AMST 13186 - 01
Understanding News
Professor Robert Schmuhl

Contemporary communications are principal sources for what we know and think about current affairs in America and abroad. Using non-fictional and fictional texts, this University Seminar, "Understanding News," will introduce the media technologies and messages that make up our information environment. Assignments will ask students to examine and evaluate different types of journalism and to render conclusions about news coverage and consequence. Some sessions will involve the participation of working journalists. The seminar will be conducted by the director of the John W. Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics & Democracy at Notre Dame.

ENGL 13186 - 01
The Death and Return of God in Radical Poetry
Professor Romana Huk

This course will introduce students to several of the key upheavals in twentieth-century thought that rocked spiritually-inclined poets, leaving them without easy paths back to devotional art. We will be particularly focused on those British, Irish and American poets whose cutting-edge, radical ideas about themselves and culture would shake apart the very syntax of their medium -- language -- and cause them to write in forms that seemed very strange and even disturbing to unaccustomed eyes. At the crux of our discussions will be the fate of the idea of God in the works of "postmodern" poets whose secular political projects and views of language -- "the word" -- would conflict at the deepest levels with their desire for belief in divinity; we will focus closely on the work of small-press writers like Brian Coffey (Ireland), John Riley and Wendy Mulford (U.K.), Fanny Howe (U.S.) and several others who have recently emerged, with the help of 21st-century hind-sight, as part of an important group of poet-thinkers engaged in this crucial project of "reconstructing God." The course will begin with gentle introductions to the problems of reading twentieth-century literary philosophy as well as to the problems of reading poetry as a literary genre.

ENGL 13186 - 02
Ways of Reading: An Introduction to the Study of Literature
Professor Chris Vanden Bossche

To begin with, an author who has something to say puts pen to paper (or, nowadays, fingers to keyboard). Later on, readers seek to comprehend the meanings of the words the author has strung together to make the literary text. What happens in between? How do the author's meanings get conveyed to readers? What can go wrong in the process? Authors assume that readers will be able to make sense of their writing because authors and readers share a knowledge of literary forms and of the world to which the text refers. This course will be divided into four sections, each focusing on one aspect of this process. First, we will explore the ways in which we understand texts as expressions of the emotions, meanings, or ideas of their authors. Second, we will investigate the way figurative language, generic conventions such as the "happy ending," and other conventions make up a "grammar" used to write and read literature. Third, we will look at the relationships between the text and the world to which it refers. Finally, we will explore how readers make sense of literary texts, especially the role played in this process by readers' knowledge of authors, literary "grammar," and the world. We will think about these questions and processes by studying a range of literary works, including Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, James Joyce, Dubliners, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, and Athol Fugard "Master Harold and the Boys." Details about the organization of the course, specific readings, and assignments will be available at http://www.nd.edu/~cvandenb/13186.html

ENGL 13186 - 03
Mystery Fiction
Professor Margaret Doody

The purpose of this course will be to examine the tradition of creating stories of mystery, particularly stories involving murder, in different periods. What we know as the “detective story” is first fully developed in the 19th century, but it has a long history, going back at least to the ancient Greeks. Although mystery stories have been classified as light reading, their subject matter has been closely related to central pursuits in literature and culture.

We will be starting with the dramatic story of Sophocles’ Oedipus, pursuing mystery and murder through many windings, through legal cases, revenge tragedies, gothic fiction and philosophical tale, into the horrifying world of Poe and the dark underground of Dickens’s unfinished Edwin Drood. Dealing with the master sleuth Sherlock Holmes we emerge into the twentieth century, to encounter the full formation of the “detective story” as a genre, and the works of authors such as Hammett and Christie, as well as films that take up the task of telling stories of murder, mystery and horror. Why do we like to read about murder? Does such fiction reassure us in displaying the triumph of intellect – or does it unsettle us because it asks whom we can trust? Why do we like a fiction about something hidden? Do mystery stories offer cosy reassurances about the past, or ways of exploring an unknown future? Such questions should occupy us during the semester, even though, unlike the heroic detective, we may not arrive at a full solution.

Objectives: We should learn to think in an analytical way about the genres in which mystery figures, bringing our cultural understanding and literary knowledge to bear upon these stories and the ways in which they are presented.

