Bard College Catalogue 2009-2010
2009-2010

Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures

http://flcl.bard.edu

Faculty

Eric Trudel (director), Michiko Baribeau, Florian Becker, Anna Cafaro, Gabriela Carrión, Nicole Caso, Odile S. Chilton, Carolyn Dewald, Moannes Hojairi, Elizabeth N. Holt, Franz R. Kempf, Marina Kostalevsky, Stephanie Kufner, Cecile Kuznitz, Hoyt Long, Joseph Luzzi, Tamara M. Mikhailova, Amelia Moser, William Mullen, David Nelson, Melanie Nicholson, James Romm, Andrew Schonebaum, Benjamin Stevens, Marina van Zuylen, Youssef Yacoubi , Li-Hua Ying

Overview

At Bard, the study of a foreign language provides students with the opportunity to acquire a critical appreciation of foreign cultures and literatures in addition to language skills. Integral to the process is the mastery of the foreign language and the use of this mastery in the study of written texts—not only literature, but also texts from such fields as philosophy, history, and theology—and of nonverbal expressions of culture such as art history, music, and cinema.
Languages currently taught at Bard include Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, ancient Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. Bard maintains a state-of-the-art language facility, the Center for Foreign Languages and Cultures, which is described in the Campus Facilities section of this catalogue.
Most of the languages taught through the Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program (FLCL) offer an intensive immersion format that allows students to complete the equivalent of two years of language study within just a few months. Such courses include a one- or two-month summer or winter program in a country of the target language. After studying abroad, students demonstrate an impressive increase in linguistic capacity. They have also gained cultural knowledge, and the exposure to different manifestations of cultural activity alerts them to the interrelatedness of diverse disciplines.

Requirements

While each area of language study has its own intellectual and academic plan, all are connected by the study of literature and other cultural expressions through the medium of language. Students are free to work with the languages and texts of more than one culture; thus they can combine the plans of more than one languages for Moderation and in their Senior Project. Moderation requirements may vary depending on the focus language; students should refer to information provided by the specific area of study. For all FLCL students, a Senior Project can be a purely literary project or any combination of literary and nonliterary expressions of a given culture.

Arabic

Elementary Arabic
Arabic 101-102
This introduction to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as it is used in Arab countries today presents Arabic script and pronunciation and essentials of basic Arabic structures, syntax, and vocabulary, reinforced by reading graded texts. Differences between MSA and educated spoken Arabic are highlighted, as are significant aspects of Arab culture.

Intensive Arabic
Arabic 106
In addition to serving as an introduction to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), this course reinforces language skills by using graded texts to expand students’ active and passive lexicon and grammatical abilities. Significant aspects of Arab culture are highlighted, as are differences between MSA and the spoken Arabic of the more educated. Students work in the language laboratory and watch movies and TV programs. Additional two-hour sessions with the Arabic tutor provide conversational practice.

Intermediate Arabic
Arabic 201-202
This course focuses on developing a significant level of linguistic and communicative competence. The four basic language skills—reading, speaking, listening, and writing—are dealt with simultaneously. Selected texts from Arabic media are read to expand active and passive lexicon and grammatical structures. Prerequisites: Arabic 101 or at least one year of Modern Standard Arabic and approval of the instructor.

Advanced Arabic
Arabic 301-302
This course continues to focus on the development of the four skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing Modern Standard Arabic. Students learn more complex grammatical structures and expand their vocabulary through extended readings using audio and video materials. Classes conducted in Arabic (except for grammatical explanations, when needed).

Readings in Arabic Literature
Arabic 420
Students achieve an advanced level in listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. Materials include short stories, film, poetry, and critical essays in Arabic. Important writers and intellectuals are read in the original, including Yusuf Idris, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Fuad al-Takarli, Nawal El Saadawi, and Nasr Abu Zaid. Students write short compositions and précis, give oral presentations on a chosen topic, and participate in and lead class discussions.

