robert Antelme, Charlotte Delbo, Elie Wiesel,
by Rithy Panh, or Jean Hatzfeld . But at every moment we
shall compare them with texts written in other languages
(using French or English translations) - by Primo Levi,
Imre Kertesz, Jean Amry, Tadeusz Borowski or Aharon
Appelfeld, by Ossip Mandelstam, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
or Varlam Chalamov, by Toge Sankichi or Ibuse Masuji,
by Yi Ch?ong Jun or Hwang Ji U, by Rithy Panh, etc.
Mouchard

212.716 Diderot and the Human Sciences
Diderot's early work was dominated by his work on the
natural sciences and the Encyclopédie. But in later years,
his literature addresses the social applications of his
knowledge: economic, anthropological, political, and
moral issues structure his aesthetic concerns. Texts to be
studied include Le Supplément au voyage de Bougainville,
Essai sur les rgnes de Claude et de Néron, The Salon of 1767,
Le Rêve de d'Alembert, Le Neveu de Rameau.
Anderson

212.728 Philosopher en Littérature
Depuis 1945 les relations entre littérature et philosophie
ont pris un tour nouveau, l'aprés-guerre modifiant
leurs répartitions discursives et politiques. L'écriture de
Sartre a ds lors boulevers? les rapports entre concept
et métaphore, entre vrit et fiction, entre spéculation
et imagination. Le séminaire suivra ces articulations et
leur contestation à travers les écrits de philosophes sur
la littérature jusqu nos jours. Il abordera la question
des genres (poésie et philosophie, philosophies du theatre),
les raisons du choix des écrivains comments, la
concurrence entre théorie littéraire et philosophie de la
littérature, l'histoire des conflits disciplinaires. Il analysera
la modification des régimes de discours (les polemiques
lies à la littérarisation de la philosophie ou à la
conceptualisation anhistorique de la littérature) et tentera
d'évaluer les effets de ces débats aujourd'hui, dans
la reformulation d'une pensée de la littérature. Corpus
: Badiou, Bourdieu, Deguy, Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault,
Kristeva, Lacoue-Labarthe, Lyotard, Macherey, Milner,
Nancy, Rancière, Sartre.
Noudelmann

212.731 Passé, Present, Futur au 19ème Siècle
Neefs

212.733 Literature and Knowledge from Balzac to
Proust
Quelle forme de connaissance apporte l'oeuvre littéraire?
Quels rapports entretient-elle avec les savoirs de son
temps? Savoirs sur la société, sur la psychologie humaine,
sur le monde, concurrence avec les savoirs «scientifiques»,
nous interrogerons à l'aide de quelques exemples particulièrement
significatifs la portée cognitive des oeuvres
littéraires. Les oeuvres proposées sont, parmi d'autres
exemples qui seront choisis avec les étudiants du seminaire:
Balzac, La Peau de chagrin, La recherche de l'Absolu ;
Stendhal, De l'Amour ; Flaubert, Bouvard et Pécuchet ; Zola,
Le Docteur Pascal ; Proust, Le Temps retrouvé.
Neefs

212.734 De l'Ecriture au Livre, Questions de
Genetique
Le séminare s'attachera à la tension entre l'ecriture
comme pratique et invention, dans l'espace de manuscrit
et le livre des oeuvres, dans leur existence imprimée ,
en s'appliquant à quelques exemples de genèses
et d'editions problématiques en ce sens: Chateaubriand,
Les Mémoires de'outre-tombe, etc. Nous mettrons l'accent
sur ce qui compose la notion meme d'oeuvre et sur
la question de l'inachevé , ainsi que sur les questions
d'edition et de genèse.
Neefs

212.735 Narratives of Ordinary
What we may understand by "Ordinary?" The Seminar
will attempt to consider the aesthetic apparition and
the historical, sociological, political, and anthropological
meaning of that notion: narrative prose and poetry,
from Flaubert to Queneau and Perec, from Baudelaire to
Ponge and Roubaud will be examined under this point
of view, in relation with what we could conceive as an aesthetical
development of the notion, including its sociological
and philosophical aspects (Lepenies, Boltanski,
De Certeau, Danto, Ranciere, Cavell). The course will be
held in French, on French texts, but could include references
to works in English or German or other languages,
in English or French translation.
Neefs

212.737 Literature and History, 19th and 20th Century
Literature belongs to history. But does literature tell something
about history and how? The seminar will examine
the main theories dealing with the relationship between
literature and history since the 19th century. The seminar
will give a close reading of a few highly significant works by
Balzac, Flaubert, Hugo, Claude Simon, Georges Perec.
Neefs

212.741 Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Enlightenment
and Dissent
A reading of Rousseau's major works in light of the
debates they have triggered both within the Enlightenment
and in postmodernism. Secondary readings by
Starobinski, de Man, Derrida.
Russo

212.742 Framing the Aesthetic Experience in France
1630-1780
An exploration of the emergence of aesthetic experience
at a time when there was no such thing as an autonomous
aesthetic object separate from other forms of value,
such as social distinction and the exaltation of energy.
Aesthetics was a way of organizing cognition, experience
and feelings linked to the body; through such notions
as sympathy, taste and esprit, aesthetic discourse frames
the beholder both as a cognitive, feeling subject, and as
a social being member of an elite community defined
culturally and politically. Topics will include: the epistemology
of confused perception and the poetics of
incompleteness; the je ne sais quoi and the sublime; the
dialectics of pleasure and pain; taste and decadence.
Works by Flibien, Bouhours, Dubos, Boileau, Fnelon,
Marivaux, Montesquieu, Diderot, Leibniz, Smith, Burke,
Lessing.
Russo

212.747 Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal: trois styles
philosophiques
Within less than a century, three majors thinkers appear,
who could not be more different from each other. Each
embodies a worldview, a method and a style that illustrate
a typical trend in the intellectual history of Early Modern
France. We will study passages from Montaigne's Essais
and from Pascal's Penses, as well as Descartes' Discours
de la méthode. The emphasis will be on the interaction
between thought and style. The seminar will be held in
French.
Jeanneret

212.748 French Poetry in the 16th Century
This will be an introduction to some major French Renaissance poets, such as Scève, Du Bellay, Ronsard, d’Aubigné. Some may be withdrawn, or others added, according to participants’ wishes. Emphasis will be put (1) on the method and techniques of close reading; (2) on a better understanding of Renaissance anthropology, cosmology, and aesthetics. The class will be held, and the papers required will be written in French.
Jeanneret

212.753 Representations of America in 16th-Century
France
The responses of French writers and scholars to the progressive
discovery of America through the 16th century
reveal a great deal about the Renaissance worldview and
the period's epistemology. How is radical novelty handled?
What sets of values are applied to Indians? What
theological, moral, and anthropological issues are at
stake? Authors studied will include Ronsard and Montaigne
as well as travelers such as Jacques Cartier, André
Thevet, and Jean de Lry. Course conducted in French.
Jeanneret