This course is a writing course, and every student should be able to improve in writing skills. Discussions and class reports should also enhance general communication skills.

Assignments: Four essays (two with revision), electronic journal entries (at last three), and one team report (on a mystery film) .

ENGL 13186 - 04
20th Century American Fiction
Professor Jacqueline Brogan

In this course we will read a number of works, by both women and men, which may be accurately described as feminist fiction. In so doing, we will raise issues about the relation of aesthetics to politics, about the process of canonization, and about aesthetic integrity. Ultimately, we will also be examining the place of women within the American culture during the Twentieth-Century - how it has changed, how it has remained the same. At the end of the course, students should feel that they have discovered a new body of exciting literature, as well as new ways of reading some of our best-known literature.

ENGL 13186 - 05
Alternative Lit
Professor Steve Tomasula

Every narrative--from a letter of application to a hip-hop song--has a form, and the form of a narrative is always part of the story told. In Alternative Lit, we'll study a number of narratives written by contemporary authors who draw attention to how they write as one of the strategies they use to tell their story. That is, rather than using conventional methods that allow a reader to lose themselves in the dream of a novel, the authors and narrators of the fictions we'll be reading continually remind readers that what they are reading is made-up, i.e., constructed. Sometimes they do so to point out the fact that their stories arise from a viewpoint or position that is outside the mainstream of conventional literature, wisdom, or politics. Often, the goal of these works is to demonstrate how many of the conventions we live by are also made-up, constructed, a product of a particular view point, a particular moment in history. They are, that is, an alternative to the stories and means of story telling that dominate today's literary mainstream, or today's most commonly held beliefs. By reading them we will learn much about how all writing is composed, how meaning is made, and its implications for the web of power, history, gender, politics, and of course, literature we live with today. This is a reading and writing intensive course where students learn by doing, analyzing a variety of Alternative Lits--short stories, graphic novels, manga, hypertexts, multimedia and collage novels--as they try their own hands at employing the lessons learned. Main assignments include writing an analytic essay, a short fiction, a graphic novel (section); daily reaction papers and short quizzes are also required. The reading list will include works like: Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi; A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers; Love in a Dead Language by Lee Siegel; Samuel Johnson is Indignant: Stories by Lydia Davis; Ranma 1/2, Vol. 1 by Rumiko Takahashi; and other works.

ENGL 13186 - 06
Modern Drama, Theater, and Performance Art
Professor Gerald L. Bruns

In this course we will study some of the major works, ideas, and events of European, British, and American theater of the last century or so. We’ll start at the beginning with the realistic drama of the Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekhov. If you wanted to devote your life to acting, you would have to begin by learning to play Ibsen (A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler) and Chekhov (Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard). These plays are part of the repertoire of every acting company in the United States and Great Britain. The second part of the course will be devoted to the revolutionary ideas of Bertold Brecht (Threepenny Opera, Mother Courage) and Antonin Artaud’s “the theater of cruelty,” where the idea is not to dramatize a work of literature but to do things to the audience (expose them to what they don’t want to see, produce fear, madness, forbidden desires). The third part of the course will be devoted chiefly to the work of Samuel Beckett (Endgame), Harold Pinter (The Homecoming, No Man’s Land, Betrayal), and Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Arcadia), arguably the three greatest playwrights in English. The last part of the course will be devoted to the world of “performance art” inspired by the avant-garde musician, John Cage—Happenings, the Fluxus movement, postmodern dance, sound poetry and acoustical art, and body art (for example, a painter does not paint a likeness of a model but substitutes the model for the canvas). Students will be asked to write a series of short papers (about five pages each), and one slightly longer piece having to do with the nature of performance. In particular students will be expected to contribute enthusiastically to class discussion.

ENGL 13186 - 07
Culture and Imperialism
Professor John Duffy

No one today is purely one thing. Labels like Indian, or woman, or Muslim, or American are not more than starting points, which if followed into actual experience for only a moment are quickly left behind.
-Edward W. Said

America has always been a nation of diverse cultures, languages, and traditions. Since the beginnings of the country, when the English encountered the Powhatans, when the first Africans were brought to Virginia, and when the Spanish were colonizing native peoples of the South and Southwest, America has been a multicultural land. Today, the nation is more diverse than ever. According to historian Ronald Takaki, one-third of Americans do not trace their ancestry to Europe, and minorities are becoming a majority in cities such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and elsewhere. The story of immigration continues to be one of the central stories of American life.