Chinese

Beginning Chinese
Chinese 101
Modern (Mandarin) Chinese is introduced through intensive drilling in oral and written forms. Emphasis is placed on speaking, basic grammar, and the formation of characters. Audio and video materials are part of the curriculum. This course is followed by an intensive course (8 hours per week) in the spring semester and a summer intensive program (6 weeks) in Qingdao, China. Active daily participation and a weekly tutorial are required.

Intensive Chinese
Chinese 106
This course is for students who have completed Chinese 101 or the equivalent. The focus on the language’s oral and written aspects continues. Regular work in the language lab and private drill sessions with the Chinese tutor are required. This course is followed by a summer immersion program in China. (Financial aid available.)

Intermediate Chinese I, II
Chinese 201-202
This two-semester course is for students who have taken one and a half years of basic Chinese and want to expand their reading and speaking capacity and enrich their cultural experiences. The course uses audio and video materials and emphasizes communicative activities and language games. In addition to the central language textbook, readings are selected from newspapers, journals, and fictional works. Conducted in Chinese.

Modern Chinese Fiction
Chinese 230
The class reads English translations of representative works by major mainland writers from three periods (1918–49, 1949–76, and since 1976); and works by authors from Taiwan and Hong Kong. Students consider issues of language and genre, nationalism and literary tradition, colonialism, women’s emancipation, the influence of Western literary modes such as realism and modernism on the inception of literary modernity in China, and the current state of critical approaches to the study of modern Chinese literature.

Advanced Chinese I, II
Chinese 301-302
These courses are for students who have taken the equivalent of five semesters of basic Chinese at Bard or elsewhere and who want to expand their reading and speaking capacity and enrich their cultural experiences. Texts are selected from newspapers, journals, and fiction.

Chinese Calligraphy: Gate to East Asian Art
Chinese 315
An introduction to the East Asian art of calligraphy. Students examine the aesthetic principles of calligraphy and discuss the philosophical traditions of Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and Confucianism. The course emphasizes learning the techniques of writing with the brush and developing individual styles. .

Archaeology and Ancient Chinese Art
Chinese 316
cross-listed: anthropology, art history, classical studies
This course focuses on how archaeological finds of the past century in China have transformed the understanding of ancient Chinese art. Through the study of archaeological sites, students investigate how ritual art objects were made and used. The art and material culture examined help form an understanding of the circumstances under which systems of thought, such as Confucianism and Taoism, developed. Prerequisite: previous course work in Chinese studies, archaeology, anthropology, art history, or classical studies.

Reflections of China in Literature and Film
Chinese 403
This course explores the origins of traditional Chinese cinema, nationalism and revolution, social realism, the search for roots in the post-Mao era, nativist film and literature, the Fifth Generation and experimental fiction, Hong Kong popular culture in the commercial age, feminism and sexuality, and representations of exile, diaspora, and the new immigrants. Conducted in Chinese.

Lu Xun and Modern Chinese Fiction
Chinese 404
An advanced language course that involves close reading of short stories by major 20th-century Chinese authors, including Shen Congwen, Ding Ling, Lu Xun, Eileen Chang, Bai Xianyong, and others. While it focuses primarily on textual analysis, the course also seeks to understand the concept of modernity in the context of Chinese literary and cultural traditions. Conducted in Chinese.

Classics

The Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome
Classics 103
A survey of ancient Rome, from its “rise” out of its prehistoric Italic precursors in the eighth century b.c.e. to its “fall” in the fifth century a.d. at the hands of barbarians, bureaucrats, and others. Students become familiar with the traditional narrative of Roman history and consider social, cultural, and intellectual aspects of life in ancient Rome. Readings include a modern narrative of Roman history, ancient narratives and monographs, and modern scholarly works.

