Department website: https://krieger.jhu.edu/modern-languages-literatures/
The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures offers graduate and undergraduate courses in the languages, literatures, and cultures of France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Latin America, and Spain. The language programs include a wide range of courses from introductory through conversation and composition to civilization. The literature programs treat all periods of literature from both historical and critical-theoretical perspectives. These courses emphasize the close reading of texts and modern theories of literary criticism, particularly those based on contemporary philosophy, psychoanalysis, anthropology, and linguistics. In addition, an active program of visiting professors and lecturers complements the core program offered by the faculty-in-residence.
Facilities
The Milton S. Eisenhower Library has collections that provide an ample basis for advanced research in modern languages and literatures. With the Peabody Library of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Library of Congress and other libraries in nearby Washington, a variety of excellent research resources are available to students and faculty.
Undergraduate Programs
A major in the department prepares students for teaching language at the elementary level or for graduate work leading to advanced degrees in French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Latin American, Portuguese, Spanish, or Yiddish studies, or in comparative literature. It also provides excellent background for work in fields such as philosophy, history, international affairs, business, law, or medicine. Opportunities are available to study abroad. Students are encouraged to take advantage of these opportunities.
Requirements for the B.A.
Also see Requirements for a Bachelor's Degree.
Currently, the B.A. degree is offered in French, German, Italian, Romance Languages, or Spanish. A candidate for the B.A. degree in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures should have a good command of the spoken language of their specialization, and a general familiarity with the literature written in that language. Each major requires a minimum of 24 hours (or eight courses) beyond the first two years of language instruction; please see specific details for each individual major below. The department also recommends that majors take courses in other literatures, history, philosophy, and anthropology.
The student who has had four years of German or a Romance language in high school or two years of German or a Romance language in college normally begins the major with Conversation and Composition (provided they have results commensurate with that level on the placement test) and (where offered) the undergraduate survey of literature. It is recommended that any student majoring in German or a Romance language spend at least one semester of junior year taking university courses in the country of study. Study abroad credit transfer is arranged by the student in consultation with the director of undergraduate studies and/or the relevant undergraduate language program director, and the Global Education Office. In the senior year, a major may be permitted to take courses in the department at the graduate level.
A minor in German or one of the Romance languages is available to undergraduate students in any major. Like the various majors, the minors allow students to develop competence in German or a Romance language while receiving grounding in the culture and literature of that language. Five or six courses in the department beyond the first two years of language study are required for each minor option (see below for details).
Graduate Programs
In addition to general university requirements for the Ph.D., the following regulations apply to graduate students in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures:
To be accepted into the Ph.D. program, students must demonstrate by an exceptionally strong academic record that they are capable of advanced study in literature. They will choose French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Latin American, Spanish, or Yiddish literature as the major field of interest. The student will normally take two to three years of graduate courses and devote the fourth year to study and research in Baltimore or abroad. The well-prepared student can expect to receive the Ph.D. after five years of study. The graduate program in Modern Languages and Literatures emphasizes work in three complementary areas: literary history, close textual analysis (including explication de texte), and theory of interpretation. By way of preparing students in a variety of critical schools, the faculty and the visiting professors offer training in the different disciplines pertaining to critical theory, including philosophy, theory of language, psychoanalytic theory, intellectual history, and cultural anthropology.
In addition to the major language, the Ph.D. candidate must demonstrate proficiency in one or two other languages besides English, depending on the specialization. (See below for further information.)
A dissertation proposal, presented to the faculty and students in their section, is required before official admittance to candidacy for the Ph.D. for French, Italian, and Spanish graduate students.
Admission Requirements
Application Procedures
Prospective graduate students may visit the departmental website for further information on programs and faculty. All questions regarding the programs offered by the department should be emailed to mll@jhu.edu. Prospective students are encouraged to apply online through the secure Graduate Admissions website.
Programs
- Film and Media Studies, Graduate Certificate
- French, Bachelor of Arts
- French, Minor
- French, PhD
- German Bachelor of Arts/Master of Arts
- German, Bachelor of Arts
- German, Minor
- German, PhD
- Italian, Bachelor of Arts
- Italian, Minor
- Italian, PhD
- Jewish Languages and Literatures, PhD
- Portuguese, Minor
- Romance Languages, Bachelor of Arts
- Spanish, Bachelor of Arts
- Spanish for the Professions, Minor
- Spanish Language and Hispanic Cultures, Minor
- Spanish, PhD
For current course information and registration go to https://sis.jhu.edu/classes/
Courses
AS.210.101. French Elements I. 4 Credits.
In this highly interactive first-year language course, you will learn frequently asked questions and expressions used in conversations; develop a base of vocabulary and grammatical structures for discussing one’s origins, personality, and appearance; studies and leisure activities; family; and eating habits. You will also learn about cultural trends in France and in areas of the French-speaking world (the Caribbean, West Africa) and compare those trends to those of your own culture. This course is designed for true beginners: Students with any previous background must take the placement test: https://learnmore.jhu.edu/browse/ksas/internal/selfenroll/courses/as-french-placement-test. May not be taken on a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory basis.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.102. French Elements II. 4 Credits.
In this highly interactive first-year language course, you will learn frequently asked questions and expressions used in conversations; develop a base of vocabulary and grammatical structures for discussing one’s origins, personality, and appearance; studies and leisure activities; family; and eating habits. You will also learn about cultural trends in France and in areas of the French-speaking world (the Caribbean, West Africa) and compare those trends to those of your own culture. Recommended background: AS.210.101 or placement test score. To take the placement test, visit: https://learnmore.jhu.edu/browse/ksas/internal/selfenroll/courses/as-french-placement-test. May not be taken on a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory basis.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.105. Fast-Track Beginning French. 4 Credits.
This beginning French course is a fast-paced, intensive introduction to the French language and the culture of France and the French-speaking world, covering the content of French Elements 1 and 2 (AS 210.101-102) but in one semester. As such, it is meant for students who have some previous classroom or independent study of French (as assessed by a placement exam), or who are native or bilingual speakers of another Romance language. Classroom activities will emphasize spoken communication on a variety of topics, using relevant vocabulary and grammar. Extensive use of online resources outside of class will build skills in listening, reading, and writing. Completion of this class will allow students to enroll in Intermediate French 1 (AS 210.201).
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.210.111. Spanish Elements I. 4 Credits.
This is an introductory Spanish language course. Upon completing this course, students will have acquired the basic communication and grammatical skills necessary for speaking, writing, listening, and reading in Spanish. Students will demonstrate these skills through their performance in class, by completing several online assignments, and by participating in three group presentations, in addition to two comprehensive exams, focusing on the following thematic topics: Greetings, University Life, Family, and Leisure. Students will also be introduced to the culture, history, and geography of various Spanish and Latin American countries. The content covered in Spanish Elements 1 is the foundation for all consecutive Spanish courses. Although this course is designed for students new to learning Spanish, in order to ensure the appropriate level, ALL students must complete the placement exam. Your enrollment in Spanish Elements I will not be considered for approval until you have emailed the Spanish Language Director. No new enrollments permitted after the 4th class session.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.112. Spanish Elements II. 4 Credits.
This introductory Spanish language course is a continuation of the content covered in Spanish Elements I. On completion of this course, the students will have further developed the communication and grammatical skills necessary for speaking, writing, listening and reading in Spanish. Students will demonstrate these skills through their performance in class, by completing several online assignments, and by taking part in three group presentations in addition to two comprehensive exams which focus on the following thematic topics: Food, Sports, Shopping, Travel, and Health. Students will also be introduced to the culture, history and geography of various Spanish and Latin American countries. The content covered in Spanish Elements II prepares the students for Intermediate Spanish.No new enrollments permitted after 4th class session.Prerequisite: AS.210.111 or appropriate placement exam score.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.111 or Spanish placement exam score.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.120. Modern Hebrew for Beginners I. 3 Credits.
Elementary Modern Hebrew is the first exposure to the language as currently used in Israel in all its functional contexts. All components of the language are discussed: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Simple idiomatic sentences and short texts in Hebrew are used. Students learn the Hebrew alphabet, words and short sentences. Cultural aspects of Israel will be intertwined throughout the course curriculum.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.121. Modern Hebrew for Beginners II. 3 Credits.
Hebrew for Beginners 121 is a continuation of Hebrew 120 and as such, students are required to have a foundation in Hebrew. The course will enhance and continue to expose students to Hebrew grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. All components of the Hebrew language will be emphasized in this course; we will highlight verbs, adjectives, and the ability to read longer texts. Speaking in Hebrew will also be highlighted to promote students’ engagement and communication. Cultural aspects of the language will be incorporated into lessons too
Prerequisite(s): AS.384.115 OR AS.210.120
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.122. Modern Hebrew for Beginners III. 3 Credits.
Hebrew for Beginners 122 is a continuation of Hebrew 120 and 121 and, as such, students are required to have a foundation in Hebrew. The course will enhance and continue to expose students to Hebrew grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. All components of the Hebrew language will be emphasized in this course; we will highlight verbs, adjectives, and the ability to read longer texts. Speaking in Hebrew will also be highlighted to promote students’ engagement and communication. Cultural aspects of the language will be incorporated into lessons too
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.151. Italian Elements I. 4 Credits.
This course sequence (AS.210.151 and AS.210.152) is an introduction to Italian for students with no previous exposure to the language. By the end of the academic year, you will be able to meet basic needs in an Italian-only environment. Examples include introducing yourself, asking for and giving directions, ordering a meal at a restaurant, describing and asking information about places and people, and engaging in a simple phone conversation. Advanced speakers of other Romance languages (e.g. French, Spanish, Portuguese) are encouraged to enroll in AS.210.175 (Accelerated Italian for Speakers of Other Romance Languages I)
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.152. Italian Elements II. 4 Credits.
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. No previous knowledge of Italian is required.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.151 OR AS.210.106 or Placement Exam Part I.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.161. German Elements I. 3 Credits.
An introduction to the language and culture of the German-speaking world. Provides students with a foundation to communicate in German. Students will learn to speak, comprehend, and write German at the elementary level while exploring universal themes and culturally specific topics. Students will practice and apply what they learn in communicative activities in class. This course is for true beginners. May not be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Students with any prior knowledge of German must take the placement test: https://krieger.jhu.edu/modern-languages-literatures/german/undergraduate/german-language-placement/
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.162. German Elements II. 3 Credits.
Continuation of the introduction to the language and culture of the German-speaking world. Students will build on their fundamental ability to communicate in German. Students will learn to speak, comprehend, and write German at the beginning level while exploring universal themes and culturally specific topics. Students will practice and apply what they learn in communicative activities in class. May not be taken on a S/U basis.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.161 or appropriate score on placement exam.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.163. Elementary Yiddish I. 3 Credits.
Look at Jewish history and culture backwards and forwards through the Yiddish language! The vernacular of Ashkenazi Jews for a thousand years, Yiddish connects back to recent and distant generations in Europe, America, and elsewhere. But Yiddish is not just a bridge to the past, it is also the center of vibrant contemporary cultures, both religious and secular. This four-skills language class (reading, writing, listening, speaking) places emphasis on the active use of Yiddish in oral and written communication while guiding students towards the use of Yiddish as a tool for the study of Yiddish literature and Ashkenazi history and culture.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.164. Elementary Yiddish II. 3 Credits.
This four-skills language class (reading, writing, listening, speaking) places emphasis on the active use of Yiddish in oral and written communication while guiding students towards the use of Yiddish as a tool for the study of Yiddish literature and Ashkenazi history and culture. Continuation of 210.163, but students may join the class with the permission of the instructor.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.171. Portuguese Elements I. 4 Credits.
No previous knowledge of Portuguese is required. This one-year sequence is a Portuguese introductory course for non-romance language speakers. The course introduces students to the basic skills in reading, writing, and speaking the language. Emphasis is placed on oral communication with extensive training in written and listening skills. Class participation is encouraged from the very beginning. Upon the successful completion of this course with a grade of C or higher, students may enroll in 210.172 Portuguese Elements II. May not be taken on a Satisfactory / Unsatisfactory basis. No Prereq. THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.172. Portuguese Elements II. 4 Credits.
This course expands students’ knowledge of the basic language skills: reading, writing, listening, speaking. It uses a multifaceted approach to immerse students in the cultures of Brazil, Portugal, and Portuguese-speaking Africa. The focus of the course is on oral communication with extensive training in grammar. The course is conducted entirely in Portuguese. Upon the successful completion of this course with a grade of C or higher, students may enroll in 210.271 Portuguese Intermediate I. May not be taken on a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory basis. Pre-requisites: 210.171 or placement test
Prerequisite(s): C or higher in AS.210.171 (formerly AS.210.177) or placement test.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.173. Fast Portuguese for Spanish Speakers and speakers of other Romance Languages I. 4 Credits.
NO PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF PORTUGUESE IS REQUIRED. This fast-paced one-semester course covers all content for Portuguese Elementary. This course is designed as an accelerated introductory course for speakers with a sound knowledge of Spanish OR other romance languages (e.g. French and Italian). The course will cover introductory aspects of Portuguese grammar and present relevant points of the cultures of the Portuguese speaking countries. Upon the successful completion of this course with a grade of C or higher, students may enroll in 210.271 Portuguese Intermediate. May not be taken on a Satisfactory / Unsatisfactory basis. No Prereq. THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.175. Accelerated Italian for Advanced Speakers of other Romance Languages. 4 Credits.
This course sequence (AS210.175 and AS210.176) is designed for advanced speakers of other Romance languages (e.g. French, Spanish, Portuguese), and will cover the same material as the regular-track Italian Elements I and II (AS.210.151 and AS.210.152) and Intermediate Italian I and II (AS.210.251 and AS.210.252) courses. Upon successful completion of both semesters, students will be allowed to register for AS.210.351 (Advanced Italian I).
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.176. Accelerated Italian for Advanced Speakers of other Romance Languages II. 4 Credits.
This is the second part of an elementary Italian language course sequence designed for advanced speakers of other romance languages (e.g. French, Spanish, Portuguese). This course will cover the same material as the regular-track Intermediate Italian I and II courses. Students completing this course with a grade of B or higher will be allowed to register for AS210.351 (Advanced Italian I) in the Fall term. Pre-requisite: Completion of AS.210.175 with a grade of B or higher, or Italian Language Program Director permission.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.175 with a B or higher
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.201. Intermediate French I. 3 Credits.
This course develops skills in speaking, listening comprehension, reading, and writing.Systematic review of language structures with strong focus on oral communication and acquisition of vocabulary; extensive practice in writing and speaking. Recommended course background: AS.210.102 or AS.210.105 or placement test score: https://learnmore.jhu.edu/browse/ksas/internal/selfenroll/courses/as-french-placement-test. Contact: Suzanne Roos (sroos@jhu.edu)
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.202. Intermediate French II. 3 Credits.
This course develops skills in speaking, listening comprehension, reading, and writing. Strong focus on oral communication and acquisition of vocabulary; extensive practice in writing and speaking. Recommended course background: AS.210.201 or placement test score: https://learnmore.jhu.edu/browse/ksas/internal/selfenroll/courses/as-french-placement-test. Contact: Suzanne Roos (sroos@jhu.edu)
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.211. Intermediate Spanish I. 3 Credits.
Intermediate Spanish I is a comprehensive study of Spanish designed for students who have attained an advanced elementary level in the language. The course is organized around a thematic approach to topics relevant to contemporary Hispanic culture. Students will practice the four language skills in the classroom through guided grammatical and creative conversational activities and through the completion of three comprehensive exams. Outside of class, students will complete extensive online assignments and write three major compositions (as part of the three exams). In addition, students will broaden their knowledge of Hispanic culture by viewing a Spanish-language film and by reading several literary selections. Successful completion of Intermediate Spanish I will prepare students for the next level of Spanish (Intermediate Spanish II).There is no final exam. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.112 or appropriate Spanish placement exam score.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.212. Intermediate Spanish II. 3 Credits.
Intermediate Spanish II is a comprehensive study of Spanish designed for students who have attained a mid-intermediate level in the language or who have completed Spanish 212. The course is organized around a thematic approach to topics relevant to contemporary Hispanic culture. Students will practice the four language skills in the classroom through guided grammatical and creative conversational activities and through the completion of three comprehensive exams. Outside of class, students will complete extensive online assignments and write three major compositions (as part of the three exams). In addition, students will broaden their knowledge of Hispanic culture by viewing a Spanish-language film and by reading several literary selections. Successful completion of Intermediate Spanish II will prepare students for the next level of Spanish (Advanced Spanish I).There is no final exam. No new enrollments permitted after the fourth class session.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.211 or appropriate Spanish placement exam score.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.214. Semitic Sisters: The Intersection of Hebrew and Arabic Language Learning. 1 Credit.
This project will offer a 1 credit course over the course of 5 weeks during Spring 2026 to students who have demonstrated intermediate level proficiency and/ or above in Hebrew and/or in Arabic. Through this course, students will get the opportunity to explore the many linguistic, social, and cultural similarities and differences between the two semitic languages. The ultimate goal of the course would be to promote dialogue and expose students to new perspectives through cultural exchanges and comparisons. Students will build stronger connections among learners, be encouraged cross-cultural engagement, and nuance each other’s language and perspectives. This class is meant to promote both inter- and intra- cultural conversations, appealing to students of diverse backgrounds and lived experiences. (Elementary Hebrew or/and Arabic required.)
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.220. Intermediate Hebrew I. 3 Credits.
Intermediate Modern Hebrew enhances and enforces previous knowledge of Hebrew as acquired from previous foundational coursework and/or experience. Grammatical aspects of the language such as past and present tenses as well as combined and complex sentence syntax and construction would be applied. Reading comprehension and writing skills will be emphasized. Modern Israeli cultural links and facets of the Hebrew language will also be introduced to inform the holistic understanding of the modern language.
Prerequisite(s): AS.384.116 OR AS.210.121 or equivalent
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.221. Intermediate Modern Hebrew II. 3 Credits.
Intermediate Hebrew level II is a continuation of the course Hebrew 220 and as such is a requirement for entry. In the course, grammatical aspects of the language will be introduced in the focus of past and future tenses. Combined and complex sentences with proper syntax and reading comprehension and writing skills will be required. Modern Israeli cultural aspects of the Hebrew language will be introduced as well and will be part of the holistic understanding of the modern language.
Prerequisite(s): AS.384.215 OR AS.210.220
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.251. Intermediate Italian I. 3 Credits.
This course sequence (AS.210.251 and AS.210.252) will reinforce your ability to engage in complex daily tasks in Italian, and will introduce you to more formal academic and real-world topics. By the end of the academic year, you will be able to write a strong résumé and cover letter in the European format, sit a job interview in Italian, and participate in debates on simple topics. You will also read five engaging short stories, watch several Italian films, and discuss topics such as emigration and immigration from/to Italy, the protection of the environment, and the history of the Italian South.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.152 or placement exam.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.252. Intermediate Italian II. 3 Credits.
Taught in Italian. Course continues building on the four essential skills for communication presented in Intermediate Italian I (listening, speaking, reading, writing) on topics of increasing complexity. Course adopts a continuous assessment system.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.251 OR appropriate placement exam scores (Parts I & II).
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.261. Intermediate German I. 3 Credits.
Taught in German. This course continues the same four-skills approach (speaking, writing, reading and listening) from the first-year sequence, introducing and practicing more advanced topics and structures. Expansion and extension through topical readings and discussion and multi-media materials. Online tools required. May not be taken on an S/U basis.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.162 or placement by exam.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.262. Intermediate German II. 3 Credits.
Taught in 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 include fairy tales, poems, art and film, as well as readings on contemporary themes such as Germany’s green movement. Students will also review and deepen their understanding of the grammatical concepts of German. May not be taken on an S/U basis.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.261 or placement by exam.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.263. Intermediate Yiddish I. 3 Credits.
For students who have completed one year of Yiddish language study or equivalent, this course will provide the opportunity to broaden and deepen their knowledge of Yiddish culture while continuing to improve their skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking Yiddish. Alongside textbook-based language work, students will read, listen to and interact with a variety of texts, for example literature, journalism and oral history.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.264. Intermediate Yiddish II. 3 Credits.
Continuation of Intermediate Yiddish I: this course will focus on the Yiddish language as a key to understanding the culture of Yiddish-speaking Jews. Topics in Yiddish literature, cultural history and contemporary culture will be explored through written and aural texts, and these primary sources will be used as a springboard for work on all the language skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.266. German Conversation. 1.5 Credits.
Taught in German. This course is designed for intermediate and above students who wish to improve their conversational and oral presentational language skills. The syllabus aims to provide useful, relevant language and necessary discourse structures to hold conversations and presentation on varied topics of an everyday, as well as academic nature. Students will practice German to build confidence, develop fluency and improve pronunciation and accuracy. Short texts, audio and films will provide the basis for discussion. Students fields of study and interests will be incorporated into the syllabus and tasks will be matched to the ability level of the students enrolled. Recommended course background: 210.262 or at least 3 semesters of college instruction or the equivalent. May be taken concurrently with other courses in German. May be taken S/U. Not for major or minor credit.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.268. German through Reading “Märchen”. 1.5 Credits.
Whether we consider them enchanting or naive, fairy tales and their narrative forms have inspired a wealth of cultural production. In this course, we will read and talk about German fairy tales (in German) and look at some spin-offs and parodies they have inspired. Students will hone their skills in reading, identifying plot, settings, characters and symbols while expanding their bank of vocabulary and grammatical structures. Speaking activities in class will be adjusted to the level of participants. Short creative writing assignments throughout the semester will culminate in students writing their own version of a fairy tale. Not for German major or minor credit. May be taken S/U
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.161 AND AS.210.162 or equivalent.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
AS.210.269. Intermediate Yiddish Texts I. 3 Credits.
For students who have completed at least one year of Yiddish language study: this course provides the opportunity to broaden and deepen your acquaintance with Yiddish culture while continuing to improve your skills in reading, writing, listening, and speaking Yiddish. The course includes more advanced lessons in YiddishPOP, selected readings from Yiddish literature, and in-depth study of the 1938 Yiddish film Mamele. Recommended background: AS.210.164 or equivalent, or permission of instructor.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.270. Intermediate Yiddish Texts II. 3 Credits.
Continuation of Intermediate Yiddish Texts I. Students will continue to broaden and deepen their knowledge of Yiddish culture while improving their Yiddish language skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking. Alongside textbook-based language work, students will read, listen to, and interact with a variety of texts.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.269 OR equivalent OR permission of instructor
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.271. Intermediate Portuguese I. 3 Credits.
Intermediate Portuguese I is designed for students who have attained an advanced elementary level in the language. The course offers training in the skills of the language with emphasis on expanding grammatical knowledge and vocabulary, while developing ease and fluency in the language through the use of a multifaceted approach. Course materials immerse students in the contemporary cultures of Portuguese-speaking world. Upon the successful completion of Intermediate Portuguese I, students may enroll in the next level, Intermediate Portuguese II – AS.210.272. May not be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.172 OR AS.210.173, or placement exam.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.272. Intermediate Portuguese II. 3 Credits.
Intermediate Portuguese II is designed for students who have attained a mid-intermediate level in the language or completed Intermediate Portuguese I AS.210.271. The course offers training in the skills of the language with emphasis on advancing grammatical knowledge, expanding vocabulary, and developing fluency in the language through the use of a multifaceted approach. Course materials 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. Successful completion of Intermediate Portuguese II will prepare students for the next level Advanced Portuguese I – AS.210.371. May not be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.277 or equivalent score on placement test or instructor approval.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.288. Portuguese: Conversation through Film & Music. 3 Credits.
Improve your Portuguese conversational and speaking skills through colorful Brazilian media. This course is designed for highly motivated undergraduate and graduate students who want to SPEAK Portuguese. Conversation sessions provide intensive work on communication skills through discussion on issues raised in films, news media & music. Grammar will be reviewed as needed outside of class with tutors or TA, freeing class time for more communicative activities. May not be taken on a Satisfactory / Unsatisfactory basis. Prereq: one semester of Portuguese, two semesters of Spanish or Placement test.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.275 OR AS.210.277 OR AS.210.278 OR AS.210.391 OR AS.210.392
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.301. Advanced French for Writing. 3 Credits.
Students in AS.210.301 will focus primarily on written expression, learning to ‘decipher’ classic and contemporary texts in order to expand their French vocabulary and communicate their ideas in writing with clarity and accuracy. (A primary focus on oral expression is provided in AS.210.302; the two advanced-level courses may be taken in either order or simultaneously.) Recommended Course Background: AS.210.202 or appropriate score on Placement test I: https://learnmore.jhu.edu/browse/ksas/internal/selfenroll/courses/as-french-placement-test
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.302. Advanced French for Speaking. 3 Credits.
Students in 210.302 will focus primarily on oral expression through individual and group work on contemporary media (music, film, current events) in order to expand their vocabulary and become fluent in conversation across social-cultural contexts. (A primary focus on written expression is provided in 210.301; the two advanced-level courses may be taken in either order or simultaneously.) Recommended Course Background: AS.210.202 or appropriate score on Placement test I: https://learnmore.jhu.edu/browse/ksas/internal/selfenroll/courses/as-french-placement-test
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.210.306. Medical French : Santé et Société. 3 Credits.
In this interactive language course (not exclusively designed for pre-meds), students learn how to communicate in the fields of public health, medicine, and humanitarian aid in a French-speaking environment. While acquiring new lexical and syntactic tools weekly, students examine and debate the current structures and issues of the French health system, through a variety of media (governmental websites, mainstream and specialized newspapers, movies, blogs, first-account books, etc.). A final project is tailored to each student’s own area of interest. Please note that this course is taught by a language instructor, not a medical expert. Recommended course background: AS.210.301 or AS.210.302 or permission of instructor. Students interested in taking the exam for the French For Health Diploma should visit the following website: https://www.lefrancaisdesaffaires.fr/tests-diplomes/diplomes-francais-professionnel-dfp/sante/
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.301 OR AS.210.302
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.309. The Sounds of French. 3 Credits.
This course introduces students to the sound system of French: its development over centuries, its standardized Parisian form versus regional and international dialects and accents, and the popularity of "word games" (abbreviations, acronyms, and verlan). The course will include extensive practice in perceiving, articulating, and transcribing sounds, words, and intonation groups through viewing film clips, listening to songs, and completing in class lab assignments. Recorded speech samples obtained at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester will allow students to track their progress in moving toward more native pronunciation and intonation. Recommended Course Background: AS.210.202 or equivalent
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.311. Advanced Spanish I. 3 Credits.
This course is a comprehensive study of the Spanish language focused on the continuing development of students’ communicative abilities and their knowledge of Hispanic cultures. Students will expand their use of basic structures of Spanish with a special emphasis on more difficult grammatical and vocabulary aspects, and further improve both their oral and written skills. Students will sharper their critical thinking skills and listening abilities utilizing movies and written texts. This course combines an extensive use of an online component with class participation and three exams. Upon successful completion of this course, students will have acquired extended complex language tools that facilitate proficiency in Spanish and its use in various professional contexts. There is no final exam. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.212 OR appropriate Spanish placement exam score.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.312. Advanced Spanish II. 3 Credits.
This course is thorough review of the Spanish language focused on the development of students’ communicative abilities and their knowledge of Hispanic cultures. Students will both expand their knowledge of the basic structures of Spanish, with special emphasis on more difficult grammatical and vocabulary aspects, and further improve on oral and written skills. Students will increase their critical thinking skills and listening abilities utilizing movies and written texts. This course combines an extensive use of an online component, class participation and three exams. Upon successful completion of this course, students will have acquired more complex language tools to become proficient in Spanish and its use in various professional contexts. There is no final exam. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 or appropriate Spanish placement exam score.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.313. Medical Spanish. 3 Credits.
Medical Spanish is a comprehensive examination of vocabulary and grammar for students who either work or intend to work in medicine and health-related fields in Spanish-speaking environments. The student will be able to participate in conversations on topics such as contrasting health systems, body structures, disorders and conditions, consulting your doctor, physical and mental health, first-aid, hospitalization and surgery on completion of this course. In completing the course’s final project students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on what has been learned in the class by creating a professional dossier individualized to their professional interests. There is no final exam. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 OR AS.210.312 or appropriate Spanish placement exam score.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.314. Spanish for International Commerce. 3 Credits.
Spanish for international business is an overview of business topics in an international Spanish-speaking context with an emphasis on deep review of grammar and vocabulary acquisition. On completion of this course the student will have developed the ability to read and critically discuss business and government relations in Latin America and will have examine entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, business ethics, human resources and commerce in the Spanish speaking world. In completing the course’s final project students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on what has been covered in the class by creating a professional dossier individualized to their own professional interests. Concepts learned in this course will be directly applicable to careers linked to international relations and will apply to various careers in business. There is no final exam. May not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session. Language Program Director: Loreto Sanchez-Serrano
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 or or appropriate Spanish placement exam score.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.315. Spanish for International Relations. 3 Credits.
Spanish for international relations is an advanced examination of grammar and an analysis of international relations’ topics in Spanish. By completion of this course the student will have developed the ability to read, critically discuss and demonstrate mastery of political and socio-economic issues in Spanish-speaking environments. Potential topics include a survey of the professions in international relations, NGOs in Latin America, intellectual property, cultural diplomacy, remesas, regional coalitions and treaties, and the environment. Class presentations and final projects will allow students to apply, synthesize, and reflect on what has been learned in the class by participating in a global simulation that will include a written exercise individualized to their professional interests. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the 4th class session.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 or appropriate webcape score
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.316. Advanced Spanish Conversation. 3 Credits.
Conversational Spanish surveys high-interest themes, discusses short films by contemporary Hispanic filmmakers and offers a thorough review of grammar. The student will be able to participate in conversations on topics such as personality traits, social media, political power, art and lifestyles on completion of this course. Conversational skills mastered during the course apply to all careers interconnected by Spanish. There is no final exam. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the third class session.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 or appropriate Spanish placement exam score.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.317. Adv Spanish Composition. 3 Credits.
This third-year course is a hands-on and process-oriented introduction to discussion and compositional analysis. On completion of this course, students will have improved their Spanish writing skills in various types of compositions they might be expected to write in academic settings and in real-life formats such as film reviews, letters to the editor, cover letters, etc. The course also focuses on refinement of grammar and vocabulary use. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. .
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.312 or appropriate Spanish placement exam score.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.318. Spanish for Engineering. 3 Credits.
Spanish for engineering is a comprehensive examination of vocabulary and grammar for students who either work or intend to work in the engineering field to develop their communicative strategies in the field of engineering. On completion of this course, students will be able to participate in conversations on topics such as applications of biomedical engineering in the diagnosis and treatment of different medical conditions, efficient use of energy and materials, design and construction of public works, development of electrical systems and development of solutions to environmental problems. In completing the course’s final project students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on what has been learned in the class by creating a professional dossier individualized to their professional interests.There is no final exam. May not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory. Not open to native speakers of Spanish. No new enrollments permitted after the third-class session.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.319. Spanish for Public Health. 3 Credits.
Spanish for Public Health is a comprehensive examination of vocabulary and grammar for students who either work or intend to work in the Public Health field such as government agencies, health care organizations, nonprofits, or health insurer companies, in Spanish-speaking environments. On completion of this course, the student will be able to participate in conversations on topics including health systems, reproductive biology, nutrition, epidemiology, mental health, and environmental health. In completing the course’s final project students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on what has been learned in the class by creating a professional dossier individualized to their professional interests.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.320. Advanced Modern Hebrew I. 3 Credits.
Advanced Modern Hebrew I will focus on conversational and interactive language skills to expose learners to attributes of different genres and layers of the language. Students will be introduced to various original texts and lingual patterns to better understand and formulate proper syntax. The course will include contemporary readings from Israeli journalism and essays, along with other relevant Hebrew resources to inform class discussions and students’ reflective writings. Israeli cultural aspects will be integral to the course curriculum.