In this course, we shall read some of these stories as they have been told in contemporary novels and films of the immigrant and refugee experience. We shall consider the unique pressures upon newcomers to the United States who find themselves caught between the conflicting pressures of past and present, assimilation and heritage, memory and desire. We'll also consider what these stories tell us about the concept of identity, about U.S. history, and about the powers of literature and film to explain what it means for a person to migrate across borders, cultures, and languages to a new life.

ENGL 13186 - 08
Life-writing: Autobiography and Subjectivity
Professor Barbara Green

Life-writing is a capacious term that can be used to describe a variety of private and public statements about the self: some easily recognizable as artistic representations of subjectivity (for example, memoirs, diaries, letters, self-portraits) and some less so (for example, legal testimony, graphic novels, oral narratives delivered on Oprah, even medical forms have been read as part of the complex project of articulating subjectivity). This course will attend to a wide variety of forms of life-writing in order to trace shifting notions of what counts as a self and track the complex project of defining and representing subjectivity. A broad range of critical approaches to subjectivity and definitions of the autobiographical project will assist us as we attempt to map changing notions of the self. Many, but not all, of our primary materials will be drawn from the twentieth century: texts may include selections of writings by Wordsworth and Rousseau, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Virginia Woolf’s Sketch of the Past, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, selections from Samuel Delany’s The Motion of Light in Water, photography by Cindy Sherman and Jo Spence, self-portraits by Frieda Kahlo, considerations of Web texts, political and legal testimony or “witnessing”, and other examples of autobiography “at work” will also be considered. Requirements: One group presentation, participation, and three brief essays.

ENGL 13186 - 09
Shakespeare's Major Tragedies
Professor Jesse Lander

This seminar will examine the four tragedies upon which Shakespeare’s reputation most securely rests: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Our objectives will be
to acquire an in-depth knowledge of Shakespeare’s four major tragedies; to become familiar with early modern English and develop an appreciation of the importance of linguistic history; to examine tragedy as a dramatic genre, as an experience, and as a cultural preoccupation; and to learn about Shakespeare’s age and his linguistic and cultural legacy. Along with our modern editions of Shakespeare, we will read Christopher Haigh’s Elizabeth I and a number of recent scholarly essays.

ENGL 13186 - 11
Literature University Seminar in English
Professor Orlando R. Menes

This university seminar in English is designed to give first-year students an introduction to: (1) university writing, and (2) the reading, analysis, appreciation, and discussion of literary texts. The topic for this course is Master Writers from Latin America: Gabriel García Márquez, Rosario Ferré, Carlos Fuentes, Isabel Allende, Pablo Neruda, and Alfonsina Storni. These four fiction writers and two poets are some of the most celebrated and distinguished of the region; in fact, among these world-class authors are the Nobel laureates Gabriel García Márquez and Pablo Neruda, as well as one winner, Carlos Fuentes, of Spain’s Cervantes Prize, the equivalent of the Nobel in the Hispanic world. Apart from stressing cultural and literary appreciation, this course will also teach students the concepts and terminology required for any productive discussion of literature. So as to stimulate the students’ engagement with the texts, class discussions will cover a range of universal and humanistic themes. Course Requirements include response papers, four medium-length essays, group presentations, and reports on campus literary/cultural events.

GE 13186 - 01
National Epics of England, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, and North America
Professor Albert Wimmer

In this seminar we will discuss and write about the historical background, the underlying heroic, ethical (human) and moral (religious) values, as well as the national significance and reception of the best-known national epics, including their cinematic versions: the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh Epic, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf (England), The Song of Roland (France), The Poem of the Cid (Spain), The Nibelungenlied (Song of the Nibelungs; Germany), Schiller's Wilhelm Tell (Switzerland), Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha" (North America) and the Heliand, a Saxon Gospel Harmony.