The Athenian Century
Classics 157 / History 157
In the fifth century b.c.e., Athens dramatically developed from a small, relatively unimportant city-state into a dominant power in the Aegean basin. This course confronts some of the ambiguities and tensions and the glories of Athenian art, literature, and history during this period. Students read selections from the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides; tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; comedies of Aristophanes; and dialogues of Plato.

Confucius and Socrates
Classics 160
cross-listed: asian studies, philosophy
In search of Confucius, students read the Analects and selections from Mencius and Xunzi; in search of Socrates, they read dialogues by Plato and Xenophon and key passages in Aristotle and the Cynics. The class reads the texts concurrently, asking comparative questions: What differences can be seen in the accounts given of the virtues each thinker put forward as most essential to fulfilling one’s humanity? Why is neither an advocate of democracy?

Survey of Linguistics
Classics 201
Students learn how linguistics analyzes language into various parts; acquire methods and techniques appropriate to the study of those parts, their patterns, and their interconnections; and explore the discipline’s conceptual bases, its history, and competing or alternative approaches to language study. Topics include phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, sociolinguistics, and comparative and historical linguistics. Prerequisite: completed or concurrent course work in a foreign language, or consent of the instructor.

Ancient Lyric: Translations and Imitations
Classics 219
Students read the lyric poetry of Sappho, Pindar, Catullus, and Horace through centuries of translations and imitations by British and American writers. Students look at metrical and linguistic maps of the original works, compare translations of a few key poems, and study the many kinds of imitation they generated.

The Odyssey of Homer
Classics 225
Students are introduced to the issues particular both to the epic genre and this particular text; then they read The Odyssey at a rate of two books per week. The semester concludes with a look at literary and cultural issues raised by this essential document of the Western tradition: travel as a narrative vehicle for self-discovery and the competing satisfactions of the journey and the arrival.

Virgil, Augustine, Dante
Classics 226
cross-listed: italian studies, literature
An intensive study of Virgil’s Aeneid, Augustine’s Confessions, and Dante’s Divine Comedy. Although the texts span centuries and disparate cultures, they are a natural triad whose readings richly harmonize with each other. Read together, they raise fundamental questions for literature, literary history, and the humanities. Scholarship, criticism, and “creative” responses to the texts are also considered. Optional concurrent tutorials on select passages in the original Latin and/or Italian.

Life and Literature in the Late Roman Republic
Classics 230
The last generations of the Roman Republic experienced widespread social change. Roman authors of the period responded to these “consequences of conquest” by fashioning Latin literary languages in diverse genres. Topics covered include Latin literary history; late Roman Republican politics, society, and culture; and linguistic and cultural pluralism, purity, and policy. Readings, all in English, are drawn from Caesar, Cicero, Catullus, Lucretius, and Sallust, and from modern historiography and literary criticism.

Classical Methodology
Classics 242
An introduction to selected myths of ancient Greece and Rome, through texts in a variety of genres—epic, lyric, dramatic, and ancient prose summaries. Readings (in English translation) are largely of primary texts from Greek and Roman literature, with occasional texts from the Indo-European cousins of the Greeks and Romans, e.g., Sanskrit, Norse, and Irish; and the complex Near Eastern civilizations with whom they interacted, primarily Egyptian and Mesopotamian.

Rhetoric and Public Speaking
Classics 250
Students give speeches in various genres and study the texts of orations and theoretical treatises on the nature of rhetoric by Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero, Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr., and others. Video is used to examine important speeches of the last century and to critique student speeches. The class meets, through videoconferencing, with students at Smolny College in St. Petersburg. Smolny and Bard students reflect on differences in the public speaking traditions of Russia and the Anglophone world.

Poetry and Athletics
Classics 275
This course addresses the strange intersections of the physical, social, and sacred recognized in sports. It allots equal time to three sets of readings: (1) victory odes for the ancient Greek games; (2) case studies of the wedding of poetry to athletics in other cultures around the world; (3) an anthology of sports poetry in 19th- and 20th-century Europe and America. Readings also include scholarship by sports historians. All readings in English.

