We will begin by reading three exemplary texts by Malraux: The Royal Way, Man's Fate, and Man's Hope. We will then examine, compare and evaluate various theoretical approaches both to these specific narratives and to his entire corpus. Malraux's various roles as adventurer, engaged intellectual, revolutionary, culture pundit, and minister of culture will receive critical examination as well. The theoretical approaches whose main tenets we will review in light of Malraux's work will include formalism, Marxism, psychoanalysis (psycho-criticism),structuralism, semiotics, reader-response theory, feminism, deconstruction, and cultural studies. The triple purpose of this seminar will be (1) to read a few primary texts in and of themselves; (2) to discuss these in their historico-cultural context, and (3) to examine possibilities for testing the various literary theories that this century has offered up.

Tuesday 7:00-10:00 p.m. Library E 4305

In 1976 Althusser gave a lecture to a Spanish audience at the University of Granada, Spain. The event was significant in several respects: first, it was the occasion for a major theoretical pronouncement --"The Transformation of Philosophy" -- by one of the major Marxists of the second half of the 20th century; and secondly, it reunited Althusser with one of his most brilliant and original students, Juan Carlos Rodríguez, professor of Spanish literature at the University of Granada. For the last twenty years, Rodríguez has developed a program of Marxist research of great depth and range. The aim of the present course is to understand and assess the achievements of the Althusserian tradition, as mediated by Rodríguez's work. While in no sense an exclusively "Hispanic" course -- its bias is rather "theoretical" and, ultimately, European -- Rodríguez finds in Spanish literature an obvious exponential source, and students taking the course should be prepared to engage in close readings of such texts as the Poem of Mio Cid, The Spanish Bawd, Lazarillo de Tormes, and Don Quixote. It will also be assumed that students are prepared to take Spain as a "case study" within the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and seriously to address the political, economic and ideological complexities of the Spanish absolutist state. As the same time, every effort will be made to pursue Rodríquez's own references to the Petrarchan tradition, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Montaigne, Descartes, Defoe, Locke, etc.

A translation of most of Rodríquez's Theory and History of Ideological Production will be provided, along with other readings.

Other set texts include: Robert Paul Resch, Althusser and the Renewal of Marxist Social Theory, University of California Press, Louis Althusser, For Marx (New Left), Essays of Self-criticism, (New Left) and Philosophy of the Scientists (Verso).

Tuesday 4:00-7:00 p.m. Library E 4305

In the first part of this course we will study classic texts by Freud on art, literature, and the artist and other essays crucial to later developments of psychoanalysis as it relates to the arts. Making the

linguistic turn in the second part of the course, we will read "The Purloined Letter" and Lacan's seminar on it, some other stories by Poe, and other essays by Lacan that have been important for gender and film studies. Krzysztof Kieslowski's film Blue and Marguerite Duras' novel The Ravishing of Lol Stein will be the foci of our study of Julia Kristeva's work on depression. Finally, we will turn to Sander Gilman's work on race and gender to see how psychoanalytic theory can inform cultural studies. The last part of the course will be presentations by the students on the topics that they have been researching for their seminar papers.

Thursday 4:00-7:00 p.m. Library E 4305

Although we do not aim to give a definitive answer to the question "What is cultural studies?," we will interrogate the ideas, methods, and claims of much of what has been written under that name. What are the contending histories of cultural studies? How is such a term positioned within the disciplinary shifts and academic markets of the American university today? What are the national and transnational dimensions of such a field of study?

We will be concerned with how cultural forms interact with one another and with their contexts; how reception of cultural production depends on values and beliefs one brings to reception; and how at the same time cultural forms may also shape spectators' beliefs and values. This will also bring us to a discussion of the relations between cultural studies and multiculturalism, as well as postcolonialism and various notions of cultural globalization.

In addition to reading theorists such as Stuart Hall, Theodor Adorno, Roland Barthes, Dick Hebdige, Susan Bordo, Lawrence Grossberg, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, and Nestor Garcia Canclini, we will devote substantial time to specific texts and case studies involving network television, MTV, performance art, literature, popular films, and various forms of music such as salsa, rap, blues, and jazz. In all cases, we will consider how these forms work in tandem with other cultural forms, with prevailing political and social realities and discourses, with historical narrative and aesthetic traditions, and with the often unconscious needs and desires that popular culture relies upon and specifically addresses.

Cross listed with EGL 608.02

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

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. Candidacy