COM LIT Course Descriptions for 2004-2005

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Fall Course Descriptions
CourseTitleInstructorDescription
COM LIT 40ADEVELOPMENT OF DRAMAREYNOLDS, B.The 40 series is a survey of dramatic literature from the Greeks to the present day. While we cannot possibly include all the great works within the time constraints of the quarter, we will look at pieces which are representative of the major styles, authors, genres, and movements within the theatre. Our investigations will focus on literary construction, socio/historical contexts, and performance. Students will be provided various means with which to access and demonstrate mastery of the target material i.e. group presentations, activities, discussions, debates, written assignments, quizzes, and traditional lectures.
COM LIT 50ACARRIBEAN LITERATURECULBERT, J.B.
COM LIT 102LITERATURE OF SEDUCTIONAL-KASSIM, D.L.
COM LIT 103ASIAN AMERICAN & POPULAR CULTUREMIMURA, G.Do Asian Americans have a stake in popular culture? Why and how? Asian Americans’ relationship to popular culture is complicated, for historically dominant mass and consumer cultures have been powerful sources of pernicious, enduring racist stereotypes and myths. However, particularly since the 1960s, Asian Americans have also been the producers of distinct and exciting popular cultures that challenge racism, create new forms of leisure, assert new practices of individuality and collectivity, and refashion social norms and values. We will examine these issues and relationships in several areas: consumer cultures and subcultures; cyberspace and public space; popular music; indy comics and other print media. Course grading: attendance and participation 20%, midterm exam 40%, final exam 40%.
COM LIT 103RENAISSANCE EPICCHIAMPI, J.T.
COM LIT 103LITERATURE & DECADENCEBURT, E.S.Discussion of the 19th century movement of Decadence, in the works of representative authors from the traditions of Europe and the Americas. We will be interested in the discourse of degeneration as it is translated from medical/criminological discourse into literature and the arts. Topics to be discussed include the notion of history and narrative implied by the decadent text; the implications of literary stagings of sickness and the cure and of perversions like masochism and fetishism. Authors include: Nordau, D\'Annunzio, Sacher-Masoch, Poe, Baudelaire, Gautier, Rider Haggard, Rachilde, Huysmans, Wilde, Valle Inclan, Dario.
COM LIT 104JAPANESE CINEMAHALL, J.M.This course will examine Japanese cinema at its extremes. Mainstream models of studio production will be compared with independent, New Wave, documentary, soft porn, and experimental film. The course serves as a broad-ranging survey of Japanese directors--including Kinugaasa, Ozu, Masumura, Oshima, Miike, and Kawase--both popular and fairly unknown, as well as the different modatities of film-making across twentieth-century Japan. The materials will be examined in historical, social, aesthetic, and political contexts.
COM LIT 104HOLOCAUST/LITERATURE/FILMEVERS, K.Since the end of World War II, historians, social scientists, and psychologists have tried to find causes, reasons and explanations for the Holocaust, but these accounts cannot fully satisfy our quest for understanding. Can literature, art, and film illuminate those dimensions left unanswered by historical and psychological approaches? What exactly are the problems involved in representing the Holocaust? This course presents an overview of representations of the Shoah by historians, theorists, writers, and artists. Examining films, reading survivors\' testimonies, fictional accounts, theoretical and historical reflections , and comics, we address the following questions: How can a catastrophe like this mass murder of the European Jewry be represented? How can words and images express Auschwitz? Can this genocide be represented at all? Taught in English. German majors consult instructor for major credit. Same as CompLit 104B and Film & Media Studies 114.
COM LIT 200AHIST&THEORY COM LITAL-KASSIM, D.L.
COM LIT 200DRHET&PUBLIC DISCLOSJARRATT, S.C.
COM LIT 210BENJAMIN & LITGELLEY, A.
COM LIT 210SEDUCT,FANTSY&TRANSHALL, J.M.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHROWE, J.C.