Indo-European Epic
Classics 276
Linguists and archaeologists have a rough agreement that there existed a people speaking a language called Proto-Indo-European. They shared not only a common language and social structures but also common literary genres, principally epic and lyric, in which there are signs of common metaphors and even meters. It is possible to compare passages from epics that originated in oral traditions and later crystallized into such texts as Mahabharata and Ramayana in India, Iliad and Odyssey in Greece, the Norse Elder Edda, and the Irish Táin Bó Cúailnge. All texts read in English.

Empires, Ancient and Modern
Classics 277 / History 277
See History 277 for a course description.

Self and Society in Classical Greek Drama
Classics 311
A close study of nearly all of the major plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in English translation, with the aim of gaining familiarity with the genre of tragedy as a complex art form and a preeminent vehicle for the transmission of core Western values—moral, political, and aesthetic. Special attention is paid to aspects of staging and performance, both in ancient times and in contemporary productions. Film screenings are part of the course.

Ovid
Classics 314 / Literature 314
Topics in this course, which covers all of Ovid, include poetic genres; Greco-Roman mythology; the characteristic Roman practice of “competitive imitation”; the equally Roman and surprisingly modern ideal of witty or figured speech; and the very human experience, captured especially by Ovid’s last works, of loneliness, alienation, and the fear of being forgotten in death. All readings in English. Prerequisites: moderated junior or senior standing and consultation with the instructor.

Socrates: Man, Myth, Monster
Classics 320
A study of primary ancient sources on which contemporary knowledge of Socrates is based (including Aristophanes’ The Clouds, Xenophon’s Socratic texts, several Platonic dialogues, and selections from Aristotle) and a number of exemplary texts from the modern reception and interpretation of Socrates (including Nietzsche, Vlastos, Kofman, Nehamas, and Hadot). The goal is to give due consideration to the historical, philosophical, and literary questions that together constitute the enigma that is Socrates. All readings in English.

Odysseys from Homer to Joyce
Classics 324
This course explores the nature and cultural uses of the figure of the wandering hero, from its first major treatment in Homer’s Odyssey to its adaptation in the 20th century by both Nikos Kazantzakis and James Joyce. Readings include: Homer, Odyssey; Virgil, Aeneid; Sophocles, Ajax and Philoctetes; Euripides, Hecuba; Dante, Inferno; Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida; Fénelon, Télémaque; selections from the poetry of Tennyson, Cavafy, Louise Gluck, and others; Joyce, Ulysses; Kazantzakis, The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel; and Walcott, Omeros.

Tacitus and Gibbon
Classics 333
Students consider extensive selections from Tacitus and Gibbon (in the case of Tacitus, comparing translations on some key passages) from both a historical and stylistic point of view. This course requires moderated status in classical studies, historical studies, or literature, or permission of the instructor.

Unflinching Prose
Classics 366
This course explores qualities common to some of the greatest nonfiction writers in a range of Western cultures: Thucydides in Greece, Tacitus in Rome, Machiavelli in Italy, Voltaire in France, Gibbon in England, the authors of the Federalist Papers in America (Hamilton, Madison, Jay), and Nietzsche in Germany. Students read, often in more than one translation, principal passages of each author, with an eye toward both historical context and the workings of the prose.

Greek

Basic Greek I, II
Greek 101-102
In this two-part course, Greek grammar and fundamental vocabulary are introduced, with attention given to pronunciation and recitation of poetry and prose. Reading includes significant passages from Homer and the Christian New Testament in Greek. Students with high school Greek are welcome and should see the instructor about placement.

Intermediate Greek: Early Classical Literature
Greek 201
This course is a survey of the literature of the late archaic and early classical periods, focusing on the prose of Herodotus and the poetry of Aeschylus. It also functions as a review of grammar and syntax learned in the first year.

