| Course | Title | Instructor | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| COM LIT 10 | CITIES & CINEMA | ABBAS, A. | Walter Benjamin once described the city dweller as ‘a kaleidoscope equipped with consciousness’, reflecting the many facets of the city like a broken mirror--or like a film. More and more, the city exists not just as a physical, political, and economic entity that can be mapped, but also as a cluster of images, a series of discourses, a puzzling experience of space, time, and affect. Each of the cities that this course examines has a name—Hong Kong, Taipei, Los Angeles, or Seoul; but each is also a kind of jig-saw puzzle of the mind, made up of pieces that do not seem to fit together. In this sense, all these cities are what Calvino in his great novel calls ‘Invisible Cities’. Through a discussion of cinema, this course will consider the city as a film that challenges our ability to read it. The syllabus will include films like ‘Made in Hong Kong’, ‘Chinatown’, ‘Lust Caution’, ‘Matrix’, and ‘Parasite’. |
| COM LIT 60B | READING WITH THEORY | TERADA, R. | Theory—systematic inquiry into why things are the way they are, building new models of how they are and can be—is one of the main ways to register the injustice and chaos of civil society. Ideally, in theory every value is open to question, including the “true” and the “good.” Therefore, "theory"--itself a contested value--repeatedly links with activism and the generational creation of futures. This course tries to give some sense of different threads and locations of theory, relationships between kinds of theory and earlier and later theorists, and how they bear on contemporary questions of racial, gendered, and sexual violence. Often contemporary issues are treated directly in the texts, but whenever they’re not we will bring them in. We will also watch films for their own theorizing and in order to help work through ideas the class discusses. Student needs and desires are the most important always: the class can change by means of the people in it! Requirements: participation, messageboard writing, and a takehome open book final exam. |
| COM LIT 102W | ORIENTALIST VISIONS | MOR, L. | How did the West envision the Arab East and construct its own image in the process? How was the colonization of the Arab world facilitated by vision, both in the sense of ×´a way of seeing×´ and in the sense of ×´a plan for the future×´? And how do such Orientalist visions affect our world today? The term “Orientalism” was first used by the Palestinian scholar Edward Said to describe the particular ways in which Europe and the US view the Arab world, reduce it to a monolithic image, and use this image to rationalize invasion and expropriation. We will begin this course by closely reading some of Said’s writing, as well as his critics and interlocutors, in order to better understand what Orientalism is, how it affects Western views of Arabs and Islam, and how it is related to such contemporary phenomena as the “war on terror” and cultural appropriation. We will then turn to exploring the role of vision in colonial projects by examining three particular examples: Egypt, Algeria and Palestine. We will read primary sources that document Orientalist visions for these lands, such as memoirs and personal letters. We will also engage with visual sources—photographs, art works, video games, television and film—in order to better comprehend the function of visuality in Orientalism and the ways in which Arab subjects respond to their Orientalization. This seminar will emphasize critical thinking, reading and writing skills. Through short writing assignments and in-class workshops, students will gradually develop their own independent writing projects. |
| COM LIT 102W | SCIENCE FICTION | SCHWAB, G. | Focusing on possible futures of planetary life, science fiction often foregrounds major threats to the survival of the human species. Our course deals with science fiction texts and videos that envision future scenarios of dangers humans already face today: climate change, nuclear destruction, and the pandemic age. Students will be introduced to major science fiction writers, including African-American and Indigenous. Drawing on texts from 1919 to the present, we will discuss a wide range of issues such as violence, ethics, ecology, transspecies relationships, technologies of communication and governance, genetic engineering, AI, time travel and parallel worlds. We will emphasize the analysis of stylistic, rhetorical and artistic devices as well as technologies of positioning readers and viewers. Texts (subject to revisions) E. M. Forster, “The Machine Stops” (short story; 1919) W. E. Du Bois, “The Comet” (short story; 1920) Samuel Delaney, “Corona” (short story; 1967) Samuel Beckett, The Lost Ones (short piece; 1970/71) Ursula LeGuin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (short story; 1973) Octavia Butler, Dawn (novel; 1987) Gregory Benford, “Matter’s End” (short story; 1994) Andrea Hairston, Mindscape (Novel, 2006) Cherie Dimaline, The Marrow Thieves (Novel, 2017) Videos Unmakable Love (Video on Beckett’s The Lost Ones) Prototype \Simulation Rakka |
