Ph.D. In Literature
Course Descriptions
Fall 2003
Students can take a minimum of three courses and a maximum of
four, not including language acquisition courses. (Language classes
do not count toward the 9 credit.) Every effort should be made
to acquire language proficiency as early as possible. Please bear
in mind, the language exams will be rigorous and must be satisfied
by the end of the third semester of residence.
Students are required to consult with the Program
Director/and or Director of Graduate Studies prior to enrolling
in any course. Students should select their courses from the listings
described in this booklet. However, in special circumstances and
with prior authorization from the Program's Director and/or Director
of Graduate Studies, graduate level courses not listed here can
be taken for credit.
Students are reminded of the Program's requirements
in Core, Primary and Related Fields. With the advice of the Director/
Director of Graduate Studies, and/or advisors in their field students,
will, at the appropriate time, be expected to demonstrate what
constitutes Primary and Related fields of study.
Courses will be scheduled on the following days:
M = Monday
T = Tuesday
W = Wednesday
H = Thursday
F = Friday
TH = Tuesday & Thursday
Please note: this listing of courses may change
for various reasons.
REQUIRED COURSE:
WORLD LITERATURE (syllabus)
5392 LIT 585 B 01 Love, Desire, and Identity
W 1:30-4:15 PM Martin Bloomer, Margaret
Doody, Howard Goldblatt, and Tehara Qutbuddin
Themes and topics covered by various works include erotic love,
filial and familial love, and love of God, but there are other
loves too, such as the love of animals, or pursuits, or of objects.
Desire evokes philosophical questions about need, necessity, and
the structure of the self, all of which can be and have been dealt
with in a variety of ways by different cultures. Both love and
desire imply a notion of identity or of identities to which the
individual may be attached or which he or she may be incorporating
(or rejecting). Texts studied include ancient Greek novels and
some medieval and modern fictions of both East and West. (The
Tale of Genji; Troilus and Criseyde; Wuthering Heights). The poetry
we read ranges chronologically from the very early Shih jing (the
first collection of Chinese poems) and the Song of Songs to Sappho
and other Greek and Roman authors, through works by Petrarch and
Dante to poems and popular songs in Asia and Europe of the present
day. A variety of meditative and religious work exploring the
nature of love and longing will be included.
SUGGESTED COURSES
5370 LIT 510A The Sufferings of the Roman Martyrs
MW 1:30-2:45 PM Michael Lapidge
The course will be concerned with a corpus of some thirty Latin
passiones of martyrs who were executed at Rome before the Peace
of the Church (A.D. 313), and who then were culted at Roman churches
throughout the Middle Ages, not least in Anglo-Saxon England,
notably saints Agnes, Laurence and Sebastian, but also many others
who are less well known. Most of the texts in question have not
been edited since the seventeenth century; none has ever been
translated, and they have seldom been the subject of close study.
Although the passiones were composed several centuries after the
martyrdoms they describe (and are therefore worthless as historical
documents) they are a unique witness to the topography of sixth-century
Rome and to its spirituality, as well as to the origin and development
of the cult of saints more generally. The texts are generally
brief and only of intermediate difficulty (some elementary knowledge
of Latin is a prerequisite for the course), but they provide a
good introduction to 'sermo humilis' of the early Middle Ages.
Printouts of the texts will be available when the class meets.
5374 LIT 524A Old English Biblical Verse
MW 11:45-1:00 PM Michael Lapidge
The Anglo-Saxons were the earliest people in Western Europe to
translate the Bible into their vernacular, and a substantial proportion
of surviving Old English Verse consists in biblical translation
and paraphrase. The principal focus of the course will be the
biblical poems preserved in the so-called 'Junius Manuscript'
(Genesis A, Genesis B, Exodus, Daniel), but these and other relevant
poems will be studied in the wider context of early medieval biblical
exegesis, in particular the contribution made to biblical interpretation
by Anglo-Saxon exegetes such as Archbishop Theodore, Bede, Alcuin
and Ælfric. Candidates for the course must already have
completed English 530 (Introduction to Old English).