Intermediate Greek II
Greek 202
Students continue to gain mastery in reading Greek prose and poetry. The semester begins with the reading of Herodotus, paying careful attention to the periodic style, and continues with a focus on the Odyssey and the prosody of Homeric poetry. Students consolidate their knowledge of vocabulary and syntax throughout, with regular review of grammatical forms and close examination of the formal aspects of translation.

Advanced Greek
Greek 301
Students solidify knowledge of vocabulary, morphology, and syntax; gain greater fluency in reading prose; and acquire advanced approaches to the language and its literatures. The class explores dialects other than Attic, samples poetic meters and genres, and reads literary criticism. Third-semester students begin working with Liddell and Scott’s lexicon; fifth-semester students use the lexicon and are responsible for additional work. Prerequisite: either Greek 102 or Greek 202, or permission of the instructor.

Homer and Plato
Greek 302
Students begin by reading Plato’s Ion, learning from it the technical terms by which educated Greeks of Plato’s time understood the processes and occasions of the recitation of traditional Homeric epics. Students then read selected passages from The Odyssey and The Iliad.

Latin

Elementary Latin
Latin 101-102
A yearlong introduction to Latin in which students gain familiarity with morphology, syntax, and essential vocabulary; achieve sufficient fluency for selected readings in ancient and medieval texts; and explore the literary, cultural, and historical contexts in which the language is embedded.

Intermediate Latin I
Latin 201 
The late Republic was a time of turmoil in Italy, resulting in extraordinary achievements in both prose and poetry. Students read substantial amounts of Cicero and late republican poetry: Virgil (Eclogues), Catullus, and others. The class considers the ways in which these men shaped the language in which the Empire would soon speak its own quite different truths.

Intermediate Latin II: Virgil
Latin 202
In this survey and close study of the great Roman poet, students read substantial portions of the poems—Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid—in Latin, all of the poems in English, and some criticism and scholarship. Students solidify knowledge of vocabulary, morphology, and syntax; develop fluency in reading Latin; and consider from a variety of critical perspectives aesthetic and thematic questions raised by the poems. Prerequisite: successful completion of Latin 201 or permission of instructor.

Advanced Latin—Lucretius’s De rerum natura
Latin 301
In approaching this difficult and rewarding poem, students gain greater fluency in reading Latin and consider, from a variety of critical perspectives, issues raised by the poem’s form and content.

Advanced Latin—Virgil
Latin 302
A continuation of the study of Virgil that began in Latin 202. Prerequisite: Latin 301 or permission of the instructor.

Sanskrit

Sanskrit I, II
Classics 140-141
cross-listed: asian studies
A review of Sanskrit foundations and an introduction to the reading of Sanskrit texts in the original. The readings include selections from the Indian epic Mahabharata. Students also practice recitation of Sanskrit, to gain an appreciation of the aural quality of the “perfected language.”

French

Basic Intensive French
French 106
This course is for students with little or no experience of French who wish to acquire a strong grasp of the language and culture in the shortest time possible. Students complete the equivalent of three semesters of college-level French in a semester course that meets 10 hours a week and is followed by a four-week stay at the Institut de Touraine (Tours, France), where students live with local families and continue intensive study of French.

Intermediate French I, II, III
French 201-202-203
This introduction to contemporary French civilization and culture is for students who have completed three to five years of high school French or who have acquired a solid knowledge of elementary grammar. Students reinforce their skills in grammar, composition, and spoken proficiency, through the use of short texts, newspaper and magazine articles, and video.

French through Translation
French 215
This course helps students fine-tune their command of French and develop a good sense of the most appropriate ways of communicating ideas and facts in French. The course emphasizes translation as an exercise, as well as a craft in its own right, and addresses grammatical, lexical, and stylistic issues. Translation is practiced from English into French (and vice versa) with a variety of texts from different genres.

Marcel Proust: In Search of Lost Time
French 217
Through the close reading of Swann’s Way and Time Regained in their entirety and several key excerpts from the other volumes, students explore the complex nature of Proust’s masterpiece and, among other things, examine the ways by which it accounts for the temporality and new rhythms of modernity.