Prerequisite(s): AS.384.216 OR AS.210.221 or equivalent
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.321. Advanced Hebrew through Israeli Cinema. 3 Credits.
This course will expand students’ fluencies in Modern Hebrew through Hebrew-dialogic Israeli and Palestinian cinema, examining and comparing several layers of a contemporary Hebrew-speaking society. For this class, students will view, discuss, and write about films with Hebrew as the primary spoken language. Through aural interpretation and subtitles, students will understand, analyze, and reflectively discuss the diversity of Hebrew-speaking cultures within society and the provenance and intentionalities of the dialects exhibited throughout a given film. Linguistic nuance, slang, and interpretive aspects of Hebrew as shown in the chosen films will prompt students to examine this modality of the expression of contemporary Hebrew. The course will be taught primarily in Hebrew and will be open to students who have matriculated to at least 200-level coursework of Modern Hebrew.
Prerequisite(s): AS.384.315 OR AS.210.320 or instructor permission
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.351. Advanced Italian I. 3 Credits.
This highly interactive course focuses on complex historical and contemporary themes, and is ideal, among others, for students who are specializing in international studies, medicine, psychology, and cognitive science. Students will analyze authentic texts and audiovisual materials on topics including the history of the Sicilian mafia, mental health and the deinstitutionalization movement in Italy, Europe and Italy in the 1960s-1980s, the role of curiosity and amazement in scientific discovery and art, and intercultural differences around hilarity. Taught in Italian.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.252 or placement exam
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.352. Advanced Italian II. 3 Credits.
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 continuous assessment system (no mid-term and no final).
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.351 OR appropriate placement exam scores (Parts I, II and III).
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.361. Advanced German I: Cultural Topics of the Modern German-speaking World. 3 Credits.
Taught in German. We will read literary works by Heinrich Böll, Hermann Hesse, and Gertrud Wilker, as well as watch the film “Die Welle”, to explore themes like the “Wirtschaftswunder”, work and productivity, the role of women in society, the pursuit of happiness, youth slang, and much more. A review and expansion of advanced grammatical concepts and vocabulary underlies the course. Focus on improving expression in writing and speaking. May not be taken on an S/U basis.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.262 or placement exam.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.362. Advanced German II: Contemporary Issues in the German Speaking World. 3 Credits.
Taught in German. Designed for students with a solid grasp (not mastery) of German grammar and vocabulary who wish to deepen and extend their knowledge of the language and culture of German-speaking communities through readings, films, discussion and writing. Students will read literary works by Judith Hermann, Franz Fühmann, and Alfred Andersch, as well as watch the films “Goethe!” and “Das Leben der Anderen”. Through these works, the course addresses themes such as Life in the GDR, forms of civil resistance, pop culture, fame, and love. Emphasis is placed on improving mastery of German grammar, development of self-editing skills and practice in spoken German. Introduction/Review of advanced grammar. May not be taken on an S/U basis.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.361 or equivalent score on placement test.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.363. Business German. 3 Credits.
Taught in German. Course is designed to familiarize students with the vocabulary and standards for doing business in Germany. Taking a cultural approach, students read texts and engage in discussion that elucidate the works of business, commerce & industry in Germany, the world’s third largest economy. Emphasis is placed on vocabulary expansion and writing as it relates to business and business cases. May not be taken S/U. Recommended background: at least 4 semesters of college German (210.262) or equivalent.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.365. German for Science and Engineering. 3 Credits.
Taught in German. This course is designed to provide language training in German tailored to students of science & engineering. Germany has long been a world leader in engineering, most notably in chemical and mechanical engineering. Over the past decades, Germany also has taken a lead in environmental sciences and information technology. In addition, Germany is now becoming an increasingly attractive place to pursue degrees in the technical fields. This course will provide practice and expansion in all language skill areas: analysis of texts, hands-on-activities, preparation of presentations, and discussion of topics. Specific areas of interest to the course members will be taken into consideration for the selection of materials. [Does not replace 210.362 as prerequisite for upper level courses or as major requirement.]
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.367. Advanced Yiddish I. 3 Credits.
This course will provide students who have completed at least two years of Yiddish with the opportunity to hone their skills in all four language areas: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. It will include advanced grammar study, readings in Yiddish literature, and work with audio/video recordings, taking into account the interests of each individual student.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.368. Advanced Yiddish II. 3 Credits.
Continuation of Advanced Yiddish I (AS.210.367). Students will continue to hone their skills in all four language areas: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. In addition to advanced grammar study and readings in Yiddish literature, the course will take into account the interests of each individual student, allowing time for students to read Yiddish texts pertinent to their own research and writing.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.371. Advanced Portuguese I. 3 Credits.
Designed to sharpen students’ abilities in contemporary spoken and written Portuguese. This third-year course fosters the development of complex language skills that enhance fluency, accuracy and general proficiency in Portuguese and its appropriate use in professional and informal contexts. Students will briefly review previous grammar structures and concentrate on new complex grammar concepts. Using a variety of cultural items such as current news, short stories, plays, films, videos, newspaper articles, and popular music, students discuss diverse topics followed by intense writing and oral discussion with the aim of developing critical thinking and solid communication skills.Successful completion of Advanced Portuguese I will prepare students for the next level, Advanced Portuguese II, AS.210.372. May not be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.278 OR AS.210.272 or equivalent score on placement test or instructor approval.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.372. Advanced Portuguese II. 3 Credits.
Advanced Portuguese II offers a systematic review of the Portuguese language focused on the development of students’ communicative skills and their knowledge of the Lusophone culture. This course fosters the development of complex language skills that enhance fluency, accuracy and general proficiency in Portuguese and its appropriate use in professional and informal contexts. Students will concentrate on complex grammar concepts and the use of appropriate written and oral registers. Using a variety of cultural items such as current news, short stories, plays, films, videos, newspaper articles, and popular music, students discuss diverse topics followed by intense writing and oral discussion with the aim of developing critical thinking and solid communication skills. May not be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Prereq: AS.210.371 or placement test.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.391 OR AS.210.371 or equivalent score on placement test or instructor approval.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.411. Contacts and Contrasts in Spanish for the Professions. 3 Credits.
Contacts and Contrasts in Spanish for the Professions harnesses a comparative approach to reviewing grammar and learning Spanish by offering translation practice from English to Spanish and thrusting synthesis of prior courses into coherent professional tools. Techniques may include comparing texts of medicine, public health, literature, technology, politics, and journalism between Spanish and English. Students will identify and differentiate terminology specific to these various fields and will focus on practicing correct uses of the grammatical structures relevant to English and Spanish in translation and cultural contact. In the course’s term projects, students will apply, synthesize, and reflect on their knowledge of Spanish by completing a translation exercise individualized to their professional interests. Strategies of communication mastered in this course will help students of Spanish throughout their careers.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.412. Community Based Learning - Spanish Language Practicum. 3 Credits.
This fourth-year course involves a specially designed project related to the student’s minor concentration. On completion of this course, the student will be able to use the Spanish language in real world contexts. The student-designed project may be related to each student´s current employment context or developed in agencies or organizations that complement student’s research and experimental background while contributing to the improvement of his/her language proficiency. There is no final exam. No new enrollments permitted after first week of class. The course will only meet as a group twice per semester, on a Tuesday (Sec. 01) or Thursday (Sec. 02) from 9:30-10:30. If the student has a class at that time, the instructor will request, in writing, that the student be granted an excused absence.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.411
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.417. Eloquent French. 3 Credits.
This interactive, writing intensive course has a double agenda: 1) to guide students towards linguistic proficiency in French by exposing them to an extended range of stylistic, idiomatic and grammatical expressions; 2) to strengthen students' individual voices in written and oral expression. Recommended Course Background: AS.210.301 and AS.210.302 or permission of instructor. Contact Kristin Cook-Gailloud (kcg@jhu.edu).
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.301
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.210.421. Yiddish For Reading Knowledge. 3 Credits.
This course is designed to open up the world of Yiddish culture and letters by helping students develop the skills necessary to read Yiddish texts in the original. Students will learn the Yiddish alphabet and be introduced to Yiddish vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well as to resources for reading Yiddish such as dictionaries and grammar guides. Students will read and translate texts of increasing difficulty and will have the opportunity to tackle texts in their own field of interest. A “fast track” will be offered to students with prior knowledge of German. No prior knowledge of Yiddish is necessary.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.210.561. German Independent Study. 1 - 3 Credits.
An independent language study for students unable to enroll in an appropriate current language course, or for whom an appropriate course is not currently offered. Permission from the instructor is required.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
AS.210.581. Yiddish Independent Study. 3 Credits.
An independent language study for students unable to enroll in an appropriate current language course, or for whom an appropriate course is not currently offered. Permission from the instructor is required.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.210.661. Reading and Translating German for Academic Purposes. 3 Credits.
Graduate students only. Seniors may enroll with permission from LPD and instructor.Taught in English. This is the first semester of a year-long course designed for graduate students in other fields who wish to gain a reading knowledge of the German language. Seniors who intend to do graduate study in other disciplines are also welcome. Instruction includes an introduction to German vocabulary and grammatical structures as well as discussion of relevant translation practices. The goal of the course is for students to gain confidence in reading a variety of texts, including those in their own fields of study. No knowledge of German is assumed.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.210.662. Reading & Translating German for Academic Purposes II. 3 Credits.
Taught in English. Seniors by permission & Graduate students only. This course is designed for graduate students in other departments who wish to gain reading knowledge of the German language and translation practice from German to English. This course is a continuation of the Fall semester. Focus on advanced grammatical structures and vocabulary. For certification or credit.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.661 or permission of instructor.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.111. Introduction to Latinx Literature and Culture. 3 Credits.
This course is a survey of U.S. Latinx literature that introduces students to the major trends in the tradition. While Latinx literature draws on literary traditions that span more than 400 years, our course will focus on more contemporary forms of the tradition, its “canon,” and how authors are currently “queering” this canon. Emphasizing the historical and aesthetic networks established in the Latinx literary canon that continue into the present while exploring the relationship between genre and socio-historical issues, we will read from a diverse tradition and range of genres that reflect the contested definition of “Latinx” and its shifting demographics in the U.S. We will also investigate how U.S. Latinx literature speaks to and expands “American” literary traditions, and how unique ethnic identities such as Mexican American, Nuyorican, Cuban American, and Dominican American offer different yet interconnecting representations of what it means to be Latinx in the U.S. This class ultimately underscores the heterogeneity of Latinx literature and asks how particular generic conventions stage the constructions of race, gender, sexuality, and class to establish a historically grounded understanding of the diverse literary voices and aesthetics that comprise U.S. Latinx literature.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.171. Brazilian Culture & Civilization: Colonial Times to the Present. 3 Credits.
Did you know that Brazil is very similar to the United States? 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, politics, economy, 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.No Prereq. THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.222. Italian Cinema: The classics, the Forgotten and the Emergent.. 3 Credits.
This course traces the history of Italian cinema from the silent era to the new millennium, highlighting its main trends and genres, and reflecting on the major transformations modern and contemporary Italian society experienced over the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries. We shall examine iconic films such as Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura, and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Mamma Roma, that received international recognition and influenced other national, cinematic productions. We shall also look at the work of less famous, or independent filmmakers who received less critical attention. While this class takes an historical approach, it also includes a theoretical component and introduces students to the specificity of the cinematic language, examining films in relation to the mise-en-scène, frame composition, camera movements, editing, and sound. This class is taught in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.224. Made in Italy: Italian style in context. 3 Credits.
Italy and the “Italian style” have become synonym of exquisite taste, class, and elegance thanks to the quality of Italian craftsmanship. This course will explore some of the major factors that contributed to the rise of Italian fashion and Italian industrial design as iconic all around the world. The classes will focus on the main protagonists and art movements that influenced the development of Italian style. We will analyze trends, clothing, and style not only in a historical context, but also through a critical apparatus that will include themes related to gender, culture, power, and politics.The course is taught in English. No knowledge of Italian is required, but those who can read in Italian will have an opportunity to do so. Everyone will learn some Italian words and expressions.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.231. Planet Amazonia: Culture, History, and the Environment. 3 Credits.
Without Amazonia, global warming could reach levels that threaten life on the planet. Yet, in an era of deforestation and climate change, Amazonia itself might be on the verge of disappearance, with disastrous consequences for the world. This course proposes interdisciplinary perspectives on Amazonia through a range of works drawn from history, anthropology, archeology, environmental studies, literature, and the arts. We’ll look at texts by European travelers and missionaries who contributed to the paradoxical image of Amazonia as a “virgin paradise” or a “green hell”; scientific studies and artists’ depictions of the region’s flora and fauna; the often-overlooked history of human occupation of the region; and projects to colonize, develop, or conserve the world’s largest tropical forest. What importance does Amazonia hold for Latin American and global geopolitics? How do art and literature, including indigenous writings, create, reinforce, or deconstruct clichés about the region? What alternative futures for our planet can Amazonia help us to imagine?
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.245. AI from Descartes to Bladerunner 2049. 3 Credits.
How long has AI been part of our cultural imagination? This course critically engages instances of artificial intelligence in thought, literature, and film from the 17th century to the present. In conversation with the realities of machine learning, algorithms, generative AI, large language models, automation, and so on, we will investigate the nature of artificial intelligence vis-à-vis issues of labor, consciousness, collectivity, individualism, fantasy, and futurity. Students will consider philosophical texts alongside works of science fiction, literature, and film. Readings may include texts by Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Poe, Hofmannsthal, Marx, Foucault, Alan Turin, Charles Babbage, Philip K. Dick, and Ursula Le Guin. No technical knowledge or prior courses are required!
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.259. Introduction to Medical and Mental Health Interpreting. 3 Credits.
This course is a broad introduction to the fields of medical and mental health interpreting. Modules will include: (1) Three-way communication: managing role expectations and interpersonal dynamics; (2) Basic interpreting skills and techniques in a healthcare setting; (3) Ethical principles, dilemmas, and confidentiality; (4) Elements of medical interpreting; (5) Elements of mental health interpreting; (6) Trauma-informed interpreting: serving the refugee population. The course is taught in English, and has no foreign language pre-requisites.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.303. Literature and Madness. 3 Credits.
TAUGHT IN ENGLISH. Since Plato, inspiration and madness have been understood as closely related, if not identical, terms. For Plato, the experience of beauty awakens a memory in the soul that leads the soul to take flight and to abandon the earth. This understanding of enthusiasm returns in accounts of poetic inspiration in the twentieth-century from Freud’s writing on Leonardo and Karl Jaspers’s study Strindberg and Van Gogh, Swedenborg and Hölderlin (1922) to Blanchot’s Space of Literature (1943) and Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus (1970). In this course we will read theoretical works by Plato, Freud, Binswanger, Jaspers, Blanchot, Deleuze, and Foucault and “inspired” literary writing by Hölderlin, Dickinson, Baudelaire, Melville, Kafka, Walser, Schreber, Artaud, and Borges. To what extent is inspiration mad and how does madness color insight into the phenomenon?
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.211.311. Introduction to Romance Linguistics. 3 Credits.
If the modern-day Romance languages all evolved from Latin, how and why do they differ in so many important ways? What drives language change in the first place and why should this be the case? We approach these questions not only from a linguistic perspective (analyzing Romance sound systems, vocabulary, morphosyntax, and semantics), but from a cognitive-psychological and a socio-political perspective as well. Recommended Course Background: At least intermediate-level proficiency in a Romance language as assessed by coursework or placement exam; some previous coursework in linguistics is desirable but not necessary.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.314. Jewish in America, Yiddish in America: Literature, Culture, Identity. 3 Credits.
iddish was the language of European Jews for 1000 years. From the 19th century to the present day it has been a language that millions of Americans — Jewish immigrants and their descendants–have spoken, written in, conducted their daily lives in, and created culture in. This course will examine literature, film, newspapers, and more to explore how Jewish immigrants to America shaped their identities—as Jews, as Americans, and as former Europeans. What role did maintaining, adapting, or abandoning a minority language play in the creation of Jewish American identity—cultural, ethnic, or religious? How was this language perceived by the majority culture? How was it used to represent the experiences of other minoritized groups? What processes of linguistic and cultural translation were involved in finding a space for Yiddish in America, in its original or translated into English? The overarching subjects of this course include migration, race, ethnicity, multilingualism, and assimilation. We will analyze literature (novels, poetry, drama); film; comedy; and other media. All texts in English.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.211.315. The Meanings of Monuments: From the Tower of Babel to Robert E. Lee. 3 Credits.
As is clear from current events and debates surrounding monuments to the Confederacy, monuments play an outsize role in the public negotiation of history and identity and the creation of communal forms of memory. We will study the traditions of monuments and monumentality around the world – including statues and buildings along with alternative forms of monumentality – from antiquity to the present day. We will examine the ways that monuments have been favored methods for the powerful to signal identity and authorize history. This course will also explore the phenomenon of “counter-monumentality”, whereby monuments are transformed and infused with new meaning. These kinds of monuments can be mediums of expression and commemoration for minority and diaspora communities and other groups outside the economic and political systems that endow and erect traditional public monuments. The first half of the course will examine the theoretical framework of monumentality, with a focus on ancient monuments from the ancient Near East (e.g., Solomon’s temple). More contemporary examples will be explored in the second half of the course through lectures and also field trips. We will view contemporary debates around monuments in America in light of the long history of monuments and in comparison with global examples of monuments and counter-monuments. All readings in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.316. Brazilian Cinema and Topics in Contemporary Brazilian Society. 3 Credits.
Course is taught in ENGLISH. Did you know that one of the first Latin American actresses to conquer Hollywood was Brazilian? Did you know that cinema has existed in Brazil since 1895, just six months after the first screening in Paris? This course is an introduction to both the academic study of cinema as a communicative art and to Brazilian film. The films selected focus on the late 1950s to the present and highlight import episodes and challenges in the advancement of Brazilian society as well as its cinematic production. Film aesthetics are analyzed through a number of critical perspectives, including class, race, gender as well as ethnicity, nationalism or national identity, colonialism, social changes, and the politics of representation. In this sense, the films, and documentaries that we will be watching and studying encompass the period from the rise of New Cinema (Cinema Novo) up to films exploring the most recent trends, including movies launched up to 2022. Students wishing to do the course work in English for 3 credits should register for section 01. Those wishing to earn 4 credits by doing the course work in Portuguese should register for section 02. No Prereq.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.323. Bees, Bugs, and other Beasties: Insects in Literature. 3 Credits.
Beetles, fleas, bees, ants, ticks, butterflies: as the earth’s most abundant animals, insects affect our lives in countless ways. In this seminar, we will explore the diverse world of insects and other arthropods and analyze their appearance in philosophy, literature, and the sciences. Reading our way from John Donne’s “The Flea” and Robert Hooke’s “Micrographia” to Mandeville’s “The Fable of the Bees,” Uexküll’s biosemiotics, and Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” we will ask how concepts and stories of insects reflect and shape the ways we imagine our ecological milieus. We will look more closely at how entomological imaginaries evolved over time and pursue lines of inquiry that will shed new light on human interactions with the environment, politics, and cultural diversity. This course covers a wide range of sources from different European languages (all made available in English translations) and is writing intensive.
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.325. Otherness: Cinema, Music, Literature. 3 Credits.
This course is a comparative journey through literature, music and cinema. The term 'Otherness' is known to be rooted in the Self-Other opposition as it emerged in German Idealism, adopted by psychoanalysis and transformed to Post-Colonial and Feminist theories. This theoretical framework will allow us to explore the role of the Other in literature, cinema, and music. Students will become familiar with the historical development of the notion of the “stranger” through reading, listening and analyzing various contemporary works of prose, cinema and music from various countries. We will analyze the ways in which these works depict Otherness and will investigate questions regarding their social, political and philosophical framework as well as the literary, musical and cinematographic devices they employ. At the center of our discussion will stand questions: Who is the Other? How do stories, music and films shape and challenge our perspective of the Other and of ourselves?
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
AS.211.329. Museums and Identity. 3 Credits.
The museum boom of the last half-century has centered largely around museums dedicated to the culture and history of identity groups, including national, ethnic, religious, and minority groups. In this course we will examine such museums and consider their long history through a comparison of the theory and practice of Jewish museums with other identity museums. We will study the various museological traditions that engage identity, including the collection of art and antiquities, ethnographic exhibitions, history museums, heritage museums, art museums, and other museums of culture. Some of the questions we will ask include: what are museums for and who are they for? how do museums shape identity? and how do the various types of museums relate to one another? Our primary work will be to examine a variety of contemporary examples around the world with visits to local museums including the Jewish Museum of Maryland, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of the American Indian.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.333. Representing the Holocaust. 3 Credits.
How has the Holocaust been represented in literature and film? Are there special challenges posed by genocide to the traditions of visual and literary representation? Where does the Holocaust fit in to the array of concerns that the visual arts and literature express? And where do art and literature fit in to the commemoration of communal tragedy and the working through of individual trauma entailed by thinking about and representing the Holocaust? These questions will guide our consideration of a range of texts — nonfiction, novels, poetry — in Yiddish, German, English, French and other languages (including works by Primo Levi and Isaac Bashevis Singer), as well as films from French documentaries to Hollywood blockbusters (including films by Alain Resnais, Claude Lanzmann, and Steven Spielberg). All readings in English.
Prerequisite(s): Cannot be taken by anyone who previously took AS.213.361
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.357. Framing Amazonia: Narratives and Myths in Film and Literature. 3 Credits.
This course will cover a timeline of the representation of the Amazon rainforest in different media, ranging from the 1930s until today, from filmmakers and literary authors from various countries, including both Amazonian and non-Amazonian perspectives. In this historiography of mainly filmic and some literary productions, we will touch on notions such as, but not limited to, national identity and its diffuse borders, agency, and the ethics of representing the ‘other’. The main objective for this course is for students to learn to identify different audiovisual and literary tropes and stereotypes that stem from a colonial mindset, which may have been carved into the mind by repetition and cultural reproduction. At the end of the course, students will have a better understanding of the (mis)representations of this cultural region and will be able to question the effects and ethics of filming it.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.361. Dissent and Cultural Productions: Israeli Culture as a Case Study. 3 Credits.
This course explores the interplay between protest and cultural productions using the Israeli society as a case study. We will examine the formation and nature of political and social protest movements in Israel, such as the Israeli Black Panthers, Israeli feminism, the struggle for LGBTQ rights and the 2011 social justice protest. Dissent in the military and protest against war as well as civil activism in the context of the Palestinians-Israeli conflict will serve us to explore the notion of dissent in the face of collective ethos, memory and trauma. The literary, cinematic, theatrical and artistic productions of dissent will stand at the center of our discussion as well as the role of specific genres and media, including satire and comedy, television, popular music, dance and social media. We will ask ourselves questions such as how do cultural productions express dissent? What is the role of cultural productions in civil activism? And what is the connection between specific genre or media and expression of dissent? All material will be taught in English translation.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.365. Environmental Justice. 3 Credits.
This class will explore the intersections of environmental and social justice issues through an analysis of literary fiction, documentaries and films, art, media, and archival materials. We will study how environmental issues are deeply connected with issues of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and the legacies of colonialism. We will pay close attention to the tensions encountered by notions such as environmentalism of the poor and the disparities that arise from a comparative and historical perspective Global South vis-à-vis Global North, and within the North, among the most vulnerable communities. We will consider the generative potential of storytelling and the arts for imagining an alternative socioeconomic and culture paradigm predicated on environmental sustainability and economic and social equity. This class is profoundly interdisciplinary, bringing together knowledge from all parts of students’ life. By the end of this course, students will see many connections between literary and cultural studies, environmental ethics, social justice, and civic engagement.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.372. German Cinema: The Divided Screen. 3 Credits.
This course is an approach to Twentieth century German history and culture via film and related readings in English translation. We will emphasize the national division thematically, and explore the audio and visual aspects of cinema by focusing on representative films embedded in larger narratives. Some prior familiarity with German culture is recommended but not required.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.373. Religious Themes in Film and Literature. 3 Credits.
This course studies the representation of religious themes in modern literature and cinema. Most of the works it covers are not defined as sacred but include religious themes as part of their narrative, images, language, and symbolic meaning. The course will cover materials related to the three monotheistic religions and general questions across religions, nations, and cultures. It also includes asking general theoretical questions such as: what is faith, and why do we need it? What are the differences between genres and media when representing religious topics, how god is represented in artistic forms, and how contemporary tensions between tradition and modernity enter the creative sphere?
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.379. Body Modifications: Post-body, Gender Anarchy, Virtual Cosmesis. 3 Credits.
This course looks at the phenomenon of body modification from the digital turn of the 1990s through contemporary queer and feminist post-body practices to body performances and transformations spanning the past 30 years. Our viewpoint will include questions around the contemporary aesthetics of “face and interface,” the flamboyant body in the current trans movement, as well as a more critical view of body modification raised by technological change such as AI generated influencers and more generally the status quo of the body’s “cosmesis,” or arrangement and adornment, in the era of social media and post-truth. We will be working with both primary sources from musicians and performers such as Arca to the trans ballroom phenomenon in Rio de Janeiro, as well as with secondary sources including the critical works by queer and intersectional theorists and feminist authors. Students will attend and participate in the classroom and will be writing a midterm and a final paper of their choice on the subject matter.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.382. The Archives Documentary: Experiential Learning. 3 Credits.
The Archives is a documentary currently in production that visits Holocaust archives and Jewish cemeteries around the world, including in Austria, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Brazil, and the U.S. These hallowed places of Holocaust history are the searching grounds for four descendants seeking evidence of their interrupted family stories from the pre-second World War era. As the protagonists get closer to the truth with the help of archivists assisting them in their searches, they receive a measure of restitution. This course is an opportunity to participate in the latest documentary by Professor Bernadette Wegenstein as her team ends production and moves the film into post-production. Students will assist in the pre-production of final film shoots planned for March 2025 in New York and Baltimore. Interested students will be able to take part in these film shoots as credited production assistants. They will also learn how a documentary that has been made over the past three years will be prepared for post-production including writing a paper cut and working with animators. Students don’t need any formal knowledge of documentary filmmaking but should be interest in research, Holocaust history, and exile stories.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.211.383. Haunting Flesh: Women, Horror, and the Body. 3 Credits.
A course that examines how women's bodies are depicted in horror literature and film, asking: how are issues of race, class, national identity, and belonging illuminated through the genre and its ongoing fascination with gender and sexuality? Why do we return to women's bodies to illuminate our fears? Why do we represent women's bodies through the horror genre? Focusing on speculative fiction and film, we will investigate how women's bodies speak to issues of power and spectatorship through affects such as disgust, terror, titillation, and pleasure.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.384. The Archives Documentary Experiential Learning: Post-Production. 3 Credits.
This seminar is a continuation of the course The Archives Documentary Experiential Learning (although students don’t need to have taken that class), focusing on post-production, in particular editing and storytelling. Students will be able to assist and be part of the editing process of the film with professor Bernadette Wegenstein and her editors, including rough cut reviews; they will assist the team’s collaboration with animators creating unique animations for some of the film’s storylines. Interested students will also be take part in the creation of an original musical score. In addition to being exposing to and immersed in the post-production of The Archives, students will learn feminist film theory, and decolonial film strategies, analyzing their practical implementations in documentary storytelling.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.211.386. Italian Cinema. 3 Credits.
From the epic movies of the silent era to neorealist and auteur films of the post-war period, all the way to contemporary Academy winner The Great Beauty, Italian cinema, has had and continues to have a global impact, and shape the imaginary of filmmakers all over the world. This course traces Italian film history from its origins to recent times, highlighting its main genres and trends beyond the icons of neorealist and auteur cinema, including the so-called ‘comedy Italian style,’ spaghetti westerns, horror, mafia-mockery films, feminist filmmaking, and ecocinema. While learning to probe the cinematic frame, and examine composition, camera movements, cinematography, editing, and sound, and interrogating issues of gender, class, and race, we will screen classics such as Bicycle Thieves, La Dolce Vita, and L’Avventura, but also forgotten archival films by pioneer women filmmakers, and works by emergent, independent filmmakers.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.387. Theories of Peace from Kant to MLK. 3 Credits.
That the nations of the world could ever work together seems utopian, but also unavoidable: migration, war, and not least climate change make some form of global coordination increasingly necessary. This course will give historical and philosophical depth to the idea of a cosmopolitan order and world peace by tracing it from its ancient sources through early modernity to today. At the center of the course will be the text that has been credited with founding the tradition of a world federation of nations, Immanuel Kant’s "Toward Perpetual Peace" (1795). Confronting recent and current political discourse, literature, and philosophy with Kant’s famous treatise, we will work to gain a new perspective on the idea of a world order. In addition to Kant, readings include Homer, Erasmus, Pico della Mirandola, Rousseau, Jeremy Bentham, Emily Dickinson, Tolstoy, Whitman, Rosa Luxemburg, Gandhi, Hannah Arendt, John Lennon, and Martin Luther King as well as lesser-known authors such as the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, Ellen Key, Odette Thibault, Simone Weil, and Claude Lefort. Taught in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.399. Anonymity: The Art and Politics of Hidden Identity. 3 Credits.
Why do people choose to conceal their identities? This course investigates the multifaceted roles of anonymity and pseudonymity across literature, music, performance art, and activism. To be anonymous—literally “without a name”—can offer protection, enable more honest expression, serve as political resistance, function as deception, or arise from necessity. We will examine anonymity both as a strategy and as a performative act, considering how it challenges conventional notions of identity, authorship, and power. Key questions will include: How does anonymity function as a tool for resistance or control in different cultural and political contexts? How does it intersect with issues of race, gender, and sexuality? And how does it shape creative labor, from ghostwriting to collective production? Case studies span from Virginia Woolf’s modernist “philosophy of anonymity” and Italo Calvino’s postmodern desire for a literature beyond the self, to Elena Ferrante’s pseudonymous authorship. We will also investigate digital anonymity in the work of hacker collectives and artivists. By the end of the course, students will develop a critical understanding of how anonymity can both empower and erase, analyze the aesthetic and political possibilities it offers across media and cultural contexts, and apply these insights to their own research and experience.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.211.409. Fidelio and Unjust Incarceration Documentary Experiential Learning. 3 Credits.
This seminar is centered around an adaptation and re-interpretation of Beethoven's Fidelio by Marin Alsop and Reuben Miller focusing on unjust incarceration and social injustice. In collaboration with Alsop and Miller Bernadette Wegenstein is developing the documentary component for the 2027 opera performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s death. Students will be traveling to Philadelphia with Wegenstein to collaborate in the production of this musical documentary.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.211.413. The Culture of Algorithms. 3 Credits.
This course proposes a study of the culture of algorithms for students of the literate space. True (deep) literacy is the ability to interpret a discursive object in its cultural, historical, conceptual, material or political contexts. With the evolution of digital cultures, literate practices have evolved to incorporate the emerging cultural paradigms born of the encounter of algorithms and computability with social practices embedded in the earlier literate traditions. Indeed, modern computational environments invite a new algorithmic hermeneutics grounded in both literate and technical traditions. Multiple modern novels, online games or mangas engage with the algorithmic, and these will form a counterpoint to the technical and philosophical texts. We will consider works such as: • Leibniz, De l’Horizon de la doctrine humaine• Norbert Wiener, God and Golem, Inc.• Alan Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (chapter 11)• Steven Wolfram: Computation and the Future of the Human Condition • Leslie Valiant, Probably, Approximately Correct• Dominique Cardon, À Quoi rêvent les algorithmes?• G. J. Chaitin, “Life As Evolving Software”• Various novels by Neal Stephenson• Leonid Korogodski, Pink Noise, A Posthuman Tale • Alain Damasio, Les Furtifs• Assassin’s Creed, especially “Unity”
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken or are enrolled in AS.211.713 are not eligible to take AS.211.413.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.423. Black Italy. 3 Credits.
