Current Courses for Spring 1997

CLT 502 -- Translation Theory -- Louise O. Vasvari

After an overview of the history of translation theory and practice, students will gain familiarity with contemporary theories of translation, with particular emphasis on linguistic approaches to translation and on the recent `cultural turn' in tranlation studies. We will deal with specific textual problems in a special section on poetic translation, which will include the analysis of the translation of sdelected works from a variety of non-Western languages. We will also devote two case studies to some of the major issues of translation theory and practice--Bible translation and the history of Shakespeare in translation. In lieu of a final paper, students can choose to undertake a theoretical evaluation of an existing translation, and/or a bibliographical project related to translation. Required textx: Bassnett [McGuire], Susan, Translation Studies; Lefevre, Andrã&, Translating Literature: Practice and Theory in a Comparative Literature Context.

Monday 3:30-6:30PM, Library E4305

CLT 603 -- Theorizing Fascism and Gender -- Jacqueline Reich

The fascist regimes in Italy and Germany each amde the male and female body into a cornerstone of national discourse. How did fascism's growth and success rely on the construction and regulation of masculinity and femininity? How did cultural production become a tool in the diffusion of codes anbd modes of proper fascist subjectivity? Were the regimes successful in their cultural and social objectives? We will address these and many other issues as we examine the intersections of fascist ideology and gender identityand often the visceral reactions to their imperatives in different forms of cultural expression: literature, film, and the visual arts. We will be guided by recent theoretical work in these areas, which reveal, particularly in the case of Italy, the highly contradictory nature of fascism's ideological formation, cultural politics, anmd gender constructs. The final section of the course will be devoted to the subject of fascism and memmory, in order to consider ex-post-facto literary and moral issues in complicity, resistance and narration. Major assignments will include position papers, an oral presentation and a term paper. Cross-listed with ITL 571.

Thursday 5:30-8:30PM, Library E4305

CLT 604.01 -- The Americas: Narratives of Invention -- Román de la Campa

This course will explore narratives (essays, novels, theory) that attempt to come to terms with "American Otherness" in Latin America and the Caribbean. It will first cover a wide array of established contemporary Latin American texts on the topic. These will include the work of renowned authors from diverse cultural and linguistic traditions (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Caribbean, English, and Meso-American Indian) such as J.L. Borges, Octavio Paz, Roberto Schwartz, Eduard Glissant, C.L.R. James, and Rigoberto Menchª&. Secondly, the course will study recent writing from eminent European and North American critics and theorists who are also addressing this question and its global impliocations These include Tzvetan Todorov, Michel de Certeau, Josã& Saldivar, Stephen Greenblatt, and Mary Louise Pratt. Lectures, reading material and class discussions will be in English.

Tuesday 3:45-6:45PM, Library E4305

CLT 604.02 -- The Carnival-Grotesque and the Novel -- Tim Westphalen

This course is intented to be a diachronic examination not of the genre of the grotesque as constructed by commentators from Jean Paul to Wolfgang Iser, but of the genre-shaping carnival-grotesque as formulated in various works by Bakhtin. Emphasis will fall less on the anthropological aspect of Bakhtin's theory of carnival than on the place of the carnival-grotesque in Bakhtin's larger concern with the dialogic nature of discourse. Particular attention will be devoted to works by Bely, Gogol, Gombrowicz, Nabokov, O'Brien, Rabelais and Sterne. Cross-listed with RUS 511.

Wednesday 3:30-6:30PM, Library N3059

CLT 631 -- Neoplatonic Themes in Islamic Thought -- William Chittick

The first goal of the seminar will be to gain an overview of the Islamic philosophical tradition in terms of basic notions taken over from Neoplatonism, such as the One, nous, and the apotheosis of the soul. To this end we will read and discuss texts by major representatives of five schools of thought--the Peripatetics (represented by al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Avicenna), the Heremeticists (the Ikhwan al-Safa and Baba Afzal Kashani), the Illuminationsists (Surawaradi), the unitarian Sufis (Ibn al-Arabi), and the Transcendent Theosophists (Mulla Sadra). The second more basic goal will be to look at some of the theoretical problems that arise when we compare the Islamic and Western intellectual traditions. Both had access the Greek philosophical writings and indeed, the West originally received these through the intermediary of Muslim thinkers. Why then did Islamic intellectuality gravitate toward Neoplatonism, and why did Western philosophers and theologians come to be much more deeply influenced by Aristotelianism? How is it that much of the later Western philosophical tradition has supported the cultural dominance of science and scientism, while the Islamic philosophical tradition has continued to ficus on metaphysics, ontology, anthropocosmism, and spiritual ethics? Students will be expected to make an oral presentation and to prepare a research paper. Cross-listed with PHI 601.

Thursday 3:45-6:45PM, Harriman 249

Independent Courses and Dissertation Research:

CLT 520 Problems in Translation CLT 597 Directed Readings, M.A. CLT 599 Independent Study CLT 690 Thesis Research CLT 698 Practicum in Teaching CLT 699 Directed Readings, Ph.D.