Film: French New Wave
French 220
Students in this intermediate course explore major themes of French culture and civilization through the study of individual films ranging from the silent era to the present and covering a wide variety of genres. Students also examine the interaction between the French and their cinema, in terms of historical circumstances, aesthetic ambitions, and self-representation.

Genealogy of French Morals
French 223
cross-listed: human rights
If we act morally, French moralists believed, it is because we know we are being watched. This cynicism of the 17th-century moralistes permeated much of French literature and philosophy. Course readings include excerpts from Pascal (Pensées), Molière (Misanthrope), La Fontaine (Fables), Laclos (Liaisons dangereuses), Gide (L’Immoraliste), Balzac (Père Goriot), Céline (Mort à crédit), de Beauvoir (Mémoires d’une jeune fille bien rangée), and Sarraute (L’Usage de la parole). Conducted in French.

Survey of Francophone Literature: Tales of Childhood
French 232
This course focuses on the ways the adult world, and society at large, are seen from a child’s perspective. The main focus is on reconstruction of the past as utopia or dystopia; ritual(s) of passage to adulthood; and social and historical satires. Texts include works by 20th-century African and Caribbean Francophone writers such as Camara Laye, Maryse Condé, and Joseph Zobel.

The Quest for Authenticity: Topics in French Literature
French 240
Serving as an overview of modern French literature, this course focuses on short texts (poems, plays, essays, letters, short stories) that reflect the fragile relationship between selfhood and authenticity. Readings come from Rousseau, Stendhal, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Proust, Gide, Sartre, Duras, Sarraute, and Ernaux. Conducted in French. Prerequisite: two years of college French or permission of the instructor.

Autrement dit: Paroles de Femme
French 252
cross-listed: gss
An introduction to the diversity of French women’s voices in literature and cinema in the 20th century. Readings include works by Colette, Simone de Beauvoir, Maryse Condé, Marguerite Duras, Annie Ernaux, Anne Hébert, Catherine Millet, Amélie Nothomb, and Nathalie Sarraute. Movies by Chantal Ackerman, Catherine Breillat, Claire Denis, Duras, and Agnès Varda are shown and discussed. Conducted in French. Prequisite: four years of French.

Advanced Composition and Conversation
French 270
This course focuses on a wide and diverse selection of writings (short works of fiction, poems, philosophical essays, political analysis, newspaper editorials, magazine articles, etc.) loosely organized around a single theme. The readings provide a rich ground for cultural investigation, intellectual exchange, in-class debates, in-depth examination of stylistics, and vocabulary acquisition. Students are encouraged to write regularly and expected to participate fully. A general review of grammar is also conducted.

Readings: Contemporary French Thought
French 305
This course introduces the major schools of 20th-century French thought through a selection of texts that have had particular significance for philosophy, psychoanalysis, linguistics, literary theory, and sociology. Close reading focuses on Saussure, Barthes, Breton, Lacan, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Deleuze, Lyotard, and Bourdieu. Conducted in French. Prerequisite: French 202 or the equivalent.

Survey of 20th-Century French Poetry
French 324
A survey of major trends in modern and contemporary French poetry. Works read include poems and essays by Alferi, Albiach, Apollinaire, Bonnefoy, Cadiot, Char, Desnos, des Forêts, Éluard, Gleize, Jaccottet, Perros, Prigent, Ponge, Roche, and Roubaud. Conducted in French.

Poetic Objects: Poetry and Painting in the 20th Century
French 332
Throughout the 20th century, painters and poets evolved and worked side by side in the same avant-garde movements. Students read critical and theoretical texts that reflect an ongoing dialogue between painting and poetry. Readings include work by Apollinaire, Aragon, Artaud, Bonnefoy, Breton, Jaccottet, Leiris, Michaux, Paulhan, Ponge, Reverdy, and Valéry.

Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé
French 335
Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé brought a revolution to the theory and practice of 19th-century French poetry. Through a succession of close readings, students assess the range of this poetic revolution, which questioned the limits of literature and the possibility of meaning. Conducted in French, with primary texts in French, secondary sources in English. Readings include Les Fleurs du mal and Le Spleen de Paris (Baudelaire), Illuminations and Une Saison en enfer (Rimbaud), and Poésies (Mallarmé).

The Novel in Crisis: French 20th-Century Fiction
French 337
An introduction to major 20th-century French novels. Through close readings and scrutiny of sociohistorical context, students explore the ambiguity of political commitment, the figure of the solitary antihero, and relevant aesthetic theories. Authors include Proust, Gide, Céline, Sartre, Camus, Duras, des Forêts, Robbe-Grillet, and Perec. Conducted in French.

Reading for the Plot: Hugo, Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Zola
French 338
While novelists welcomed the feuilleton format (publishing novels in cliff-hanging installments), they often resisted the takeover by a public that begged them to surrender stylistic experimentation for plot, aestheticism for entertainment. This conflict figures in the novels studied: Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir, Balzac’s Illusions perdues, Flaubert’s Education sentimentale, Zola’s L’Oeuvre, Huysmans’s À rebours. In French.

Literature of Private Life
French 354
cross-listed: human rights, gss
Using novels, stories, and short selections from journals, autobiographies, and correspondence, this course examines the emergence of writings previously considered too personal to be viewed as literature. Students uncover the techniques that help dramatize these highly subjective conflicts (interior monologue, free indirect discourse, early examples of flow of consciousness). In order to situate these texts within a tradition that rethinks the self, additional readings by Locke, Descartes, Kant, and Shaftesbury are considered. Conducted in French.

German

Beginning German
German 101-102
Instruction includes grammar drills, review of reading, communication practice, guided composition, and language lab exercises. The course develops listening comprehension, speaking proficiency and reading and writing skills. Reading furnishes insights into many aspects of German civilization and culture, conveying what life is like in German-speaking countries today. This course is for students with little or no previous instruction in German.

Transitional German
German 110
This course, for students with some background in German but without the proficiency for German 201, provides a complete and accelerated review of elementary grammar and vocabulary while students hone their cultural proficiency and all four language skills (speaking, reading, writing, listening). Extensive work with the German tutor and in the Language Center is combined with conversational practice, writing simple compositions, and reading of modern German texts. Those who complete the course successfully may continue with German 202.

Kafka: Prague, Politics, and the Fin de Siècle
German 199 / Literature 199
This course covers Kafka’s shorter fiction (fragments, parables, sketches) and longer tales (“The Metamorphosis” and “The Judgement”). Students also examine the novels The Trial and The Man Who Disappeared (Amerika), and excerpts from his diaries and letters. Conducted in English; students with an advanced proficiency in German can read selections in the original for extra credit.

Intermediate German
German 201-202
Designed to deepen the proficiency gained in German 101 and 102, this course increases students’ fluency in speaking, reading, and writing, and adds significantly to their working vocabulary. Readings include selected 20th-century literary texts, such as Kafka’s Die Verwandlung, supplemented by audiovisual materials.

German Immersion
German 206
This course enables students with little or no previous experience in German to complete two years of college German within five months. Students take 15 class hours per week during the semester at Bard and 20 hours per week during June at Collegium Palatinum, the German language institute of Schiller International University in Heidelberg. Financial aid available.

The Beheaded Angel: Postwar German Literature in Translation
German 258
An examination of developments in German literature following World War II. Topics include various ways that writers and film directors of the period dealt with the historical atrocities of the war, issues attached to the guilt and suffering of the Holocaust, increased industrialization brought on by the German “economic miracle” of the 1950s, and the separation of the two Germanys. Writers discussed include Grass, Böll, Bachmann, Celan, Dürrenmatt, Köppen, and Wolf. Films by Fassbinder, Schlöndorff, and Wenders are also considered.