212.774 Travail, Ecriture, et Pensée de la Fin
L'idée de la fin a hanté l'Occident qui s'est representé
sa propre histoire en termes de mort et de renaissance.
Elle est devenue constitutive d'un geste artistique, littéraire
et philosophique cherchant  promouvoir une ère
régénératrice sur le deuil affirmé d'une époque révolue.
A partir de la fin du 19ème siècle, ce fantasme apocalyptique,
manifesté par les avant-gardes, n'est plus seulement
une prophetie mais un travail consistant à mener
au bout le processus de l'achivement. On etudiera les
machines conceptuelles et textuelles visant à realiser la
fin, à la fois terminus et finition, augurant une possible
recomposition à partir des figures déchues de l'humanisme.
L'objectif du seminaire consistera à suivre des
oeuvres-vie (Nietzsche, Artaud, Sartre, Beckett) qui se
sont confrontées à la question de la fin, pour montrer ce
qui les differencie de la thematique largement repérable
de la generation corrompue, et pour dégager à partir
d'elles une perspective post-généalogique.
Noudelmann

212.777 Les Resemblances de Famille, Philosophie,
Litterature, Science
Les ressemblances de famille, malgré leur évidence,
procèdent de constructions intellectuelles et affectives.
La relation qu'elles établissent entre deux éléments ne
se limite pas à l'analogie, elle importe une représentation
de la parenté. La ressemblance de famille est un
mode d'apparentement qui, sous le couvert du naturel,
procède de discours et d'imaginaires structurants: qui
ressemble à qui ou à quoi? La réponse à cette question
ordinaire implique non seulement une philosophie mais
aussi une politique distributive du commun et du dissemblable.
Le séminaire étudiera la construction de ces ressemblances
et leur implications idéologiques notamment
dans les sciences de la vie et les discours sur l'hérédité.
Il analysera le fonctionnement logique métaphore ou
paradigme à de la ressemblance. Il portera sur la physionomie,
corps et visages, dans les imaginaires littéraires
et artistiques, selon leurs enjeux sexuels et sociaux. Bibliographie:
Goethe, Les Affinités électives; Darwin, L'Origine
des espèces; Zola, Le Docteur Pascal; Wittgenstein, Recherches
logiques 65-67; Genet, Les Bonnes.
Noudelmann

212.801 French Independent Study
Staff

212.802 French Dissertation Research
Staff

212.803 French Proposal Preparation
Staff

German and Yiddish Graduate

210.661-662 Read/Translate German
Graduate students only.  This course is designed for graduate students in other
departments who wish to gain a reading knowledge of the
German language and translation practice from German to English. The first semester assumes no knowledge of German and covers the grammatical principles
of the language. The second semester assumes a basic knowledge of German grammar and vocabulary and concentrates on reading practice and advanced grammatical structures. For certification or credit.
Staff

213.605 The Life of Stones: Geology in the Works of
Goethe, Novalis, and Celan
Examination of the geological motifs in all three authors'
literary works. Emphasis on geological theories of the
18th and 19th centuries, particularly the debates between
the neptunists and plutonists. Consideration of theological,
aesthetic, and philosophical ramifications of debate.
Tobias, Campe

213.608 The Literatures of Blacks and Jews in the
20th Century
This course will be a seminar comparing representative
narratives and poetry by African, Caribbean, and African-
American authors of the past 100 years, together with
European and American Jewish authors writing in Yiddish,
Hebrew, and English. This comparison will examine
the paradoxically central role played by minority, marginal
groups in the creation of modern literature and
the articulation of the modern experience. Among the
topics to be considered in this course will be the question
of whether minority literatures require a distinct interpretive
strategy from mainstream literary traditions;
the problem of political discrimination and the question
of identity politics in the creation, and interpretation,
of literature; the commonalities of historical experience
between black and Jewish peoples; and the challenge of
multiculturalism in modern society. Authors discussed
will include, among others, Sholem Aleichem, Charles
Chesnutt, Sh. Ansky, Jean Toomer, Sh. Y. Agnon, Amos
Tutuola, Bernard Malamud, Caryl Phillips, and Anna
Deavere Smith.
M. Caplan

213.609 Anti-Novels: Narrative Failure and the Poetics
of the Periphery
Insofar as the novel as a form can be taken as the representative
narrative mode of the modern era, this graduate
seminar will identify an inverted literary tradition of
digression, fragmentation, stasis, and proliferation in the
assemblage of narratives that either structurally or thematically
violate conventions of novelistic mimesis and
verisimilitude. Paramount among the themes to be considered
in this survey will be whether such an inverted
or counter-tradition is possible at all, given the plasticity
of the novel form. To the extent that such a tradition
constitutes itself, however, to what extent does its
attraction for peripheral writers defined linguistically,
culturally, and politically offer a critique of the homogenizing
and hegemonic aspects of modernity? Does the
persistence of pre-modern narrative conventions serve to
anticipate subsequent innovations attributed specifically
to the modernist novel? Do the cues such anti-novelistic
narratives take from non-belletristic modes of writing as
well as visual or musical arts signify a violation of literary
decorum or an integration of the arts, and of art with life,
that actually valorizes the modernizing processes these
writers would critique? What is the difference, both figuratively
and critically, between a literature of failure and
a failed literature? In what sense can these modes of failure
be considered productive? Authors to be considered
will include Laurence Sterne, Jan Potocki, Ivan Turgenev,
Sholem Aleichem, Gertrude Stein, Robert Walser,
Der Nister, Yosef Haim Brenner, Moyshe Kulbak, Andr?
Breton, Thomas Bernhard, and Georges Perec. All readings
and discussions conducted in English.
M. Caplan

213.610 The Idea of a University in Classical German Philosophy
The role and function of a university in life and in society was a topic of considerable concern for some of the most prominent German  philosophers of the late 18th and early 19th century. Their published (and unpublished) contributions led to a new understanding of what a university should be that proved to be very influential for the conception of the 'modern' university, as realized in Germany in the 19th century. The seminar will examine the writings of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Schleiermacher, and Humboldt on the university with attention to the relation of the authors' thoughts on education to their more general philosophical positions.
Horstmann

213.614 Proto-Modernist Fiction 1890-1914
This course will be a graduate seminar tracing the tentative
beginnings of global modernism in late-19th and
early-20th century fiction taken from American, Brazilian,
French, German, Italian, Hebrew, Norwegian,
Russian, and Yiddish sources. Among the topics we
will consider are the radical loss of faith in scientific,
political, and philosophical narratives of progress and
self-improvement at the end of the 19th century; the
breakdown of imperial orders and their impact on social
relations as well as definitions of the self; the reconfiguration
of narrative conventions in response to technological
and intellectual innovations such as photography,
film, electricity, and the advent of the social sciences; the
intensifying predominance of urban life in the formulation
of modern culture; and the interrelations among
aesthetic trends such as realism, naturalism, symbolism,
impressionism, and expressionism in a variety of artistic
media of the era. To what extent does the crisis of faith
in political, aesthetic, and philosophical certitudes of a
previous age result in the liberation of narrative conventions?
To what extent do fin-de-siècle writers throughout
the Western world participate in a common literary
aesthetic? Authors to be considered will include Dovid
Bergelson, Yosef Haim Brenner, Anton Chekhov, Éduard
Dujardin, Knut Hamsun, Franz Kafka, Machado de Assis,
Italo Svevo, and Gertrude Stein.
M. Caplan

213.615 Narrative Theory: A Critical Reevaluation
A commonplace of narrative theory is that narratives produce
a semblance of life. We will analyze the notions of
semblance and life that permit such a statement in works
by Lukacs, Genette, Hamburger, Benjamin, Ricoeur, and
Barthes.
Tobias