5959 LIT 527I Petrarch: The Soul's Fragments
H 12:30-3:00 PM Theodore Cachey
Before taking up the Canzoniere we'll consider the life of Petrarch,
his intellectual activity and his other works, including selections
from his epistolary collections (Letters on Familiar Matters and
Letters of Old Age) and other Latin works, especially the Secretum
(Petrarch's Secret). Our reading of the Canzoniere will utilize
Santagata's recent edition and commentary and will engage critically
a variety of hermeneutical and philological approaches to the
book. The seminar will be conducted in English but reading knowledge
of Italian is essential. Seminar presentations, mid-term exam,
and final paper.
5861 LIT 530M Language, Symbol, and Vision
TH 2:00-3:15PM Stephen Gersh
Our aim will be to study three issues which are absolutely central
to medieval thought and culture from the end of the patristic
period to the Renaissance (and indeed also beyond these limits).
The danger of excessive generality in such an approach will be
avoided 1) by isolating a group of seminal texts from the late
ancient or early medieval period for careful scrutiny (wherever
possible, in English translation); 2) by treating these texts
as conceptual nuclei for broader linguistic, hermeneutic, and
psychological theories, which were widely held and discussed.
The texts will be drawn from Origen, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome,
Macrobius, Boethius, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Isidore of
Seville. Although a major aim of the course is to introduce important
writers to the students and to pursue historical and literary
matters, we will also find time to reflect on philosophical questions
raised by such a tradition. What is the relation between divine
and human language? Why is it necessary to connect language and
symbol through psychic activity? What is the relation between
secular myth and sacred symbol? Requirement: one final paper of
ca. 20 pp.
5958 LIT541I European Romanticism
T 3:30-6:00 PM Franco Ferrucci
This course will present the figure of Giacomo Leopardi, the outstanding
romantic Italian Poet, and his striking similarities with some
of the protagonists of that season of poetry: Wordsworth, Keats,
Horderlin, and, later, Baudelaire. We will also delve into the
Operette morali and the private diary called Zibaldone to illustrate
the surprising depth of Leopardi's thinking, one of the most original
and perceptive explorations of the human condition ever prospected.
We will show that this isolated poet and thinker was one of the
founders of modern nihilism, and we will compare his most stunning
ideas to the ones elaborated by his great contemporary Schopenhauer
and by the modern existentialist thought. Students will be asked
to write a paper on an issue of their choice.
5979 LIT 542I Poetry and Politics in Early Modern
Ireland 1541-1688
TH 2:00-3:15 PM Prof. Breandán Ó Buachalla
The political poetry of the period 1541-1688 will be discussed
and analyzed against the historical background. The primary focus
will be the mentalité of the native intelligentsia as it
is reflected in the poetry and as it responded to the momentous
changes of the period. The origins and rise of the cult of the
Stuarts will be examined and the historiography of the period
will be assessed. Textbooks: Caball, M. Poets and politics (Notre
Dame, Cork, 1998); Ó Buachalla, B. Aisling ghéar
(Dublin, 1996).
5322 LIT 557A Schiller
TH 2:00-3:15 PM Robert Norton
In this course, we will consider Friedrich Schiller as a dramatist,
poet, aesthetic philosopher, and historian. We will read several
of Friedrich Schiller's most important plays, including Die Räuber,
Kabale und Liebe, Die Verschwörung des Fiesko, Wallenstein,
Maria Stuart, and Die Braut von Messina. In addition, we will
read from his letters on beauty (Kallias), and the essays Über
Anmut und Würde, Über naïve und sentimentalische
Dichtung and Die Ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen. Finally,
we will also read selections from his historical works on the
Thirty Years' War and on the Netherlands.