| COM LIT 107 | GLOBALIZATION | AHMAD, A. | The term ‘globalization’ has become popular only over the past three decades or so, since about 1990. In more recent years, ‘globalization’ had become one of the dominant terms to explain our contemporary situation, in the social sciences as much as in studies of culture, literature, film, media, ecology, the arts and so on. What was new in the world that accounts for this popularization of this concept? For the most part, ‘globalization’ itself is represented as something relatively very recent. In some of these analyses, globalization is associated primarily with relatively new kinds of technologies of communication: the world-wide web, the IPhone, e-based commerce with a global reach, and new kinds of social media such as Facebook, Twitter etc. Others would emphasize the economic side: rise of the multinational corporation, globally integrated finance capital, very complex supply chains for consumer goods as well as components of the most sophisticated technological devices across the globe, and so on. It is also true, though, that the United States has been the world’s most globalized country in its very formation, with settlers and slaves arriving in the earliest phase, followed by migrants and refugees from all corners of the world over centuries, mostly at the expense of the original indigenous population. ‘Globalization’ can then be seen not as a phenomenon of just recent origin but as something much older that begins with the beginning of Europe’s world-wide colonial expansion several centuries ago. The course will be structured along these two emphases: (1) the historical processes that account for long-term but very unequal social, cultural and economic integration of the world across continents; and (2) the historical changes unfolding over the past few decades which are now seen as the main features of contemporary globalization. In other words, globalization is seen not as a static contemporary condition but a dynamic process involving continuous change. |
| COM LIT 150 | CALIFORNIA LIT | DIMENDBERG, E. | Whatever the eventual verdict on the ongoing experiment that is California, few can deny the range and fecundity of its literary traditions which span from Native American inhabitants and European explorers and missionaries to contemporary immigrants. This class will consider a wide range of California writing in the modes of folklore, the short story, novel, diary, literary essay, natural history, poetry, and cultural criticism. It will cover by texts by Spanish missionaries and conquerors, Native Americans, Sarah Royce, Helen Hunt Jackson, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Frank Norris, Robinson Jeffers, Joan Didion, Blaise Cendrars, Dashiell Hammett, Chester Himes, Raymond Chandler, M.F.K. Fischer, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Thomas Pynchon, Amy Tan, John Steinbeck, Clifford Odets, Louis Adamic, Nathanel West, Reyner Banham, Tom Wolfe, John Muir, Carey McWilliams, and Vikram Seth. Our goal will be to understand the interactions of culture and nature and the formations of community in a place defined by the myths of the Gold Rush, abundant natural resources, sunshine, noir, and boundless opportunity. Course assignments include take-home midterm and final research paper. Instructor: Edward Dimendberg |
| COM LIT 210 | LAW, RACE, COLONIAL | MOR, L. | What is the function of legal procedures and institutions in colonization and in its construction of racial difference? What role does the rhetoric of the rule-of-law play in imperial projects? Does the law merely restrict and separate out certain populations or is it productive in constituting racial and ethnic identities and subject positions? This course focuses on the specific and diverse ways in which the juridical constructs race in various colonial and settler colonial contexts. We will therefore also concern ourselves with the question of comparison itself: how do we think different cases of juridical colonization together without equating their mechanism or importing epistemological paradigms from one site to another? By exploring these and related questions, this course will offer an opportunity for theoretical examinations of such concepts as property, human rights, trans/inter-nationalism, violence, agency and sovereignty. Readings may include selections from Patrick Wolfe’s Settler Colonialism, Samera Esmeir’s Juridical Humanity, Gary Fields’ Enclosures, Brenna Bhandar's Colonial Lives of Property, Jasbir Puar’s The Right to Maim, Saidiyya Hartman’s Scenes of Subjection, Talal Asad’s Formations of the Secular, and Nasser Hussein “Jurisprudence of Emergency” and ”Hyperlegality.” |
| COM LIT 210 | THE QUANTUM IMAGE? BARAD, BENJAMIN, DELEUZE, FLUSSER | ABBAS, A. | CL210: The Quantum Image? Barad, Benjamin, Deleuze, Flusser The world according to quantum mechanics seems perversely weird and counter-intuitive. A particle can be in two places or positions at the same time, a phenomenon called superposition. A cat can be both alive and dead until someone observes it: observation determines, not just informs us, about what happens. Light behaves both like a particle and a wave, while ‘entanglement’ shows that two particles can be interconnected in such a way that measuring the state of one would determine the state of the other, no matter how far apart they may be. What this seminar calls the quantum image alludes to how the strange world that quantum mechanics uncovers through mathematics has parallels with the world that modern art and literature discern through re-thinking the image. Benjamin suggested that the best way of experiencing the world of modern physics would be to read Kafka. In this course, Barad’s important work will provide intellectual context, which will be followed by seminars on Benjamin’s ‘dialectical image’, Deleuze’s ‘time image’, and Flusser’s ‘technical image’. Specifically, we will discuss Benjamin on Kafka, on storytelling, and on history as the most problematic form of storytelling, only graspable in an image that flashes up at a moment of danger. Deleuze like Benjamin sees history as volatile and indeterminate. The ‘time image’ interrupts time-as-chronology, and studies ‘Brownian movement’, aberrant movement, and ‘the powers of the false’ in new forms of movie-making. Flusser’s seminal work tracks the effects of changes in media on historical life. His timely analysis of the ‘technical image’ demonstrates, among other things, the unbearable lightness of social media. There are no pre-requisites for this course. |