213.616 Understanding Irony
Course will examine some of the classic texts on irony
(Schlegel, Novalis, Solger, Hegel) and important 20th century
interpretations of them (Szondi, de Man,
Lacoue-Labarthe, Nancy). Key concern of course will
be whether there can be a conception of irony without
recourse to transcendental philosophy.
Tobias

213.627 Constellations: JMR Lenz Among Others
The writing of Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751-1792)
is marked by a peculiarity. His texts constitute themselves
through references to other modes of speaking; they
originate as it were in literary and discursive cooperation.
This course will examine how Lenz's practice of writing in
relation to others is formed in individual cases. What forms
of representation and poetic theories apply in these cases?
What does Lenz's relational mode of writing indicate in
terms of literary theory and with respect to the notion of
originality postulated in 1770? We will read Lenz's Shakespeare
translations; texts explicity addressed to Goethe
(Der Waldbruder, Pandaemonium Germanikum); dramas and
theoretical writings pointing to 18th-century orders of
knowledge (Der Hofmeister, Philosophische Vorlesungen); and
finally Buechner's Lenz and Celan's Meridian. The term
constellation designates not only the relational order of
the literary material, but also the methodological problem
involved in reading such works. How are texts to
be read, which produce themselves in relation to others
and which cannot be referred to a single author or an
individualized author function? The questions of constellations
is equally a question of the constitution of objects
in literary criticism. This course will reflect on the ways in
which objects are constituted and represented in literary
analysis. Course conducted in German.
Krauss

213.628 Literary Hermeneutics
Starting with Schleiermacher, hermeneutics has defined itself as a universal theory of understanding which no longer focuses only on biblical and juridical exegeses but on linguistic utterances in general. This systematic approach to understanding generated further differentiations: towards philological analysis, the methodological basis of Geisteswissenschaften, the phenomenology of existence (in the mode of understanding), the interpretation of mythic and symbolic worlds of meaning, and the aesthetics of reception. The seminar will examine these different approaches of hermeneutics through readings of works by Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur und Jauss. Key issues will be the underlying concepts of textuality and language, historicity and the subject. Problems of literary hermeneutics will be specified with respect to works by Szondi and Derrida. Readings and discussions in German.
Krauss

213.632 Celan
Examination of Celan's work from middle/late period
with attention to temporal aspects of his verse, i.e., treatment
of time in his work and experience of time fostered.
Investigation of distinctions early, middle, and late
period, assumptions underlying distinctions, and relevance
of such genealogical categories in Celan's case.
Tobias

213.634 Schiller's Aesthetic Writings
Schiller’s theoretical writings might be approached by the sentence ‘it is only through beauty that man makes his way to freedom’. Discussing the assumption that humans live in a condition of unfreedom resulting from social and economic divisions, Schiller’s notion of beauty crosses boundaries between ethics, politics and aesthetics to formulate a theory of modernity in which beauty functions as a medium to reconcile man's sensuous nature and his capacity for reason. The course will examine Schiller’s concept of beauty in relation to the anthropological, political, ethical and aesthetic discourses of his time especially with respect to Kant’s view of aesthetic judgment which Schiller at the same time embraced and criticized. Particular attention will be paid to Schiller’s reflexions on representation as well as to the poetics of his aesthetic discourse. Readings include: Kallias-Briefe (1793), Über Anmut und Würde (1793), Vom Erhabenen (1793), Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen (1793), Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (1795/96).
Krauss

213.638 Epistemology in Historical Perspective
In this seminar, we will discuss the French and German
traditions of introducing historical thinking into philosophy
of science. Readings will include Gaston Bachelard,
Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida
(his reading of Husserl) on the French part, and
Ernst Cassirer, Edmund Husserl (his late Crisis work),
and Martin Heidegger on the German part. Reading and
discussion in English.
Rheinberger

213.640 The Concept of Philological Aesthetics
"Aesthetics" is Alexander Baumgarten's title for a new
way of thinking about the (liberal) arts in the framework
of the basic concepts of modern philosophy, like
(re-) presentation, activity, subjectivity, humanity, and
freedom. Since Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche, this
relation between aesthetics and philosophical modernity
has often been described in such a way that the discourse
of philosophical aesthetics expresses an ideology (as
de Man and Eagleton have put it) of reconciliation or
foundation. The course wants to question this interpretation
by way of reading texts mainly from the German
aesthetic debate in the 18th century. The course will especially
focus on the development of two concepts which
are of central importance for any critique of metaphysics
till today: the concepts of force (over against ability)
and self-reflection (over against self-grounding).
Menke

213.641 Hegel: On Ethics and the Theory of Tragedy
Two-month intensive course that will deal with Hegel's
conceptions of art, politics, and ethical life (Sittlichkeit),
as they are elaborated in his Lectures on Aesthetics and Philosophy
of Right. The goal of the course is to unfold these
conceptions in their internal coherence and to ask for
their contemporary significance. Special consideration
will be given to the question of the systematic relation
between Hegel's theories of art, politics, and ethical life.
Hegel's theory of tragedy, especially in the version of his
Phenomenology of the Spirit, is a good case for addressing
this question.
Menke

213.646 Fantasy Narratives of the 19th Century
This course will be a graduate seminar considering in
structural and historical terms the significance of fantastic
genres in the era of literary realism. Among the topics we
will consider are the place of folklore and oral storytelling
techniques in creating fantastic or anti-realistic narratives;
the persistence of pre-modern narrative genres such as
satire, monologue, and fable in 19th-century fantasy; the
uneasy relationship between romanticism and modernity;
the appeal of non-realistic genres to the peripheral cultures
of 19th century modernity; the relationship of new
literary genres such as the detective story or science-fiction
to earlier fantastic motifs; and the uses of fantastic genres
as a subversive critique of modern rationalism and the
myth of progress. The overarching theme of the course
will be the extent to which 19th-century fantasy might be
considered a precursor to specific trends in 20th-century
modernism. Authors to be considered will include Reb
Nakhman of Breslov, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe,
Gerard de Nerval, Nikolai Gogol, Gustave Flaubert, Mendele
Moykher-Sforim, Charles Chesnutt, and Sholem
Aleichem. These writers will be considered comparatively
in the light of theoretical discussions by, among others,
Freud, Benjamin, Horkheimer and Adorno, Deleuze and
Guattari, Todorov, and Henry Louis Gates. All readings
and discussions conducted in English.
M. Caplan

213.648 The Multilingual Culture of Weimar Berlin
This course will be a graduate-level seminar examining
Berlin in the interwar era as a multilingual metropolis
and center of global modernism. Juxtaposing German language
authors such as Walter Benjamin, Bertolt
Brecht, Alfred Döblin, and Joseph Roth with expatriate
figures such as Christopher Isherwood, Vladimir
Nabokov, Dovid Bergelson, and Sh. Y. Agnon, we will
consider the significance of urban space in the conceptualization
of literary modernism; the role of the refugee
in defining urban literary culture; the applicability
of German aesthetic movements such as Expressionism
or Neue Sachlichkeit to other national literatures active
in Berlin; and the notion of Berlin as a meeting point
for several trends within European modernism. To what
extent can one consider Weimar-Era Berlin to be the
capital of the 20th century? All readings and discussions
conducted in English.
M. Caplan

213.649 Aestheticism Reconsidered
Few terms are more maligned in contemporary criticism
than aestheticism and enchantment. This course
will reconsider conventional definitions of aestheticism
as a privileging of art over life through readings of Weber,
Adorno, Horkheimer, Simmel, Mann, Huysmans, Klages,
George, Adrian and Rilke.
Tobias