Over the last three decades Italy, historically a country of emigrants—many of whom suffered from discrimination in the societies they joined—became a destination for hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees from various countries, and particularly from Africa. Significant numbers of these immigrants came to Italy as a result of the country’s limited, though violent colonial history; others arrive because Italy is the closest entry-point to Europe. How have these migratory flows challenged Italian society’s sense of itself? How have they transformed the notion of Italian national identity? In recent years, growing numbers of Afro- and Afro-descendant writers, filmmakers, artists and Black activists are responding through their work to pervasive xenophobia and racism while challenging Italy’s self-representation as a ‘White’ country. How are they forcing it to broaden the idea of ‘Italianess’? How do their counternarratives compel Italy to confront its ignored colonial past? And, in what way have Black youth in Italy embraced the #Blacklivesmatter movement? This multimedia course examines representation of blackness and racialized otherness, whiteness, and national identity through literary, film, and visual archival material in an intersectional framework. Examining Italy’s internal, ‘Southern question,’ retracing Italy’s colonial history, and recognizing the experiences of Italians of immigrant origins and those of immigrants themselves, we’ll explore compelling works by writers and filmmakers such as Igiaba Scego, Gagriella Ghermandi, Maza Megniste, Dagmawi Yimer, and others.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.424. Climate Change Narratives. 3 Credits.
In The Great Derangement Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh writes that “the climate crisis is also a crisis of culture, and thus of imagination.” Worldwide, climate and environmental change is stirring the imaginary of novelists, filmmakers, and artists who are finding ways to frame, emplot, or even perform, an unmanageable phenomenon like climate change. How is climate change shaping new modes of storytelling and aesthetics? How do film, literature, and environmentally conscious art transform our perception of the world we inhabit and its unpredictable changes? Can climate change narratives help us to imagine futures of possibilities, maybe dystopian, uncertain, or even happy, but futures nonetheless? This multimedia course explores, through a transnational perspective, a variety of contemporary novels, films, and other media that attempt answer these questions.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.435. Dante Translating / Translating Dante. 3 Credits.
This course begins with a close reading of Dante’s Vita nuova. Simultaneously a profound exploration of the power of love and an elaborate experimentation with poetic form, this enigmatic work is also a meditation on translation: of life to text; of prose to verse; of the divine to human, and vice versa. Key passages in the Divine Comedy, in which the poet rewrites Homer, Virgil, the Bible, and himself, will highlight the centrality of translation to the creative process. Questions of originality, appropriation, and revision will be further explored through works by Charles Baudelaire, Robert Penn Warren, Jorge Luis Borges, Louise Gluck, Elizabeth Alexander, Allegra Goodman, and Christine and the Queens, all of whom translate Dante’s new life into something uniquely their own.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.436. Migrant Narratives in Italian Literature and Film. 3 Credits.
Italy, once a land of emigrants, is now a place of arrival for people from Africa, eastern Europe, and beyond. This course explores themes of otherness and belonging, exile and assimilation, translation and transformation, myth and memory through a selection of films and literature about migration—to, from and within Italy. Readings will include Vita by Melania Mazzucco, Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous, and Adua by Igiaba Scego as well as excerpts from works by Luigi Pirandello, Giovanni Pascoli, Carlo Levi, and Mario Soldati. Films range from Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers to Brusati’s Bread and Chocolate, Crialese’s The Golden Door, Matteo Garrone’s Io, Capitano, and Ferrente’s documentary about the Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio. Although our focus is Italy, there will be opportunities to reflect on expressions of migrant experiences in other languages, cultures, and art forms.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.211.438. On Tyranny: Theory, Literature, History. 3 Credits.
Despotism, authoritarianism, autocracy, dictatorship: the terms for tyranny are legion. But what exactly do we mean by tyranny, and how are we to understand it? This seminar will explore what literature, philosophy, and political theory, ancient and modern, have to say about both this (protean) concept and its many historically charged avatars. A deeper look into the history of “tyranny” reveals unexpected complexities, from affirmative uses of the term to radical critiques. To better understand this complex history and what it is we mean when we oppose political repression today, we will read classic works from political theory, philosophy, and literature (e.g. Plato’s “Apology of Socrates,” “Republic” VIII-IX; Xenophon’s “Hiero”; Livy’s “Ab Urbe Condita” 1-2; Seneca the Younger’s “De Clementia”), early modern (e.g. Machiavelli’s “Prince”; La Boétie’s “On Voluntary Servitude”; Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”; Schiller’s “Fiesco”) and modern works (e.g. Strauss on Xenophon, followed by Kojève’s Commentary; Arendt’s “Origins of Totalitarianism”).
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.440. Literature of the Holocaust. 3 Credits.
How has the Holocaust been represented in literature? Are there special challenges posed by genocide to the social and aesthetic traditions of representation? Where does the Holocaust fit in to the array of concerns that literature expresses? And where does literature fit in to the commemoration of communal tragedy and the working through of individual trauma entailed by thinking about and representing the Holocaust? These questions will guide our consideration of a range of texts — nonfiction, novels, poetry — originally written in Yiddish, German, English, French and other languages (including works by Primo Levi and Isaac Bashevis Singer). A special focus will be works written during and in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust. All readings in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.441. Literary Translation Workshop. 3 Credits.
This course is grounded in the double conviction that translation is the most intimate form of reading and that literary translation is a form of literary writing. The goals of this course are to better understand the potential and challenge of translation as we learn to practice it ourselves. We will study what translators say about their craft and work closely with a wide range of translations. There will be two parts to each seminar: --discussion of assigned readings and analysis of published translations --workshopping of our translations. Students are free to translate from any language into English. Reading knowledge of a language other than English is required.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.454. The Art, Craft, and Science of Translation. 3 Credits.
This course is an introduction to the growing field of Translation Studies. Broadly speaking, the translation process involves three major phases: (1) ‘understanding’ what someone else has written; (2) exploring the linguistic/cultural tools available (or not) in another language to convey the original meaning; and (3) taking responsibility for one’s translation choices. What does it mean to ‘understand’ a text? Is it ever possible to find an ‘equivalent’ in another language? Can the translation process ever be objective, and what role, if any, does the translator’s voice play? What practical tools are available to facilitate the translation process? Drawing from interdisciplinary theories and approaches to translation, this course will attempt to reflect on these questions, and provide an opportunity for some hands-on translation practice. Language pre-requisite: Completion of, or concurrent enrollment in Advanced French I (AS.210.301), Advanced Italian I (AS.210.351), Advanced Spanish I (AS.210.311), or instructor permission.
Prerequisite(s): Completion of, or concurrent enrollment in Advanced French I (AS.210.301), Advanced Italian I (AS.210.351), Advanced Spanish I (AS.210.311), or instructor permission.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.473. Monsters, Haunting, and the Nation. 3 Credits.
This course examines the intersection of speculative fiction, horror, science fiction, and hauntings with latinidad. Reading a variety of short stories, novels, and films, we investigate how genre fiction addresses the unique experience of Latinxs in the Americas, compelling us to reimagine what the speculative can be as it intersects with race and ethnicity.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.502. The Archives Documentary Experiential Learning: Independent Study. 3 Credits.
An independent study on post-production of The Archives Documentary film.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.211.604. Singularities: Literary writing and sensory experience. 3 Credits.
In this seminar we will focus on the relation between literary writing and seemingly ineffable sensory experience. Literary texts will include Teresa de Avila, Juan de la Cruz, Jorge Luis Borges, Clarice Lispector, José Donoso, and James Joyce. We will also read philosophical texts by Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.607. Hermeneutics/Posthermeneutics. 3 Credits.
In this course, we will examine the evolution of the modern hermeneutic tradition, from textual hermeneutics to philosophical hermeneutics, in relation to a range of posthermeneutic approaches to the study of literature, concerning questions of media, materiality, affect, and presence. We will consider how “post”-hermeneutics is not simply anti- or non-hermeneutic, but rather in complex dialog with hermeneutics, and is inscribed into the modern hermeneutic tradition since the late 18th century. Throughout the semester, we will return to a selection of literary works that serve as case studies with which to apply the theoretical and philosophical frameworks examined. Readings may include works by Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jürgen Habermas, Susan Sontag, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Friedrich Kittler, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, and Brian Massumi, among others.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
AS.211.609. Transgression and Transcendence in Modern Literature and Thought. 3 Credits.
This course explores the link between the transgression of the symbolic order in psychosis and the transcendence of discrete mental acts in transcendental philosophy to arrive at thought’s foundation. We will begin the course with the analysis of selected texts by Aristotle, Hegel, Husserl, Freud and Lacan with attention to the parallels between the psychoanalytic account of bliss in transgression and the idealist account of freedom in thinking. The remainder of the course will be devoted to the examination of literary works by Virginia Woolfe, Franz Kafka, Robert Walser and Daniel Paul Schreber.
AS.211.610. Mapping the Scholarly Landscape I: Theories of The Field. 3 Credits.
A survey of theoretical approaches to literature and media taught by the MLL faculty and intended as a space for graduate students to discover new models of analysis and test them out in a workshop-like setting
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.611. Mapping the Scholarly Landscape II: Professional Development. 3 Credits.
A practical approach to essential elements of the profession. Topics covered include teaching; conference presentations; publishing; fellowships and grants; networking and building your professional profile.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.613. The Three Fundamental Moments of Psychoanalytic Criticism. 3 Credits.
In this seminar we will explore psychoanalytic theory as a method for interpreting art, literature, media, and political discourse. Our approach will be structured around an interlinking set of elements: historical stages in the development of Lacan’s theory; dimensions of experience as defined by the theory, specifically the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real; and moments of analytic interpretation, namely, the identification of the symptom, the staging of a fundamental fantasy in transference, and traversing the fantasy through subjective destitution. Readings will include texts from Lacan's seminars and writings as well as commentaries by the Slovenian philosophers Slavoj Žižek and Alenka Zupancic, the Haitian analyst Willy Apollon, the Argentine analyst Juan-David Nasio, and others. The seminar is being offered across several programs and will be taught in English, although students who can are encouraged to do readings in the original language. Attendance and participation are mandatory, but a term paper is not required.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.620. The Aesthetics of Empathy. 3 Credits.
I feel, therefore I am: beginning with Diderot’s Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those Who Can See (1749) and Rousseau’s Letter to M. D'Alembert on Spectacles (1758), the seminar will explore connections between various aspects of neurophysiological, bodily perception and their representations in culture. We will then consider the origins of the term Einfühlung in Robert Vischer's and Theodor Lipps’ seminal works. Embodied perception that informs Heinrich Wölfflin's Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture (1886) is also the focus of several of Georg Simmel’s essays. We shall discuss the environment as an extension of the self in Charles Baudelaire’s “The Swan” and in Andrzej Leder’s “Psychoanalysis of a Cityscape. A Case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: The City of Warsaw.” Aby Warburg’s notion of Pathosformeln will allow us to see the link between pathos and empathy. Finally we will read Zuzanna Ginczanka’s poetry and Clarice Lispector’s The Hour of the Star, whose narrator announces: “I write with my body."
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.666. Graduate practicum: Mapping the Scholarly Landscape I (Research Skills). 2 Credits.
From online resources to core printed reference works, this course acquaints students with the range of scholarly apparatus in the field of literary and cultural studies, with attention to issues of access, retrieval, and research. The course, which is required for all first-year graduate students in MLL, will be conducted in six (6) two-hour sessions.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.667. Graduate practicum: Mapping the Scholarly Landscape II (Tools for Professional development). 3 Credits.
Spring Semester (coordinated by GRLL faculty with the participation of advanced grad students)1. Preparing a syllabus, marketing your classes (DTF, Summer, Intersession) [with the participation of successful DTF/Intersession instructors]Options for online teaching2. Writing a conference paper abstract; conference presentations 3. Organizing a conference/symposium [led by advanced grad students]4. How to get published (what, when, where)5. Academic review writing6. Options for fellowships/grants/career development
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.682. The Archives Documentary: Experiential Learning. 3 Credits.
The Archives is a documentary currently in production that visits Holocaust archives and Jewish cemeteries around the world, including in Austria, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Brazil, and the U.S. These hallowed places of Holocaust history are the searching grounds for four descendants seeking evidence of their interrupted family stories from the pre-second World War era. As the protagonists get closer to the truth with the help of archivists assisting them in their searches, they receive a measure of restitution. This course is an opportunity to participate in the latest documentary by Professor Bernadette Wegenstein as her team ends production and moves the film into post-production. Students will assist in the pre-production of final film shoots planned for March 2025 in New York and Baltimore. Interested students will be able to take part in these film shoots as credited production assistants. They will also learn how a documentary that has been made over the past three years will be prepared for post-production including writing a paper cut and working with animators. Students don’t need any formal knowledge of documentary filmmaking but should be interest in research, Holocaust history, and exile stories.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.684. The Archives Documentary Experiential Learning: Post-Production. 3 Credits.
This seminar is a continuation of the course The Archives Documentary Experiential Learning (although students don’t need to have taken that class), focusing on post-production, in particular editing and storytelling. Students will be able to assist and be part of the editing process of the film with professor Bernadette Wegenstein and her editors, including rough cut reviews; they will assist the team’s collaboration with animators creating unique animations for some of the film’s storylines. Interested students will also be take part in the creation of an original musical score. In addition to being exposing to and immersed in the post-production of The Archives, students will learn feminist film theory, and decolonial film strategies, analyzing their practical implementations in documentary storytelling.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.706. Bees, Bugs, and other Beasties: Insects in Literature and Philosophy. 3 Credits.
Ants, bees, beetles, fleas and flies, caterpillars and butterflies: as the earth’s most abundant animals, insects are arguably the most important player in our interactive environment. In this seminar, we will explore the diverse world of insects and other arthropods in philosophy, literature, and the sciences in order to gain a new perspective on current trends in animal and environmental studies in the US and Europe. Reading our way from John Donne’s “The Flea” and Robert Hooke’s “Micrographia” to Bernard Mandeville’s “The Fable of the Bees,” Barthold Heinrich Brockes insect-poems, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s infamous novel “The Flea,” to Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” Heidegger’s contentious bee-example, Uexküll’s biosemiotics, Deleuze and Guattari’s “A Thousand Plateaus” (they characterize our industrial time as “the age of insects”) and Donna Haraway’s “tentacular thinking,” we will ask how concepts and stories of insects and the insectile reflect and shape the ways we imagine our cultural as well as ecological milieus. We will look more closely at how entomological imaginaries evolved over time and shed light on different forms of interaction with the environment, politics, and (cultural, biological) diversity. This course covers a wide range of sources from different European languages (made available in English translations) and gives a survey of major junctures in the history of literary forms, scientific practices, and philosophical concepts.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.754. Primitivism. 3 Credits.
This course will explore the aesthetics and politics of primitivism in European modernity, focusing on the visual arts and literature in German and Yiddish, but looking at the wider European context, including France and Russia. We will begin with the backgrounds of primitivism in Romanticism, looking especially at its ethnographic and colonial sources. We will then focus on the presence of anthropological and ethnographic discourses within various registers of modernist thought, literature, and visual culture, with special attention to visual and literary primitivism. Our central concerns will include: the attempt to create a modernist aesthetics grounded in ethnography; the primitivist critique of modernity; the place of primitivism in the historical avant-garde; the development of the notion of “culture” in modernity; and the aesthetics of modern ethnic and national identity. Key thinkers, artists, and writers to be considered include Herder; Gauguin; Picasso; Wilhelm Worringer; Carl Einstein; Hannah Höch; and Emil Nolde.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.791. Film Theory and Critical Methods. 3 Credits.
Placed at the crossroads of aesthetics and politics, psychology and economics, the history of technology and popular culture, film has emerged as the interdisciplinary object of study par excellence. Based on intensive weekly viewing and on classic and contemporary statements in film theory, this seminar²required for the Graduate Certificate in Film and Media²opens up questions of film language, authorship, genre, spectatorship, gender, technology, and the status of national and transnational cinemas.
Prerequisite(s): Cannot be taken if student took any of AS.212.791, AS.213.791, AS.214.791, or AS.215.791
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.211.866. Independent Study - CAMS/graduate. 3 - 9 Credits.
The CAMS independent study gives graduate students an opportunity to work one-on-one on a dissertation chapter or seminar work with a practical media component. Students usually edit a documentary segment or create a critical visual or sound montage.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.212.302. Intensités: Récits Brefs de Langue Française. 3 Credits.
Selon Edgar Allan Poe, l'œuvre brève est celle qui se lit at one sitting, d’une seule traite. Appartiennent au récit bref des genres aussi difficiles à classer que le fait-divers, la nouvelle, le conte, la fable, le poème en prose narratif, ect. On pourrait penser que sans disposer d’un grand nombre de mots, il est impossible pour un auteur de développer librement son récit et de ne pas tomber dans une certaine opacité du propos. En réalité, le format court et fragmentaire du récit bref est la clé qui mène à sa concentration et son efficacité, en créant une densité textuelle qui attire et intrigue le lecteur.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.304. Révolution française, mythe universel?. 3 Credits.
La Révolution française de 1789 s'apparente aujourd'hui à un mythe national. Ses adeptes ont tenté d'en faire un horizon indépassable, tout en dissimulant ses parts d'ombre. Cette dimension mythologique se double d'une prétention universaliste qui entend faire bénéficier des avancées révolutionnaires à l'humanité tout entière.En cette année anniversaire d'une autre révolution (1776), nous étudierons les grands discours et textes fondateurs de la Révolution française, mais aussi des œuvres littéraires, picturales et musicales. Nous verrons comment se construit le mythe révolutionnaire grâce à la promotion de valeurs universelles : souveraineté nationale, liberté politique, égalité des droits, justice sociale. Nous irons au-delà la France européenne de 1789 et voyagerons de la France contemporaine aux colonies antillaises en passant brièvement par la Russie Bolchévique, où s’est réinventé voici un siècle le mythe fondateur de la Grande Révolution.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.301 AND AS.210.302
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.212.318. Women in French Literature of the 17th and 18th Centuries. 3 Credits.
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.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.333. Introduction à la littérature française I. 3 Credits.
Readings and discussion of texts of various genres (poetry, short story, novel, theatre) covering the time period from the Middle Ages to the present day. The course will expose students to core principles of literary understanding and analysis; the texts themselves are drawn from socio-cultural and historical frameworks that cross the French-speaking world. The two semesters (212.333 and 212.334) may be taken in either order. Students may co-register with an upper level course during this course. 212.333 covers the time period from the Middle Ages to the Revolution. Taught in French and writing intensive.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.30] AND AS.210.302
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.334. Introduction à la littérature française II. 3 Credits.
Readings and discussion of texts of various genres covering the time period from the Revolution to the 20th century. This sequence is a pre-requisite to all further literature courses. Students may co-register with an upper-level course during their second semester.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.301 and AS.210.302 or Equivalent Placement
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.336. The French Enlightenment Novel. 3 Credits.
Key novels will be studied from a range of critical approaches. Readings to include works by Marivaux, Montesquieu, Prévost, Diderot, Crébillon, Rousseau, Laclos, and Voltaire. For more detailed information, please see HYPERLINK "https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wilda.org%2FCourses%2FCourseVault%2FUndergrad%2FNovel%2Fsyllabus.html&data=05%7C01%7Calabat1%40jhu.edu%7C1c9c8fe891f04e90ca4f08daa616b658%7C9fa4f438b1e6473b803f86f8aedf0dec%7C0%7C0%7C638004913739443506%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=eK%2B5mn6ECgdrTDiDHPwAM5iY4p6I3RgmtpLu9OaM2ok%3D&reserved=0" http://www.wilda.org/Courses/CourseVault/Undergrad/Novel/syllabus.htmlThis course is taught in French.
Prerequisite(s): AS.212.333
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.337. Illness and Immunity in Postwar French Literature. 3 Credits.
What does immunity have to do with literary studies? We will explore this question by examining the concept of immunity, not only as a medical and legal concept, but also as a cultural phenomenon. Students will analyze what “immunity” can teach us about the ideas of tolerance and defense and about the ways we come into contact and build relationships with others. Through attention to French novels and graphic novels, students will investigate the grammars and images linked to the concept of immunity and research how these languages and images shape how we think of mental and physical illnesses, vulnerability, exposure, as well as how they permeate body representations in French literature. Secondary sources such as philosophical texts, movies, and photographs will embed these narratives into larger issues within the history of medicine and postwar French literature.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.212.340. Topics in French Cinema: Cinéma et le corps. 3 Credits.
This course explores how French films have interrogated the body. We will ask how they have attempted to come to terms with human physicality, desire, and fragility--and with the ability of cinema itself to move spectators emotionally and even physically. Themes explored will include sexuality, gender identity and illness and disability. Conducted in French. Students will have the opportunity to progress in French oral expression and critical analysis. Screenings include works of Céline Sciamma, Michael Haneke, Agnès Varda, Jacques Audiard, and Alain Resnais.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.212.341. Du texte à la scène : quand le roman compose avec l’art vivant. 3 Credits.
Quel lien existe-t-il entre la littérature, art du texte et des livres, que l’on découvre seul et en silence, et les arts de la scène, arts de l’instant, éphémères et publics? On cherchera ici à répondre à cette question pour saisir les transferts entre ces deux réalités. La musique, art de la composition, prendra une place prépondérante dans ce cours, mais on s’intéressera aussi à la danse, l’opéra, le cirque ou la performance. L’approche sera ici volontairement sensible, à travers un corpus de textes modernes et contemporains allant de Perec au slam, en passant par Jean Echenoz, pour tenter de comprendre "ce qu’il se passe" quand littérature et arts "vivants" se croisent.
Prerequisite(s): AS.212.333 OR AS.212.334
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.212.353. La France Contemporaine. 3 Credits.
Students will explore contemporary French society and culture through a wide variety of media: fiction and non-fiction readings (graphic novels, news periodicals, popular magazines), films, music, art, websites, and podcasts. A diverse range of hands-on activities in addition to guided readings will help students develop cultural awareness as we discuss topics such as education, politics, humor, sports, cuisine, immigration, slang, and national identity, as well as the historical factors that have influenced these facets of French and francophone culture. Recommended course background: AS.210.301 and AS.210.302 or permission of instructor. Contact April Wuensch (april@jhu.edu).
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken AS.211.401 may not take AS.212.353.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.212.354. Le monde francophone. 3 Credits.
This course examines both sociolinguistic and cultural aspects of the French-speaking world and the relationship between la francophonie and France itself. We focus on five regions—Sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroun and Senegal), Northern Africa (Morocco and Algeria), the Caribbean (Martinique and Haiti), North America (Quebec), and Europe (Belgium)—and consider language features unique to those regional varieties, the status of French as opposed to other indigenous languages and creoles, the demographics of their speakers, and the representation of their culture in media (particularly in short stories, poetry, song, and film). A semester-long research project on one of these main areas will allow students to combine their study of the French-speaking world with other disciplines of interest to them.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.212.370. Poe's haunting shadow: Tracing Poe's impact on 19th-century French writers. 3 Credits.
This course delves into the study of Poe's incredible impact on French literature and art. Although many of his American contemporaries dismissed him as a crude writer, he gained a more reverential status on the other side of the Atlantic throughout the 19th century, being introduced by Baudelaire as one of the first "poète maudit" of the century. Through Baudelaire's translations, Poe's writings gained recognition and his literary sensibility was widely praised. He influenced several major literary and artistic movements amongst them the Symbolist poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Valéry, the paintings of Edouard Manet and Paul Gauguin, but also the Fantastic in Maupassant's short stories and in Villiers de l'Isle-Adam writings. Moreover, Poe's influence is to be seen in the works of Jules Verne, the father of French science-fiction who admired Poe, in French Romanticism and in the detective stories of Emile Gaboriau. Through the prism of Poe's influence on French writers, this course allows a stimulating odyssey into various French works. Course taught in French.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.212.371. Landscapes of Science Fiction. 3 Credits.
This course proposes to show to what extent the creation of imaginary spaces in French and francophone science fiction corresponds to a constant back-and-forth between science and folklore, real environments and fantasy spaces, French literature, and foreign literature. Section 1 (3 credits hours, in English); Section 2 (an additional class in French per week for an 4th credit hour) H W
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.377. French Writers in America. 3 Credits.
Since the publication of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America in the 19th century, French writers have consistently been drawn to the United States as a focal point of their literary exploration. In this course, students will critically examine how French writers have engaged with American culture from an observational and analytical standpoint. They will investigate themes of attraction and repulsion, pro- and anti-American sentiment, and how these perspectives intersect with issues of gender, race, and class, as well as the evolution of American society in the context of Franco-American relations. Students will analyze and interpret novels, pamphlets, newspaper articles, poems, and essays to understand how these texts reflect the authors' perspectives on the U.S. and their sense of French identity in relation to American culture. They will also evaluate the impact of American writers who chose to live in France, exploring how their experiences influenced their work and personal lives. Through these activities, students will achieve a nuanced understanding of the complexities of Franco-American literary interactions. The course will be taught in English, with an optional additional hour in French for those pursuing a major or minor. All texts will be available in both languages.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.212.378. Reading Caribbean History through Literature. 3 Credits.
The Caribbean occupies a central place in the history of the modern world, yet it is frequently portrayed as peripheral. Conventional narratives of its past are framed through the perspective of European empires, depicting the region as a sequence of colonial episodes that illustrate Europe’s expansion. This course explores the history of the French-speaking Caribbean through nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature, examining how these works challenge colonial narratives, give voice to silenced perspectives, and reimagine the past. Readings include works by Émeric Bergeaud, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Jacques Stephen Alexis, Edwidge Danticat, Aimé Césaire, Édouard Glissant, and Patrick Chamoiseau, paired with critical scholarship. The course will be conducted in English, with all texts available in English or English translation.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.402. The Count of Monte Cristo and its Avatars. 3 Credits.
Alexandre Dumas’s Le Comte de Monte Cristo (1844-46) is widely regarded as one of the most popular novels of all time and as one of the best adventure novels ever written. Perhaps no other masterpiece of French literature has been subjected around the world to such countless film adaptations, including animation, television series, and serials. This course aims to study and contextualize the reasons behind this sustained transnational and transcultural interest. Close reading and analysis of Dumas' novel will provide a good point of departure to explore problems that cut across nineteenth-century French society: politics, social class, revolution, family, love and desire, revenge, justice, science, and religion. Course conducted in French; most films in English or with English subtitles.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.212.404. Les Revenants: Fiction, Histoire et Société. 3 Credits.
La littérature est hantée par les revenants et les fantômes, c’est-à-dire des êtres qui n’ont plus de place dans la société. Dans le roman, depuis 1789, le personnage du revenant a connu un succès populaire phénoménal. Des figures fictives (comme Chabert, Vautrin, Jean Valjean et Edmond Dantès) sont devenues presque mythologiques et restent ancrées dans l’imaginaire littéraire collectif. Presque tout revient dans ce siècle dit moderne (l’histoire, la préhistoire, les Mémoires, les révolutions, les régimes politiques, les régimes économiques, les anciennes modes) ; même Karl Marx parle du revenant dans ses écrits politiques. D’ailleurs « Les idées ne meurent pas » dit un personnage du Comte de Monte Cristo d’Alexandre Dumas. Tout en explorant la fonction sociale et les fantasmes politiques que le thème du retour suscite dans la culture populaire, nous tenterons de décrypter la fonction complexe de la figure du revenant à travers l’axe anthropologique et historique. Les auteurs étudiés plus particulièrement seront Chateaubriand, Balzac, Dumas, Flaubert, Freud, Gautier, Hugo, Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Mérimée, Montaigne, Nerval, Marx, Sand et Zola.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.405. Women's Life Writing in French. 3 Credits.
This course explores various strategies devised by contemporary women writers across the Francophone world (France, Sénégal, Algeria) for telling their stories of plural identities, displacement, rebellion, and self-emancipation. Challenging the illusions of effortless métissages, these stories confront bluntly and directly the conflicts that lie at the heart of the most familial, intimate relationships with mothers, lovers, kins. Works by Colette, Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Yourcenar, Maryse Condé, Marie Cardinal, Leila Sebbar, Annie Ernaux, Christine Angot, Ken Bugul.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.301 AND AS.210.302, or equivalent by permission
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.212.411. Étrange et Étranger: The Fascination of the Unknown in French Literature & Arts. 3 Credits.
This multi-media course will focus on the various representations of the double theme Étrange/Étranger in French literature, culture and society of the 19th and 20th centuries through a series of films/documentaries, poems, plays, novels, and short stories. What is strange? Who is a stranger? While close readings of texts and films will seek above all to shed light on the complex meanings of the two themes of l’étrange et l’étranger (strange/stranger, foreign/foreigner) as they have appeared in literature, philosophy, historiography, and the other arts, we will at the same time highlight the artistic, historical, and intellectual issues related to the opposing figures (i.e. Citizen, Friend, Slave, Native) as they are represented in the major literary movements of this long period, notably romanticism, realism, symbolism, naturalism, surrealism, and existentialism. Conducted entirely in French.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.212.413. For the Record: Jazz Cultures of Modern France. 3 Credits.
Across the 20th century, mainstream and avant-garde French culture was deeply impacted by the presence of African American musicians and performing artists hailing from the jazz tradition. From the Josephine Baker craze of the 1920s to the second post-war which welcomed the innovations of bebop and sixties-era free improvisation, metropolitan France proved a space where expatriate and exiled Black Americans could both perpetuate the tradition and innovate by turns. At the same time, French tastemakers, critics, and musicians eager to adopt new forms and styles debated the extent to which American jazz music in its various strains could be “made French.” This course in transcultural French studies will feature readings in music criticism, history, and literature, as well as frequent close listening. It will culminate in a local concert reflecting France’s continued connection to and support of jazz and related improvised musics. Though some background in French language and in musical notation is desirable (students are encouraged to engage in original-source research), all core course readings will be provided in English. Discussion in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.212.420. La chanson française. 3 Credits.
À quoi servent les chansons, et à quoi bon chanter dans un monde plein de bruit et de fureur ? Ce cours plonge dans l'histoire de la chanson française moderne, depuis la romance fin-de-siècle et la chanson "réaliste" (popularisée entre autres par Édith Piaf) jusqu'au chant contestataire des années soixante et au néo-cabaret actuel. Nous nous interrogerons sur ce qui caractérise la chanson en tant que forme poétique et sur les divers contextes sociaux dans lesquels elle a pu se déployer : salle de concert, scène de music-hall, rue ou square, écran de cinéma... Une grande partie de votre travail consistera à écouter des enregistrements et à tenir un journal de bord personnalisé consignant vos expériences d'écoute ; nous visionnerons également quelques films musicaux marquants (Clair, Demy, Honoré...). Aucune compétence musicale n'est requise de la part des inscrits. Lectures et discussion en français.
Prerequisite(s): AS.212.333 OR AS.212.334
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.212.426. Penser l'Animal de l'Ancien Régime à la Belle Epoque. 3 Credits.
This seminar explores the history of thinking about non-human and human animals in France from the late sixteenth through the late nineteenth centuries. Topics to be explored include non-human sentience, interspecies relations, animals and industrialization, and the emergence of anti-cruelty laws. Taught in French.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.212.427. Paris: La biographie d'une ville. 3 Credits.
This seminar progresses chronologically from Gallo-Roman Paris to the early twenty-first century, exploring the continuation and changes in these 2000 years of Parisian history. Students will explore the architectural, political, religious, literary and cultural developments that helped shape the city and its inhabitants. Taught in French.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.212.429. Honors Thesis Prep. 1 Credit.
This course will meet three times during the semester to enable all French majors to prepare their thesis subject, thesis bibliography, and abstract prior to the writing of the Senior Thesis (AS.212.430). This course is required of all French majors and must be taken during the Fall semester of their senior year. Schedule TBA upon consultation with the class list, as there are only three group meetings. The rest of the meetings are in individual appointments with the DUS or another chosen French professor. Prerequisites: AS.212.333-334 and either prior enrollment or concurrent enrollment in AS.210.417 Eloquent French.
Prerequisite(s): (AS.212.333 OR AS.212.334) AND AS.210.417 can be taken at the same time or prior to enrolling in AS.212.429.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.212.430. French Honors Thesis. 3 Credits.