IRLL 13186 - 01
Twentieth-Century Irish Literature in Translation
Professor Sarah McKibben

This course examines Irish-language (Gaelic) literature from the Irish Revival at the turn of the twentieth-century to writing from the very end of the twentieth century and beyond. We'll look at short stories, essays, a short novel, a biography, a mock biography and poetry, thinking about the key issues involved in re-establishing the literary standing of the original language of Ireland. How should Irish be written? Who could write it? Why choose to write in Irish, the former majority language now a minority one, though one with official status and impeccable credentials? What topics were taboo--and who would break those taboos? What new writers would come forward in the sixties and seventies? Who are the writers in Irish today and what do they write about? What will Irish look like in the future? No knowledge of Irish is assumed or necessary. A commitment to thinking hard and learning to write with precision and grace is.

LLEA 13186 - 01
Self & Other in Modern Japanese Fiction
Professor Michael Brownstein

In this course, we will study 6 novels by modern Japanese writers as a way of exploring problems in interpretation by paying close attention to the formal aspects of fictional narratives and how they work to produce meaning. We will begin with Kokoro (1914) by Natsume Sóseki (1867-1916). This is the story of a young college student who tries to find the key to his future in the mysterious past of his mentor, the reclusive Sensei (“teacher”), even as Japan itself entered a period of uncertainty following the death of the Meiji Emperor in 1912. We will then read Masks (1958) by Enchi Fumiko (1905-1986). A tale of revenge and sexual intrigue set in the 1950s, Masks requires us to look at two plays from the medieval Nó theater that are based on events in The Tale of Genji (ca. 1100 C.E.). We will then turn to the strange world of The Woman in the Dunes (1962), Abe Kobo’s (1924-1993) Kafkaesque novel about a school teacher from Tokyo trapped in a village built in the sand dunes of a remote sea-side village. Our fourth and fifth readings are two novellas, Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow, by Yoshimoto Banana (1964-), one of Japan’s most popular women writers today. We will end the semester with A Personal Matter (1964) by Óe Kenzaburo, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1994.

LLEA 13186 - 02
Love in Traditonal Chinese Literature
Professor Liangyan Ge

This course introduces students to the traditional Chinese concept of love as determined by the contexts of Chinese thinking and the social and familial relationships, and discusses the literary expressions of love from different historical periods. Love will be considered as both a perennial theme in Chinese literature and a major reflector of traditional Chinese culture. Readings are all in English translation, and no prior knowledge of Chinese language or culture is required for taking the course. Students are expected to read the assigned texts carefully before each session, participate actively in the class discussions, and complete a number of writing projects.

LLRO 13186 - 01
On Interpretation: The Art of Caressing Art
Professor Louis MacKenzie

In this seminar we will concentrate on what to do when confronted with a "difficult" work. Our interest will be on the how as much as on the what. To this end we will be examining art(ifacts) from various genres: film, opera, theater, poetry, and even popular songs (e.g., Bob Dylan). The writing component of the seminar will be intense and public. Students who are unsure how to "read" incisively and those who are timid about public critiques of their work are most encouraged to register, as the course is designed precisely with them in mind.

LLRO 13186 - 02
Portuguese & Creole Literatures in Translation
Professor Isabel Ferreira Gould.

This seminar offers a comprehensive survey in translation of postcolonial Portuguese-language and Creole literatures produced by writers from Angola, Cape Verde, Portugal, and Mozambique. This course has five aims. The first is to acquaint English-speaking readers/students with literatures and regions with which they are not familiar. The second is to study comparatively the literary representations of war, colonialism, and independence in Portuguese and Creole literatures. The third is to combine literary, historical, and sociological approaches to explain the impact of colonialism on the development of new literary voices in Africa. The fourth is to provide students with opportunities to discuss important issues involved in the study of novels and short fiction. Finally, the fifth aim is to guide students through the process of writing intensively and creatively about literature.

PLS 13186 - 01
Life’s Questions: A Great Books Approach
Professor Phillip Sloan

This seminar will be an introduction to a “classic texts” approach to learning. It will be centered around four main questions: “Origins”; “Human as Maker”; “Our Life Together”; and “At Home in the Cosmos.” The seminar will be conducted exclusively in a seminar discussion format and students will be expected to be prepared to discuss each session’s readings. Readings will include: The Epic of Gilgamesh; Plato, Timaeus (selection); Genesis I; Bacon, The New Atlantis; Huxley, Brave New World; Teilhard de Chardin, The Human Phenomenon; Sophocles, Antigone; Machiavelli, The Prince; The Declaration of Independence and Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen; Ptolemy, Almagest (selection), Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (selection); Galileo, The Starry Messenger and Letter to the Grand Duchess; “Letter on Science and Religion” by John Paul II; Joseph Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture. Regular writing assignments, web-postings on the readings, and an oral examination will determine the grade.