213.653 Beieinander: Double Dealing
Reading Kleist, Hegel, Derrida, and perhaps Freud in a
first (larger) section and Eva Meyer, Yoko Tawada, and
perhaps Deleuze in a second (shorter) section, we will
analyze different models of doubling and relating words,
bodies, feelings, and thoughts.
Pahl

213.654 Folklore and Modernism
This course will be a graduate seminar considering in
structural and historical terms the impact of folklore
on modern literary forms, particularly in minority and
marginalized literary cultures. Among the topics we will
consider are the role of folklore in the development of a
national consciousness; the transformation of religious
beliefs and related traditions in the context of modernization;
the structural features of folk tales and how they
influence (or undermine) belletristic narrative forms;
the relationship between folklore and various modes
of satire and parody; the place of folklore in creating
fantasy or anti-realist narratives; and the preservation of
oral narrative techniques in works of literature. Authors
to be considered will include the Brothers Grimm, Reb
Nakhman of Breslov, Nikolai Leskov, Charles Chesnutt,
Sholem Aleichem, Lu Xun, Franz Kafka, Zora Neale Hurston,
and Amos Tutuola. These writers will be considered
comparatively in the light of theoretical discussions by,
among others, Freud, Benjamin, Propp, Deleuze and
Guattari, Frederic Jameson, and Aijaz Ahmad.
M. Caplan

213.655 Beautiful Soul and Romantic Irony: Feeling,
Gender, and Theory
One might be tempted to oppose the critical attitudes
of Sensibility and early Romanticism: one allegedly simpler
and more conservative, complementing enlightened
rationality by cultivating feeling, and the other playful
and sophisticated, bending the Enlightenment's firm
stance with its complex theory and practice of irony. In
this course, we will try to mix up the two discourses of the
beautiful soul and of Romantic irony and, since they
tend to fall along gender lines, this will also be a way of
troubling gender constructions. Readings and discussion
in English.
Pahl

213.656 Theorizing Emotionality
Accounts of affect, passion, feeling, mood by Spinoza,
Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, etc.,
and their relevance for contemporary thought. Reading
and discussion in English.
Pahl

213.657 Friedrich Hölderlin
Reading some of Hölderlin's major works (Hyperion,
Empedokles, poems, theoretical texts) we will discuss their
complex relation to German Idealism as well as their
increased reception in the 20th century. Reading knowledge
of German required.
Pahl

213.659 Rhythm
Starting from Hölderlin's poetry and poetological reflections,
we will look to Klopstock's free meters and to Celan's
work with a shattered language. We will analyze the
rhythmic interplay of various elements of poetry such as
meter, syntax, visual layout, tone and lexicon. Rhythm
will concern us in its potential to disrupt or dissolve set
shapes, dispositions, and ideas. The aim is to consider
poetic rhythm as a form of critique.
Pahl

213.671 The Bildungsroman and Its Critique
Departing from Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre and Wieland's
Geschichte des Agathon, this course will consider how the
Bildungsroman was conceived in the 18th and 19th centuries
in texts by Blankenburg, Morgenstern, Schlegel,
Hegel, and Dilthey.
Tobias

213.672 Literature of Terror, Terror of Literature
We will investigate competing notions of justice and jurisdiction
in Kleist's novella Michael Kohlhaas. A key concern
of the course will be who has the authority to determine
the law and to authorize violence to maintain it. Readings
available in German and English translation.
Tobias

213.680 Suspicion Signs of Modernity
Modernity gives rise to various forms of suspicion,
including modern forms of resentment and practices
of self-discipline (a suspicion of oneself), as well as to
an epistemology of suspicion as it is developed in the
modern human sciences. The course starts out with an
analysis of the detective genre and of the specific transformations
it undergoes in modern German literature.
In a next step, we will examine literary representations
of suspicion within a broader cultural-historical frame:
Nietzsche's analysis of resentment serves as one point
of reference; another is what Carlo Ginzburg has called
the paradigm of clues. The modern human sciences,
since the last third of the 19th century, have relied on a
method that produces knowledge by way of interpreting
clues. While suspicion in the human sciences is related to
the production of truth, literature uses suspicion as a way
to produce aesthetic and logical undecidabilities. We will
analyze literary representations of suspicion with respect
to the narrative structure (unreliable narration) and the
mediality of suspicion. Finally, the course emphazises the
methodological relevance of suspicion: As a practice of
deciphering, interpreting and reading traces, suspicion
calls for being reformulated literary-theoretically. Readings
will include: Heinrich von Kleist, E.T.A. Hoffmann,
Nietzsche, Theodor Fontane, Freud, Kafka, Thomas
Mann, Heimito von Doderer, Peter Handke, Uwe Johnson.
Readings and discussion in German.
Strowick

213.682 Poetics of Possibility
"So the sense of possibility might be defined outright as
the capacity to think how everything could just as easily
be, and to attach no more importance to what is than
to what is not." What Robert Musil in The Man without
Qualities defines as the "sense of possibility" might be
taken to characterize literature. Drawing on literary and
philosophical texts, the course will analyze aspects of a
poetics of possibility (forms of fictionality, as if, subjunctive).
Inasmuch as the sense of possibility is linked to an
order of knowledge as it emerges in modernity, a poetics
of possibility raises the question of the epistemological
status of literature or fiction. We will address this question
by taking into account aspects of genre. The course
will focus mainly on The Man without Qualities; the Musil
reading, however, will be accompanied by reading texts
by Leibniz, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Mach, and Agamben.
Conducted in German.
Strowick

213.683 Dilettantism
From the 18th century to the present, literature and aesthetics show recurrent interest in dilettantism.  While in German classicism the figure of the dilettante is developed in opposition to mastery, around 1900 the debates on dilettantism shift toward cultural-critical and psychological questions.  Drawing on Nietzsche, Bourget and Kassner, literary depictions of dilettantism in texts by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Heinrich and Thomas Mann and Carl Einstein explore the relationship between literature and experiment, figures of increased sensitivity or failed life.  More recently, the pop-literature of teh 1990s promoted dilettantism as a technique of literary production.  Dilettantism, however, is not to be restricted to the fields of literature and aesthetics.  Rather it intervenes in epistemological questions (innovation), allows for reflecting processes of professionalization and specialization of knowledge and is linked to techniques of medial reproduction (Benjamin).  The course interweaves literary texts, aesthetic debates and cultural and media theory positions in order to explore the discourse and poetics of Dilettantism.  REadings include:  Goethe, Schiller, Keller, Bourget, Kassner, Hofmannsthal, Thomas Mann, Carl Einstein, Kafka, Max Weber, Benjamin and Rainald Goetz.  The course will be taught in German.
Strowick.