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.Recommended Course Background: AS.212.429
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.436. Love, from Beginning to End. 3 Credits.
From its origins – in Socrates's homoerotic mythologies, in the poetry of pre-Islamic Arabia, and in the currents that crossed from medieval Al-Andalus into Italy and Southern France – love has been a paradoxical, transgressive phenomenon: mystical longing, counter-religion, con game, parlor game, alienation, or self-affirmation. Contemporary sociologists have reported its demise, brought about by too many right- and left-swipes. In this course we explore a few crucial moments in the history of love, from Socrates's female teacher, Diotima, to today's dating shows, and we'll bring a literary, a sociological, and an anthropological approach to the challenges posed by love's protean discourse. Works by Plato, Ovid, Saint Augustine, Majnûn, Ibn Hazm, the abbess Héloïse, Pierre de Marivaux, Simone Weil, Annie Ernaux. The course is conducted in French.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.301 and AS.210.302 or Equivalent Placement
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.439. Aimer Son Prochain? Sympathie, Différence, Hostilité. 3 Credits.
Une exploration des diverses manières de produire et réguler l'amour de l'autre au sein d'une société hiérarchique et compétitive: que cet autre soit un concitoyen ou un étranger, un inférieur ou un supérieur, qu'il nous ressemble ou non. Du roman, à l'anthropologie, à la sociologie, au débats sur le vivre-ensemble à l'Assemblée Nationale, nous examinerons les rêves pacificateurs de la politesse aristocratique, l'institution de la solidarité républicaine, les blessures de la socialité coloniale. Cours et textes à lire en français.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.449. France, terre des migrations [French Histories of Migration]. 3 Credits.
Comme le Canada ou les Etats-Unis, la France est une grande terre d’immigration qui depuis le 19e siècle a accueilli sur son sol des populations du monde entier. En examinant témoignages, textes de fiction et films documentaires, nous suivrons les expériences contrastées de diverses vagues de migrants chassés par la faim, le chômage ou les persécutions. Quels mécanismes ont favorisé ou freiné l’intégration économique, sociale et civique de ces migrants qui ont rejoint la République française? Que veut dire “être immigré” aujourd’hui? Recommended Course Background: AS.212.333 OR AS.212.334
Prerequisite(s): AS.211.401
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.212.454. French Theater: Reading and Practice. 3 Credits.
Reading modern theater in French can be exciting: a battle waged with words instead of swords, a battle of wit and of style. The literature of the nineteenth century was marked by major literary battles opposing young Romantic writers against an old school of Academicians. This battle was fought largely in and through the theatre. In this course the classroom space itself becomes a stage in which to reenact or rehearse some of these battles, through careful readings of texts and by exploring all possible literary contexts. Participants will read together a number of plays as well as take part in collaborative learning and creative activities. Readings to include texts by Césaire, Dumas, Hugo, Marivaux, Musset, Scribe, Sartre, and Vigny. Readings and discussion in French.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.456. Philosophical Journeys, Real Encounters. 3 Credits.
From the Renaissance onwards, travel narratives by French missionaries, soldiers, adventurers and traders opened up Europeans minds to new worlds of possibilities in loving, making war and peace, and achieving freedom and happiness. This course will explore European perceptions of Indigenous cultures and Indigenous critiques of European societies. Focus on Brazil, Nouvelle France (France's North American colonies) and Russia, from the 16th to the 19th century. Readings and discussion in French.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.301 or Equivalent Placement
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.473. Le Québec de la Nouvelle France à la Révolution Tranquille. 3 Credits.
This seminar examines the diverse body of texts that served to generate a sense of Québec collective identity from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. We will begin to chart the ever-shifting notion of Québécité with the histories of colonial New France, proceed to explore the journalism engagé of Étienne Parent and Arthur Buies as well as the anti-British writings of François-Xavier Garneau and the celebrated novel of Philippe Aubert de Gaspé, Les Anciens Canadiens (1863). Other works to be studied include the supernatural tales from late nineteenth-century folklore, the modern roman du terroir (novel of the countryside), and the documentaries of Albert Tessier from the second quarter of the twentieth century. Taught in French.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.212.477. Caribbean Fiction in/and History: Self-understanding and Exoticism. 3 Credits.
The Caribbean is often described as enigmatic, uncommon and supernatural. While foreigners assume that the Caribbean is exotic, this course will explore this assumption from a Caribbean perspective. We will examine the links between Caribbean and Old-World imagination, the relationship between exoticism and Caribbean notions of superstition, and the way in which the Caribbean fictional universe derives from a variety of cultural myths. The course will be taught in English and all required texts are in English, French, and English translations from French. Students in the French program can choose to read all the original French versions and write in French.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.212.496. Zola: le roman expérimental. 3 Credits.
Émile Zola explicitly worked with contemporary theories of heredity to structure the infamous series of the 20 Rougon-Macquart novels. But he also attempted to use his understanding of the then-new sciences of biology and thermodynamics to re-theorize the cultural and epistemological consequences of literature in general. Starting from his famous text “le roman expérimental,” this course will call on Zola’s polemical and literary corpus to examine the effects of scientific thought on literature. We will consider what led this fundamental author of the late 19th century to undertake such a project and to invent “le Naturalisme”, the widespread movement that had followers in multiple world literatures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This course is open to undergraduates and graduate students. This course is writing intensive and will be taught in French. The very provisional syllabus can be consulted at http://www.wilda.org/Courses/CourseVault/Undergrad/Zola/ZolaSyllabus.htmlPrerequisites preferred but not required: AS.212.333 or AS.212.334.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken AS.212.696 are not eligible to take AS.212.496.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.212.610. Ancien Régime French Theater. 3 Credits.
From the high Classical French theater through the unofficial and private theaters, the beginnings of French opera and ballet in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, to the development of the drame bourgeois and the theater criticism of the French Enlightenment. Authors to be studied will include among others Corneille, Molière, Racine, Le Sage, Marivaux, Voltaire, Diderot, and Beaumarchais. This class is open to suitably qualified undergraduates with permission of the instructor. This class will include a short performance component.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.212.709. Transitions in French Filmmaking: From the Silent Era to the Second World War. 3 Credits.
In this seminar in the poetics of cultural forms, we will examine the half-century period in France (1895-1945) during which narrative film language evolved out of proto-cinema to coalesce in the multi-reel feature and the serial, then, after a brief but fecund period of experimentation in non-narrative creative modes (dada, Surrealism, Epstein’s “cinepoetry”), weathered the transition to the “talkies” (le parlant) to diverse effect. That transition to sound yielded both masterworks of poetic realism (Renoir, Duvivier) and countless literary adaptations that sought, and won, broad commercial success (Pagnol, Guitry). Rather than prejudge the esthetic and ideological interest of those works of the 1930s which film historians tend to associate with France’s cinematic maturity, we will attend to the fissures through which the seventh art continues to disclose nostalgia for its (not so) silent past, and to the conservatism that the sound feature imposed on filmic expression. Conversely, looking backwards, we will pay heed to the ways silent film in the 1910s and 1920s itself superseded, through targeted appeals to the sensorial imaginary, its medium-specific limits. Taught in English; readings in English and French (reading knowledge strongly recommended).
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.212.711. Baudelaire and Flaubert: Literary Life in the Year 1857. 2 Credits.
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) and Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880): two young men from wealthy families, two opponents of bourgeois education, two aborted social callings, two terminal illnesses, two resounding failures before literary institutions, two adventures in love, two satanic fascinations, two notorious literary trials, two conceptions of the craft of writing, two approaches to realism, two criticisms of romantic art, two models of poetic inspiration, two aesthetics of language, two cults of Beauty, all for one and a unique literature. This seminar will be devoted to the literary life of two writers whose canon for more than a century has occupied a central place of importance in contemporary literary criticism. It will be our task to place their work in perspective within the context of the rise of modernism, which is to say, the new status of literature as of the year 1857. We shall endeavor, thus, to discern the authenticity of the creative relationship of each artist with himself and subsequently with others. The point will be to foreground three fundamental principles that will aid in grasping the evolution of the literary world under the Second Empire and under the Third Republic: literary history, writing and the elevation of the writer (Bénichou). Our work will be based on three or four texts by Baudelaire and Flaubert, it being understood that additional works of criticism will illuminate the discussion of these texts.
Writing Intensive
AS.212.712. Norms and Forms of Academic Communication. 3 Credits.
This course is a writing workshop for graduate students of literature and literate cultures. Its aim is to teach students to select appropriate formats for the dissemination of their research (conference talks, short and longer articles, ABD presentations, dissertation chapters, book reviews, etc.) and produce such works. Questions to be addressed include: how to recognize and choose the appropriate rhetoric for particular audiences, essential differences between written versus spoken communications, how to read and constructively critique other scholars’ work both in verbal and written contexts. Students will produce at least 2 polished works by the end of the semester; all work will be read and critiqued by all students during the class, and subsequent rewrites will continue to be critiqued throughout the semester. This course incorporates the study of exemplary critical texts, primarily concerning French thought, that are well known for their rhetorical stances. These texts will be analyzed in alternation with the students’ own work and critiques. Texts will be read in both French and English, to demonstrate questions raised by translation and the demands of differing linguistic cultures.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.212.717. Montesquieu. 3 Credits.
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, author of De l’Esprit des lois, a seminal early French Enlightenment text still considered today a fundamental work of political science and philosophy. Montesquieu was judged by the 2nd generation of the Enlightenment and the Encyclopédistes to be their intellectual patron saint, grounding the epistemological, aesthetic and political programs for his age. This course will read his most important texts, political, literary and physiological, in order to situate Montesquieu’s presence in the Enlightenment and to consider his enduring impact on later thinkers and writers. Works to be considered will include his early texts on gland theory, Les lettres persanes, Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence, de l’Esprit des lois, extracts from his Spicilèges, texts of and around the Encyclopédie, and short texts from some of Montesquieu’s most important readers: Condorcet, Napoléon Bonaparte, Tocqueville, etc. Readings in French, course taught in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.212.720. Le Livre Antillais: Culture, Écriture et Passages. 3 Credits.
On s’arrête trop souvent pour souligner l’inexistence d’une véritable sphère du Livre lorsqu’on aborde la littérature haïtienne, mais assez rarement pour s’interroger sur la place de cet objet dans la fiction. Il nous semble que la représentation du Livre et de ses avatars est omniprésente dans les œuvres des écrivains antillais depuis la fin du XIXe siècle. La lecture et l’écriture jouent en effet un rôle important dans les représentations culturelles, esthétiques et politiques qu’ils se font de leur société, soumise à une certaine forme de tyrannie intellectuelle. Ce séminaire sera principalement consacré à la question du Livre dans un contexte caribéen. Nous examinerons ainsi la figure de l’auteur antillais, sa présence dans l’œuvre fictionnelle, sa conception fétichisée de la Littérature à travers des perspectives esthétiques, sociales, historiques et politiques, en prenant comme exemples les romans de Jacques Stephen Alexis, Marie Chauvet, René Depestre, Jean-Claude Fignolé, Frankétienne, Fernand Hibbert, Dany Laferrière, Frédéric Marcelin, Émile Ollivier, René Philoctète.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
AS.212.734. Passages in French & Travaux Pratiques : Writing a Conference Paper. 3 Credits.
This graduate seminar is uniquely designed to link scholarly practice and doctoral research in conjunction with the 48th Annual Nineteenth-Century French Studies Colloquium on the theme "Passage." This is a research seminar/discussion on more than two hundred detailed proposals and the production of a publishable paper on the theme of Passage in French and Francophone literature throughout the 19th century. Our intention is to introduce through these proposals the theme of the “Passage” in depth like any graduate seminar. The activities in this course aim to emphasize a practical way of approaching two main tasks, which are to attend the colloquium as a scholar and to develop week by week a publishable and reviewable communication on the subject. We will focus on enhancing independent research and writing abilities as well as the opportunity to engage with scholars professionally in an academic setting. During the semester, each doctoral candidate will have the opportunity to explore a particular problematic of their choice on the theme of Passage as well as to interact with the participants in the colloquium who have met her/his areas of interest. Through discussions, hands-on practice, and project-based activities, the seminar will thus guide students through the process of producing a conference paper for a one-day symposium at the end of the Fall semester.
AS.212.737. Diderot and the French Enlightenment. 3 Credits.
Denis Diderot's early work was dominated by his work on the natural sciences and the Encyclopédie. In later years, his literature addressed the social applications of knowledge: economic, anthropological, political, and moral issues structured his aesthetic concerns. As an author in continual conversation with his contemporaries and who was instrumental in the creation of an intellectual community, his fiction, philosophical texts and critical works serve as the ideal lens to bring into focus the peculiarities of the French Enlightenment. Among the texts to be considered will be “De l’Interprétation de la nature”, articles from the Encyclopédie, the Supplément au voyage de Bougainville, Le Rêve de d’Alembert, the Salon de 1767, Le Neveu de Rameau, extracts from his Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron. Reading in French, class in English.
Prerequisite(s): You can only receive credit for AS.212.437 OR AS.212.737, but not both.
AS.212.741. Rousseau: Citizenship and Exile. 3 Credits.
Throughout his life Rousseau presented himself by turns as the citizen of a Republic, a stateless outcast, the resident of a vanishing homeland of the heart, and the focal point of an international conspiracy. He invented new foundations for political communities that could never be implemented or were misunderstood during the revolutionary Terror. The families he portrayed were both patriarchal and defiantly anti-normative. He affirmed his desire to belong and insisted on his irreducible difference; he extolled friendship and engineered breakups. Through readings of Rousseau's major political, autobiographical and fictional works we shall examine how and why communities, personal identity and citizenship are alternately built and destroyed. Taught in French. Course open to undergraduates with permission of the instructor.
AS.212.751. Franco-Algerian Screens: Exoticism, Revolution, Independence. 3 Credits.
From colonialist fictions of the 1920s and 1930s and politically engaged works of the 1960s, to family sagas and personal essays looking back in the new century on a conflicted past, Algeria has featured prominently in France's cinematographic imaginary. In the six decades since gaining independence, Algeria has likewise produced compelling narratives that address the colonial legacy, the armed liberation struggle and its aftermath, up to and including the institution of one-party rule and the outbreak of the “invisible war” of the 1990s.This seminar in transnational film study addresses from both sides of the Mediterranean an entangled political and cultural history. It examines conflicting screen representations as well as the institutions, individuals, and publics associated with them. We will ask how choice of source material, generic conventions, narrative viewpoint, and ideological bias make of each work a discrete historiographical act. How do groups of spectators selectively construct divergent “screen memories” along the lines of gender, nationality, or other subgroups? Seminar in English; reading knowledge of French required. Films will be screened with English or French subtitles whenever available.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.212.778. Les écritures contemporaines aux confins des genres [Contemporary French Writing Beyond the Genres. 3 Credits.
Dans tout un secteur de la création littéraire de langue française, la trinité générique « roman, poésie, théâtre » ne fait guère plus la loi. Depuis les années 1960, époque où l’on théorisait l'écriture comme site de transgression et de jouissance ludique, ont surgi des formes hybrides refusant toute attribution à un genre littéraire défini. Le montage, le recyclage, la traduction intermédiale, l'écriture sous contrainte ou la «factographie» émergent comme principes de création et de ressourcement. Quelle attitude prendre face à ces textes livrés sans mode d'emploi et qui semblent inventer, parfois au prix de la lisibilité, leurs propres règles? Comment poursuivre une lecture raisonnée lorsque les repères habituels nous font défaut et que les grilles interprétatives d’usage ne s’adaptent guère à l’objet? Peut-on éviter de réduire ces textes à des symptômes de la postmodernité ou d’une ère où pointe le post-humanisme? Le «(re)mixage» contemporain des genres a sans conteste renouvelé le champ littéraire en ouvrant la pratique sur des esthétiques plurielles parfois contradictoires. Dans ce séminaire doctoral nous aborderons quelques oeuvres – majeures et mineures, narratives et descriptives, en prose ou à dominante poétique – ayant contribué à dissoudre les modèles génériques consacrés. Diverses approches d'une «même» question intéressant les créateurs nous préoccuperont: le rapport entre mimésis littéraire et représentation visuelle; entre les sous-genres paralittéraires et le récit au deuxième degré; entre le travail de la langue et la langue au travail ; entre le geste autobiographique et sa rature; entre les assignations de genre sexué et leur critique. OEuvres de Cadiot, Deck, de Kerangal, Echenoz, Garréta, Levé, Montalbetti, Perec, Simon, Sorman, Viel et Wittig entre autres. N.B. La langue du séminaire ainsi que de la plupart des textes à lire est le français.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.212.781. L'entre-deux-guerres en toutes lettres [French Literature Between the Wars]. 3 Credits.
French literary culture between the wars (1919-1939) promoted the novel as a forum for social comment and formal experimentation alike. Questioning the psychological biases of the ‘roman d’analyse’ and reacting to the collective tragedy of the Great War, interwar writers updated the French language as well as narrative ‘technique’ in light of emergent theories (psychoanalysis, Marxism, phenomenology). Readings from Aragon, Breton, Céline, Cocteau, Colette, Dabit, Malraux, Némirovsky, Queneau, and Simenon.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.212.793. Georges Perec: Methods and Meanings. 3 Credits.
Ce séminaire doctoral a pour base des (re)lectures intensives d'une œuvre-phare qui a profondément transformé la poétique post-moderne, dans l'aire francophone comme en traduction. Lire Perec, c'est faire l'expérience d'une constante redécouverte des possibles de la langue et des formes, héritées ou nouvellement engendrées. Nourrie d'échanges avec l'OuLiPo, cette production hors commun déborde largement les confins de la littérature narrative et expérimentale pour irriguer les domaines de la création théâtrale, radiophonique, filmique entre autres. En plus de nous familiariser avec quelques courants critiques qui se sont saisis de l'œuvre, nous nous interrogerons au fil de nos lectures sur ce "reste" qui résiste à toute capture : un regard "oblique", une voix bien moins "neutre" qu'il n'y paraît, un corps semble-t-il absent qui ne cesse d'insister dans l'écriture comme pour témoigner de la perte.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.212.801. French Independent Study. 12 - 20 Credits.
This course is for a graduate students pursuing an independent research project with a faculty mentor.
AS.212.802. French Dissertation Research. 9 Credits.
Research work toward dissertation.
AS.212.803. French Proposal Preparation. 3 - 20 Credits.
1st semester: Develop list of already-read works in your chosen field to develop a thesis subject. Identify 2 co-advisors of the ABD project; the expectation is that 1 will direct the thesis following the ABD defense. Register in this advisor’s section (01: Desormeaux; 02: Anderson; 03: Russo; 04: Schilling). 1st month: Discuss with co-advisors your understanding of the core research question(s) and prepare a provisional abstract (an ongoing working tool). The abstract includes 1) well-articulated thesis statement; 2) description of proposed methodology; 3) list of proposed primary works to be studied; 4) justification of the project’s relevance to the field and its interdisciplinary reach. It should be accompanied by a report on your literature search: situate your project within the existing scholarly corpus. 2nd month: prepare an annotated bibliography of primary and secondary works. Expect it to expand significantly during ABD prep as well as after the ABD defense. 3rd month: review and modify the abstract with the co-advisors; develop a provisional outline of your ABD text. Present a reading list for the period between the 1st and 2nd semesters of proposal prep. 2nd semester: Meet with the co-advisors to report on the interim research and revisit if necessary the proposed outline and abstract. Submit proposal for the sample chapter. 1st month: begin writing the sample chapter. 2nd month: in the light of how the sample chapter is progressing, review the outline with the co-advisors, then begin writing a narrative of potential thesis chapters. 3rd month: once the foregoing are drafted, write up the methodological introduction and finalize the annotated bibliography. Finally, review the abstract for completeness and revise the ABD for language and formatting. The ABD must be approved by the ABD co-advisors before it is distributed for defense. Goal:~25 pages of supporting material;~30-page writing sample; an annotated bibliography. ABD is not to exceed 75 pp.
AS.212.804. French Summer Research. 9 Credits.
This course is for graduate students to pursue research over the summer in consultation with a faculty mentor.
AS.212.850. Professional Training - French. 3 Credits.
Training for professional academic performance.
AS.213.208. Dystopian Fiction & Socioeconomic Thought. 3 Credits.
Dystopia (from the Latin) means “bad place.” Classic literary dystopias such as We, 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451 depict societies gone wrong, bad places in which socioeconomic ideas promise harmony but produce nightmarish, even apocalyptic outcomes. A common theme of dystopian fiction is the conflict between collective need and individual desire. In this course we will pursue this theme, and others, as we read works of fiction alongside influential works of socio-economic thought. One of our aims will be to tease out the buried dreams and latent possibilities in the historical realities and literary imaginings of dystopic worlds. Readings include selections from popular fiction and contemporary media as well as texts by authors such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Hayek, Rosa Luxemburg, W.E.B. Du Bois, Franz Kafka, Juli Zeh, Olivia Wenzel, Elias Canetti, Brigitte Riemann, Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon, Herta Müller, and Philip K. Dick.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.308. Familiengeheimnisse/Verleugnungskultur. 3 Credits.
Analyzing literature and films on the family relationships of refugees, political prisoners, Stasi informants, and Nazi perpetrators, we will study the psychic afterlives of fascist, totalitarian, or authoritarian regimes (Nazi Germany, GDR, Turkey). We will discover experiences and stories that are often not told in the family but nevertheless handed down across generations in powerful and often distorted ways. Drawing on philosophy, psychoanalysis, and psychosociology, we will discuss how the need to keep quiet meets the need to talk and to hear.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.361
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.213.312. Topics in German Literature: Theater Heute. 3 Credits.
Wie antwortet das Theater heute auf die dringenden Fragen unserer Zeit? In Deutschland und Österreich hat das Theater traditionell und aktuell einen hohen gesellschaftlichen Stellenwert. Aufgrund langjähriger großzügiger Förderung konnte das nicht-kommerzielle Theater im deutschsprachigen Raum eine Vielfalt von zunächst experimentellen Ästhetiken entwickeln. Das postdramatische Theater hat die Theaterlandschaft geprägt. Das postmigrantische Theater hat die Theaterkultur verändert. Queere und feministische Themen und Ästhetiken haben sich etabliert. Theaterkollektive sowie namhafte Regisseur*innen arbeiten in den Kulturhauptstädten sowie in der Provinz auf vielfältige Weise daran, die wichtigen Themen unserer Zeit zu reflektieren. Wir werden zusammen Videos von Inszenierungen anschauen, Theatertexte lesen und uns mit den jeweiligen sozialen und politischen Kontexten sowie mit der Geschichte und Theorie des Theaters beschäftigen. Language of Instruction: German
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.361
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
AS.213.314. Texte sehen, Bilder lesen. 3 Credits.
Taught in German. This course examines the intersections of literature and the visual arts. We will read texts by writers influenced by artists and explore art that mobilizes text; and we will examine the relationships between text and image in both illustrated books and artworks. We will also consider the visual dimensions of texts themselves, asking how texts sometimes come to function imagistically or even as images in their own right. We will work across different periods of literary and visual production, and specific topics will include: theories of text and image; manuscript illumination and early printing; typography; concrete poetry; artists’ books; text art; and graphic novels. The course will include visits to the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Walters Art Museum, Special Collections at the Sheridan Library, and a letterpress shop.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.362 or Instructor Permission
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.315. Playtime…auf deutsch. 3 Credits.
Taught in German. German discussions of theater have largely focused on Greek tragedy and how this classical genre can be adapted for the modern stage. Yet comedies (or Lustspiele) have played an equally important role in German cultural productions and discourse from the early modern figure of the buffoon (Hanswurst) to reflections on puppet theater and to larger philosophical and anthropological inquiries into play. In this course we will read several theoretical texts on comedy and play by Aristotle, Huizinga, Kant, Schiller, and Kleist before turning to various comedies by Lessing, Kotzebue, Kleist, Brentano, Droste-Hülshoff, Büchner and Brecht. The culmination of the class will be a theatrical production.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.362 or Instructor approval
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.316. Frauen der Romantik. 3 Credits.
In diesem Kurs werden wir uns mit literarischen Texten des späten achtzehnten und frühen neunzehnten Jahrhunderts beschäftigen, die mit Frauen- und Geschlechterrollen experimentieren. Kämpferinnen, außergewöhnlich Liebende, mit ausgefallenem Wissen und Weisheit Begabte werden unsere Protagonist*innen sein. Zudem werden wir uns mit der gleichzeitig stattfindenden philosophischen Diskussion auseinandersetzen, die sich zum Teil für Gleichberechtigung einsetzt, vor allem aber Argumente liefert für eine restriktive bürgerliche Frauenrolle. Mit „Frauen der Romantik“ sind hier also sowohl literarische Heldinnen und Schriftstellerinnen gemeint als auch die zu der Zeit noch pluralen Rollen, die dem weiblichen Geschlecht zugeschrieben werden.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.361
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.323. Experimental Literature: Dada to Digital. 3 Credits.
Throughout the 20th century, writers have probed the nature of text as medium through a host of experimental techniques that press literature as an artform to its limits. This course examines the history of this experimentation, from modernist fragmentation of narrative; to Dada typographical and sound poetry; to visual and concrete poetry; to postmodernist metafiction; to hypertext fiction and beyond. By situating various modes of experimentation (formal, stylistic, visual, material, sonic) in relation to media-technological developments and discourses, students will gain an understanding of several literary periods and overview of modern and contemporary media history. The course will make extensive use of Library Special Collections. Conducted in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.213.325. Revolution, Power, and Poetic Justice: From Peasant Revolts to Workers Revolts in Literature and Phi. 3 Credits.
Political thinkers from Ernst Bloch and Carl Schmitt to Reinhard Koselleck and Theodor W. Adorno have long been drawn to Heinrich von Kleist’s novella “Michael Kohlhaas” because of the questions it raises about what a just political order would be when, in the context of this story, only the threat of violence enables the powerless to be heard. The novella takes place in the latter half of the sixteenth century as the feudal era is coming to an end, and Kohlhaas’s struggle to rectify the damage done to his property reveals the vulnerability of the then emerging merchant class to the still unchecked power of the nobility. Yet Kohlhaas’s response to the situation proves to be as arbitrary as the injustice he faces, and the only solution the novella can find for this impasse is a fairy tale that embodies—in all senses of the phrase—poetic justice. This course will examine the novella in its historical context (Reformation, doctrine of natural law, Prussian land reform) and with an eye toward modern thought on state violence, terror, liberalism, and the power of art. All texts and discussion in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.213.326. Die Stunde Null. 3 Credits.
Conducted in German. This course explores the so-called Stunde Null or Zero Hour in German history: the years 1945-1949, from the end of World War II to the formal division of Germany into the DDR and the BRD. How did German writers, filmmakers, and intellectuals in the immediate aftermath of the war begin to grapple with questions of guilt and responsibility, and with possibilities for moving forward and national renewal? Additional topics include gender roles, the figure of the Trümmerfrau (rubble-woman), and crises of masculinity; exile, return, and the Gruppe 47. Texts/films include Karl Jaspers’s Die Schuldfrage, Roberto Rossellini’s Germania Anno Zero, Wolfgang Borchert’s Draußen vor der Tür, Wolfgang Staudte’s Die Mörder sind unter uns, Heinrich Böll’s Der Zug war pünklich.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.362
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.332. Literature and the Visual Arts. 3 Credits.
Literature and the Visual Arts is devoted to exploring the resonances between literary and visual forms of artistic expression and their enrichment of the modernist cultural landscape. We will aim to understand how the interest in visual art by modernist writers, and the impressions of literature on modernist and contemporary artworks newly illuminate or challenge traditional aesthetics of the temporality and spatiality of the work, aesthetic judgment, and the phenomenology of aesthetic attention. Readings may include works of literature or aesthetics by Immanuel Kant, Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Klee, Stefan Zweig, Martin Heidegger, Charles Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Siegfried Lenz, and Virginia Woolf, alongside work of many visual artists from van Gogh and Cézanne to German Expressionism and Anselm Kiefer. Taught in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.334. Franz Kafka. 3 Credits.
This course, taught in English, is devoted to study of the fiction of Franz Kafka, of his literary and philosophical context, and of his place in European and German modernism. We will read novels and short stories by Kafka alongside philosophical, critical, and literary responses to his works. We will explore themes of knowledge and truth, the nature of reality, perception and attention, power and forms of law, imagination, animality, the self, and the thematization of writing in his works. While the section one of this course is taught in English with texts in translation, a second section may be available for students wishing to read and discuss Kafka in the original German.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.338. Wiener Moderne / Viennese Modernism. 3 Credits.
Taught in German. The capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Vienna was the center of extraordinary cultural and intellectual flourishing around the turn of the 20th century. A monumental building campaign along the Ringstrasse, which replaced the old city walls, massively transformed the urban fabric of the city. The founding of the Vienna Secession marked a period of re-birth that spread throughout the visual arts, literature, theater, music, architecture, and design. Literati and intellectuals including Sigmund Freud, who revolutionized psychology through the founding of psychoanalysis, gathered at now-famous Viennese Kaffeehäuser. This course surveys the artistic, cultural, intellectual, and political landscape of Vienna from ca. 1890 to the First World War. Figures to be examined include Hoffmansthal, Schnitzler, Rilke, Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Loos, Wagner, Schönberg, Freud, and Wittgenstein, among others.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.339. Secret Societies: Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister Lehrjahre. 3 Credits.
Taught in German. Goethe’s novel is among the most influential in the German tradition and established the genre of the Bildungsroman. Although the novel is often considered a tale of personal formation and social integration, the reverse of this statement is true as well. Wilhelm Meister is a novel of splintered relations and social disintegration, as even the best laid plans are disrupted by unexpected circumstances and uncontrollable desires. We will read the entire novel in German over the semester with an eye toward the motif of theater and the question of puppets, puppet masters, and invisible hands, especially as thematized in the mysterious Turmgesellschaft introduced at the novel’s conclusion.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
AS.213.363. Environmental Humanities. 3 Credits.
This course considers the importance of philosophical, literary, aesthetic, and other humanist approaches to ecology and environmental issues.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.364. Truth and Lies in the Languages of Politics. 3 Credits.
Fake facts, conspiracy theories, outright lies: have we entered a new era of “post-truth”? Some claim that deception has always been a part of political processes, that objectivity is an illusion, that every “fact” is made, formed, fashioned, constructed (“fact” comes from the same Latin root as “fiction”). Others insist that without a distinction between truth and lie, all politics is a farce, and look to fact-checking and evidence for guidance. Who is right? And what assumptions are at the basis of this perhaps overly-simple binarism? In order to get a grasp on these questions, we will explore the theme and the concept of lying in literature, philosophy, and current media, with an emphasis on political language. We will read literary texts by Heinrich von Kleist, Herman Melville, Thomas Mann, the much-discussed GDR novel “Jacob the Liar,” political philosophy by Plato, Machiavelli, Kant, Nietzsche (“On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense”), Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt, and Nina Schick’s 2020 exposé “Deep Fakes: The Coming Infocalypse.” We will apply what we learn from these readings to fake news and social media in order to develop new skills of dealing with manipulative language. Taught in English (with the option of a section in German).
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.374. Existentialism in Literature and Philosophy. 3 Credits.
What does it mean to exist, and to be able to reflect on this fact? What is it mean to be a self? This course explores the themes of existentialism in literature and philosophy, including the meaning of existence, the nature of the self, authenticity and inauthenticity, the inescapability of death, the experience of time, anxiety, absurdity, freedom and responsibility to others. It will be examined why these philosophical ideas often seem to demand literary expression or bear a close relation to literary works. Readings may include writings by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Heidegger, Rilke, Kafka, Simmel, Jaspers, Buber, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, and Daoud.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.379. Multilingualism and Multiculturalism in the German-Speaking World. 3 Credits.