PLS 13186 - 02
Intro to PLS Seminar
Professor Robert Goulding

This seminar functions as an introduction to the Program and fulfills the
University literature requirement. It is designed to develop habits of careful
reading, discussion, and writing through the reading of classic tests. These
seminars serve as an introduction to the "Great Books" style of education
fostered by the Program of Liberal Studies.

PLS 13186 - 03
Intro to PLS Seminar
Professor F. Clark Power

This seminar functions as an introduction to the Program and fulfills the
University literature requirement. It is designed to develop habits of careful
reading, discussion, and writing through the reading of classic tests. These
seminars serve as an introduction to the "Great Books" style of education
fostered by the Program of Liberal Studies.

History University Seminars:

During the semester, we will engage in the dangerous practice of considering alternatives to historical realities. We will examine fourteen significant events/people which were controversial in their day and remain a source of debate in present times. Hopefully, we will do more than examine events from yesteryear. We will research, debate, and passionately argue about events which have greatly affected American society. In a sense, we dare to consider, "What If?" A rather unfettered intellectual journey ensues.

HIST 13184 - 02
Pirates in History: Fact vs. Fiction
Professor Dian Murray

In this particular course you will use piracy as the means to engage in the work of historians and to understand how historians do their work. Each of the four units will be built around particular textual problems that historians face in their endeavors to recount the past. You will experience how historians reconstruct fragmented texts, how they use various kinds of primary sources to corroborate one another, and how they establish and disagree about the authorship of given texts. You will also see how historians and creative writers differ in their portrayal of piracy and what it means to their understanding of life around them. Since there will be no examinations in this course, the goal will be not to memorize dates and facts, but instead to marshal textual evidence in support of the arguments you will make in the course of your written reflection papers and essays.

HIST 13184-04 - 03
Bring out your Dead: Plague Stories
Professor Kim Pelis

"Plague," whether referring generally to any sweeping epidemic or particularly to the Black Death, has helped shape the history and imagination of societies, often pulling on the very fabric that holds these societies together. Plague stories consequently reveal much about the institutions, beliefs, and fears of stricken cultures. In this course, we will read (and occasionally view) stories of plague as told from a variety of perspectives, from antiquity to the present day. Your own written work and our brief presentations of historical background will serve to situate seminar discussions of these primary source materials. In the end, you will not only learn something of the history of several great plagues; you will also have a fuller appreciation of the impact of plague on history and a better understanding of how individuals have used plague stories to illuminate, and even change, their societies.

HIST 13184-04 - 04
Presidential Character, FDR to Clinton
Professor Wilson Miscamble

This seminar will examine presidents and presidential leadership from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton. An effort will be made to identify the requirements for and features of successful and effective presidencies. Some significant attention will be paid to the relationship of character to good presidential leadership. The course aims to foster careful reading, good writing and thoughtful discussion and analysis. Students will write a number of smaller (3-4 page) papers, give class presentations, and write a 10-12 page final paper.

Philosophy University Seminars:

PHIL 13185 - 01
Philosophy University Seminar
Professor Timothy Bays

A careful examination of Plato's Republic. We'll begin with a few texts which lead up to the Republic, then spend most of the term focusing on the Republic itself. Along the way, we'll look at a few, more-modern texts which respond to the Republic.

PHIL 13185 - 02
What is a philosophical problem?
Professor Lynn Joy

This course is an introduction to Philosophy that focuses on the question: What is a philosophical problem? Philosophers have offered an interesting variety of answers to this question, and to understand their sometimes radically different answers, we will focus on a number of classic strategies for defining the aims of philosophical inquiry. Among such strategies are those of Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, and several 20th-century thinkers. Course readings will include works from the history of philosophy as well as two recent books: J. F. Rosenberg, The Practice of Philosophy, and A. R. Damasio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.