213.684 Aesthetics of Description
Since the enduring disavowal of description by Lessing, characteristics commonly assigned to description include structural endlessness and exorbitance; the simple succession of elements; the „breakdown of composition“ (Lukács) in a proliferation of details; the parity of described details; its failed ability at illusion; also its tendency to mortify, insofar as it transforms its subject into something static, stagnant. The course will undertake a critical revision of these characteristics by analyzing aesthetical debates and literary descriptions from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Topics leading the discussion will be: text-image relations; description between literature and science; observation through description; dynamization of description; motion and motionlessness; poetics of perception; performativity of description; the boredom of reading. Readings include: Bodmer, Breitinger, von Haller, Winckelmann, Lessing, Alexander von Humboldt, Hebbel, Stifter, Darwin, Ossip Mandelstam, Aby Warburg, Lukács, Peter Weiss, Peter Handke.
Strowick

213.685 Hegel: The Phänomenologie des Geistes
A close reading of Hegel's Phänomenologie des Geistes. We
will pay particular attention to the work of emotionality
in the development of Spirit's self-reflection.
Pahl

213.703 Intercultural Literature
We will read contemporary intercultural literature (Turkish-
German, Japanese-German, authors from Central and
Eastern Europe who write in German) with particular
attention to the poetics of translingualism. When appropriate,
we will discuss historical links (Celan, Canetti,
Kafka, Chamisso, etc.). Readings in German. Discussion
in English or German.
Pahl

213.705 Nietzsche, Mann, Adorno
This course will examine two novels by Thomas Mann
(Doktor Faustus, Felix Krull), which draw heavily on Nietzsche
(Geburt der Tragödie) and Adorno (Philosophie der
neuen Musik). Of concern will be the "power" the texts
attribute to art and the political dimensions of the aesthetic
sphere.
Tobias

213.744 Modern Poetry
An introduction to modern German poetry with emphasis on the fate of the lyric subject in twentieth-century verse. Of particular interest to the course will be the tension between lyric freedom on the one hand and poetic constraint on the other. How does modern poetry come to resist the traditional definition of the lyric as an expression of subjectivity and replace it with a concept of the poem as a vehicle for the dissolution of the self or the dispossession of the speaker? Authors to include Rilke, Trakl, George, Benn, and Celan.
Tobias

213.746 Anti-Mimesis: Modern Poetry and Aesthetic
Theory
In "Das Zeitalter des Weltbildes," Heidegger argues that
the modern period is one in which the subject establishes
a relation with the world by producing an image of it. We
will draw on this definition of the post-Cartesian world to
analyze the rejection of images and more broadly mimesis
in Adorno's Aesthetic Theory, Celan's poetry, Kafka's
fiction, and Benjamin's writings.
Tobias

213.747 From Kultus to Kultur: Poetry, Tragedy and
the Ritual of Art
In a radical departure from Enlightenment and Romantic
aesthetics, Nietzsche praised the cultic origins of art and
argued for the creation of a modern art form that would
enable the same collective experience of transcendence
as Attic tragedy did. Since Nietzsche, however, the idea
that art has ritualistic significance has been treated with
disdain. In this course we will read Mendelssohn's and
Lessing's writings on compassion and catharsis, Schelling's
and Hegel's account of tragedy, and finally the work
of various members of the George-Kreis to determine
where Kultus and Kultur meet and also diverge.
Tobias

213.748 Drifters, Footprints, Telling Time
This course will examine the meandering path of such drifters as Büchner’s Lenz, Rilke’s Malte Laurids Brigge, Kafka’s Hunter Gracchus, and Walser’s Simon Tanner.  A key concern of the course will be how a means of measuring space (walking) becomes a mode for reflecting on time—time which, according to the conceit of walking, can circle back, jump ahead, drift, and splinter into multiple trajectories. An equally important concern of the course will be how literature produces space and generates time by retracing its birth or origin.  What is unique to the experience of time in and through literature? We will read a selection of philosophical texts (Aristotle, Nietzsche, Rousseau), lyric poems (Goethe, Mörike, Trakl, Celan), and fictional works (Büchner, Stifter, Rilke, Kafka, Walser, Bernhard).
Tobias

213.800-801 Independent Study
Staff

213.811-812 Directed Dissertation Research
Staff

Italian Graduate

210.652 Curso Intensivo di Perfezionamento
This course is designed to help students attain very high
levels in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Intensive
use will be made of sight translation, written translation,
paraphrasing, active reading, memory training, and
text analysis techniques. The course seeks to acquaint the
students with a wider range of idiomatic expression and
usages than they have previously managed, and to help
them convey finer shades of meaning while consistently
maintaining grammatical control of complex language.
Zannirato

214.650 The Cosmetic Gaze: Body Modification and
the Construction of Beauty in the 21st Century
This course is situated in the fields of techno-science studies,
the history of medical technologies, and new media
studies. Throughout the course's readings and screenings
we will trace the "cosmetic gaze" - a gaze through which
the act of looking at our bodies and those of others is
already informed by the techniques, expectations, and
strategies of bodily modification to both its cultural-historical
as well as technological roots from 18th-century
physiognomy treatises (e.g., Johann Kaspar Lavater)
to the 19th- and 20th-century politicized discourses of
beauty (with their racist counterparts) from the works of
Francis Galton and Cesare Lombroso to the Nazis; this
material will be compared to current day reality television
makeover shows and the beauty ideals they refer to.
Wegenstein

214.651 Confessions
This course examines the genre of the confession and
the confessional narration of autobiography. What is the
performative impact of this speech act? Who is it for?
Who is it by? We will look at the genre diachronically, and
through various media. Starting with St. Augustine and
his Confessions probably the most famous autobiographical
account of conversion to Christianity we will read
such literary and philosophical examinations as Rousseau's Confessions and Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz.
In the second half of the course we will shift our attention
to the medium of film and its more recent impact
on the confession genre, particularly via the confessional
first person video-diary (e.g., Capturing the Freedmans by
Andrew Jarecki 2003, and Tarnation by Jonathan Caouette
2003), including the recent genre of confessional
documentaries told through the voices of the children
of Nazi perpetrators (e.g., The End of the Neubacher Project
by Marcus Carney 2007). Finally, we will confront such
questions as why authors are drawn to publish confessional
accounts of their lives in the first place; how an
audience can redeem an author or filmmaker; or why
a mass-murderer such as Cho Seung-Hui of the Virgina
Tech-shooting of 2007 would decide to leave a final video
message with NBC. Secondary readings include Thomas
C. Heller/ Morton Sosna/ David E Wellbery, Reconstructing
Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality, and the Self in
Western Thought, Stanford: Stanford UP, 1986; Michael
Renov, The Subject of Documentary, University of Minnesota
Press, 2004, among others.
Wegenstein

214.654 Creating and Teaching the Undergraduate Survey of Italian Literature
Materials for teaching the undergraduate survey are rarely entirely satisfactory "as is."  This course will undertake the research and creation of an undergraduate Italian literature survey tailored to the needs of Johns Hopkins undergraduates, and fully integrated into the language and literature curriculum of the Italian program. Participants will observe and contribute to the instructor's undergraduate survey, Italian 214.251, and, at the end of their own course will have produced a textbook that will serve them in good stead in their future teaching career.
Stephens

214.656 Media and Art Theory
This class will read basic texts in media theory, history, and philosophy — from Marshall McLuhan, and the school of French structuralists, to film semiotics and current approaches to media analysis within ubiquitous computing. We will look at some media artists from Nam June Paik to Cindy Sherman and ask the question of how their art-work incorporates a specific media-theoretical and -philosophical background. Readings from Mark Hansen, Tom Mitchell, Ulrik Ekman, Vivian Sobchack, Amelia Jones a.o.
Wegenstein

214.665 Letturatura Italiana III
This is a basic course presenting the Italian literature of
the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
Forni