Taught in German. In today’s globalized world, what does it mean to live and to write in more than one language? In this course, we will explore texts, popular music, and films by multilingual writers and directors reflecting on the experiences of the multilingual subject, from the turmoil of living between languages, identities, and cultures, to the pleasurable, playful experience of reality opened up through thinking and writing in multiple languages. The course begins with introductions to the history and politics of the Gastarbeiter program in West and East Germany, debates about assimilation, and critiques of conceptions of multiculturalism, before turning to examine a range of texts, films, and popular music by multilingual creators.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.362 or instructor approval
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.380. Ghost Stories, Haunted House and Other Occult Phenomena. 3 Credits.
From the eighteenth century to the modern period, German authors have been obsessed with uncanny phenomena that blur the line between the natural world and the supernatural world of ghosts, spirits, and magic. We will explore the encounter with otherworldly phenomena in this course with a special emphasis on the status of literature as a play of semblance or collection of shadows. Why have ghost stories been so persistent in the modern era when science and reason are said to dominate our understanding of the world? Is the occult the dark side of science? What kind of knowledge does literature yield? What can literature tell us about phenomena that are random, obscure, or inexplicable? To what degree does literature enable us to interact with figures no longer bodily present?
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.213.384. Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness, Mind: Thinking in the 21st Century. 3 Credits.
The advent of artificial intelligence has brought to the fore how much we have taken the idea of thinking for granted in the past fifty years. This course will trace the development of the notion of mind in ancient Greece through the exploration of consciousness in eighteenth-century German thought and physiological explanations of thought beginning with Nietzsche in the nineteenth century. We will compare these historical accounts to the statistical models and neural network theories that dominate today. We will also read a selection of short(er) literary works in which the question of who, or what, is speaking brings the traditional aesthetic concept of mimesis into contact with mimetic theory in machine learning.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.385. The Flesh of Nature: Body, Media and Environment. 3 Credits.
In this course we will explore how literature and film depict the material relationships between our human bodies and more-than-human worlds within and around us. We will consider not only how the classical elements (earth, air, fire, water) are media and how they connect our individual bodies with other bodies, but how the body itself is a medium. We will examine a range of ecologically conscious literary texts and films from the German and Nordic worlds as they engage themes including elementality, the nuclear age, the Anthropocene, and queer ecologies.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.386. Panorama of German Thought. 3 Credits.
This course introduces students to major figures and trends in German literature and thought from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. We will pay particular attention to the evolution of German political thought from the Protestant Reformation to the foundation of the German Federal Republic after WWII. How did the Protestant Reformation affect the understanding of the state, rights, civic institutions, and temporal authority in Germany? How did German Enlightenment thinkers conceive of ethics and politics? How do German writers define the nation, community, and the people? What is the link between romanticism and nationalism? To what degree is political economy, as developed by Marx, a critical response to romanticism? What are the ties that bind as well as divide a community in this tradition? We will consider these questions through a careful reading of selected works by Luther, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Weber, and Arendt.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.213.398. Speaking Truth to Power: From Martin Luther to Audre Lorde. 3 Credits.
“Here I stand; I can do no other.” With these words, Martin Luther challenged the greatest powers of his time. Centuries later, Audre Lorde declared that “your silence will not protect you,” reframing truth-telling as a tool for survival and liberation. This course explores the ethics and aesthetics of fearless speech (Parrhesia). We will examine how individuals and literary figures—from 16th-century reformers to modern activists, from Sophocles’ Antigone to Wieland’s Diogenes—risked their lives and reputations to speak a truth that disrupts the status quo. How does language become a weapon? What is the cost of breaking the silence? And can truth remain “true” once it enters the arena of political power? These and other questions will be at the core of our inquiry in this seminar as we navigate the boundary between private conscience and public defiance. Readings include: Martin Luther, Plato, Sophocles, Wieland, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Audre Lorde. A section in German will be offered for interested students.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.213.425. From Peasant Revolts to Artistic Revolts: Heinrich von Kleist's "Michael Kohlhaas". 3 Credits.
Who has a monopoly on violence? What is the relation of the individual to the state? Is there a right to resistance? Who determines what is just or unjust, arbitrary or rational? Is there a power peculiar to art? We will consider these perennial questions of political theory through a careful examination of Heinrich von Kleist’s novella Michael Kohlhaas (1810) and theoretical works by Martin Luther, Hobbes, Rousseau, & Marx.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.213.427. Lunar Poetics: Lucian to Kepler and Beyond. 3 Credits.
When the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in his famous "Somnium" (1608) creates a fictitious dream narrative in which the earth is observed from the moon, it becomes clear that the shift from the geocentric to the heliocentric worldview entails a radical change of perspective that can be achieved only by means of the imagination. What appears as a sunrise is in reality due to the earth's own movement. Where appearance and reality diverge, the new model requires a fictional account without which it remains incomprehensible. Orbiting around Kepler’s short tale, this seminar will focus on cosmic narratives and poetic explorations of outer space, from Lucian's True Stories and Icaromenippus (2nd century CE), one of the earliest literary treatments of a journey through space, Plutarch’s dialogue On the face of the Moon (late 1st century CE), to Godwin's The Man in the Moone (1638) and Kant's »Of the Inhabitants of the Stars« (1755). What is the epistemic function of literary representations of the cosmos? Are space-travel narratives thought experiments? What role does fiction and the imagination play in the science of astronomy? By pursuing these and related questions, this course will question common assumptions about the relationship of science to fiction and the literary imagination while tracing key junctures in the history of astronomy.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.213.446. Nature and Ecology in German Literature and Thought. 3 Credits.
Nature and Ecology in German Literature and Thought examines the representation of the natural world and ecological thinking in literary works and aesthetic theory from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Themes include the aesthetics of nature, poetic reverence for nature, anthropocentric depictions of nature, the thematization of landscape, the representation of animal life and environment, the impact of technology, urbanization, and industrialization on our sense of nature. Readings may include works from poetry, novels, or short fiction and fairy tale, as well as philosophy and theory. Readings may include poetry by Goethe, Novalis, Hölderlin, Rainer Maria Rilke, and WG Sebald, fairy tales or Märchen by the brothers Grimm, and fiction by Adalbert Stifter, Wilhelm Raabe, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Horst Sternn and Christa Wolf, along with theoretical works by Goethe, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Jakob von Uexküll, Hans Jonas, and Gernot Böhme, and contemporary German ecocriticism. The course is taught in English with texts in English translation; German speakers will be invited to use original texts.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.460. Animals and Animality in Literature and Philosophy. 3 Credits.
This course critically engages the presentation and imagination of animals and other non-human life in modern literature, philosophy, and thought. We will examine the figure of the animal and the means of conceptual differentiation between the animal and the human, considering animals' relation to or perceived exclusion from language, pain, embodiment, sexuality, and the visual gaze. The course is ideal for students interested in fascinating themes in literature and how they reflect philosophical concerns. No prior courses in philosophy are required. Students will read philosophical texts alongside literary works in learning the conceptual history of animals and of humanity as a distinct species. Expect fascinating readings and engaging, lively discussions. Readings may include works by Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger Derrida, Agamben, Poe, Kleist, Hofmannsthal, Rilke, Kafka, Mann, Pirandello, and Coetzee.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.500. Independent Study. 3 Credits.
Independent Study
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
AS.213.503. German Independent Study - Literature. 3 Credits.
An independent study for undergraduate German majors.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.509. German Honors Program. 3 Credits.
This is the first semester of a full year course in which Honors students prepare an Honors thesis on a topic of their own choosing in consultation with a faculty mentor.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.510. German Honors Program. 1 - 3 Credits.
This is the second semester of a full year course in which Honors students complete an Honors thesis on a topic of their own choosing in consultation with a faculty mentor.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.605. Habit and Habitation: On Walter Benjamin's Media Aesthetics and Philosophy of Technology. 3 Credits.
In recent years, Walter Benjamin has become one of the most quoted media theorists. His philosophy of technology is not as widely known as the concept of aura he developed in his essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility." The contemporary relevance of his philosophy of technology lies in the fact that Benjamin establishes a connection between technology and different forms of habitation, and between the latter and the concept of habit (Gewohnheit), which is etymologically related to the concept of habitation (Wohnen). This enables a comparison of Benjamin's approach with the philosophies of technology developed by Heidegger, Deleuze/Guattari, and Simondon, all of whom associate technology with the shaping of environments and the problem of poses. In our seminar, we will reconstruct Benjamin's media anthropology of technology through a close reading of his diaries and essays and compare it to philosophies of technology very much being discussed today.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.606. The Melancholic Imagination. 3 Credits.
Melancholia is marked by two competing tendencies: on the one hand, it clings to the objects of this world as if they could provide a path to transcendence and, on the other, it recognizes the weight of these objects, their transience, and concomitant senselessness. This course will examine the melancholic disposition from Robert Burton’s 1621 tome The Anatomy of Melancholy onward to Martin Heidegger’s analysis of boredom in Being and Time. We will consider the religious dimensions of melancholia as explored in different contexts by Walter Benjamin and Aby Warburg and will pay particular attention to Warburg’s notion of the Pathosformel while reflecting on literary works by Flaubert, Adrian, Chekhov, Hofmannsthal, Musil, Pessoa, Rilke, and W. G. Sebald.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.608. Literary Geographies: Landscape, Place and Space in Literature. 3 Credits.
This graduate-level course will explore the material topographies of literature, both real and imagined, engaging the landscapes, geographies, and environments of literary works both as a vital dimension of the text and as contributions to 'cultural ecology'. We will explore how topography may be engaged not as mere background or setting for literary situations, but as a dynamic and vital dimension thereof, and how the human experiences evoked can be radically recontextualized and engaged through environmental attention to the text. We will read theoretical and philosophical works on geography and topography in literature along with environmental literary theory in approaching literary works by writers from the late 18th to the mid 20th centuries. Readings may include works by Goethe, Novalis, Heine, Thoreau, Schnitzler, Thomas Mann, Rilke, Hofmannsthal, Brecht, Woolf, Borges, and other writers from the late 18th through 20th centuries. Discussions will invite phenomenological, de- or post-colonial, and ecological perspectives.
AS.213.611. Drama and the Time of Politics. 3 Credits.
The dictum, regularly invoked with reference to Aristotle, that not only action and place, but also the time of the drama must be “uniform” has blocked rather than facilitated an understanding of dramatic temporality. For even the “closed drama” certainly knows forms of acceleration and dilation. Political drama in particular often turns less on the question of what than of when, on deeds that seem inevitably to come too early or too late. In this seminar, we will explore the various ways in which time functions in political dramas and ask what this can show us about the relation of political action to time, setting out from extant research (surprisingly meager) and working closely with selected dramas from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Readings from Gryphius, Shakespeare, Goethe, de Gouges, Büchner, Droste-Hülshoff, Büchner, Grillparzer, and others. In the last part of the seminar, initial research results will be presented in the form of a seminar-internal conference. Taught in German.
AS.213.623. Poetry and Philosophy. 2 Credits.
This course will trace the tensions, antagonisms, and collaborations between poetry and philosophy as distinctive but fundamental expressions of human thought and experience. We will engage poetry as a form of artistic expression that compliments, completes, or challenges other forms of knowledge, and consider the range of philosophy's responses to poetry and poetics. Readings will include works by philosophical poets and poetic philosophers including Hölderlin, Schlegel, Rilke, Bachmann, Celan, Stevens, Heidegger, Gadamer, Adorno, Benjamin, Merleau-Ponty, Valéry, Wittgenstein, and Agamben.
AS.213.626. Husserl’s Ideas: An Introduction to Phenomenology. 2 Credits.
The first volume of Husserl’s Ideas I (1913) provides an overarching picture of the phenomenological method that came to define much twentieth-century German and French thought. This course will consider the foundational concepts introduced in this volume (eidetic analysis, intentionality, bracketing, correlationism, time consciousness, the natural attitude and the phenomenological reduction) as well as responses to them by Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Heidegger and others. We will also consider Husserl’s later efforts to incorporate history, other minds, and even that which is other-than-mind into his idealist system.
AS.213.627. Lunar Poetics: Lucian to Kepler and Beyond. 3 Credits.
When the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in his famous "Somnium" (1608) creates a fictitious dream narrative in which the earth is observed from the moon, it becomes clear that the shift from the geocentric to the heliocentric worldview entails a radical change of perspective that can be achieved only by means of the imagination. What appears as a sunrise is in reality due to the earth's own movement. Where appearance and reality diverge, the new model requires a fictional account without which it remains incomprehensible. Orbiting around Kepler’s short tale, this seminar will focus on cosmic narratives and poetic explorations of outer space, from Lucian's True Stories and Icaromenippus (2nd century CE), one of the earliest literary treatments of a journey through space, Plutarch’s dialogue On the face of the Moon (late 1st century CE), to Godwin's The Man in the Moone (1638) and Kant's »Of the Inhabitants of the Stars« (1755). What is the epistemic function of literary representations of the cosmos? Are space-travel narratives thought experiments? What role does fiction and the imagination play in the science of astronomy? By pursuing these and related questions, this course will question common assumptions about the relationship of science to fiction and the literary imagination while tracing key junctures in the history of astronomy.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.631. Social Imaginaries and the Public Sphere in European Literature, 1760-1815. 3 Credits.
We will examine the contribution of (post-)Enlightenment literature to the evolution of a modern social imaginary. First we will acquaint ourselves with some theoretical approaches to the concept of the social imaginary (Cornelius Castoriadis, Charles Taylor, Albrecht Koschorke). We will then read selected texts from European literature (from Rousseau and Ferguson to Lessing, Schiller, Kleist, Novalis and Fichte, among others) that are characteristic of the formation of a modern social imaginary at the epochal threshold between the 18th and 19th centuries. We will attend to the interface of social self-conceptions and the public sphere.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.632. Materiality of German Literature: The Long 20th Century. 3 Credits.
This course surveys the history of twentieth-century German literature through the lens of textual materiality. Reading both canonical and lesser known works, we will consider how material circumstances of textual production, circulation, and consumption inform and are entangled within formal, stylistic, semantic, and political dimensions of literature. In some cases, authors explicitly experimented with the writing process and/or visual/typographic form. In others, authors’ aesthetic and poetological programs extended into the material design of their books. We will also examine writer-artist collaborations and graphic novel adaptations of literary works. The course thus combines literary criticism with textual criticism, hermeneutic with materialist approaches. Much of the material we will examine is housed in the Sheridan Library Special Collections, where numerous class sessions will take place. Works by writers/artists such as Stephan George, Else Lasker-Schüler, Kurt Schwitters, Paul Celan, Eugen Gomringer, Dieter Roth, the Vienna Group, the Rixdorfer Workshop, Günter Grass, Herta Müller, Yoko Tawada, Nicolas Mahler, and Veronika Schaepers, among others. The majority of readings in German will also be available in English translation.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.634. Phenomenology of Literature. 3 Credits.
Phenomenology of Literature is a graduate-level course devoted to exploring the vital interchanges between philosophy and literature in the 20th century, focusing on the roots of phenomenology in German philosophy, its adaptations in French theory, and its connections with and expansion to literary writing. Themes may include: the nature of literary experience, including the experience of reading and writing, the acts of attention in literature, phenomenological and literary descriptions of reality, the literary construction of the self, the nature of perspective, intersubjectivity, limit-experiences, the phenomenology of literary imagination, and ecophenomenology in literature. We will read philosophical and theoretical texts by Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Blanchot, Beauvoir, Bachelard, and Ricoeur in connection with literary works, which may include fiction and poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, and Wallace Stevens, among others. This course is taught in English with texts available in translation, but those participants with language capacities in the relevant language are welcome to use original language texts.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.641. Schreibszenen/Scenes of Writing. 3 Credits.
Theoretical interest in the “scene of writing” (Schreibszene) has exploded across German-speaking Europe in recent decades, but has found little resonance in North American German Studies. This seminar introduces students to this growing field of (primarily German-language) scholarship, traces its emergence out of poststructuralist critiques of authorship and the advent of media studies, and situates it in relation to related methodological approaches (critique génétique, book history/critical bibliography, Editionswissenschaft). In the growing wave of historical-critical facsimile editions and online archival projects that present traces of textual production, students will gain practical experience working with these resources and exploring possibilities for using them to expand the scope of textual analysis.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.642. What Is Called Thinking. 3 Credits.
The privilege of thinking has faced two challenges in recent years. The advent of artificial intelligence has called into question how unique thinking is when cognition can easily be mimicked, if not (re)produced, in machines through statistical models of language. An equally prevalent, if opposing, development in critical theory is the expansion of thought to include all purposeful action, such as the spreading of information among trees regarding available resources. The first half of the semester will be devoted to the definition of thinking offered by Aristotle and its interpretation in selected texts by Fichte, Hegel, and Marx. The second half will consider the surge of interest in automatons in romantic literature (Novalis, Hoffmann, Kleist and Poe) and culminating in Kafka’s “Report to an Academy.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.644. Dynamic Manuscripts: Potentials of Writing in Hölderlin, Nietzsche, Lasker-Schüler, and Others. 3 Credits.
Taught by the Max Kade Visiting Professor. According to Aristotle’s Poetics, the poet’s task is to speak not of things that have happened (ta genomena) but of the sort of things that might happen and are possible (dunata). But how does the literary work come into being—in other words, how is it possible as a locus of possibilities? Since the late 18th century, authors have increasingly focused on their manuscripts as the space of poetic potential and have engaged in different ways with the gestural, technical, and pictorial dynamics of writing. In this course, we will look at these material practices and how they shape notions of poetic possibility. Authors to include Hölderlin, Nietzsche among others. The class will also consider the theorry of poetic writing in the Paris school of critique génétique.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.650. Gegenwartsliteratur: Postmigrantisch, Queer, Schwarz. 3 Credits.
Contemporary German literature features an important number of highly acclaimed work that tells Black, queer, and transcultural stories. What prompted this shift from the margins to the center? As a possible response to this question, the seminar intends to explore to what extent non-normative perspectives produce aesthetics and imaginaries that can confront and transform the transgenerational reproduction of collective trauma. We will discuss novels and plays, fiction, autofiction, and antiautobiography, pertinent theory, and, where available, stagings of works by authors such as Fatma Aydemir, Kim de l’Horizon, Nino Haratischwili, Sharon Dodua Otoo, Falk Richter, Sasha Marianna Salzmann, Olivia Wenzel, and Hengameh Yaghoobifarah.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.688. Identity and Alterity. 3 Credits.
This seminar explores the notions of identity and alterity in ways that undo their oppositional configuration. Around two German novels, available in translation (probably Ingeborg Bachmann’s Malina, 1971, and Sharon Dodua Otoo’s Ada’s Room, 2021), we will discuss a variety of theoretical approaches to questions of identity and alterity (Hegel, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, feminist and queer theory, post- and de-colonial theory, postmigrant thinking, new materialisms, translation studies).
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.702. Aesthetic Judgment, Political Agency: Kant to Kafka. 3 Credits.
Following Hannah Arendt’s seminal claim that Kant’s “Critique of Judgment” contains his unwritten political philosophy, this seminar investigates how the structure of aesthetic judgment defines the possibilities of political agency. We begin with Kant’s aesthetic theory and Arendt’s “Lectures on Kant” to understand how the ability to think from the standpoint of others constitutes the core of the political. Through this lens, we trace the genealogy of aesthetics from Baumgarten’s sensuous cognition to Herder’s empathy, Schiller’s aesthetic education, and Novalis’ poetics of the state. The course then examines exemplary and radical challenges to these models: the fanaticism of justice in Kleist’s “Michael Kohlhaas,” the aesthetic appeal for social justice in Bettina von Arnim’s “This Book Belongs to the King,” the fragmented political consciousness in Virginia Woolf’s “Three Guineas,” the transition from disinterested distance to radical attention in Simone Weil, and finally, the law as inscrutable form in Kafka’s “The Trial.” Readings include: Baumgarten, Kant, Herder, Schiller, Novalis, Kleist, Arnim, Arendt, Weil, Woolf, and Kafka.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.705. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. 3 Credits.
We will study key passages of The Phenomenology of Spirit from a queer-feminist and a literary perspective and engage with scholarship on Hegel that is pertinent to these approaches.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.708. Stagecoach, Railway, Aeroplane: Mobility, Perception, and Literary Form. 3 Credits.
Unlike “traffic” or “transportation,” “mobility” is a holistic concept from the social sciences that not only refers to the question of how people and things can be moved from one place to another, but also encompasses individual experiences and habits, social aspects, and ecological implications of human motion in space. Since Homer’s Odyssey, literature has intensely participated in reflecting on and shaping our experience of mobility, reporting on travel routes, means of transportation, risks and dangers, as well as on changing perceptions of space, velocity, bodily motion, landscape, and cultural difference. In this seminar, we will examine exemplary scenes of mobility in eighteenth- to twentieth-century German literature, from Klopstock, Moritz, and Goethe, via Heine and Stifter, to Kafka, Uwe Johnson, and W.G. Sebald. Our particular focus will be on the interplay between transportation, spatial perception, and literary form: How do the differences between walking, riding on a stagecoach, or travelling by boat affect the way travelers perceive and describe their environment? How do writers respond to technical innovations of modernity, such as the railway and the airplane? Which techniques of writing are used to record and convey experiences of mobility? Taught in German.
AS.213.761. Literary Aesthetics. 3 Credits.
This course explores literature in the context of the aesthetic tradition in philosophy. Themes include literature as mimesis, or the representation of reality, its relation to truth, untruth, and possibility, literature as the revealing of being, literary imagination, the distinctiveness of literary language and expression, the role of the literary author. Readings may include background selections from Plato and Aristotle, but the course will focus on philosophical interest in literature since the late 18th century, and may include Kant, Hölderlin, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Blanchot, Bachelard, among other readings. Course will be taught by the Kurrelmeyer Chair in German. Taught in English.
AS.213.800. Independent Study-German. 3 - 9 Credits.
This course is for a graduate students pursuing an independent research project with a faculty mentor. Students are expected to meet regularly with the mentor and to write a lengthy paper, or several short papers, on the chosen topic.
AS.213.804. German Summer Research. 9 Credits.
This course is for graduate students to pursue research over the summer in consultation with a faculty mentor.
AS.213.812. Directed Dissertation Research. 9 Credits.
Students are expected to meet regularly with their dissertation director to ensure they adhere to a research and writing schedule for their dissertation.
AS.213.813. German Qualifying Paper Preparation. 3 - 9 Credits.
This course is for graduate students to prepare one of their two required qualifying papers. One qualifying paper should be article-length and present work that will not be part of the dissertation. The second should be the draft of a chapter for the dissertation.
AS.213.850. Professional Training - German. 3 Credits.
Training for professional academic purposes.
AS.214.225. World Science Fiction. 3 Credits.
This course explores the local, global, and universal natures of the speculative genre of science fiction (SF) from the early twentieth century through the present. It highlights works from the Golden Age (late 1930s-’50s), the New Wave of the 1960s and ’70s, cyberpunk in the 1980s, and today’s various sub-genres and cross-over incarnations. We will approach the genre as a mode of thought-experimentation and world-building that problematizes actual and possible political, cultural, natural, cosmic, and techno-scientific realities. Among the themes included are the human-machine interface, environmental apocalypse, the alien, utopia-dystopia. Readings/viewings/listenings include short stories from nearly every continent, short films and tv episodes, visual art, music, journalism, and literary criticism. All materials and lectures in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.214.241. How To Do Just About Everything: Renaissance Guides to Living Well. 3 Credits.
How do I make money,?gain?and keep?power,?find love,?live long, strengthen my memory, avoid depression, cook well, write beautifully, fence, mix?paint, counteract poisoning, and?create coded messages?? The Renaissance had answers to these and many other questions. This course explores a large sampling?of advice from the Italian Renaissance. Readings include?Machiavelli’s?Prince, Della Casa’s?Galateo of Manners, Maestro Martino's?Art of Cooking, and selections from Cornaro's?Art of Living Long, Manciolino's?Guide to Swordsmanship, Cennini's?Craftsman's Handbook, Della Porta’s?Natural Magic,?Castiglione’s?Book of the Courtier,?Ficino’s?Book of Life,?as well as religious sermons, humanist treatises,?and?books of “secrets.”?Secondary literature will provide historical context for the primary?texts and tools for recognizing and unpacking?the persuasive devices used in these early examples of self-help. Students will become familiar with Italian Renaissance thought and develop analytical and critical skills to examine advice in its cultural and temporal context. The course as a whole will focus on the notion of “core values” and what is at stake when you propose help or seek help. We will also experience some of these "how-to's", such as calligraphy, oration, creating codes, and more.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.214.307. Collecting and its Discontents. 3 Credits.
This seminar will be concerned with resonances between collectors, artists, poets, and other hallowed figures of modernity, and their less celebrated doubles: hoarders, bibliomaniacs, ragpickers, and gleaners. We will examine the material practices and psychic mechanisms that define these identities and authorize distinctions between them, as well as the historical contexts from which they emerge. More broadly, we will grapple with the relationships between objects and narrative. We will ask how the human-object practices of collecting, hoarding, gleaning, scavenge, misuse, and fetishism change when performed in the immaterial realm of language, and what these practices look like as rhetorical and narrative strategies.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.214.330. Reinterpreting Myths, Reinterpreting Women. 3 Credits.
This course aims to reflect on the most iconic myths of classical antiquity, to be re–read through the contribution of psychoanalytic theories. In class, we will analyze the ten proposed women mythological figures, to be divided according to three major categories of wicked wives and mothers, abandoned women, and nonhuman female monsters, in their evolutions through the centuries, in order to note and investigate their new meanings and interpretations.How, for example, can the maternal figure of Medea still be considered relevant today? What meaning does she carry, and in what ways has she been reinterpreted and rewritten by literature, art, and other humanistic fields? Likewise, what is the source of the fascination still associated with the tragic figures of Ariadne and Dido, or the terror caused by monstrous beings such as the Mermaids and Medusa? How has popular culture re–appropriated them, modernizing them, and making them iconic in fantasy films like Harry Potter, in famous TV series like Game of Thrones, in horror movies, or in Disney’s animated films? Students will be able to answer these questions during the course, focusing each week on a specific myth drawn from classical Greek and Latin literature and following it through its literary and artistic developments, especially in the context of Western culture.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.214.362. Italian Journeys: Medieval and Early Modern. 3 Credits.
The supernatural is often described as the disruption of universal coherence. It becomes an aggression that challenges the stability of a world in which the natural laws were, until then, intact. The Impossible suddenly happens in a world in which it was banished.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.214.363. Italy Beyond Italy: Languages, Affects, and Geographies in Modern Literature. 3 Credits.
What is Italian in a globalized world? How do geography, language, and migration shape the stories we tell and the ways we read them? This course offers an introduction to twentieth- and twenty-first-century Italian literature through a transnational lens. We will explore how Italian identity is constructed, challenged, and redefined through migration, multilingualism, and political contestation. Focusing on authors who write about Italy from afar or examine the broader world from within its borders, we will reconsider Italy not as a fixed geographic entity, but as a fluid concept shaped by global entanglements and affects. Readings will include novels about dictatorship, contemporary diasporic family memoirs, postcolonial narratives of identity and migration, and graphic novels that link the streets of Rome to global conflict zones. We will examine how the Italian language becomes a site of expression and transformation—adopted, reshaped, and reimagined by writers working across borders and traditions. Authors include Dino Campana, Italo Calvino, Antonio Tabucchi, Melania Mazzucco, Jhumpa Lahiri, Claudia Durastanti, Igiaba Scego, Helena Janeczek, Amara Lakhous, and Zerocalcare. Throughout the semester, students will engage with key themes including the history of fascism and anti-fascism, colonial legacies, modern migration, and the resurgence of nationalism in Europe while critically rethinking what constitutes “Italian literature” today.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.214.364. Italian Journeys: Writing Lives Shaping Memories. 3 Credits.
The course will examine the autobiographical genre in Italian modern and contemporary literature by exploring the following questions: what does it mean to faithfully write one’s story? What is the role of memory in the process? How does writing transform the self? What is the connection between the life of the author and the story of the country they inhabit? Traditionally, the term autobiography has referred to a self-written biography that took the form of a confession or memoir. At the beginning of the twentieth century, with the emergence of the autobiographical novel, the claim of authenticity was questioned because, in the novel, the life of the protagonist only partially coincided with that of the writer. Over the last decades, Italian writers have further explored the genre by turning to autofiction, a story that presents itself as a memoir or diary but instead is completely fictional. In this survey, students will read letters, memoirs, journals, autobiographical novels, and autofictions by authors such as Ippolito Nievo, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Sibilla Aleramo, Primo Levi, Italo Calvino, Natalia Ginzburg, Cesare Pavese, Melania Mazzucco, Walter Siti, Igiaba Scego, and Jonathan Bazzi. Each life story offers a diverse portrait of the Italian peninsula, thus providing a cross-section of the country’s modern history and culture. Throughout modules organized along lines of gender, race, class, space, and time, students will be prompted to reflect on how the relationship between reality and fiction changes from memoir to autofiction and investigate how this transformation of the genre affects the purpose of self-writing. While the class is taught in English, there will be sessions in Italian for students from the Italian major or minor.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.214.417. Galileo in Dialogue: Science, Literature, and Gender in Early Modern Italy. 3 Credits.
This seminar investigates the contours of scientific dialogue in early modern Italy through the figure of Galileo Galilei and his intellectual milieu. We will examine how literary culture shaped the circulation of new ideas, and how women—whether as poets, patrons, or correspondents—participated in the exploration and communication of scientific knowledge. Readings include selections from Galileo’s scientific writings and extensive correspondence, alongside literary and artistic texts that illuminate the cultural contexts in which his ideas were produced, debated, and disseminated. By situating Galileo within academic, courtly, and cultural networks, the seminar considers the reciprocal relationship between scientific inquiry and literary production, with particular attention to how gender shaped access to, and participation in, intellectual life.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.214.418. Italian Cinema: the Classics, the Forgotten, and the Emergent. 3 Credits.
From the epic movies of the silent era to neorealist and auteur films of the post-war period, all the way to contemporary Academy winner The Great Beauty, Italian cinema, has had and continues to have a global impact, and shape the imagination of filmmakers all over the world. This course traces Italian film history from its origins to recent times, highlighting its main genres and trends beyond the icons of neorealist and auteur cinema, including the so-called ‘comedy Italian style,’ spaghetti westerns, horror, mafia-mockery films, feminist filmmaking, and ecocinema. While learning to probe the cinematic frame, and examine composition, camera movements, cinematography, editing, and sound, and interrogating issues of gender, class, and race, we will screen classics such as Bicycle Thieves, La Dolce Vita, and L’Avventura, but also forgotten archival films by pioneer women filmmakers, and works by emergent, independent filmmakers. This course is taught in English. Additional sessions in Italian will be arranged upon students’ request.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.214.479. Dante Visits the Afterlife. 3 Credits.
One of the greatest works of literature of all times, the Divine Comedy leads us down into the torture-pits of Hell, up the steep mountain terrain of Purgatory, through the “virtual” space of Paradise, and then back to where we began: our own earthly lives. We accompany Dante on his journey, building along the way knowledge of medieval Italian history, literature, philosophy, politics, and religion. The course also focuses on the arts of reading deeply, asking questions of a text, and interpreting literary and scholarly works through discussion and critical writing. Conducted in English. For undergraduate students only.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.214.562. Italian Independent Study. 1 - 3 Credits.
This course is for a undergraduate students pursuing an independent research project with a faculty mentor. Students are expected to meet regularly with the mentor and to write a lengthy paper, or several short papers, on the chosen topic.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
AS.214.607. Teoria e Prassi della Glottodidattica dell’Italiano. 3 Credits.
The goal of this course is to familiarize Graduate Student Instructors in Italian with foundational elements of Second Language Acquisition and foreign language teaching. The course will (1) acquaint students with historical and current theories of foreign language pedagogy; (2) demonstrate strategies to integrate theoretical knowledge into everyday practice, both in terms of instructional delivery, and materials development; (3) introduce participants to basic evaluation tools to critically assess teaching practices and tools in terms of quality, relevance, validity, reliability and other theory-based criteria; (4) help participants to articulate their own pedagogical training and philosophy of teaching in preparation for the academic job market. Taught in Italian.
