Readings in major theories of literature since the Enlightenment, in combination with selected literary texts. Special attention will be paid to the following topics: the circulation of literary texts in and across historical contexts, the social functions of literature and literary education, literature and other cultural forms, literary study and other disciplines, translation and multilingualism, modernity, and national traditions. Authors will include some of the following: Goethe, Wordsworth, Poe, Arnold, Freud, Kafka, Bakhtin, Eliot, Borges, Barthes, Bloom, Foucault, Derrida, de Man, Eagleton, Said, Spivak.
 
 

Tuesday 3:30 - 6:30 p.m. Melville Library E 4305

What does it mean to speak of the Postmodern? How does the Postmodern relate to the Modern? In what way can thinking culture and politics via postmodern theories provide alternatives to more conventional (modern) accounts? Both the understanding of contemporary cultures and the political as articulated in the twenty-first century is in a state of crisis. Different modes of research and investigation in the humanities are called for. Can postmodern theories help? This seminar will seek to address questions of just this sort.

Reading will be drawn from the following:

Foucault: The Order of Things
Kristeva: Strangers to Ourselves
Lyotard: The Differend
Deleuze: A Thousand Plateaus
Derrida: Politics of Friendship
Zizek: The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology

Monday 7:00 - 10:00 p.m. Melville Library E 4305

 
This seminar will explore Dostoevsky as a reality of history (largely intellectual and cultural history) both in his own conjunctions with Western and Russian thought (early socialism, Left Hegelianism, religion) and as a writer who has influenced the twentieth-century. The first Dostoevsky will be approached through a reading of his major texts--including Notes from the Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov-- the other Dostoevsky, "Our Contemporary" as the Russian title him, will be approached through the literary works (Camus), films (Kurosawa), theater works (Stanislavsky), and other forms of representation that have used him for their own purposes. Students will be encouraged to explore literatures and cultures other than Russian for this Dostoevsky, and to sort out the first from the second. No knowledge of Russian is required.

Wednesday 3:30-6:30 p.m. Melville Library E 4305

This course willprovide a study of Latino/a literature and culture in the United States articulated in English. It will emphasize textual analysis but will also include historical questions regarding Latinos in the United States and inquire how their work fits into theoretical issues pertaining to literary and cultural studies today.

The course will examine the writing, video and performance of Latino/a authors and artists working in the United States, as well as the representation of the Latino population within mainstream media. We will study the early East (Nuyorican) and West (Chicano) Coast formation of a Latino/a corpus, as well as the impact of recent migrations of Latino groups with different national origins now writing in Englsih, such as Cuban-AMericans and Domincans, among others. From there we will consider whether Latino/a literature and culture introduce a transnational or postnational set of questions to the understanding of multiculturalism. Is it "American" literature, "Latin American" literature, both, or something else? How does it pertain to traditional divisions of mainstream, ethnic or African American literary configurations in the UNited States?

Assessment: Students will be expected to write three short responses on selected texts taught in class and a final research paper. Students will also be expected to participate in class discussion.

Readings: Selections will be made from the following tentative texts/videos/critics/authors:
 

Tomás Rivera, Nuyorican Poet's Café, Juan Flores
Dolores prida, Chicano Asco Group, José David Saldívar
Pedro Pietri Cocolos y Roqueros, Doris Sommer
Sandra Cisneros, Carmen Miranda, Norma Alarcón
Cristina García, El Norte, Gustovo Pérez Firmat
Octavio Paz, Zoot Suit, Antonio Negri
Ana Castillo, Buena Vista Social Club, Michael Hardt
Ilán Stavans, José Martí, Gloria Anzaldúa
Junot Díaz, Saskia Sassen, Richard Rodríguez
Julia Alvarez, Américo Paredes, Miguel Algarín
Judith Ortiz Cofer, Tato Laviera

 
Monday 4:00-7:00 p.m. Melville Library E 4305

CLT 597 Directed Readings, M.A.
CLT 599 Independent Study
CLT 690 Directed Readings
CLT 698 Practicum in Teaching
CLT 699 Directed Readings: Ph.D. Candidacy

ARH 546 - Art of the 1960s and Theories of Resistance

Jonathan Katz

A broad, multidisciplinary look at the culture of the 1960s, with special attention to the visual arts and underground or "art" film. We will take seriously the notion of an aesthetics of resistance and employing queer and feminist theories, examine and specify the capacity for resistance in numerous works of the period. While Warhol is a central focus of the course, he is by no means its sole topic.