214.668 First Seminar on Boccaccio (Boccaccio I)
Readings from Boccaccio's early works (Filocolo, Filostrato,
Teseida, Ninfale Fiesolano) prepare the students for the
study of the Decameron (Boccaccio II). Particular attention
is given to the different cultural traditions that
enrich young Boccaccio's imagination. The question of
the writer's humanism is seen against the background of
his Neapolitan years.
Forni

214.669 Second Seminar on Boccaccio (Boccaccio II)
A reading of Boccaccio's Decameron. A brief history of the
criticism on the work is followed by an extensive treatment
of matters of structure, style, and theory of narrative. Also
included is an assessment of the meaning of the Decameron
within the development of Italian literary prose.
Forni

214.670 Scrivere di Letteratura
An introduction to scholarly writing in Italian and English.
Forni

214.671 I Promessi Sposi
A detailed analysis of Alessandro Manzoni's novel within
its European context. This course aims at showing how
the religious and political components of Manzoni's
imagination shaped this major work of Italian literature.
Forni

214.672 Tasso, the Epic, and Tradition
A reading of Tasso's epics in relation to literary, religious,
and artistic tradition. Reading knowledge of Italian
required.
Stephens

214.677 Umberto Eco's Postmodern Middle Ages
Since the 1960s Umberto Eco has been at the forefront
of European critical theory. Since 1980, he has been one
of the best-known European novelists. The Name of the
Rose and Foucault's Pendulum have revitalized theory-rich
fiction in Europe and North America, inspiring
numerous imitators. Course will explore the relation of
Eco's fiction to his most characteristic contributions to
literary and cultural theory.
Stephens

214.678 Ariosto
A study of Ariosto's Orlando furioso in the context of
humanistic culture and of his own literary production
in shorter genres. The relation of Orlando furioso to the
traditions of epic and romance, especially Boiardo and
Tasso, will be a major focus.
Stephens

214.681 Representing the Ancient Italian Past in the
Renaissance
The Renaissance was, among other aspects, a nationalistic
movement, aimed at recovering the prestigious culture
of the Roman and Etruscan past and counteracting the
perceived decadence of the modern or middle age.
Writers in both Italian and Latin pursued the rebirth
of ancient Italic culture through a variety of literary
and political strategies. After a brief review of familiar
authors and texts from Petrarch to the Cinquecento, we
will examine in depth a variety of texts in Latin and Italian
that defended - often politically, and at times mendaciously
the ancient Italic cultural hegemony. Responses
from other European cultures will be considered.
Stephens

214.693 Platonism in the Italian Renaissance
This course will offer students a foundation for understanding
the Platonic revival in 15th-century Italy. Transmission
of sources, translation, cultural mediation, and
pre-modern styles of philosophizing will all come under
discussion. We will read a mixture of primary and secondary
sources.
Celenza

214.700 Lorenzo Valla
The life and work of this 15th-century philosopher will
be treated.
Celenza

214.721 Eighteenth-Century Italian Autobiography
Notions of autobiography since Jean-Jacques Rousseau as
a perspective onto 18th- and early 19th-century autobiographies
(Vittorio Alfieri, Carlo Goldoni, Giambattista
Vico and selections from Giacomo Leopardi's Zibaldone).
Readings and discussion will be in Italian.
Zatti

214.748 Vico and the Old Science
Giambattista Vico proposed a new science, but in relation
to what? We shall read La scienza nuova against the
background of some of the texts and ideas that inspired
Vico's redefinitions.
Stephens

214.749 The Scholar's Bookshelf, Part I:
Medieval Authors' Authors
Course will examine a variety of examples from the
genres and authors most read by medieval authors in the
Romance languages canon, and relate them to authors of
that canon. Examples will include theology, philosophy,
encyclopedias, poetry, hagiography, and historiography.
Translations will be used, but reading knowledge of simple
Latin is helpful.
Stephens

214.750 The Scholar's Bookshelf, Part II
Stephens

214.761 Reading and Writing in Pre-Modern Europe
This course has a fourfold aim: First, it is designed to familiarize participants with the basics of Latin paleography from Roman antiquity through the age of printing with moveable type; throughout, we will practice deciphering literary and documentary sources of various types, even as we concentrate on the evolution of different writing styles.  Second, we will think about paleography’s status as a “discipline.” That is, the term “paleography” dates back to 1708 and Montfaucon’s classic work, Palaeographia Graeca.  However, it was only in the late nineteenth century in the world of the German research university that paleography came into the orbit of the Geisteswissenschaften as a “Hilfswissenschaft.”  Both implicitly and explicitly throughout the seminar we shall be asking what consequences that move entailed.  Third, we will study the manner in which printing with moveable type changed western graphic culture: was printing “revolutionary” or “evolutionary”?  Did printing and its radical graphic changes introduce new forms of consciousness in readers?  Fourth, we will become familiar with certain aspects of “the history of the book,” discovering as we do what sorts of questions scholars in this broad field of scholarly endeavor have been asking recently.
Celenza

214.763 Carlo Emilio Gadda
An introduction to the work of the Milanese engineer
considered by many the greatest Italian fiction writer of
the 20th century.
Forni

214.764 Dante's Inferno: A Reading for Teaching
This reading of the first cantica of Dante's Commedia is
aimed at preparing future professionals in the humanities
for the teaching of Dante at the college level.
Forni

214.765 Castiglione e Della Casa
A reading of two major Renaissance books of conduct,
the Cortegiano and the Galateo.
Forni

214.768 Tasso's Prose: The Dialogues
Torquato Tasso was not only a poet, dramatist, and literary
critic, but also wrote over 20 philosophical dialogues.
This course examines several of his major dialogues in
terms of their compositional strategies, pertinence or
consonance to his poetics, and contribution to Tasso's
self-fashioning as Counter-Reformation public intellectual.
Solid reading knowledge of Italian required.
Stephens

214.769 Poesia Italiana Delle Origini
This course is an introduction to the Scuola siciliana
and the Dolce stil nuovo.
Forni

214.771 Literature, Philosophy, and Christianity:
Gianfrancesco Pico Della Mirandola (1469-1533)
Reading and commentary of texts by a major author in
the Renaissance philosophical canon. Gianfrancesco
Pico was a key figure in the reintroduction of classical
skepticism, but also a pietist, a theorist of witchcraft, and
a persecutor of witches. We will read selected works on
skepticism, imagination, Christianity, and witchcraft,
both in their Latin originals and in 16th-century Italian
translations. Gianfrancesco's intellectual inheritance
from his uncle Giovanni Pico and other humanists
will be examined, as will his influence on later writers
in the philosophical and literary traditions, both Latin
and vernacular. Reading knowledge of Latin and Italian
required.
Stephens

214.772 Petrarch and Augustine
Among his favourite authors Petrarch mentions over and
over Augustine. Indeed, Petrarch's works, not only the
Secretum, but his lyric poetry as well, are imbued with vestiges
of Augustine's thinking. The use Petrarch makes of
the church father's main theological concepts, though,
is highly provocative. The graduate course focuses on
the relation between theological and literary discourse.
Under this perspective, Petrarch's writings can be considered
as paradigmatic for a wide range of early modern
literature, from Dante to Montaigne.
Kupper