AS.214.609. Carlo Emilio Gadda and the Neo-Avant-Garde. 3 Credits.
This course is dedicated to the work of Carlo Emilio Gadda, the great neurotic polymath sometimes referred to as “the Italian James Joyce,” and his outsize influence on neo-avant-garde and experimentalist literary movements of the 1960s and 1970s. We will read selections from Gadda’s two major novels, La cognizione del dolore and Quer pasticciaccio brutto de’ via Merulana, divulgative science writings and other fascist-era journalism, as well as the vitriolic antifascist treatise, Eros e Priapo. Our study of Gadda will include discussions of the critical approaches that ground Gadda studies, from rigorous philology to affect theory, science studies, and new materialism. We will then turn to the “Nipotini dell’Ingegnere”— those named by Alberto Arbasino in his influential essay of that title (himself, Giovanni Testori, and Pier Paolo Pasolini); as well as writers of the neo-avant-garde who sought to continue Gadda’s legacy by emulating his famously “baroque” style marked by wild digressions and the extensive use of regional dialects and neologisms. We conclude the semester with a reading of Carla Lonzi’s 1969 Autoritratto and a study of the circulation of ideas and praxes between literary and visual neo-avant-garde movements in Italy and beyond. Throughout the semester, we will attend to ongoing debates about illegibility, engagement, realism, and the aesthetics of obscenity. Class conducted in English. All Italian texts will also be available in English translation.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.214.610. The Nonhumans of Renaissance Humanism. 3 Credits.
This course is an exploration of the notions of the human that emerge when interrogating pre-modern Italian literary constructions of nonhuman entities (water, earth, flora, fauna, objects, buildings, cities, automata, demons, angels, gods, and God). We will read work by authors such as Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Pico, Alberti, Leonardo, Sannazaro, Baldi, and Della Porta, as well as parts of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, and selections from bestiaries, herbaria, and books of emblems. Accompanying these readings are recent studies in critical theory on posthumanism and transhumanism, animal studies, ecocriticism, and phenomenology.
AS.214.613. Italo Calvino: From the Woods to the Moon. 3 Credits.
Affectionately nicknamed the “squirrel of the pen” for his acrobatic, dimension-defining abilities with language, Italo Calvino is one of Italy’s all time most powerfully imaginative writers. This graduate seminar explores his variegated literary production, from the neorealist novel The path of the Nest of Spider (1947), the heraldic trilogy Our Ancestors (1952-1959), his celebrated The Invisible Cities (1972) to the science-fictional The Cosmicomics (1966). We’ll investigate the stylistic and literary trends his work encompasses, from neorealism to postmodernism, and the interplay of individuals and environments in his novels, short stories, and autobiographical writings. Going from the woods to the moon, we’ll meditate on the values Calvino recommended for the literature of the new millennium: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, (and consistency).
AS.214.614. Purgatorio and Purgatories. 3 Credits.
While the concept of purgatory for the departed has long been part of many cultures' beliefs, it was Dante who offered Western thought one of the most detailed architectures of this transitional space to date. The second book in the Divine Comedy trilogy, the Purgatorio is Dante's most relatable of the three otherworldly realms. For one, purgatory is not eternal. It is also a highly organized system, explores a kind of justice that seems more fair than eternal punishment, and it offers something the two other realms do not: hope. In reading the Purgatorio closely, students will explore medieval theories of divine justice, human justice, penance, piety, and morality—many of which still inform our thinking today about right action and the common good. Much attention will be given to literary analysis of the poem. Students will also read commentaries and critical studies on Dante’s Purgatorio, as well as on “purgatories” from other cultures and traditions. Offered in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.214.615. Prospettive Decoloniali: Cinema e Letteratura Contemporanea in Italia. 3 Credits.
Negli ultimi decenni un numero crescente di scrittori, registi, artisti e attivisti Afro e afrodiscendenti sta opponendo resistenza alla xenofobia e al razzismo dilaganti nell’Italia contemporanea. In che modo le loro opere modificano l’identità nazionale? In che modo i loro testi (letterari e filmici) costringono l’Italia a confrontarsi con il suo ignorato passato coloniale? Questo corso multimediale esamina le rappresentazioni dell'alterità razziale ed etnica e di come queste ci permettono di ripensare l’identità nazionale attraverso una panoramica della letteratura e il cinema decoloniale in un quadro intersezionale. In questo seminario di dottorato ripercorreremo la storia coloniale dell'Italia, esamineremo l’assenza di un ripensamento delle atrocità nei confronti dei soggetti coloniali attraverso la più recente letteratura critica e teorica, e discuteremo opere di scrittrici come Igiaba Scego, Gagriella Ghermandi, e Maza Mengiste, e filmmaker come Dagmawi Yimer, Dafne di Cinto e altri.
AS.214.616. On Ruins and Ruination: A Material, Ecocritical Exploration of Italian Cinema. 3 Credits.
This graduate seminar retraces Italy’s film history, from the silent era to the present, with a focus on ruins. Moving from the remains of Ancient Rome, the rubble of the Great War to that of WWII, traversing the peripheries of the Economic Miracle, industrial and postindustrial landscapes, and ghost rural villages, we will engage in a material, ecocritical exploration of Italian cinema.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.214.617. The Visionary. 3 Credits.
This course asks the question, "what does it mean to be a visionary?" We will read a selection of medieval and Renaissance Italian texts that demonstrate some form of ‘non-normative’ thinking, altered state of consciousness, or speculation on the future. These texts often cross genre boundaries, existing in between autobiography, literature, philosophy, religion, art, and science. We will pair these readings with critical studies on mysticism, prophecy, dreams, and altered states of consciousness, as well as contemporary art labeled “visionary.” Conducted in English with all Italian and Latin texts also available in English.
AS.214.618. The Visionary II. 3 Credits.
This course asks the question, "what does it mean to be a visionary?" We will read a selection of Renaissance and Baroque Italian texts that demonstrate some form of ‘non-normative’ thinking, altered state of consciousness, or speculation on the future. These texts often cross genre boundaries, existing in between autobiography, literature, philosophy, religion, art, and science. We will pair these readings with critical studies on mysticism, prophecy, dreams, and altered states of consciousness, as well as contemporary art labeled “visionary.” Conducted in English with all Italian and Latin texts also available in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.214.619. Dante's Paradiso. 3 Credits.
This graduate seminar offers both a close reading of Dante’s Paradiso and training in the tools and methods necessary for Dante scholarship. In addition to studying the canticle itself, students will learn to make full use of the commentary tradition, explore the many digital resources built specifically for medieval studies and Dante studies, read and discuss diverse theoretical approaches to literary analysis, and implement a variety of formats to write about Dante and his works. Taught in English. Knowledge of a Romance Language and/or Latin recommended.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
Writing Intensive
AS.214.621. Women and the Natural World in Early Modern Italy. 3 Credits.
How did early modern women imagine themselves in relation to the natural world? How did they think – and write – about non-human nature: land, plants, minerals, animals? How did the evolving scientific culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries impact ideas about nature – and the nature of women? Remaining attentive to the many valences of the terms “nature” and “natural,” this graduate seminar will consider questions of gender, genre, and the environmental imagination in a selection of texts by and about women in early modern Italy, including Gaspara Stampa, Isabella Andreini, Tullia d’Aragona, and Moderata Fonte. In addition to close readings of works of poetry, pastoral, and natural philosophy, we will consider how contemporary ecocritical and ecofeminist theory might illuminate these texts in new ways. Some familiarity with Italian recommended.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.214.626. Sacred/Subversive: Gender, Authority, and Devotion in Early Modern Italy. 3 Credits.
This graduate seminar examines how women in early modern Italy used devotional language to negotiate questions of literary voice and authority, community and critique. We will approach devotion not only as a spiritual practice informed by the developments of the sixteenth- and seventeenth century (the intensified religious fervor of the Counter Reformation, the reassessment of female Biblical figures, the imposition of strict enclosure on convents), but as a framework through which to shape intellectual agency, claim authority, experiment with hybrid genres, and resist gendered cultural constraints. Close readings include a range of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century women writers, with particular attention to Arcangela Tarabotti, whose work allows for powerful reflection on the tensions between piety, authority, and dissent. As we consider how the literary strategies of these early modern women maneuver between the sacred and subversive, we will draw on theoretical readings on voice, enclosure, and literary authority. Some familiarity with Italian is recommended.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.214.682. The Search for Tranquility of Mind. 3 Credits.
How do we find a sense of balance in times of grief, fear, and strife? How have humans achieved calm during inner or outer turbulence? This course looks to the Italian Middle Ages and Renaissance, when the rediscovery of classical thought bursts onto the scene and philosophers, writers, visual artists, and theologians rethink the tools at their disposal for living through life’s challenges. We will study what premodern Italian thinkers drew from philosophical schools such as Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism, and how they combined those ideas with a Christian worldview to produce new methods of cultivating tranquility of mind. Among the topics we will cover are theories of ataraxia, the debate between the active and contemplative life, what constitutes a “good” life, and the search for harmony. We will read works by Boethius, Catherina of Siena, Petrarch, Bruni, Alberti, Valla, and Ficino, among others. (Some knowledge of a Romance Language or Latin helpful, but not required.)
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.214.804. Italian Summer Research. 9 Credits.
Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature and Culture: The Canon and Beyond.This summer course guides graduate students in Italian (with a focus on the modern and contemporary period) through the preparation of their comprehensive doctoral exams. Students will read critically the works of canonical poets and writers from the late nineteenth through the twenty first centuries—from Ugo Foscolo, Giacomo Leopardi, and Alessandro Manzoni to Italo Calvino, Elsa Morante, Elena Ferrante and others. In addition to the reading of primary sources, students will also familiarize themselves with major contemporary critical and theoretical works by Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva, and others. In preparation of the oral part of the exam, students will be instructed on how to develop a syllabus on an undergraduate course in Italian Studies.
AS.214.850. Professional Training - Italian. 3 Credits.
Training for professional academic purposes.
AS.214.861. Italian Independent Study. 3 - 9 Credits.
This course is for a graduate students pursuing an independent research project with a faculty mentor. Students are expected to meet regularly with the mentor and to write a lengthy paper, or several short papers, on the chosen topic.
AS.214.862. Italian Dissertation Research. 9 Credits.
Students are expected to meet regularly with their dissertation director to ensure they adhere to a research and writing schedule for their dissertation.
AS.214.863. Italian Proposal Preparation. 3 - 9 Credits.
This course is for graduate students to prepare their prospectus and one chapter of their dissertation.
AS.215.111. Modern Spanish Culture. 3 Credits.
This course will explore the fundamental aspects of Spanish culture from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The course will offer a general survey of the history of Spain and will discuss texts, movies, songs, pictures, and paintings in relation to their social, political, and cultural contexts. This course will be of particular interest for students planning on spending a semester abroad in Spain—specially for those students going to the JHU Fall Semester in Madrid, at Carlos III University. Taught in Spanish. Recommended Course Background: AS.210.311 or appropriate Webcape score.AS.215.390 was formerly numbered AS.211.390
Prerequisite(s): Students may not have previously completed AS.211.390 OR AS.215.390.;AS.210.311
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.112. Modern Latin American Culture. 3 Credits.
Taught in Spanish. This course will explore the fundamental aspects of Latin- America culture from the formation of independent states through the present—in light of the social, political, and economic histories of the region. The course will offer a general survey of history of Latin- America, and will discuss texts, movies, songs, pictures, and paintings, in relation to their social, political, and cultural contexts. May not be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory.
Prerequisite(s): Students may earn credit for AS.211.380 or AS.215.380, but not both.;AS.210.311
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.211. Introduction to Literature in Spanish. 3 Credits.
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. Students who have completed AS.215.231 cannot take AS.215.211.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.306. Latin American Gothic. 3 Credits.
Taught in English. This course aims to spotlight an often-overlooked corpus of texts to study the tradition of the Gothic mode in Latin America. A literary mode created in Europe and usually thought of as exclusive to the anglophone, francophone, and German traditions, the Gothic is, however, consistently present in Latin American stories, novels, and films. During the late XIX century, the texts of Edgar Allan Poe found fertile ground in the minds of modernista writers who began transforming the superficial elements of the Gothic mode to fit a new reality. Since then, the Gothic has resisted contention and continues to rear its head in texts penned by the likes of Jorge Luis Borges and Carlos Fuentes. This course seeks to briefly describe the path of the Gothic mode from its arrival in Latin America to some of its newest iterations and transformations.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.310. Avant-Garde Literature and Art in Latin America. 3 Credits.
This course will explore the varied avant-garde movements that have animated Latin American art and literature from the early 20th century to the late 1960s, examining their impact on today’s artistic and literary voices. We will study how artists and writers have confronted and transformed norms and traditions, developing unique modes of thought and expression. While acknowledging the influence of European counterpart movements, the focus will shift to indigenous and Afro-Latinx perspectives, examining how they have carved out distinctive creative paths and challenged colonial legacies. Topics and materials include the many movements that arose across the continent, such as Creacionismo in Chile, the Estridentismo Mexicano, and Brazilian concrete poetry; books and magazines that provided a platform for such authors as Jorge Luis Borges, Mário de Andrade, Patrícia “Pagu” Galvão, Nicanor Parra, and Clarice Lispector; recordings and other multimedia artifacts. The course will be conducted in Spanish.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311[C]
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.313. Sound and Vision: Exploring Latin American Literature and Media. 3 Credits.
The aim of this course is to introduce students to Latin American literature and culture, with a particular focus on its intersections with visual media and the emerging field of sound studies. From the 1920s to the present, authors in Latin America have utilized various forms of media such as radio, sound recordings, typewriters, cameras, TVs, and computers to reflect upon and actively engage with various cultural and socio-political processes. Throughout the course, students will explore how Latin American authors used their writings and voices to challenge the constraints imposed by historical conditions, including heteropatriarchy, state violence, exile, and censorship, which were prevalent during dictatorships in different countries during the 20th century. We will delve into the works of authors such as Julio Cortázar, Ulises Carrión, Nicanor Parra, Augusto and Haroldo de Campos, Alejandra Pizarnik, Hilda Hilst, Angélica Freitas, among others. In addition, we will discuss both theoretical and practical approaches to written and vocal performances found in records, video/cinematic materials, and radio/web-based sound productions. Drawing upon a social and historical perspective, we will present literary artifacts to inspire a fresh perspective on contemporary Latin American culture. It is important to note that this course relies heavily on primary sources and secondary literature, most of which are written in Spanish. Portuguese texts, when available, will be presented in their original form alongside Spanish translations. The course will be conducted in Spanish.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.316. Latin American Soundscapes. 3 Credits.
This course explores Latin America’s sonic and auditory cultures, investigating how sound plays a central role in cultural expression and identity formation. Students will examine how diverse communities across the Global South engage with and interpret sound through various sonic objects—from artistic creations to industrial sounds and natural phenomena—and research the listening practices unique to Latin American communities. Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches from sound studies, media studies, postcolonial studies, and critical race theory, the course will explore how sound mediates power, social relations, and the boundaries between the human and the non-human. Emphasizing a Global South perspective, this course invites students to critically examine sound’s role in shaping Latin American communities’ lived experiences, offering a deeper understanding of how sonic practices define the region’s culture.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 or Spanish Placement Exam
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.317. Early Psychology in Literature, Art, and Science. 3 Credits.
Although the modern discipline of psychology was not formalized until the late 1800s, the mind and human behavior had been subjects of intense curiosity for centuries. In early modern Europe, painters, physicians, philosophers, and writers of fiction explored the psychological dimensions of experience from manifold perspectives. The Renaissance brought a renewed interest in physiognomy and humoral theory, as well as the growth of anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, and practices of dissection and observation. Meanwhile, the literary and visual arts were also experimenting with new forms of understanding and representing interiority, the emotions, and mental faculties and illnesses. This undergraduate seminar will study these scientific and cultural movements before the consolidation of modern psychology, seeking to understand them within their sixteenth- and seventeenth-century milieus while establishing links with interdisciplinary concerns of today. Class will be conducted in Spanish. Taught in Spanish. (If AS.210.311 was not taken, student may submit an SPE score: https://krieger.jhu.edu/modern-languages-literatures/spanish-and-portuguese/undergraduate/get-started/)
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.318. Race, Migration, and Diaspora in Premodern Spain. 3 Credits.
Migrant and diasporic communities transformed medieval and early modern Spanish society. Focusing on Jews and conversos, Muslims and moriscos, and enslaved and free Afro-Europeans, this course trains a critical eye on early racialized systems that policed various boundaries of difference. Through legal documents, literature, and visual culture, students will grapple with the complex intersections of religious persecution, economic opportunity, and imperial expansion. By analyzing how premodern diasporic communities navigated social hierarchies, we will attempt to understand how migration and displacement shaped enduring racial and national identities, as well as how an array of cultural products both reinforced and challenged official ideologies. Class will be conducted in Spanish.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 OR SPE Score
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.215.334. Reflections on Contemporary Spain. 3 Credits.
This course on Spanish history and culture has been designed for JHU Madrid participants. The course consists of a series of academic trips and activities that allow students to observe firsthand some of the most relevant sites in Spanish history and learn about the customs and traditions of Spain.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.215.336. Don Quijote. 3 Credits.
Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quijote de la Mancha is widely considered to be the first modern novel of the Western tradition. It has influenced the likes of Nabokov, Sterne, Melville, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Borges, Dickens, and Faulkner (who reread it every year), among others. In a recent literary poll of the “100 Best Books of All Time,” in which the aforementioned authors remained unranked and “all on an equal footing,” some of the greatest living writers (Salman Rushdie, Assia Djebar, Herta Müller, Orhan Pamuk, Doris Lessing, Milan Kundera, Amitav Ghosh, Nadine Gordimer, Christa Wolf…) made an exception for Don Quijote, calling it the “best literary work ever written.” To what is such ubiquitous and unparalleled praise due? The purpose of this course will be to read Don Quijote in its entirety and to gain a critical understanding of the major cultural, historical, and political issues at play in the novel. We will seek, on the one hand, to draw out the general or ‘universal’ features that have established its place in the international literary canon while, on the other, to understand these features within the unique context of early modern Spain. By exploring such themes as parody, humor, madness, metafiction, psychoanalysis, chivalric literature, translation, and Moorish culture, the class will establish connections with other disciplines and literary traditions as well. Taught in Spanish.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 AND AS.210.312
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.215.369. Mapping Identity in Modern Spain. 3 Credits.
What social, political, and economic forces make groups of people appear out of place in a given society? How have literary works contributed to counteracting the marginalization of certain groups? This course will look at how modern Spanish artists, writers, and intellectuals wrestled with questions of identity and marginalization. We will critically examine how the modern Spanish state was forged from restrictions on cultural difference and consider the various marginalized groups that were left in its wake. These groups include various peoples (e.g. the Romani), ideologies (e.g. anarchism, socialism, communism), social and economic classes (e.g. peasants, the working class), and regional identities (e.g. Catalonia, the Basque Country). Key texts in modern Spanish literature will prompt our investigation into how writers and artists reflected on, contested, and expressed the marginality of the country’s various internal others. Taught in Spanish.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.405. Ephemeral Spanish Drama. 3 Credits.
Johns Hopkins holds one of the largest collections of ephemeral Spanish drama outside of Spain. Despite their modest appearance, JHU's comedias sueltas are unique witnesses to a prolific and rich dramatic culture in early modern Europe. In addition to works by the masters of Spain's Golden Age such as Lope de Vega, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, and Tirso de Molina, this collection comprises works by lesser-known figures from the long eighteenth century, including numerous anonymous works and even several that are unattested in the literary record. In this class, we will read and discuss representative works of these types, paying close attention to the context of the production and use of the copies in Special Collections at JHU. The final project will culminate in either a written translation or a performance of one of the comedias sueltas in the JHU collection. Taught in Spanish.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 or Spanish Placement Exam
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.406. Novelist Intellectuals. 3 Credits.
What does a novelist’s op-ed about economics have to do with her literary writing? In what ways does a fiction writer’s essays on the environment inform how we read her novels? What happens when we find the political opinions of a writer objectionable? This undergraduate seminar will consider what the Spanish writer Francisco Ayala termed “novelist intellectuals,” that is, literary writers who actively participate in a society’s public sphere. Considering writers from Madrid to New York, from London to Buenos Aires, we will ask how one should hold a novelist’s fictional and non-fictional writings in the balance and explore ways of reading that allow us to consider the public intellectual side and the aesthetic side of a novelist together.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.410. Topics in Modern Latin American Literature. 3 Credits.
A survey and exploration of important works and themes in Latin American Literature of the modern period.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.419. Colombia: Territory Against Nation. 3 Credits.
The nation of Colombia amounts to a large country partly made immense and hard to govern and corruptible by its territorial nexus and porous frontier with Venezuela. Starting from such polemic claim, leaning on misgovernance vs. excessive governmentality, we will study two novels, Laura Restrepo’s Delirio/Delirium (2004) and Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s The Noise of Things Falling (2011); both winners of the prestigious Planeta Prize. To what extent can literary fictions of such scope and ambitions, invested in deeply rooted family politics, help or harm the reader’s political trust in nations as novels and fictions as nations?
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.424. Manifesto: From Literary to Social Activism in Latin America. 3 Credits.
Manifestos have been instrumental in shaping cultural, political, and social landscapes. Moving through and beyond the literary canon, this course examines manifestos as distinctive literary artifacts that intertwine art, politics, and calls to action, deeply reflecting the times and ideals from which they emerged. Focusing on Latin America, this interdisciplinary course examines the evolution of the manifesto as a discursive genre in the region. It traces its trajectory from the early 20th-century literary and artistic avant-gardes to the new contemporary forms of social, ecological, and political activism. The course includes a broad survey of cultural artifacts contextualized within historical and contemporary perspectives on identity, politics, ethics, aesthetics, nature, human and non-human rights, and social justice. Our classes will encompass texts from various countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, and others. The course integrates insights from diverse fields such as poetics, philosophy, literary studies, sound and media studies, design, and typography. This course will be conducted in Spanish, with reading and writing assignments accepted in Spanish and Portuguese, which will be encouraged and warmly welcomed.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.426. Narratives of Sickness and Healing in Latin America. 3 Credits.
What is an illness? How do we define a sick body? How can literature, films and art convey suffering and healing? How do traditional histories of medicine structure sickness? Is there a perception––and representation––of illness that can be specific to Latin American culture? How does the Spanish language address issues of sickness, disability, and pain? This course will explore experiences of illness, suffering, pain, and healing through the readings of narratives, works of theory and criticism, and the writings of artists themselves, as well as film, artistic practices, and documentaries. Discussions will place the narratives of illness in the intersections with the history of public health, biomedical history, and the sociocultural history of disease in Latin America. Within the framework of the Medicine, Science, and the Humanities major, students will learn to recognize the value and relevance of literature and art to their personal, educational, and professional growth.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.427. The African Diaspora in Early Modern Iberia. 3 Credits.
Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain was home to a sizeable Black African, Afro-diasporic, and Afro-descendant population that scholarship has only recently begun to acknowledge substantively. The historical legacy of these communities reveals that Afro-Iberians, enslaved as well as free, experienced often violent forms of racial discrimination and oppression, but that they also contributed meaningfully to a shared cultural landscape of art, literature, drama, dance, and music. Early modern writers of fiction likewise depicted Afro-diasporic characters not only as servants but also as sovereigns, soldiers, scholars, and saints. This advanced undergraduate seminar will grapple with these ambivalences by surveying a wide, multidisciplinary range of cultural products. In surveying the historical and literary complexities of the African diaspora in early modern Iberia, we will ask how these communities were subjected to the violence of empire, colonialism, racism, human trafficking, and enslavement, while at the same time generating creative vectors of pride, freedom, agency, and resistance. Class will be conducted in Spanish. (If AS.210.311 has not been taken, the student may submit an SPE score: https://krieger.jhu.edu/modern-languages-literatures/spanish-and-portuguese/undergraduate/get-started/)
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.428. Contemporary Latin American Film. 3 Credits.
This seminar presents a transnational history of Latin American cinema from the 1960s to the present, with a special regard to its global influence. Starting with the Cuban Revolution and the subsequent founding of its film institute ICAIC, we'll examine how politics and aesthetics shape each other. We'll discuss the manifestos and films of the so-called New Latin American Cinema, including Tercer Cine, Cine Imperfecto, and Cinema Novo; the filmography made during the continent's various dictatorships; and post-dictatorship debates on memory. We'll also engage with a recent theoretical and cinematic production on gender, sexuality, the non-human, and new cinematic postcolonial approaches. (If AS.210.311 has not been taken, student may submit an SPE score:https://krieger.jhu.edu/modern-languages-literatures/spanish-and-portuguese/undergraduate/get-started/)
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.429. Science in the Age of Cervantes. 3 Credits.
What did it mean to “know” something in an age of profound epistemological shift? This course explores the revolutionary transformations in scientific thought during the late Renaissance and early modern period (approximately 1550–1650), with particular focus on the cultural and intellectual world that produced Miguel de Cervantes. Students will examine how the Scientific Revolution unfolded alongside Spain’s so-called Golden Age of literature and art, investigating the tensions between emerging empirical methods and traditional scholastic authority, the impact of New World discoveries on European natural philosophy, and the relationship between literary imagination and scientific inquiry. Topics include the Copernican revolution, advances in anatomy and medicine, alchemy and chemistry, navigation and cartography, engineering and technology, and the role of observation and experiment in challenging Aristotelian cosmology. Through readings from various early modern scientific thinkers, and alongside Cervantes’s own works, students will consider how Don Quixote’s world was one where old certainties were crumbling and new ways of understanding nature were taking shape. Class will be conducted in Spanish.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.311 OR SPE Score
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.215.430. What Would Cervantes Do? Reading Spanish Baroque Literature in a Post-Truth Age. 3 Credits.
An exploration of Spanish literature of the 17th century focused on problems of truth and political manipulation. Taught in Spanish.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.431. Fiction and Philosophy: Jorge Luis Borges. 3 Credits.
In this course we will examine the works of the Argentine poet and short story writer Jorge Luis Borges, one of the most influential writers of the 20th-century, as a way of thinking though key problems in the philosophy of language, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and cosmology. In addition to many of Borges’s most important stories, we will read work from thinkers like Immanuel Kant, Jacques Derrida, Martin Heidegger, and Simon de Beauvoir. Taught in English with the opportunity to do work and some discussion in Spanish for those in the major.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.215.448. The Politics of Spanish Painting. 3 Credits.
How is painting political? What would it mean for a painting to make a political intervention? Can a painting, through its subject, composition, and style, make political arguments and claims? Understanding painting as a repository for social, economic, and political relations, this course will examine the works of major Spanish painters from El Greco to Picasso. We will pay special attention to the ways in which painters developed a particular “political vision” of Iberia and the world. Paintings will be paired with texts ranging from art history and criticism to literature, history, and political philosophy. Taught in Spanish.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.449. Populism in Europe Today. 3 Credits.
This course, taught in Spanish, will explore the dynamic and diverse meanings of populism in Europe today, investigating such disparate phenomena as left-wing social movements, fluctuating immigration policies within EU member states, and demands for national sovereignty by minority and majority groups. Open only to students on the Hopkins in Madrid study abroad program.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.452. Che Guevara and Magical Realism. 3 Credits.
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.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.215.525. Spanish Independent Study. 1 - 3 Credits.
Directed readings with Spanish faculty.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.215.526. Spanish Independent Study. 1 - 3 Credits.
Directed readings with Spanish faculty.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.215.528. Portuguese Independent Study. 3 Credits.
Directed readings with Portuguese faculty.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.215.607. Utopia, Text, Torture. 2 Credits.
We will examine and stress-test writings that graphically breach and exploit established literary discourses in direct or indirect reference to unbound self-consciousness. This mode of textual introspection struggles against false consciousness as a form of self-absorbed torture (matching routine practices by the dictorships that rule over any sense of actuality in these novels). Textual imprisonment (often hyper-sexualized) escapes and humiliates these otherwise triumphantly gendered writers. Diamela Eltit, Lumpérica (1983); José Donoso, La desesperanza (1986); Néstor Perlongher, O negocio do miché. Prostitução viril em Sao Paulo (1987), La prostitución masculina (1993) or El negocio del deseo (1999); Mario Vargas Llosa, El paraíso en la otra esquina (2003); Laura Restrepo, Delirio (2004). In each case, aspects of dictatorship as specific South American despotism should loudly impact our discussions.
AS.215.609. Latinx Literature Now. 3 Credits.
A graduate seminar that focuses on texts by contemporary U.S. Latinx writers published after 2015, as well as works of scholarship and criticism in Latinx literary and cultural studies. Students will familiarize themselves with a body of work from the largest (and still growing) cultural "minority" in the U.S. to interrogate the major themes of this course––"Latinx," "minority," and "now"––as well as reflect on how national, comparative, and "minority" texts mutually interact and inter-implicate one another.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.215.610. Matters of Toxicity in Latin America. 3 Credits.
This seminar explores the convergence of toxicity and space, politics and affect in Latin America through an analysis of literary fiction, poetry, films and visual art. We pay close attention to the politics of contamination, its effects in both the space and the body, as well as in communal efforts undertaken by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities that look at alternative methods to make sense of everyday life stories and environmental disasters. These stories originate from the margins and aim at uncovering the vibrant matter of daily contamination and bodily experiences. Some questions we will address are: How are the imaginaries of sickness informed by the continual increase of toxicity in both urban and rural areas? How do they imagine life and how do they contribute to a new understanding and conceptualizations of biological life, human and non-human? This class is taught in Spanish.
AS.215.611. Staging Race in Early Modern Drama. 3 Credits.
The stratified nature of medieval and early modern Iberia was long understood to derive not from race per se but from lineage, whereby statutes of limpieza de sangre or blood purity granted an array of privileges to descendants of Christian ancestors while discriminating against those of Jewish or Muslim heritage. Recent scholarship, however, has challenged this paradigm to establish that race was already operative in premodernity, and that skin color was, alongside ethnoreligious genealogy, yet another vector of oppression. This course will explore the racialization of skin complexion in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Iberian drama, particularly in plays featuring Black African and Afro-diasporic characters, such as those by Andrés de Claramonte, Diego Jiménez de Enciso, Lope de Rueda, Lope de Vega, Antonio Mira de Amescua, Rodrigo de Reinosa, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Luis Vélez de Guevara. In doing so, students will engage with the field of premodern critical race studies to interrogate how a nascent colorism intersected with historical projects of national and imperial consolidation, global trade, colonialism, slavery, and other racial formations. Many of the readings will be available only in Spanish, though class discussion may be conducted in Spanish or English, depending on the needs of enrolled students.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.215.612. Emerging Latin American Cinema. 3 Credits.
This graduate seminar on emerging cinema in Latin America focuses on thematic clusters such as gender identity, violence against women, the struggle for indigenous rights and recognition of their history, the politics of ecological crises, and the plight of youth who don’t see a viable future. We will focus on films from Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia, among other cultures. In the month of April, the seminar will connect live to a workshop and screening series in Cuba, with a special focus on Cuba’s role in Latin American Film history and its contributions to the current trends in eco-cinema, which explores the relationship between the natural world, nonhuman animals, and humanity.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.215.614. Manifesto: Literary and Social Activisms in Latin America. 3 Credits.