ENGLISH
3471 ENGL 506 Introduction to Graduate Studies
T 6:30-9:00 PM Joseph Buttigieg
This course is intended, first and foremost, to provide an occasion
for all students who are starting their graduate studies in English
to reflect on and discuss the current state of literary studies,
the role of "English" in our culture and society, and
the function of the critical intellectual at the present time.
A significant part of the course will be devoted to a critical
analysis of the debates (and heated polemics) that have surrounded
the study of English and our "profession" for the past
fifteen years or so. We will look at the major currents of literary
theory and interpretation and at various institutional and professional
practices, organizations, customs, and rituals, including scholarly
conferences, publications, journals, job searches, teaching expectations,
research, and so on.
5380 ENGL 556 Monsters of Benevolence: Irish
Ascendancy Writers and Early
H 2:00-4:30 PM Seamus Deane Modernity, 1720-1800
Readings of Jonathan Swift, Francis Hutcheson, Oliver Goldsmith
and Edmund Burke will concentrate on the establishment of and
the assault upon new enlightenment theories of radical benevolence;
the relation of these to European and to Irish conditions; and
the dispute about the revolutionary transformation or transmogrification
of 'human nature'.
5381 ENGL 561A Romanticism and Culture Wars:
Lakers, Scots, and Cockneys
T 2:00-4:30PM Greg Kucich
One of the burning issues in current studies of British romanticism
involves the relationship between literature and politics, particularly
the role of poetry in radical culture. Innovative historicist
readings of the political imperatives at work in romantic lyric
poetry, such as Keats's odes, have provoked counter readings of
a persisting high aestheticism that transcends the politics of
the day. Our seminar will grapple with this major dispute about
how to read and value the literature of the romantic era by moving
away from the old stereotype of the solitary genius to focus,
instead, on circles of writers positioned in relation to and often
against one another as they fought to establish the cultural functions
of literature during the turbulent upheavals of the French Revolution
and the Napoleonic wars: the "Lake School," the Scots
group gathered around Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, and the
"Cockney School" assembled around The Examiner in London.
Our approach to the ways these groups waged culture wars over
the relationship between literature and politics will take guidance
from historical and theoretical works about the politics of the
romantic era by such figures as E.P. Thompson, Raymond Williams,
Jerome McGann, Marilyn Butler, Nicholas Roe, and David Chandler.
Our focus on primary material will include canonical figures,
such as the cluster of poets based first in Bristol and then in
the Lake District (Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey), as well
as those writers associated with the "Cockney School"
(Keats, Shelley, Hazlitt, and Byron). We will also devote considerable
attention to less well-known figures who played crucial roles
in the culture wars of the time, such as the so-called "King
of the Cockneys" Leigh Hunt, the Scots scourge John Gibson
Lockhart, and the radical author of "two penny trash"
William Cobbett. In response to the general lack of attention
given to women writers in recent studies of this topic, we will
also concentrate on Dorothy Wordsworth, Anna Barbauld, Mary Robinson,
and Mary Shelley. One central goal of our endeavor will be to
reconfigure some of the traditional parameters of romanticism,
highlighting, for instance, the importance of the doubled political
apostasy of George, Prince Regent, and Southey, Poet Laureate,
when they assumed their full powers in 1813 and thereby provoked
the rise of Hunt's "Cockney School." Another major aim
will be to relate the culture wars of the romantic era to contemporary
questions about the persistence of poetry as valued aesthetic
object and/or effective political vehicle in our own day. Students
will produce a book review and one major research paper.
5383 ENGL 572A Art, Technology, Globalization
H 5:00-7:30 PM Krzysztof Ziarek
The course will examine the relations between art, technology,
and capital in the context of globalization. While discourses
of globalization focus predominantly on social, economic, and
political issues, we will try to understand the significance of
art, literature, and aesthetics for thinking critically about
globalization and technology. Globalization is a hotly contested
term, producing a number of different theories and perspectives.