214.780 Italian Short Fiction
Stephens

214.861 Italian Independent Study
Staff

214.862 Italian Dissertation Research
Staff

214.863 Italian Proposal Preparation
Staff

Spanish Graduate

215.631 Calderon de la Barca: Golden Age Drama
In this course we will discuss two dramas by Calderon, the
auto-sacramental El divino Orfeo (second version, 1663)
and the comedy El médico de su honra (1635). Classes will
focus on a close reading of these texts. In addition we will
consider such general problems related to Golden Age
literature as the relation to humanism, the function of
the references to theology and dogma, the status of allegory,
and the prominence of quasi-archaic patriarchal
structures. This course will be open to graduate students
and to advanced undergraduates.
Kupper

215.634 The Picaresque Novel in Spain
A close reading of the Lazarillo de Tormes, Aleman's
Guzman de Alfarache, two of Cervantes' Novelas ejemplares,
and the Pícara Justina. These novels' socio-historical references
will be researched; the picaresque as literary genre
will also be a primary topic.
Sieber

215.635 Seminar on Early 17th-Century Spanish
Drama: Lope de Vega and His Followers
Readings in theory of the drama and various plays and
their relationships to the chorals will be the primary topic
covered; analysis of individual plays from the viewpoint of
court theater will also be included.
Sieber

215.640 Self-Representation in Latin American Fiction,
Testimonio and Memoir
Taking into account the crisis is self (national) representation
and the fluidity of identities, the course will delve
into the work of various major Latin American writers in
order to study issues of self-representation across time
and specific contexts. The course wil start with Sarmiento's
memoirs, move on to Teresa de la Parra and Clarise
Lispector. Machado de Asis, Borges, Arguedas will preface
reading the memoirs by Rosario Castellanos, Garcia
Marquez and Mario Vargas.
Castro-Klarén

215.644 Travel and the Displacement of the Subject
This course examines the displacement of the subject
in modern travel narrative written in Latin America and
about Latin America. Special focus is given to the construction
of self and place.
Castro-Klarén

215.645 Colonial Texts and Postcolonial Theory
This seminar considers the production of subject identities
in the chronicles authored by Spanish and Indian
letrados during the early period of Iberian colonization
of this hemisphere.
Castro-Klarén

215.646 The Narrative of Conquest in the Andes, 1530-1680
Departing form narratology  and the perspective of post-colonial studies, the course will analyze the narrative of conquest as developed by Cieza de Leon, Garcilaso de la Vega, Inca, Guaman Poma, Jose de Acosta and William Prescott.
Castro-Klarén

215.648 Writing Mexico: Conquest & Culture 1200-1600
Deploying post-colonial theory, the course will examine
the discursive modes in which Mexico appears as both
an object of knowledge and of memory in selected readings
of Sahagun's work.
Castro-Klarén

215.650 Across the Avant-Garde: Race, Culture, Nation
The study in comparative perspective of socio-cultural
issues in race and cultural formation during the postromantic
emergence of distinct modernist literary and
artistic movements and trends in Spain, Cuba, and Ireland,
from the 1830s through the 1920s. Of central concern
will be Terry Eagleton's depiction of an archaic
avant-garde in the Irish case, examined through James
Joyce's The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and related
to equivalent (though not similar) affirmations and critiques
of ethnic and national identities in Spain and Cuba,
across the crisis created by the demise of empire and the
troubles and challenges of post-colonial nation-building.
E. González

215.657 Modern Mexico and the Culture of Death
We will consider at the advanced level the cultural resonance
of death in Mexico's colonial and postcolonial history
and the impact of the 1910 revolution in the nation's
popular and elite self-image. Emphasis placed on the
visual arts, literature, music, and the view of Mexico created
by foreign writers and artists.
E. González

215.658 Whose Caribbean?  Colonialism and Human Bondage
The seminar will explore the Hispanophone and Anglophone cultures of the region with emphasis on literature as a hegemonic practice confronting the legacies of slavery. It will also study authors from outside the region whose work has been imaginatively and politically involved with it.  Novels, stories, poems, and essays by Alejo Carpentier, Lydia Cabrera, Nicolás Guillén, Virgilio Piñera, Miguel Barnet, Luis Palés Matos, Mayra Montero, Jean Rhys, Toni Morrison, Derek Walcott, V. S. Naipaul, George Lamming.
E. González

215.659 Noir Nation
Noir has become the default genre for sex-and-violence best-selling novels in the global market. From its putative origins in hard-boiled crime pulps, on the eve of the Great Depression, the imprint nowadays embodies the leading post-territorial fiction machine. We will zigzag the high-and-low noir belt in the company of masters sharply at odds with their respective nations and the cleansing of dark legacies: J. L. Borges, "El Zahir;" W. Faulkner, Sanctuary; Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest; Leonardo Sciascia, The Day of the Owl (Il giorno della civetta); Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo; Carlos Fuentes, La cabeza de la hidra; Mario Vargas Llosa, Lituma en los Andes, Javier Marías, Mañana en la batalla piensa en mí; Orhan  Pamuk, The Black Book Kara Kitap).
E. González

215.666 Founding and Refashioning the Nation:
Sarmiento, Euclides de Cunha, Gavedos, Carlos
Fuentes, Dimela Eltit
The course will focus on the historical and discursive possibilities
of the nation's narration in post-colonial Latin
America. Special attention will be given to the historical
record, to discursive and narrative theory, to recent critical
assessment of the issue and the question of the nation
in the age of globalization.
Castro-Klarén

215.685 Literature and Religious Experience
The focus of this course is how the mystical, the sacred,
the ineffable are expressed in literary language. We
will look at both contemporary theoretical discussions
of religion and its renewed importance in philosophical
debates, as well as examine cases of literary religious
expression from the Middle Ages to the modern period.
Case studies will be comparative, but the emphasis will
be on Spanish examples. Reading knowledge of Spanish
is required.
Egginton

215.686 All About Zizek
In this seminar we will undertake a critical exploration
of the work of today's most visible and influential philosopher
and public intellectual. We will read several of
Slavoj Zizek's most important books, as well as view two
films, "Zizek" and "A Pervert's Guide to Cinema." At issue will
be his adaptation of Lacanian psychoanalysis for political
theory and cultural studies.
Egginton

215.687 Theater and Ideology in the Spanish Golden Age
An examination of the first mass entertainment industry
of urban modernity: the Spanish Golden Age theater.
In addition to many canonical works from the period,
by authors such as Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, and
Calderon de la Barca, we will analyze the political circumstances
of their production and a variety of theoretical
frameworks for understanding their impact, including
works by Adorno, Bourdieu, Maravall, Laclau, and
Zizek.
Egginton

215.715 Romanticism
In this course we will examine the literary and cultural
discourse of the early 19th century in Europe and specifically
Spain, focusing on the literary aesthetic movement
known as Romanticism. As Romanticism was an international
and intercultural movement, our approach will
necessarily involve a comparative analysis of romantic
writing. In addition, although mostly centered on the
romantic form of expression par excellence, namely
poetry, the course will delve into other media of romantic
expression, specifically other literary forms like drama
and the essay, as well as musical forms such as opera. In
particular, the influence of Spanish romantic works of
literature on the Italian opera will be discussed.
Egginton