Manifestos have been instrumental in shaping cultural, political, and social landscapes. Moving through and beyond the literary canon, this course examines manifestos as distinctive literary artifacts that intertwine art, politics, and calls to action, deeply reflecting the times and ideals from which they emerged. Focusing on Latin America, this interdisciplinary course examines the evolution of the manifesto as a discursive genre in the region. It traces its trajectory from the early 20th-century literary and artistic avant-gardes to the new contemporary forms of social, ecological, and political activism. The course includes a broad survey of cultural artifacts contextualized within historical and contemporary perspectives on identity, politics, ethics, aesthetics, nature, human and non-human rights, and social justice. Our classes will encompass texts from various countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, and others. The course integrates insights from diverse fields such as poetics, philosophy, literary studies, sound and media studies, design, and typography. This course will be conducted in Spanish, with reading and writing assignments accepted in Spanish and Portuguese, which will be encouraged and warmly welcomed. This is is the 600-level version of the undergrad course, with directed reading and grad-specific assignments in addition to the undergrad coursework.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.215.616. (Re)reading Guimarães Rosa. 3 Credits.
This graduate seminar explores the work of the major modernist writer João Guimarães Rosa (1908–1967), with particular attention to Grande sertão: veredas, his only and groundbreaking novel, which is scheduled to receive a new English translation in 2026. First published in Brazil in 1956 and translated into English in 1963 as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, the novel is frequently compared to the work of James Joyce for its radical experimentation with language. Rosa experimented with narrative form and challenged literary conventions, as well as categories of gender, race, and regional identity. His fiction is almost invariably set in Brazil’s vast inland plateaus, the sertão, a landscape that acquires metaphysical dimensions in his work. In addition to reading Grande sertão: veredas, the seminar will also examine selected short stories alongside established and emerging critical approaches to Rosa’s work, including ecocriticism, regionalist poetics, trans studies, narrative theory, and translation studies. The course is taught in English, with readings in Portuguese, Spanish, and English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.215.620. Agrarian Fictions in Latin America. 3 Credits.
This course examines how 20th-century Latin American fiction represented predominantly rural societies, not only as sites of 'tradition' (as is frequently assumed by extant criticism), but as active sites of transition and change in their own right. Focusing on key authors such as Juan Rulfo, José María Arguedas, Rosario Castellanos and José Donoso, among others, we will ask how fiction, particularly the novel, represented far-reaching rural transitions in the 20th century, ranging from agrarian revolution and land reform to the massive relocation of immiserated peasants to burgeoning cities. Along these lines, we will ask 1) how fiction imagined the rural not simply as static, but as a site of violent and often unpredictable change; and 2) which special insights aesthetic form might provide as a means of capturing that change. In similar fashion, we will ask how Latin America's 'agrarian fictions' might enrich our understanding of literary currents such as regionalism, indigenismo and the "Boom," but also the history of capitalism in the region.
Writing Intensive
AS.215.624. Amazonia: Theoretical Perspectives and Aesthetics. 3 Credits.
As the humanities grapple with climate change, theories emerging from or centered on Amazonia contribute to a broader rethinking of the relationship between nature and culture, challenging the very definitions of these terms and the core tenets of modernity. This course explores how Amazonia has sparked new ways of thinking and aesthetic languages. We will focus on recent scholarship in archeology, anthropology, environmental humanities, and literary and cultural studies in relation to earlier ideas about Amazonia. Alongside this, we will examine literature, photography, film, and multimedia, discussing the ways in which the encounter with Amazonia has shaped aesthetic practices and, in turn, how these practices contribute to or even anticipate theoretical perspectives. Topics include thinking and its manifestations beyond the human, cosmotechnics and/as cosmopolitics, representation, and the ontological turn. Readings will include work by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Aparecida Vilaça, Eduardo Kohn, Philippe Descola, Emanuele Coccia, Davi Kopenawa, Bruce Albert, Eduardo Neves, Macarena Gómez-Barris, Lucia Sá, among others. All readings and discussions will be in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.215.625. Marginal Subjects of the Spanish Golden Age. 3 Credits.
An exploration of literary figures from the margins of Spanish society in the 17th century. Taught in Spanish.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.215.631. Contemporary Latin American Cinema: History, Theory, and Practice. 2 Credits.
This seminar presents a transnational history of Latina American cinema from the 1960s to the present, with a special regard to its global influence. Starting with the Cuban Revolution and the subsequent founding of the ICAIC, we'll examine how politics and aesthetics shape each other. We'll discuss the manifestos and films of the so-called New Latin American Cinema, including Tercer Cine, Cine Imperfecto, and Cinema Novo; the filmography made during the continent's various dictatorships; and post-dictatorship debates on memory. We'll also engage with a recent theoretical and cinematic production on gender, sexuality, the non-human, and new cinematic postcolonial approaches. In December, we will visit the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema of Havana to continue discussions in the setting of Latin America’s largest film festival. Some knowledge of Spanish will be necessary to take this class.
AS.215.650. Race, Aesthetics, Speculation. 3 Credits.
This seminar takes as its jumping off point the question of how the representation of race and ethnicity intersects with theories surrounding aesthetics, literary form, and speculation writ large, proposing that the investigation of these elements and their various imbrications offer an important aperture to consider the contemporary, and ways to reflect on the haunting remainders of history as they become manifest in cultural production.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.215.693. Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Fiction and Nonfiction Lab. 3 Credits.
This creative writing workshop will provide a dedicated space to explore imagination and develop literary techniques that help transform ideas into engaging narratives. Unlike academic or technical writing, this workshop emphasizes personal expression, experimentation, and the cultivation of an individual voice across both fictional and nonfictional projects.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
AS.215.718. Public Humanities Writing Workshop. 3 Credits.
Humanists possess a reservoir of scholarly abilities that prime them for contributing to debates well beyond the academy. This semester-long workshop will introduce graduate students to the basics of writing for such broad audience. Each session will be organized around particular topics in public humanities writing, including the pitching, writing, editing, and publishing processes of newspapers, magazines, and online outlets. We will also consider the forms of writing that most allow scholars to draw from their academic training and research: reviews, personal essays, op-eds, interviews, and profiles. Throughout the course we will see how the interdisciplinarity, comparativism, and multilingualism of fields from across the humanities can be helpful for reaching wide audiences. Beyond the nuts and bolts of getting started in so-called “public” writing, this course aspires to teach graduate students how to combine quality writing with academic knowledge, scholarly analysis with a general intellectual readership—and, ultimately, make academic knowledge a public good. Taught in English.
Prerequisite(s): Students who took AS.215.748 are not eligible to take AS.215.718.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.215.804. Spanish Summer Research. 9 Credits.
Summer research toward dissertation.
AS.215.826. Spanish Independent Study. 3 - 9 Credits.
Directed readings with Spanish faculty.
AS.215.827. Spanish Dissertation. 9 Credits.
Research work toward dissertation.
AS.215.828. Spanish Proposal Preparation. 3 - 9 Credits.
Directed work toward preparation of the dissertation proposal.
AS.215.850. Professional Training - Spanish and Portuguese. 3 Credits.
Training for professional academic purposes.
AS.216.320. The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Cultural Perspective. 3 Credits.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often construed as impenetrable to outsiders, yet, cultural production emerging from this crucible is often presented as a “window” into the history, politics, and psychology of the conflict. Rather than operating from the assumption that culture is a mirror that simply “reflects” an objective reality, this course investigates how authors, filmmakers, and artists situated in the midst of the conflict produce art that reaches far beyond the representation of historical events, extending into the domains of religion, memory, fantasies, nostalgia, perceptions of space and time, body image and gender and sexual identities. The material covered will include feature and documentary film, literature, memoir, dance, visual art, photography and theater. All material will be taught in English translation.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.216.410. Yiddish Theatre from the Purim-shpil to the Present Day. 3 Credits.
In traditional Ashkenazi Jewish society, the purim-shpil was the only kind of drama performed, but with the advent of modernity Yiddish-speaking Jews embraced theatre as playwrights, actors, and audiences. This course will survey Yiddish theatre from its traditional beginnings through its many permutations from the late eighteenth century to the present day, with examples of plays from the popular to the highly literary. All readings, discussion, and written responses will be in Yiddish.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.216.411. The Evolution of Hebrew Linguistic Thought. 3 Credits.
This course will explore the evolution of Hebrew linguistic thought, focusing on the seminal works of early Hebrew grammarians in Muslim Spain during the 10th–11th centuries, including Judah Hayyuj and Jonah Ibn Janah. It will then trace the intellectual journey across Christian Central Europe up to the late modern era, highlighting contributions from both Jewish and non-Jewish grammarians. Notably, it will feature figures such as David Kimhi at the beginning of this period and Wilhelm Gesenius at its conclusion. The exploration will conclude with an overview of modern contributions, from within Israel and abroad, to Hebrew linguistic thought, showcasing linguists like Naphtali Tur-Sinai and Geoffrey Khan.The course will primarily involve reading texts written by leading grammarians and biblical commentators, examining fundamental issues in Hebrew language, the various theories proposed, and the transformations that have taken place in Hebrew linguistic thought. The texts will be read in English, with reference to the original languages (if other than English), Hebrew or Arabic.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.216.413. Medieval Hebrew Poetry: Content, Form, and Language. 3 Credits.
The course will offer a reading and analysis of selected works of medieval Hebrew poetry, focusing on prominent poets such as Samuel ha-Nagid, Moses ibn Ezra, and Judah Halevi. We will explore the content and form of their poetry, as well as the historical context and sources from which it emerged. Alongside literary analysis, there will be linguistic and philological examination, addressing the connections between medieval Hebrew poetry and grammar, as well as the relationship between the poet and the grammarian. Taught in Hebrew. Reading and speaking knowledge of Hebrew is required.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.216.414. Modern Hebrew Women Poets and Their Quest for a Poetic Self. 3 Credits.
Emerging during a national secular awakening that opposed traditional Judaism and aligned itself with European modernism, Hebrew poetry aimed to forge a collective identity. However, this national identity was mainly shaped in masculine terms. Our discussion will focus on how the development of diverse perceptions of selfhood and poetics challenged traditional notions of masculinity. Through close readings of poems in the original Hebrew and within a framework of gender and nationality theories, this seminar will explore the journey of Hebrew women poets from the early 20th century to the present as they build and reshape their poetic selves.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.216.415. Laughter Through Tears: Sholem Aleichem’s Dark Comedy. 3 Credits.
Sholem Aleichem, one of the best known and most beloved Yiddish writers at the turn of the twentieth century, portrays the vicissitudes of Jewish life from poverty to pogroms while eliciting a smile from his readers. At the same time, his work delves into the foibles of human nature and the dynamics of family and community relationships in ways that are applicable beyond the Jewish setting. In this course, students will examine the many layers of Sholem Aleichem’s work, and in particular his use of language to create dark comedy, by following the trajectory of Eastern European Jews from rural and small-town life to the city and on to America through Sholem Aleichem’s major recurring characters, Menakhem-Mendl, Tevye, and Motl-Peyse, in the original short stories and in film adaptations. All readings, discussion, and written work will be in Yiddish; assignments will be calibrated to accommodate students who have completed either an intermediate or an advanced Yiddish language class.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.264 AND AS.210.368
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.216.500. Independent Study. 1 - 3 Credits.
This research course focuses on surveying and deepening the students’ familiarity with the historical, cultural, and linguistic aspects of modern Jewish literature.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.216.601. Eastern European Literature. 2 Credits.
Twentieth-century and contemporary Eastern European Literature is the locus of poetry and the essay. In this course we shall examine classic authors, such as Bruno Schulz, Zbigniew Herbert, and Adam Zagajewski, as well as those less known in the English-speaking world: Zuzanna Ginczanka, Ota Pavel, Henryk Grynberg, Oksana Lutsyshyna. We will consider verse, poetic prose and lyrical essays. The issues that will inform our readings will be internal and actual emigration, translingualism, and the persistence of war. Polish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Czech, Serbo-Croatian, but also French and American English are the languages in which these authors speak to us. Eastern European literature resonates with voices that have, time and again, brushed against catastrophe.
AS.216.611. Modern Hebrew Literature and Its Quest for the Sacred. 3 Credits.
Modern Hebrew literature emerged during the nineteenth century as part of the Haskalah movement, which attempted to break from the traditional modes of Jewish intellectual and social life while also offering a new understanding of Judaism. The Hebrew literature that arose in this period embraced the rebellious nature of the Haskalah and is therefore commonly characterized as secular in nature, defying Orthodoxy and rejecting the old Hebrew God. Against this clear-cut distinction between religious and secular literature, this seminar will study the ways in which modern Hebrew literature has maintained a vital dialogue with the divine and the sacred. We will read and analyze prosefiction, poetry and publicist essays in order to track the various theological trends that were part of this self- declared secular national literature. The reading will include texts by Ahad Haam, Bialik, Shlonsky, Brenner, Agnon, Grinberg and Goldberg, as well as more contemporary writers like Amichai, Ravikovitch, Wallach, Behar and Pedaya.This course will be taught in Hebrew.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.216.614. The Other of/in The Modern Hebrew Text: A Theoretical and Textual Perspective. 3 Credits.
The term ‘Other’ is rooted in the Self-Other opposition, as it emerged in German Idealism and was adopted by Psychoanalysis, Post-Colonial, and Feminist theories. In this advanced seminar, we will examine the history of this opposition and utilize its various transformations within the philosophical, psychological, political and cultural studies discourse to understand its diverse roles in the modern Hebrew text. (Hebrew reading proficiency required.)
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.216.620. Jesus in Modern Hebrew Literature. 2 Credits.
This seminar will track the changes in the representations of Jesus in modern Hebrew literature. We will study the connections between intellectual writings and the literary depictions of Jesus, changes in the representations of his figure in the aftermath of the Holocaust and Israeli statehood, and the function of his figure in the cultural and theological modern Jewish imagination. Reading will include prose-fiction, novels, poetry, drama, and intellectual essays from the late 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.216.621. Folklore in Yiddish Culture and Literature. 3 Credits.
Folklore played a decisive role in the development of Romantic nationalism and was the chief catalyst for the development of the aesthetics of nationalization. It was also the point of connection between anthropological and aesthetics notions of culture. Folklore was no less central to the processes of modernization, nationalization, and secularization among European Jews despite the conceptual and social instability surrounding the status of Jews as political subjects and as a "folk." This course will examine folklore in the literature, music, and visual art of Yiddish-speaking European Jews, in order to understand the aesthetic and political terrain on which identity in Europe was contested in the decades around 1900. Readings and discussion in Yiddish.
AS.216.640. Literature and the Holocaust. 3 Credits.
The Holocaust appears in scholarship as a figure or catalyst of analysis as often as it does as a historical event. It has prompted debates about historiography, about aesthetics, and about modernity across the humanistic disciplines, yet many of these debates and analyses have relied on a small number of sources, primarily literary texts. This course will assess some of the major areas of critical and scholarly inquiry regarding the Holocaust, but in relation to a different corpus of works, written by victims and survivors, that has been mostly overlooked. These works, many in Yiddish, many written during or in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, afford an opportunity to reassess the degree and the kind of challenge the Holocaust posed to the various aesthetic, memorial, and social formations of modernity. Taught in English; all readings available in English translation.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken, or are currently enrolled in, AS.211.440 are not eligible to enroll in AS.216.640.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.216.643. Realism and Anti-Realism in Modern Hebrew Literature. 3 Credits.
This seminar seeks to trace the narrative dynamics and literary means of modern Hebrew Literature through a close examination of the tension between its realistic and anti-realistic trends. It begins with theoretical questions regarding the definition of realism as a literary genre. After this introductory section, the seminar is divided to three different periods in modern Hebrew literature, each is analyzed within the framework of its relation to realism. The first period is the turn of the 20th century and its first decades, reading works by writers such as Yosef Haim Brenner, Shmuel Yosef Agnon and Devora Baron. In the second period we study the post Israeli statehood period through reading works by A.B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, Amalia Khanana Carmon and Yehoshua Knaz. The third part of the course deals with prose-fiction that is considered post-modernistic and includes writers such as David Grossman, Orly Castel-Bloom Yoel Hofmann, and Ronit Matalon.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
AS.216.800. Independent Study. 3 - 9 Credits.
This research course focuses on surveying and deepening the students’ familiarity with the historical, cultural, and linguistic aspects of modern Jewish literature.
AS.216.802. Yiddish Independent Study. 3 - 9 Credits.
Yiddish Independent Study
AS.216.804. Hebrew/Yiddish Summer Research. 9 Credits.
This research course focuses on surveying and deepening the students’ familiarity with the historical, cultural, and linguistic aspects of modern Jewish literature.
AS.216.806. Hebrew/Yiddish Proposal Prep. 6 Credits.
Hebrew/Yiddish Proposal Prep
AS.216.808. Hebrew/Yiddish Dissertation Research. 9 Credits.
Hebrew/Yiddish Dissertation Research
AS.216.850. Professional Training - Hebrew & Yiddish. 3 Credits.
Training for professional academic purposes.
AS.217.211. Introduction to Luso-Afro-Brazilian Literature. 3 Credits.
This discussion-based course focuses on a wide range of texts from the colonial period to the present. We’ll read seminal texts from Portugal, Brazil, and Lusophone Africa, paying close attention to language and context. How do forms, ideas, and genres travel across the Atlantic? What shape do they take according to different geographies, cultures, and histories? Topics include the legacies of European colonialism and imperialism, slavery and its aftermath, theoretical debates about the formation of Brazilian Literature, national identity, (post)colonialism and decolonization, representations of nature, and Indigeneity. Students will read innovative prose works by Machado de Assis and Clarice Lispector; the poetry of Fernando Pessoa; Brazilian concrete poetry, and modernist manifestos; among other things. This course will be taught in English. Students may complete coursework in Portuguese or Spanish to apply the course toward relevant Spanish, Portuguese, or RLL degree requirements.
Prerequisite(s): AS.210.272 AND AS.210.311 or PPE Score
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.217.425. Latin American Ecocriticism. 3 Credits.
Increased awareness of climate change has led to a shift in the way we address and intervene in environmental issues in the new millennium. Yet the interest in making sense of the environment has a long history in literature and the arts. How have Latin American writers and artists understood and depicted their environments and environmental questions? How do the form and content of texts and cultural artifacts influence our understanding of the non-human world? Can works of fiction shape ecological transformations? In this course we will discuss texts from the early colonial period to the present, including the literary works of Graciliano Ramos, Horacio Quiroga, and Clarice Lispector; political ecology; film; Ana Mendieta’s earth-body art; contemporary experiments in bio-art; postcolonial theory; and the intersection of environmental justice with such topics as nationalism and human rights. Going beyond ecocriticism’s original focus on the Anglo-American world, we will engage recent scholarship on Latin America that sheds light on the region’s cultural and geopolitical importance to the global climate, with particular attention to Brazil. This course aims to introduce students to current debates in Latin American Ecocriticism and the Anthropocene and thus contribute to an incipient but expanding field.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Cross Listed Courses
Anthropology
AS.070.336. Ethnographic Perspectives on Brazil. 3 Credits.
Tom Jobim, best known as the composer of the bossa nova classic “Girl from Ipanema,” once quipped, “Brazil is not for beginners.” Beyond enduring stereotypes, the complexities and contradictions of Brazilian society have long been fertile ground for anthropological inquiry. This seminar offers close readings of classic and contemporary ethnography that interrogate Brazilian society as a set of questions and paradoxes. We will also explore, conversely, how studies in Brazil have deeply shaped core anthropological thought.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have already taken, or are currently enrolled in AS.070.636, are not eligible to take AS.070.336.
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
Center for Africana Studies
AS.362.200. Translating the Haitian Revolution: Resurrecting Literature. 3 Credits.
This course will examine the lasting aesthetic impact of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) on Black fiction writers and playwrights, with an emphasis on issues related to culture wars, imaginary marronage, colonial language, slave memory, literary violence & trauma, sexual politics, beliefs, and the African diaspora.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
Classics
AS.040.309. (Trans)lating Orpheus. 3 Credits.
What does it mean to translate? Is a translation merely a transposition of a text or speech from one language to another, or does it entail more? Can the act of translating happen between different genres? What does critical reading entail? In this class we will use the well-known myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to answer these and other questions by analyzing different versions of the myth that span across time, space, language, genre, and media. We will not just learn about translation broadly defined, but also about the metaphor of translation as a transition or a crossing between (or a-cross) multiple entities. Much like Orpheus, we will embark upon a journey of discovery full of forks and twists in the road, only to discover that what Orpheus was searching for might not be as far removed from contemporary questions of identity, self, and our place in the world.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Comparative Thought and Literature
AS.300.337. The Tragic Tradition. 3 Credits.
This course offers a broad survey of tragic drama in the Western tradition, from its origins in ancient Greece to the twentieth century. In lectures and discussion sections, we will study the specific literary features and historical contexts of a range of different works, and trace the continuities and transformations that shape them into a unified tradition. Key questions and themes throughout the semester will include what counts as tragic, the tragedy of social and political conflict, the bearing of tragedy on the meaning and value of life, the antagonistic relation between world and humans, the promises and dangers of tragedy for contemporary culture. Authors to be studied: Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, Shakespeare, de la Barca, Racine, Goethe, Strindberg, Lorca, and Beckett.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.300.346. Revolution in Theatre, 1880-1930. 3 Credits.
The years 1880-1930 constitutes one of the most intense periods of experimentation in Western drama. We will look closely at texts and performance practices from this time to trace how dramatists upended the conventions that had governed the theatre since the time of Shakespeare and imposed a completely new understanding of the artform. Authors to be read will include August Strindberg, Maurice Maeterlinck, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, W. B. Yeats, Sophie Treadwell, Luigi Pirandello, Federico García Lorca.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.300.349. Capitalism and Tragedy: from the 18th Century to Climate Change. 3 Credits.
In contemporary discussions of climate change, it is an increasingly prevalent view that capitalism will lead to the destruction of civilization as we know it. The notion that capitalism is hostile to what makes human life worth living, however, is one that stretches back at least to the early eighteenth century. In this class, we will examine key moments in the history of this idea in works of literature, philosophy, and politics, from the birth of bourgeois tragedy in the 1720s, through topics such as gender, imperialism, and economic exploitation, to the prospects of our ecological future today. Authors to be studied will include: Lillo, Balzac, Marx and Engels, Ibsen, Brecht, Heidegger, Achebe, and current politics, philosophy, theology and film on climate change.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.300.355. Literature and the Idea of Nature. 3 Credits.
This course traces the changing idea of nature and our relation to it. We will study this topic through the close attention to a variety of exemplary literary texts from a range of different historical situations. These include drama, poetry, novels, and essays, as well as topics such as renaissance pastorals, the dream of dominating our environment through mechanical reason, the idealization of nature in romantic poetry, and contemporary confrontations with our planet’s sixth mass extinction, climate change, and problems of environmental justice. We will read texts by Tasso, Shakespeare, Defoe, Hölderlin, Leopardi, Mary Shelley, Thoreau, Hemingway, Carson, Albee, as well as writings in current ecological humanities.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.300.400. Anti-nostalgia in Literature and Film. 3 Credits.
I looked for home elsewhere, and was confident of finding none which I should relish less than the one which I was leaving.Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick DouglassCaught between Paradise Lost and the Promised Land, between a yearning for utopia and the menace of dystopia, humans seem prone to nostalgia. Originally defined as a disease, nostalgia in literature has functioned both in space and in time. If Romanticism codified certain forms of literary nostalgia, it only follows that anti-nostalgia comes later, maturing in modern exilic and science-fiction works. Both notions lose their raison d’être without the concept of home, be it a place, a temporal home of childhood, or a future home. In the seminar we will analyze modern expressions of anti-nostalgia, from Stendhal’s revulsion towards his hometown of Grenoble, through various accounts of precluded return, to a poisoned, mangled return. Disappointment, disillusionment, even horror accompany anti-nostalgia. Shock and trauma pervert a sense of belonging into disgust and fear. While nostalgia is lyrical, anti-nostalgia can be violent and bitter or passive and indifferent. We will study works of prose (Stendhal, Kafka, Bunin, Lem, Lispector, Márai, Bobowski) and poetry (Szymborska, Grynberg) as well as film (Nadav Lapid, Pawel Lozinski). Our secondary sources will include Jean Starobinski, Vladimir Jankélévitch, Jean Baudrillard, and Jora Vaso.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.300.405. Illness across Cultures: The Ethics of Pain in Literature and Film. 3 Credits.
Although fundamentally grounded in human existence, Illness, pain, and suffering are also cultural experiences that have been depicted in literature and film. The way different cultures relate to and convey pain is embedded in the cosmogonic ideas each society holds about suffering and its outcomes. Reading through different literary texts from different parts of the world and drawing on movies that portray varied experiences of illness, this course aims to help students think about illness and its ramifications in a more transcultural way in order to understand how illness functions across different geographic, climatic, political, and social conditions. The students will also gain a better understanding of the causes of pain, its symptoms, and the different manners in which the authors and filmmakers whose works we will study mediate it to their readers and viewers. From basic traditional potions to hyper-modern medical technologies, illness also mobilizes different types of science across cultures and social classes. By the end of the course, students will develop an ethics of reading for illness not a as monolithic condition but rather as an experience that has unique cultural codes and mechanisms that need to be known to better understand it and probably treat it.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.300.409. Modernist Animacies and the Politics of Wonder. 3 Credits.
From dancing skeletons and Mickey Mouse to nuclear-powered robots and Fritz the Cat, modernist visual culture is replete with iconic images of animated existence. This course surveys these diverse forms of "animatedness” emerging within the interconnected histories of special effects film and animated media, focusing on their entanglement with broader modernist practices, movements, and styles between the 1920s and the 1970s. Students will explore the shared origins of animation and special effects in the frame-by-frame manipulations of early trick film, the hopes and fears attached to machine aesthetics in German expressionism, French surrealism, and Soviet avant-garde cinema of the 1920s, and the ambivalent agency expressed by animated bodies in American and Japanese cartoons of the 1920s-40s. They will then assess the continuities and ruptures in the aesthetic and political commitments of interwar and postwar modernisms through case studies from North American, Central and Eastern European, and Japanese animation. By engaging with the diverse forms of “animatedness” and animated media presented in this course, students will develop critical theoretical, historical, and comparative frameworks for navigating the complex entanglements of organic life, emotional states, and machine technologies that increasingly define contemporary existence.
Prerequisite(s): Students may not have taken the AS.300.321 version of this course.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.300.412. Indigenous Ecologies: Thinking with Indigenous Worldviews. 3 Credits.
Indigenous people represent an important share of planet Earth’s inhabitants. Totaling almost 500 million people in the entire world, Indigenous people speak a variety of languages, produce knowledge in their mother tongues, and have deep connections to their lands and cultures. However, neither their demographic significance nor their long histories spared them the tragedies of settler colonialism and its aftermaths of dispossession, exclusion, and segregation. Since the early twentieth century, Indigenous people have been at the helm of a Global Indigeneity Movement that has mobilized both scholarship and activism in search of a better world. Despite their best efforts, the rich histories of indigenous activism, environmental practices, and cultural production as well as the worldviews they sustain remain confined to very limited circles. Building on the notion of "indigenous ecologies," which spans a wide range of approaches and fields, this course will interrogate some of the salient questions related to activism, literature, translation, extraction, environmentalism, and social justice from the perspective of Indigenous creators. Students will engage with materials produced by Indigenous thinkers, filmmakers, activists, and academic scholars to gain a deeper understanding of indigeneity across cultures and continents as well as the myriad critical ways in which its proponents approach pressing issues that face Indigenous peoples from myriad perspectives and positionalities.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.300.609. Old/New Questions: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Scholarship in the Humanities. 3 Credits.
The academic profession is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. However, in many cases, graduate training has yet to fully adapt to this shift. Beyond the changing nature of knowledge production, which now requires scholars to engage with fields of expertise that might not have been necessary in the past, institutions—especially liberal arts colleges—are seeking candidates who can work across disciplines to fill gaps in their curricula and foster collaborative scholarly synergies with colleagues in other fields. Moreover, academia is shaped by both continuities and interruptions, and interdisciplinary scholarship, with its venture-friendly approaches, offers a way for students to revisit old questions and explore new ones by endeavoring to explore uncharted paths. Hence, students in the humanities will benefit from both the opportunities and the challenges that come with engagement with interdisciplinary critical approaches.This year-long seminar draws on the experience of a broad pool of interdisciplinary scholars at Johns Hopkins University. It seeks to introduce students to a variety of conceptual, epistemic, experiential, experimental, and methodological approaches that JHU faculty members have used to produce interdisciplinary knowledge. Students will have the opportunity to hear directly from these faculty members, read their work, and discuss the processes and methodological choices they made—or chose not to make—in their interdisciplinary work. By revisiting old questions and raising new ones from an interdisciplinary perspective, this seminar will help incoming graduate students in the humanities develop a deeper appreciation for interdisciplinary scholarship and gain insight into the professional opportunities that can arise from proactively embracing approaches that span multiple disciplines. The students will also have opportunities to collaborate with each other throughout the year.
Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, & Colonialism
AS.305.288. The Aesthetics of Resistance. 3 Credits.
This course surveys the stories and storytellers of key moments of resistance or revolution, such as the 1848 Revolutions, the Haitian Revolution, the 1968 Student Movement, Occupy, Arab Spring, and Women Life Freedom. We will critically examine how such moments are, or become, narratives and how, as such, they may or may not acquire afterlives. To this end we will investigate a variety of materials, produced from a variety of points of view: the press, participants, observers, commentators, instigators, theorists, and those reconstructing the events after the fact as histories or fictions. Key themes include notions of personhood, citizenship, solidarity, equality, and futurity, as well as the aesthetics of how social uprisings are represented in a variety of media. Readings might include texts by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Alejo Carpentier, C.L.R James, Peter Weiss, Manuel Puig, Carlos Fuentes, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Audre Lorde, Joshua Clover, and others.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
English
AS.060.396. Anticolonial Thought. 3 Credits.
This course looks at the traditions of anticolonial thought from the early twentieth century to the present day. Comparing movements for national liberation, realignment, and literary self-determination from across the Americas and around the world, we consider the shifting claims of empires and the colonial subjects, anticolonial frameworks, and decolonial movements that sought to contest these formations. We’ll focus largely on the Americas and the Caribbean, where the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and American empires all competed, but we’ll also consider these movements in their worldwide adventure, a “global” perspective that accounts for how processes of decolonization were understood in Ireland, India, China, and elsewhere. Our focus will often be on manifestoes and essays in which anticolonial writers outlined their literary and political programs, but we’ll also look at a few poems, stories, and films. From Lenin and DuBois’s calls to think about the relationship between racial capitalism and imperialism to Getino and Solanas’s revolutionary cinema protesting American neocolonialism, how have the claims of anticolonial political thought found their expression?
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.060.608. The Humanities in Ruins. 3 Credits.
This graduate seminar will examine the long history, dating back to the eighteenth century, of reflection on the nature of the modern university and the place of the humanities within it. With a focus on the much-discussed “crisis” of the contemporary humanities, it will examine the emergence and evolution of the humanistic disciplines. Have the humanities in the academy always been in crisis? What could this possibly mean and what does it imply about how we practice the humanities today?
Distribution Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
AS.060.632. Conjugality and Early Modern Imaginaries. 3 Credits.
This course considers the 'conjugal imaginary' in early modern European religious, scientific, economic, and political thought. Readings in early modern literature (More, Erasmus, Shakepseare, Milton, Cavendish, Behn, Locke, Astell) as well as theorists of family, feminism, and sexuality (Engels, Foucault, Cooper, Butler, Lowe, Kottman, Federici, Wynter). Topics include: the ‘sexual contract’ and patriarchalism; the 'private' as opposed to the 'public' sphere; the disciplining of the body; the establishment of racialized and gendered categories of humans; the definition of labor as production or reproduction; coercion and consent; the new anthropological logics regarding the global (in cross-confessional intimacies or with with partners outside Europe); and the new sciences of population and economies of resource management that shaped the emergent colonial logics. We will ask how early modern sexual regimes of consigning the family and sexuality to the intimate and economic spheres shape the meaning of politics in the period 1500-1700.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
AS.060.697. Enchantment and Inquiry. 3 Credits.