Nevertheless, they all respond to the emergent phenomenon of "globality,"
to the nascent global network of economic, cultural, and political
links, and its ambiguous transformative/destructive influence
on everyday life. This class will analyze how globalization is,
on the one hand, conditioned by developments in capital, and,
on the other, dependent on the information and telecommunication
technologies and the growing technicization of experience and
relations. In this context, art and literature can be seen as
increasingly responding to this phenomenon of a global technicization
of experience. In his preface to the second edition of The Birth
of Tragedy, Nietzsche remarked that, though ostensibly writing
a book about art, he ended up diagnosing the problem of science
in modernity, thus disclosing a critical link between science
and technology, on the one hand, and art, on the other. Pursuing
this link between technology and aesthetics through the work of
Adorno, Heidegger, Irigaray, and Nancy, the course will inquire
into the relevance of avant-garde aesthetics for a critical understanding
of technology and information in the context of globalization.
The reading material will include texts by Adorno, Arrighi, Deleuze
and Guattari, Hardt and Negri, Hayles, Heidegger, Irigaray, Marx,
Nancy, Nietzsche. While discussion will focus on critical texts
on art, technology, and globalization, we will also examine literary
and artistic works, from Italian and Russian Futurism to contemporary
Net and transgenic art.
FRENCH
5692 ROFR 566 Baudelaire
H 3:30-6:00PM Alain Toumayan
The purpose of this course will be to undertake a sustained and
in-depth study of Baudelaire's poetic and critical works. Our
goal will be to arrive at an understanding of Baudelaire's aesthetics
that is both detailed and broad. Special attention will be given
to his situation with respect to French Romanticism. Several representative
secondary works will be considered as well. Requirements include
one oral presentation and two essays of moderate length.
5834 ROFR 578F-01 Proust: A World Lost and Regained
M 3:30-6:00 PM Catherine Perry
Considered by many to be the greatest French novelist of the twentieth
century, Marcel Proust remains vastly influential to this day.
Not only did he recover a world through his creative exploration
of memory, but he also established a new type of novel in which
poetic prose alternates with the criticism of art, history, society,
politics, and psychology. The semester will be dedicated to reading
four volumes from Proust's monumental work, A la recherche du
temps perdu, along with some of the most important critical texts
written on Proust and la Recherche. Assiduous preparation for
class and active participation in discussions are essential to
the success of this course. Formally, students will give two oral
presentations: 1) a textual interpretation; 2) a report on a critical
work. Students will also write a 15-20 page analytical paper--while
the final product will be due at the end of the semester, evidence
of research and planning will be expected by mid-semester, following
October break. Classes conducted in French.
SPANISH
6081 ROSP 521 Spanish Golden-Age Theater
TH 3:30-6:00 Encarnación Juárez
In this course, we will read representative plays by Cervantes,
Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Ruíz de Alarcón and
Calderón de la Barca in their historical and cultural context.
The works will be studied in the light of the theatrical theory
of the period as well as the contemporary criticism. Students
will write a research paper (10 to 15 pages) on a topic or play
of their choice and take a midterm exam. In addition, they are
expected to participate extensively in class and to lead group
discussions.
0027 ROSP 591 Nature and Identity in Spanish
American Literature
T 12:30-3:00 Ben Heller
We will trace the images and metaphors with which Spanish American
writers and interested foreign travelers have described Latin
American Nature. Earthly paradise, green inferno, a wasteland
to be populated, or most nurturing aspect of the "madre patria,"
these images and others we will discuss have both reflected ideological
biases and shaped national cultures and identities. We will read
a diverse collection of texts (from the Popol vuh to Sarmiento's
to Neruda's Canto General) from the 19th and 20th centuries, with
a few incursions in key colonial texts (Columbus's Diario), along
with theoretical texts focusing on nature and identity. In addition
to the weekly readings and active class participation, students
will also be responsible for an oral presentation and the preparation
of a significant research paper by semester's end.