215.716 Partiality
In this seminar we will explore the idea of the partial,
not as secondary to wholeness, but as prior to and independent
of any presumption of totality. From the partial
drives of psychoanalysis to the Heideggerian concept
of Eigentlichkeit to the deconstructive understanding
of essences as being always secondary and parasitic,
the concept of partiality can help us understand how
human desire is as inextricably bound to temporality and
incompletion as it is to corporate fantasies of eternity and
wholeness. Weaving together a series of literary and philosophical
readings from sources like Borges, Kafka, Cervantes, Plato, Augustine, Maimonides, Derrida, Lacan,
and Zizek, we will explore how being partial entails both
the impossibility of truly impartial judgments and the
inevitability of our being always partial to other people,
experiences, and objects. Ultimately at stake will be the
role literature and the reading of literature can have in
taking stock of partiality in all its forms and effects.
Egginton

215.738 Novelas Ejemplares de Cervantes
A close reading of Cervantes' short stories, with concentration
on their literary tradition and their relationship to
some of his other works. Will also investigate Spanish court
society, politics, and history between 1598 and 1621.
Sieber

215.739 Novela, cine y teoria
Highlights in the philosophy and theory of the novel and
narration from Lukacs to Barthes, Bahktin, and Derrida,
examined in reference to leading approaches to cinema
in the 20th century. Works of fiction from Cervantes to
Manuel Puig and Javier Marias and films from classical
Hollywood to Almodovar.
E. González

215.747 Borges in Theory
An in-depth reading of Borges' major work and its relation
to critical theory.
Castro-Klarén

215.749 La Novela Actual en Perspectiva Transatlantica
Javier Marías, Corazón tan blanco, Antonio Muñoz Molina,
Beltenebros, Luis Leante, Mira si yo te querré (España);
Tomás Eloy Martínez, El vuelo de la reina (Argentina);
Roberto Bolaño, Los detectives salvajes (Chile); Santiago
Roncagliolo, Pudor, Mario Vargas Llosa, Travesuras de la
niña mala (Peru); Laura Restrepo, Delirio (Colombia);
Xavier Velazco, Diablo guardián (Mexico).
E. Gonzalez

215.750 Medieval and Contemporary Literatures and
Cultures Face Off
Taking into account comparative studies in medieval and
modern literatures and theory, this seminar examines
ways in which these temporally distant and apparently
incommensurable cultural productions reflect on and
dialogue with one another. Classes will discuss modern
works and selections from medieval texts including Tirante
el blanco and Amadís de Gaula face to face with Alejo Carpentier's
Los pasos perdidos; Cárcel de amor and El collar de la
paloma with Gabriel García Márquez's El amor en los tiempos
del cólera, and Siete infantes de Lara and Poema del Cid with
Crónica de una muerte anunciada. Additional texts include
El amor y otros demonios (García Márquez), El beso de la mujer
araña (Manuel Puig), Eric y Enide (Manuel Vazquez Montalbán),
and El señor de los ultimos dias (Homero Aridjis).
Theory includes psychoanalysis, the location of medievalism
in the development of contemporary critical theory,
and studies on spatialization and temporality.
E. González/Altschul

215.756 Conquest and Writing in the Andes: 1430-1630
In view of the latest arguments and revision of the history
of Andean cultures in the work of Gary Urton, Frank
Salomon, Maria Rostoworosky, and Irene Silverblatt, the
course will consider the problem of writing and memory
in the Andes together with the relation of writing to the
formation of both imperial and colonial cultural formations.
Readings will include the Huarochiri myths, the
Inca relations of the war with the Waris, the narrative of
conquest authored by Betanzos, Cieza de Leon, Garcilaso
de la Vega Inca, and Guaman Poma. The course will
depart from a post-colonial perspective and approach to
studies of conquest and colonial formations.
Castro-Klarén

215.758 La Novela y del al Tierra en America y Espana
Novels written in Spanish America and Spain in the
19th and 20th centuries characterized by rural and pastoral
themes, barbarism and civility, and the question
of nationhood. Ignacio Manuel Altamirano (Mexico),
La navidad en las montañas (1871); Emilia Pardo Bazán
(Spain), Los pazos de Ulloa (1886); Jose Eustacio Rivera
(Colombia), La vorágine (1924); Ricardo Güiraldes (La
Argentina), Don Segundo Sombra (1926); Rómulo Gallego
(Venezuela), Dona Barbara (1929); Alejo Carpentier
(Cuba/Venezuela), Los Pasos perdidos (1953); Juan Benet
(Spain), Volverás a region (1967).
E. González

215.759 Authorship and Nobility in Early Lyric Poetry
This seminar will begin with discussions of the 15th century
as a threshold in intellectual and literary history,
explore the writings of aristocratic poets, and end with a
close reading of the work of Gomez Manrique.
Sieber/Altschul

215.760 Authority and Nobility in 17th-Century Castile
This seminar will begin with a discussion of the 1400s as
a threshold in European intellectual and literary history.
Classes will consider authorship, print history, nobility
in a converso society and, in particular, we will examine
differing perspectives on the beginnings of the sense of
history as a marker of European modernity. Along these
lines, this seminar will explore writings of aristocratic
and court poets as well as historiographical works that
traverse the 15th century and include, among others,
Juan de Mena, Gomez Manrique, Marqus of Santillana,
Fernan Perez de Guzman, and Fernando del Pulgar.
Sieber/Altschul

215.773 Baroque and Neo-Baroque Aesthetics
Works from the Spanish Baroque and colonial period
will be read in conjunction with that aesthetic production
of the 20th century that has come to be known as
neobaroque. We will attempt to confront the question
of what, if anything, connects these periods aesthetically,
politically, and philosophically. Media beyond the textual
will be included in our considerations.
Egginton

215.776 Canon Formation in the Idea of Latin America
The seminar explores, in the work of major Latin American
writers and critics such as Rodo, Borges, Mariategui,
Neruda, Jean Franco, Antonio Cornejo, Angel Rama,
Antonio Candido, Elena Parente Cunha, Rosario Castellanos,
John Beverley, and Walter Mignolo, the key concepts
that have allowed for the construction of a canon
in Latin American culture and literature.
Castro-Klarén

215.826 Spanish Independent Study
Staff

215.827 Spanish Dissertation Research
Staff

215.828 Spanish Proposal Preparation 
Staff
 
Graduate Interdepartmental
 
360.606 In Search of the Sacred: Pilgrimage and
Crusade in Medieval Europe
(Cross-listed with History of Art.)
Nichols, Weiss
  
360.610 Culture, Communications, and Technology:
New Research Paradigms in the Digital Age
Permission required. (Cross-listed with History of Science
and Technology.)
Kargon, Anderson

360.641 Subverting the Text
Seminar examines the process of subverting texts. Cases
include Cartesian/Newtonian physics, phlogiston chemistry,
Darwinian biology, Rousseau's Botanical Letters,
Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopedia, the Munich 1937
exhibit Degenerate Art and staging non-theatrical literature.
Anderson, Kargon

 360.653 (H,S) Culture of Reason
This seminar is a close examination of how the changing
understanding of Newtonianism (and its translation
across language, disciplinary, and cultural barriers) transformed
the worlds of arts and letters. It will also discuss
related 18th-century attempts to articulate social, moral,
and political issues relating to gender and class and conclude
with a close reading of the anti-Newtonian movement
and a final discussion of the continuing relevance of
issues of Newtonianism and cultural translation to modern
humanistic research. A full description of the course,
including the proposed syllabus can be found at www
.wilda.org/Courses/CourseVault/Grad/Newtonianism.
Taught with 360.453. (Cross-listed with History of Science
and Technology.)
Anderson, Kargon    

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