This course explores texts from the 19th and 20th centuries that query the distinction between magical, occult, and supernatural discourses and scientific and rational inquiry. Modernism has often been seen to usher in a new and thoroughly disenchanted literature. But this view overlooks texts from across the wider period that challenge the boundaries between ‘official’ and ‘heterodox’ knowledges. Ranging across genres including experimental literatures, life writing, ghost stories and folk tales this course explores how and why writers such as H.G. Wells, Vernon Lee, Zora Neale Hurston, H.D., Shirley Jackson, R.K. Narayan, and J.M. Coetzee imagine the re-enchantment of the world.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
First Year Seminars
AS.001.110. FYS: How We Read. 3 Credits.
How does reading work as a cognitive process? How do acts of reading differ across cultures, technologies, and time? Why are reading practices and proficiencies a cultural obsession? How are we conditioned to read "a life" in auto/biographical accounts? This First-Year Seminar considers these questions through texts, museum visits, and hands-on engagement with book cultures.
AS.001.123. FYS: Telling Stories. 3 Credits.
Stories give shape to human lives. Although AI now seems capable of generating plots that appear life-like, only humans can be affected by stories and carry this knowledge into the real world.Short stories are central to this seminar, which explores how modern fiction does not so much “copy” the world as offer new perspectives born from nothing more than signs inscribed on a page. Materials drawn from studies in narratology and research on the reading brain will support this argument.This course invites you to actively engage in class activities that combine writing and discussion. As part of the experiential learning that is a feature of FYS seminars, you will have a chance to discuss the art of storytelling with one or two local authors or with writers at Hopkins. Our classwork will depend on attentive, in-depth readings of a selection of short stories chosen because they can lead to productive encounters that reveal the wealth of meanings and wisdom that inhabit literary works. As studies in narrative have shown, fiction can introduce us to the views, memories, and feelings of other human beings, even though these entities are born from nothing more than words cast on a page.For a broader perspective, we will also explore recent scientific studies that offer models for the reading brain and argue that our existence as humans depends on our capacity to elaborate and transmit stories across time as part of apprehending the world we inhabit. We will read selections from Stanislas Dehaenne, Maryanne Wolf, Roy Schafer, and Fritz Breithaupt.Our initial sampling of short works includes stories written over the last twenty years by authors such as Alison Baker, Tessa Hadley, Junot Díaz, Xuan Juliana Wang, Joy Ladin, and Sidik Fofana. As readers yourselves, you may suggest additional stories to present, or even choose to cap the course with a story of your own inspired by the approaches to storytelling we will explore together.
AS.001.143. FYS: Poets, Physicists, Philosophers, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality. 3 Credits.
In this First-Year Seminar we will explore the long and mostly untold story behind the most revolutionary discoveries of modern physics—quantum mechanics and relativity—a story written, astonishingly, in the languages of poetry, fiction, and philosophy. Shuttling between twentieth-century Germany and Argentina by way of eighteenth-century Prussia, with stopovers in Plato’s Greece and Dante’s Italy, we will pursue the age-old riddle of how the human mind interacts with the physical world; tangle with theologians as they ponder the nature of free will; interrogate cosmologists as they attempt to grasp the shape the universe; and, finally, explores the implications of these profound problems for our understanding of reality today.
AS.001.144. FYS: Literary Multilingualism. 3 Credits.
What does it mean to live and to write in more than one language? This is a particularly charged question in today’s globalized world. In this course, we will explore texts and films produced by multilingual writers and directors, who reflect on the experiences of the multilingual subject; their concerns range from the turmoil of living between identities and cultures, to the playful experience of daily life and existence opened up through thinking and working in multiple languages. Main questions will include: In what ways do languages influence how writers write? How does the presence of multiple languages in a text structure a reading experience and for whom? How do texts by multilingual writers destabilize conceptions of national literature? While some texts we will read were originally composed in English, the majority were written by multilingual writers in other languages. Finally, therefore, we will address what it means to read translated into English texts that were, in some sense, already produced “in translation.”
AS.001.170. FYS: Vive la Différence? The Love-Hate Relationship Between France and the USA. 3 Credits.
What do French views on culture, society, and politics tell us about ourselves? France is frequently misunderstood and criticized in US media, yet books and articles touting various aspects of a “French” lifestyle are bestsellers. French media, for its part, commonly engages in US-bashing, yet the popularity and influence of American culture there are undeniable. Why have many prominent Black American writers sought refuge in France, while many French intellectuals have chosen to bring their academic work to American universities, including The Johns Hopkins University? A cross-cultural examination will allow this First-Year Seminar to bring to light many aspects of the complex relationship between these two countries that are historical allies yet ofttimes rivals. We will explore and discuss food, language, cinema, diplomacy, and health, as well as conceptions of friendship, family, identity, and social justice. Course includes a meal at a French restaurant, a museum visit, film screening, and guest speakers.
AS.001.173. FYS: Taking TV Seriously - Analysis and Interpretation. 3 Credits.
If Shakespeare were alive today, he would be writing for TV. So would Jane Austen. With the advent of cable networks, DVDs, the internet, and live streaming, TV—once considered a “vast wasteland”—has become the most dynamic and creative medium for storytelling, attracting a host of talented writers, directors, and actors. This First-Year Seminar explores the innovative narrative strategies, structures, and character studies that transformed that wasteland into extraordinarily fertile terrain and ushered in a new Golden Age of TV.
AS.001.191. FYS: How to be a Renaissance Person. 3 Credits.
How do we decide what it means to “live well”? Who defines virtue, success, health, power, or goodness? The Italian Renaissance had answers—sometimes practical, sometimes poetic, sometimes strange. This First-Year Seminar explores a large sampling of advice from famed thinkers such as Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci, alongside a book of manners, a cookbook, a manual on sword fighting, magic potions, longevity diets, feminist call-to-arms, and more.Through close reading and discussion, students examine how these historic examples of self-help work: What values do they promote? What fears do they reveal? What kind of person do they imagine we should become? We will consider how Renaissance advice compares to the guidance that surrounds us today.Through visits to museums and workshops on calligraphy, fencing, book-binding, writing letters of appreciation, oratory, and more, students will learn about the Italian Renaissance while also unpacking the persuasive devices that shape advice across time. By studying what authors from the past thought would help us “be better,” students develop critical tools to examine what is at stake whenever someone offers help—or whenever we seek it.
AS.001.204. FYS: French Identities - Race, Gender, Religion, and Sexual Orientation in Contemporary France. 3 Credits.
How should a just society come to terms with persistent inequalities? France, the country of liberty, equality and fraternity, that offered sanctuary from US racism to such figures as James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Miles Davis and legalized same-sex marriages two years before the US did, is now deeply divided. This First-Year Seminar explores the tensions and contradictions between the universalist and color-blind ideals of the French republic and the realities of discrimination in contemporary French society. Topics studied include the status of the concept of race in political discourse; the law forbidding signs of religious belief in the public schools and responses to it; how American initiatives like Black Lives Matter, #metoo and critical gender studies have both sparked French activism and political movements and generated a powerful backlash; and what Americans can learn about how to fight injustice—and how not to—from the French. We will look at a wide variety of texts, including writings by activists, historians, and journalists, along with sociologies of the police and young adult novels, and will listen to popular French music and watch a number of contemporary French films.
AS.001.208. FYS: Imagining War. 3 Credits.
"Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning." (Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, Apocalypse Now). These iconic words, uttered in an iconic film inspired by an iconic novel, invite us to think of the smell of war as a pleasurable experience, indeed, a joy. But what about the mere joy of watching a film, listening to music, viewing a painting or reading a poem about war? In this First-Year Seminar, we will ask ourselves what is the place of war in our cultural imagination? What attracts us to the “heart of darkness” and how and why does popular culture make this violent experience aesthetically pleasurable? We will cover various media, such as films, television shows, visual art, music and literature from various countries in an attempt to answer these questions and others. The seminar eschews a chronological approach organized around major historical wars in favor of a conceptual framework. As we will see, the creative impulse extends far beyond the representation of historical and particular events reaching deep into the realms of memory and trauma, hate and love, heroism and fear, cruelty and empathy. We will discuss the author/ filmmaker/ artist’s perspectives and methods and will engage in questions of ethics and moral choices in relation to the cultural artifacts we examine. Our main focus will be modern representations of war, but we will also discuss earlier periods and cultures for the sake of comparison. For projects, students will have the option to choose their topics, works, media and format (analytical paper, creative writing, a short documentary, creative film or a short podcast).
AS.001.209. FYS: Feminism and Media. 3 Credits.
What is feminism and what does it have to do with media culture? This question will be investigated in reference to such historical movements as the suffrage movement and current movements such as #metoo. We will also highlight the extent to which media technology might intrinsically help feminism, as could be argued with film animation and science fiction writing; or, rather, cases in which technologies hinder feminism, as when the pressures of social media negatively impact the social development of young women, particularly affecting the vulnerability of the female body.
AS.001.263. FYS: The Utopian Imagination. 3 Credits.
How have we imagined utopic societies in the past and how do we do so now? What are the paradoxes and contradictions involved in imagining social alternatives? This First-Year Seminar examines modes of thought and imagination concerned with alternative, often future, worlds. We will consider classic and contemporary works of utopian (and dystopian) literature alongside instances of utopian thinking as manifested in philosophy, socioeconomic and political theory, art, architecture, and historical and current events. Through class discussions and brief writing assignments, collaborative projects, film screenings, and guest visits, we will engage a variety of themes including the relationship between technology and work, social hierarchy, the nature of history, and the character of social imagination. Texts may include works by Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, Thomas More, Samuel Butler, Ernst Bloch, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, Le Corbusier, Marge Piercy, Ursula Le Guin, and W.E.B Du Bois, Samuel Delany, and Margaret Cavendish.
AS.001.268. FYS: What Makes Us Human?. 3 Credits.
In this First-Year Seminar, we explore the long history of humans thinking about what it means to be human. In myth, religion, science, art, literature, and philosophy, humans have never stopped posing the question of how we fit in, or fail to fit in, to the natural world; what our relation is to the cosmos, to gods, to animals, and even to other beings we may not yet have encountered. In our own quest we will read fascinating stories, poems, and philosophical texts; visit museums to view and discuss provocative works of art; and delve into the ramifications of our thinking they impact our relations with machines, with non-human animals, and with each other.
AS.001.292. FYS: The Italian Style - Fashion, Gender and Power. 3 Credits.
How can we “read” historical contexts through fashion? How fashion reveals what a society values, fears, or seeks to control? This three-credit course explores Italian style as a lens to examine how the body has been freed, constricted, and understood across historical moments, art movements, and political transformations. Rather than a chronological history of fashion, this course focuses on clothing and style as critical tools for analyzing power, identity, and cultural change in Italy from the Renaissance to the present. Throughout the semester we will examine how the fashioned body intersects with social forces. Among them: the sumptuary laws of the Renaissance, the reimagined silhouette of 1930s the “new woman” with the whimsical Elsa Schiaparelli and Surrealism, the Futurist Manifestoes, the body under Fascism, the postwar Made in Italy and the "Hollywood effect", to the analysis of iconic Italian fashion houses juxtaposed to feminist theory and gender studies to interrogate how fashion constructs, constrains and reimagines bodies. The seminar will also take place in the museums (BMA,Walters) exploring the collections and the archives in collaboration with the curators, as well as in conversation with visiting experts in the field of museum and fashion studies.
History
AS.100.171. Europe since 1945. 3 Credits.
This class focuses on Europe from the end of World War II until today. We will discuss topics such as the Cold War, the European welfare state, Europe’s volatile relations with the US and the Soviet Union/ Russia, decolonization, 1989 and neoliberalism, racism, European integration and the role of the European Union in international politics. Expect to spend 25% of class time in group work, where we discuss the assigned literature, movies, documentaries, textual and visual primary sources.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.100.233. History of Modern Germany. 3 Credits.
There is more to Germany than beer, BMWs, and Bayern Munich. We explore politics, culture, economics and society to understand Germany and its role within Europe and the world from the 18th century, through imperialism, WWI and WWII, the Cold War to German unification, the ‘Refugee Crisis’, the rise of the AfD, and EU politics today.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.100.497. From Baltimore to Belgrade: 1968 in Global and Local Perspective. 3 Credits.
The sixties were a polarizing decade of unrest, revolutions, and fundamental change across Europe and the US. We will discuss 1968 through the lens of Baltimore and national case studies, and contextualize it within the Cold War and decolonization. We’ll speak with eyewitnesses, work with archivists, high school students, and community partners in the city!
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.100.602. The French Revolution. 3 Credits.
This course will engage the rich historiography of the French Revolution. We will focus on recent scholarship to examine such themes as: the nature of revolution and popular activism; violence & trauma; constitutionalism; citizenship, democracy, and social rights; the revolution after Thermidor and why the republic collapsed.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
History of Art
AS.010.301. Michelangelo: Religion, Sexuality, and the Crisis of Renaissance Art. 3 Credits.
The course will focus on the controversies surrounding the representation of the body in the writings and figurative art of Michelangelo and his contemporaries, the historical circumstances under which the most admired artist in Europe was attacked as a blasphemer and an idolator, and the effect of widespread calls for censorship on his later production. The writings of Michelangelo, Pietro Aretino, Benvenuto Cellini and own writings will be considered with a focus on their staging of an ambivalent and transgressive eroticism.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
Writing Intensive
AS.010.431. Obsessed with the Past: the Art and Architecture of Medieval Rome. 3 Credits.
In antiquity, Rome became the capital of an empire, its growing status reflected in its sophisticated urban planning, its architecture, and the arts. While an abundance of studies explores the revival of this glorious past in the Renaissance, this seminar discusses various ways of the reception of antiquity during the medieval period. We address the practice of using spolia in medieval architecture, the appropriation of ancient pagan buildings for the performance of Christian cult practices, the continuation of making (cult)images and their veneration, the meaning and specific visuality of Latin script (paleography and epigraphy) in later medieval art. We discuss the revival and systematic study of ancient knowledge (f. ex. medicine, astronomy, and the liberal arts), in complex allegorical murals. As we aim to reconstruct the art and architecture of medieval Rome, this course discusses ideas and concepts behind different forms of re-building and picturing the past, as they intersect with the self-referential character of a city that is obsessed with its own history.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.010.451. Script, Character, Scribble: Writing and Pseudo-Writing in Modern and Contemporary Art. 3 Credits.
Almost readable, but not quite: artists in the twentieth and twenty-first century played with script of all kinds, from ancient glyphs and Persian script to Roman typefaces and Korean Hangul. Artists also scribbled in ways that evoke writing without script or meaning. This course takes on the question of meaning-making in art through the form of script—flirting with that tantalizing feeling that we can almost read the work of art through the marks on its surface. We will engage with artists from around the world whose work grapples with knowledge, meaning, and script, and discuss the limits and possibilities of legibility, knowing, and language. In addition to painting and drawing, we will also discuss conceptual art, installation, video, architecture, tapestry, ceramics, graphic novel forms, book arts, and sculpture. We will have opportunities to situate these works within longer histories of script and pseudo-script and image-text relations. Our discussion-driven seminars will be guided by readings in art history and theory. The course carries no expectation that you are multi-lingual or have experience with multiple scripts. Central to our semester will be group trips to see art in person in DC and Baltimore. Assignments include an option for short, focused writing with feedback and opportunities to experiment with genre and to rewrite, or a longer seminar paper, chosen in consultation with the professor.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.010.471. Duchamp Effects: From the Ready-Made to Being Given. 3 Credits.
Painter and provocateur, quitter-of-art and player-of-chess, Marcel Duchamp aka Rrose Sélavy has long been recognized for redefining what counts as a work of art. His most prodigious legacy are the ready-mades of the 1910s, everyday objects – from bottle rack to urinal – that he nominated as art and signed. The influence of this gesture on pop art, conceptual art, minimalism, and happenings has since been called “the Duchamp effect.” But what happens for the history of art when the logic of cause and effect is undone? Duchamp too was interested in this question. His last work, Étant donnés (1946-1966), was made in complete secrecy in the very decades that inaugurated the clichés of his reception. Unveiled at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1969, the year after his death, Étant donnés seems to repudiate all that the ready-mades had come to stand for – and, at the same time, to register the effects of diverse postwar practices on Duchamp’s understanding of art. This seminar takes Étant donnés as point of departure for studying the long and multidirectional history of modernism. Artists under discussion include: Joseph Beuys, Scott Burton, Vaginal Davis, Richard Hamilton, Eva Hesse, Yayoi Kusama, Senga Nengudi, Dieter Roth, Alina Szapocznikow, Hannah Wilke. Readings span Duchamp’s writings and reception, the historiography of the avant-garde and modernism, aesthetics and affect theory, feminist and queer thought. The seminar will include at least one group excursion to visit the Arensberg Collection in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Undergraduates enrolling should be aware that this is an upper-level reading and writing intensive seminar and be prepared to read and discuss upwards of 100-pages per week. There are no exams. Assignments include regular written reflections based on the course readings and short critical essays.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
Writing Intensive
AS.010.472. Pictura/Scriptura: Visual and Literary Culture 1400-1600. 3 Credits.
The seminar explores common ground between literary and art historical scholarship on Early Modern Europe and beyond; it seeks to further conversation between art historical and literary critical methodologies as well as media theory, and is designed to appeal to students of literature and of art history. Seeking to move beyond the mid-20th century discourses of iconology, it will re-consider the potential of Aby Warburg’s psychological and anthropological approach to the trans-cultural and trans-historical migration of symbols, and its implications for a “global Renaissance.” We will focus on antiquarian scholarship with its considerations of visual and material evidence, ekphrasis and the picturing functions of language, inscription and the legibility of images, the printed book as sylloge and “collection,” the dynamic interrelation of writing and drawing, Renaissance controversies about theater and epic and their implication in debates about art. In addition to Warburg and more recent writing on Warburg and the Renaissance, readings will be drawn from an array of interdisciplinary inquiry in Classics, Medieval and East Asian fields.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.010.483. Three Artists (Three Sick Women): Art, Illness, Death. 3 Credits.
What happens when the artist becomes sick? How does illness become the subject of artistic practice? And what does art concerned with sickness tell us about the entanglement of gender and medicine in contemporary life?This course draws inspiration from Anne Wagner’s book, Three Artists, Three Women (1996), in which she explores an expectation that undergirds modernist art history: that the work of artists who are also women must reveal their femininity. We take up the challenge to this normative expectation with the work of three artists (who happened also to be three sick women) active in the post Second World War period. A German-Jewish immigrant to the US, Eva Hesse is known today for the fragile latex sculptures she made before dying from a brain tumor. Alina Szapocznikow, a Polish concentration camp survivor, employed her sculptural practice of body casting to index the symptoms and effects of her metastatic breast cancer. Hannah Wilke, an American feminist performance artist, painstakingly documented her treatments for terminal lymphoma. These artists’ careful explorations of their bodies and their illnesses trouble assumptions about femininity and feminism in the late twentieth century. They also afford an introduction to post-minimalism in the US, nouveau réalisme is Europe, and international conceptual and performance art. We constellate their interconnected work with that of others whose practices are infused in diverse ways by illness and its permeable definition: Indira Allegra, Cassils, Bob Flanagan, Yayoi Kusama, Wangechi Mutu, David Wojnarowicz, Florentina Holzinger.Readings in art history will be complemented with historical and contemporary approaches in feminist theory and critical disability studies, as well as a selection of literary and hybrid-form writings on art, illness, and death, including: Ingeborg Bachmann, Johanna Hedva, Audre Lorde, Paul Preciado, Gillian Rose.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have already taken, or are currently enrolled in AS.010.683, are not eligible to take AS.010.483
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
AS.010.669. Duchamp Effects: From the Ready-Made to Being Given. 3 Credits.
Painter and provocateur, quitter-of-art and player-of-chess, Marcel Duchamp aka Rrose Sélavy has long been recognized for redefining what counts as a work of art. His most prodigious legacy are the ready-mades of the 1910s, everyday objects – from bottle rack to urinal – that he nominated as art and signed. The influence of this gesture on pop art, conceptual art, minimalism, and happenings has since been called “the Duchamp effect.” But what happens for the history of art when the logic of cause and effect is undone? Duchamp too was interested in this question. His last work, Étant donnés (1946-1966), was made in complete secrecy in the very decades that inaugurated the clichés of his reception. Unveiled at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1969, the year after his death, Étant donnés seems to repudiate all that the ready-mades had come to stand for – and, at the same time, to register the effects of diverse postwar practices on Duchamp’s understanding of art. This seminar takes Étant donnés as point of departure for studying the long and multidirectional history of modernism. Artists under discussion include: Joseph Beuys, Scott Burton, Vaginal Davis, Richard Hamilton, Eva Hesse, Yayoi Kusama, Senga Nengudi, Dieter Roth, Alina Szapocznikow, Hannah Wilke. Readings span Duchamp’s writings and reception, the historiography of the avant-garde and modernism, aesthetics and affect theory, feminist and queer thought. The seminar will include at least one group excursion to visit the Arensberg Collection in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
AS.010.672. Pictura/Scriptura: Visual and Literary Culture 1400-1600. 3 Credits.
The seminar explores common ground between literary and art historical scholarship on Early Modern Europe and beyond; it seeks to further conversation between art historical and literary critical methodologies as well as media theory, and is designed to appeal to students of literature and of art history. Seeking to move beyond the mid-20th century discourses of iconology, it will re-consider the potential of Aby Warburg’s psychological and anthropological approach to the trans-cultural and trans-historical migration of symbols, and its implications for a “global Renaissance.” We will focus on antiquarian scholarship with its considerations of visual and material evidence, ekphrasis and the picturing functions of language, inscription and the legibility of images, the printed book as sylloge and “collection,” the dynamic interrelation of writing and drawing, Renaissance controversies about theater and epic and their implication in debates about art. In addition to Warburg and more recent writing on Warburg and the Renaissance, readings will be drawn from an array of interdisciplinary inquiry in Classics, Medieval and East Asian fields.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Interdepartmental
AS.360.207. Great Books and Conversations. 3 Credits.
Great Books and Conversations” engages students across all disciplines in critical reading of and writing on foundational texts of the Western tradition (and beyond), from Homer’s The Odyssey to Dante’s Inferno, Machiavelli’s The Prince, Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, Virginia Wolf’s A Room of One’s Own, and others. The course encompasses lectures by JHU professors and guest speakers, group discussions, and an introduction to the library’s exceptional collection of rare books. Guided by a team of Humanities professors from different departments, students will learn how to read closely, analyze, and converse on great literature. This course fulfills three foundational abilities: (1) Writing and Communication; (3) Culture and Aesthetics; and (5) Ethics and Foundations.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.360.304. Introduction to Computational Humanities. 3 Credits.
This course introduces students and researchers from humanities disciplines to ideas and practices from the computational sciences. The course aims to provide the understanding needed for self-sufficient exploration and well-informed criticism of how computational methods relate to traditional scholarship. The semester begins with a history of computational research, then covers three major aspects of computational inquiry for the humanities: 1) representing primary sources, domains, and scholarly knowledge, 2) interacting with such representations via basic computer programming, and 3) introducing data-driven machine learning ("AI") to complement existing humanistic practices. Lectures and labs will also cover specific methods that immediately assist the scholar with practical tasks, such as regular expressions for pattern-based information retrieval and topic modeling for unsupervised primary source exploration. No prior experience with computation or programming is needed, and the course is particularly suited for advanced undergraduate and graduate students pursuing applied research in the humanities.
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2)
AS.360.305. Introduction to Computational Methods for the Humanities. 3 Credits.
This course introduces basic computational techniques in the context of empirical humanistic scholarship. Topics covered include the command-line, basic Python programming, and experimental design. While illustrative examples are drawn from humanistic domains, the primary focus is on methods: those with specific domains in mind should be aware that such applied research is welcome and exciting, but will largely be their responsibility beyond the confines of the course. Students will come away with tangible understanding of how to cast simple humanistic questions as empirical hypotheses, ground and test these hypotheses computationally, and justify the choices made while doing so. No previous programming experience is required.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Quantitative and Mathematical Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.360.306. Computational Intelligence for the Humanities. 3 Credits.
This course introduces substantial machine learning methods of particular relevance to humanistic scholarship. Areas covered include standard models for classification, regression, and topic modeling, before turning to the array of open-source pretrained deep neural models, and the common mechanisms for employing them. Students are expected to have a level of programming experience equivalent to that gained from AS.360.304, Gateway Computing, AS.250.205, or Harvard’s CS50 for Python. Students will come away with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different machine learning models, the ability to discuss them in relation to human intelligence and to make informed decisions of when and how to employ them, and an array of related technical knowledge.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Quantitative and Mathematical Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.360.605. Introduction to Computational Methods for the Humanities. 3 Credits.
This course introduces basic computational techniques in the context of empirical humanistic scholarship. Topics covered include the command-line, basic Python programming, and experimental design. While illustrative examples are drawn from humanistic domains, the primary focus is on methods: those with specific domains in mind should be aware that such applied research is welcome and exciting, but will largely be their responsibility beyond the confines of the course. Students will come away with tangible understanding of how to cast simple humanistic questions as empirical hypotheses, ground and test these hypotheses computationally, and justify the choices made while doing so. No previous programming experience is required.
AS.360.606. Computational Intelligence for the Humanities. 3 Credits.
This course introduces substantial machine learning methods of particular relevance to humanistic scholarship. Areas covered include standard models for classification, regression, and topic modeling, before turning to the array of open-source pretrained deep neural models, and the common mechanisms for employing them. Students are expected to have a level of programming experience equivalent to that gained from AS.360.304, Gateway Computing, AS.250.205, or Harvard’s CS50 for Python. Students will come away with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different machine learning models, the ability to discuss them in relation to human intelligence and to make informed decisions of when and how to employ them, and an array of related technical knowledge.
Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies
AS.361.100. Introduction to Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies. 3 Credits.
An interdisciplinary introduction to the ways of life of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx peoples, their origins, historical legacies, and current cultural expressions. This course assumes no prior knowledge and incorporates the insights of several disciplines including anthropology, history, political science, economics, cultural studies, literary criticism, and ethnomusicology. The course seeks to comprehend the region from multiple perspectives and to provide a broad conceptual overview.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken AS.361.130 are not eligible to take AS.361.100.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Music
AS.376.405. Opera Fever in the Nineteenth Century. 3 Credits.
It is a common idea that, at its best, Italian opera can induce all manner of sensations in us and even remind us of what it means to be human. It can be hard, however, to articulate what enables it to do so. In this course we consider a cluster of operas by Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Puccini for which there was incredible demand in the 1800s and examine the concrete musical and textual features that allowed them to animate their characters and—in theory—structure the sentiments of their audiences. With attention to the realities of Italians in the 1800s we ask what it felt like to consume these works—in the street, at home or at the opera—and for whom. What lessons did audiences absorb, and why? For whom did these works resonate and whom did these exclude? While conceived with Italian audiences in mind, these operas soon became some of the foremost artworks to circulate around the world in the 1800s, from Buenos Aires to Calcutta to Paris. Thus, with these same questions in focus, across the second half of the course we start to articulate how, via this circulation, Italian opera contributed to what has been termed the “transformation of the world” in the nineteenth-century. No language or music prerequisites.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.376.428. Mozart Operas. 3 Credits.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his first opera in 1767 at the age of 11. By the time of his death at age 35, he had written 22 full-length operas. Many of these operas are still performed today in opera houses around the world. In this course, we will discuss the enduring popularity of these works. We will discover how these operas were created, delving into the many important collaborations Mozart had with singers, librettists, impresarios, and patrons. We will analyze the words and music of the operas and how they combine to create three-dimensional characters for which his operas are known, such as the melancholy but determined Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, or the cowardly but loyal Papageno in The Magic Flute. Cultural norms have shifted dramatically between Mozart’s time and ours, and we will examine how Mozart’s operas have been received from their premieres through to today. We will think about how the operas have been translated, adapted, and circulated to different audiences in different eras and locations. Finally, we will reflect on our position as modern audience members, watching recent productions of the operas which reinterpret the works in alternative settings or times and studying the ways in which opera companies promote Mozart’s works.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
Near Eastern Studies
AS.134.623. Pentateuch. 3 Credits.
This course surveys the linguistic and literary structure of the Pentateuch. A second and equally important focus will be the history of scholarship and its broader impact on the study of the history and religion of ancient Israel and Judah. In addition to seminar times, students are expected to complete online discussions, supplemental readings and assignments, and attend several guest lecture events.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Philosophy
AS.150.487. Philosophies of History. 3 Credits.
Is there a purpose to history? Under what descriptions does history make sense? This course will examine the idea of philosophy of history as it arose in classic German philosophy (esp. Kant and Hegel) and was transformed by radical thinkers in reaction to that original program (Marx, Nietzsche). The last part of the course will examine twentieth century philosophies of history, including those of Spengler, Toynbee, Koselleck, and Fukuyama.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.150.687. Philosophies of History. 3 Credits.
Is there a purpose to history? Under what descriptions does history make sense? This course will examine the idea of philosophy of history as it arose in classic German philosophy (esp. Kant and Hegel) and was transformed by radical thinkers in reaction to that original program (Marx, Nietzsche). The last part of the course will examine twentieth century philosophies of history, including those of Spengler, Toynbee, Koselleck, and Fukuyama.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Program in Museums and Society
AS.389.155. The History of "Fake News" from The Flood to The Apocalypse. 3 Credits.
A sweeping historical engagement with fakes, lies, and forgeries from the ancient world to the digital age, explored through JHU’s Bibliotheca Fictiva collection of rare books and manuscripts—the largest research collection on this subject in the world. Topics include ancient papyri, biblical apocrypha, medieval manuscript forgeries, archaeological and textual forgeries of the Renaissance, false travelogues of the Age of Exploration, pecuniary forgery in the 19th century, art forgery, and the advent of “fake news” in the digital era.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
AS.389.325. Women of the Book: Female Miracle Workers, Mystics, and Material Culture, 1450-1800. 3 Credits.
From psycho-spiritual autobiographers to mystical bi-locating nuns, convent crèche-keepers to choristers of sacred music, from rock-star-status mystics to the hidden careers of women printers, engravers, and miracle-makers, this course will explore the remarkable intellectual, cultural, and imaginative contributions of women who found refuge, agency, and power within alternative lives.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality
AS.363.341. Making Modern Gender. 3 Credits.
Gender as we know it is not timeless. Today, gender roles and the assumption that there are only two genders are contested and debated. With the binary gender system thus perhaps nearing its end, we might wonder if it had a beginning. In fact, the idea that there are two sexes and that they not only assume different roles in society but also exhibit different character traits, has emerged historically around 1800. Early German Romanticism played a seminal role in the making of modern gender and modern sexuality. For the first time, woman was considered not a lesser version of man, but a different being with a value of her own. The idea of gender complementation emerged, and this idea, in turn, imposed heterosexuality more forcefully than ever. In this course, we will trace the history of anatomy and explore the role of literature and the other arts in the making and unmaking of gender.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Theatre Arts & Studies
AS.225.410. Theater and Philosophy. 3 Credits.
This course focuses on a powerful current in theater and thought from ancient works to the modern day: plays that self-consciously use the means of theater, such as a play-within-the-play, to represent the world. This type of play, along with its close relative, the Dream Play, traces its origin more to Plato and his motif of the Theatrum Mundi (the theater of the world/the world as theater) than to Aristotelian mimesis (the imitation of reality), and poses an alternative to the realist tradition. An ancient, alternate modality, this non-realistic line is also a modern one, recurring throughout history. By the 20th century, this “secret smuggler’s path” becomes a dominant language for theater itself, posing an alternate dialectics, an alternate metaphysics, an alternate hermeneutics for our ability to understand reality as well as illusion. This course—which lies at the intersection of both disciplines—will be cross listed between Theatre Arts and Philosophy. We will read plays from across histories as well as philosophical and theoretical texts, unearthing surprising correspondences in the two overlapping (Shakespeare would say "undistinguishable") fields.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)