| COM LIT 210 | QUEER INDIGENOUS ST | COX, A. | In the lands presently known as the Americas, European settlers pathologized and criminalized non-heteronormative Native peoples and practices and imposed heterosexual norms by institutionalizing patriarchal systems of domination, discipline, and punishment. Non-Native historians and cultural anthropologists have recorded the existence of non-binary gender/sex systems in hundreds of tribes throughout Native North America. However, these accounts often misrepresent Native worldviews and practices, and non-Native LGBTIQ-identified people have adopted these Eurocentric formulations of Native queerness, effectively appropriating Indigenous cultures to legitimate their own political claims. In 1990, an organization of LGBTIQ-identified Native American and Indigenous people coined the term Two-Spirit as an umbrella term to name themselves as Indigenous people who represent myriad, diverse, tribally specific, traditional, non-binary Indigenous social roles. Whereas predominately white scholars have developed mainstream gender and sexuality studies in response to movements of LGBTIQ-identified people seeking civil rights and protections from the settler-colonial US government, Two-Spirit scholars and artists demonstrate the intersectional nature of their efforts to decolonize sexuality and gender as a necessary component of larger efforts to decolonize sovereign Native nations. This course examines art, criticism, and theory at the intersection of queer and Indigenous studies. Students will consider thematic and transnational contexts to explore multiple intersections of gender, race, class, sexuality, Indigeneity, and settler colonialism. Course texts focus on creative and critical works by Indigenous people who imagine or create alternatives to enduring forms of colonial violence and may include: documentary and dramatic films; works by Indigenous feminist theorists like Paula Gunn Allen, Beth Brant, and Dian Million; critical works in the developing field of queer Indigenous studies by Native and non-Native authors like Qwo-Li Driskill, Daniel Heath Justice, Mark Rifkin, Scott Morgensen, and Lisa Tatonetti; poetry by “urban Indians” like Billy-Ray Belcourt, Chrystos, Joshua Whitehead, Smokii Sumac, and Tommy Pico; novels by Tomson Highway, Carole LaFavor, Greg Sarris, and Craig Womack; multiple genre works and collections by Driskill, Deborah Miranda, Cherríe Moraga, and Gloria Anzaldúa. Assignments will include short weekly response papers to stimulate seminar discussion and a final research paper. |
| COM LIT 210 | EXPERIMENTAL ETHNO2 | SCHWAB, G. | In this course we will work on developing an “ecology of mind” (Bateson) based on multispecies imaginary ethnographies and transspecies relationalities. We will open with a discussion of relevant theoretical concepts, including “biocultural creatures” (Samantha Frost), “bioinsecurities” (Neel Ahuja), “animacies” (Mel Chen), “chemical infrastructures” (Michelle Murphy), “the molecular turn in the life sciences” (Nikolas Rose), and “the agency of trees and insects” (Hugh Raffles and Eduardo Kohn). Our discussion will be grounded in close readings of literary texts that span across a wide range of transspecies imaginaries such as the viral imaginary, the insect imaginary, and the imaginaries of transspecies futures. We will end with a reading of Daniel Wilson’s Robocalypse, linking it to the discussion in robotics about robo sapiens as a new species. Theory: Samantha Frost, Biocultural Creatures (Chapter “Oxygen” and Conclusion) Neel Ahuja, Bioinsecurities (Intro and Epilogue) Mel Chen, Animacies (Intro) Michelle Murphy, “Chemical Infrastructures” (essay) Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think (“Soul Blindness” and “Trans-Species Pidgins) Hugh Raffles, Insectopedia(“Chernobyl”) John Vidal, “The Tip of the Iceberg” (essay) Peter Menzel and Faith D”Aluisio, Robo Sapiens (Introduction, “Electric Dreams” and “Robo sapiens”) Literature: Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis Clarice Lispector, Passion According to G. H. Richard Powers, The Overstory Octavia Butler, Dawn Daniel Wilson, Robocalypse Tentative Syllabus (subject to revision) 1. General Intro 2. Theory Intro (drawing on the texts listed above) 3. The Viral Imaginary: Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain (with John Vidal) 4. The Insect Imaginary: Kafka, Metamorphosis (with Roberto Fabelo’s sculptures and Hugh Raffles) 5. The Insect Imaginary II: Lispector, Passion According to G. H. 6. Trees: Richard Powers, The Overstory (With Maria Whiteman’s environmental art and Eduardo Kohn) 7. Maria Whiteman, Guest Speaker, Zoom Presentation of her work 8. Transspecies Futures: Octavia Butler, Dawn (With Haraway) 9. Robo Sapiens: Daniel Wilson, Robocalypse (with Menzel/D’Aluisio) 10.Wrap-Up Session |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | KATRAK, K. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | FARBMAN, H. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | SCHWAB, G. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | TERADA, R. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | THIONG'O, N. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | RAHIMIEH, N. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | ABBAS, M. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | RAHIMIEH, N. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | NEWMAN, J. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | MOR, L. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | JOHNSON, A. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | GOLDBERG, D. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | COX, A. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | AMIRAN, E. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | AHMAD, A. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | JARRATT, S. | |
| COM LIT 290 | READING&CONFERENCE | WILLOUGHBY-HER, T. |