Thursday 11:00-2:00 p.m. Staller 3212
 
 

MUS 541 - Music, Gender, and Sexuality

Jane Sugarman

This seminar provides an introduction to studies of music in its relationship to issues of gender and sexuality by presenting representative writings on music in conjunction with background readings from other disciplines. It may also serve as an introduction to current trends in the fields of etnomusicology, interdisciplinary musicology, and popular music studies. Following a group ofcore theoretical readings, the course will begin anthropological and ethnomusicological writings on music and gender viewed cross-culturally, and then turn to analyses of Western classical and popular genres. Class sessions will be devoted to discussion of the readings and, when appropriate, listening and/or video viewing.

Thursday 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. Music Library seminar
 
 

WST 601 - Feminist Theories of the Body

Adrienne Munich

In focusing on the question of theories of the (female) body, this course takes up one of the revolutionary topics by which Women's Studies and feminist theory have transformed understanding, both about individuals and about society. By bringing attention to the body and the way culture has understood it, represented it, manipulated it, and made meanings from it, feminist theories have challenged traditional privilege given to the mind (and to men) in western thought. This course surveys some of the most important feminist theories about the body. We will pay most attention to the female body, although the course opens the possibility of considering the male body from the perspective of feminist theory. Questions of the sexed body, of the gnedered body, of bodily differences will be under scrutiny. Because of the conference on breast cancer in March, we will closely consider recent feminists on the topic, particularly work considering the politics of the disease. Students will chose one particular theorist to concentrate on and will present an annotated bibliography for the class. In addition, each student will work on an interdisciplinary project, most likely a typical seminar paper but tailored to his or her particular interest and research and disciplinary training.

Wednesday 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. Old Chem 135
 
 

WST 610/PHI 615 - Feminism and Universalism

Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks

In feminist and postcolonial criticism, universalism as a concept has traditionall implied androcentrism and eurocentrism. The analysis of gender acording to western feminists falsifies any attempt to speak of a unviversal human history, ontology, or ethics. Interestingly, postcolonial critics have in trun charged western feminists with universalizing their priorities and vlaues as global women's issues. The burden of this course will be to reopen the question of the universal as a "political" concept that anti-colonial feminists have to contend with in any formulation of social struggle. Can any protest be properly "political" if it does not deploy the rhetoric of the universal? What are the relations between the particularities of gender and race and the universalizing human struggle for political hegemony? Is it necessarily exclusionary to universalize certain tenets of feminist ethics? We will explore these questions and others in three sections: (1) We shall begin by reviewing the tradition of anti-universalist criticism in feminism and postcolonialism that will include authors such as Joan Scott, Samir Amin, Chandra Mohanty, Spivak, Chatterjee. (2) We will then go on to consider the question of "the political" through a reading of Chantal Mouffe and her work on Gransci and Carl Schmitt and relate it to the work done on sexuality by Fanon and other national liberation thinkers. (3) Next, we will read recent debates on universalism and political hegemony by authors such as Etienne Balibar, R. Radhakrishnan, Judith Butler, ernesto Laclau, Slavoj Zizek and others. The aim of the course is to explore the possibility of going beyond the pieties of relativism towards an ethics that is properly feminist and commensurate with out contemporary condition of globalization.

Monday 7:00 - 10:00 p.m. Old Chem 135
 
 

WST 611 - Gender and Globalization

Betty Joseph

This seminar will pursue two related though distinct lines of inquiry. On the one hand, we will engage in a sustained theoretical interrogation of "globalization" and "globalisms." We will focus especially on the implications of globalization (as a concept and historical process) for the critical framework of gender studies and for the project of feminism itself. On the other hand, we will develop these theoretical insights about globalization through the study of contemporary fictional texts. Because any understanding of globalization depends on narrative and discursive strategies that articulate time and place in new ways, we will use contermpoary fiction and poetry as tools to unpack the various cognitive aspects of sapce and tiume in the so-called "New World Order."

Tuesday 12:50 - 3:40 p.m. Old Chem 105