Grimm’s Märchen
German 303
Students do close readings of selected tales, with a focus on language, plot, motif, image, and relation to folklore. The study includes critical examination and the application of major theoretical approaches: Freudian, Jungian, Marxist, and feminist.

Goethe’s Faust
German 309
Students in this course undertake an intensive study of Goethe’s drama about a man in league with the devil. Themes are examined in regard to their meaning in Goethe’s time and their continued relevance today. Students also consider Faust literature before and after Goethe and explore the integration of Faust in music, theater, and film. Conducted in English;. students with an advanced proficiency in German are encouraged to read Faust in the original.

German Poetry
German 317
The rich tradition of 20th-century German-language poetry from Rilke, Trakl, and Benn to Celan and the best young contemporary writers serves as a basis for the study of the poetic process. Analytic and creative approaches are taken: participants write verse of their own in German and translate poems into and from German. Students develop their skills as readers and writers of poetry and continue their training in German. Conducted in German.

Modern German Short Prose
German 320
A survey of Novellen, Erzählungen, parables, and other short forms of mainly 20th-century prose. Students combine detailed literary analysis with an examination of social/political/historical contexts. Readings include Kafka, Musil, Mann, Walser, von Kleist, Jeremias Gotthelf, Benjamin, Hans Erich Nossack, Ingeborg Bachmann, Frisch, Dürrenmatt, Ilse Aichinger, Jenny Erpenbeck, Thomas Bernhard, Handke, and Yoko Tawada. Conducted in German.

Secularization and Its Discontents: Goethe, Schiller, Heine
German 348
Against the backdrop of the intellectual climate of the time between the Storm-and-Stress movement of the 1760s and the radical trends leading up to the revolution of 1848, the class accompanies Germany’s greatest writers on their journey toward modernity and explores with them the tensions and contradictions of the “Age of Secularisation” as manifested in their poetry, prose, and plays. Conducted in English.

The Ring of the Nibelung
German 387
Richard Wagner’s cycle of four music dramas about gods, dwarves (Nibelungs), giants, and humans has been read and performed as a manifesto for socialism, a plea for a Nazi-like racialism, a study of the workings of the human psyche, a forecast of the fate of the world and humankind, and a parable about the new industrial society of his time. Students read Heine, the Brothers Grimm, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the anonymous author of the medieval epic Nibelungenlied.

“Exit Metaphysics, Enter Sauerkraut”: 19th-Century German Literature
German 405
“Exit metaphysics, enter sauerkraut” alludes to the experience of many 19th-century German intellectuals and writers: awareness of the loss of security that idealistic philosophy had provided and an attempt to find new absolutes. This course focuses on the evolution of this experience as manifested in literature. Close readings are made of works by Nestroy, Grillparzer, Grabbe, Hebbel, Heine, Mörike, Droste-Hülshoff, Keller, Stifter, Fontane, C. F. Meyer, Schnitzler, Hauptmann, and Wedekind. Conducted in German.

Revolution in German Literature
German 410
cross-listed: human rights
This seminar undertakes a close examination of novellas, plays, and poems about several political revolutions. Do these texts figure revolutionary violence as a manifestation of genuine political agency or as the terrible price that has to be paid for its eventual achievement? What do these texts say about their own status as literature? Authors include Lenz, Kleist, Büchner, Heine, Toller, Brecht, Müller, and Seghers. All readings in German; conducted in German.

German Poetry: Goethe to Celan
German 417
An introduction to the pleasures and challenges of German poetry. Students read exemplary works by the most important German poets of the last three centuries, including Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin, Brentano, Heine, Rilke, Hofmannsthal, George, and Celan. While focusing closely on the formal features of each poem, students explore how the poem engages with the major philosophical shifts and historical catastrophes of the times. Conducted in German.

Schauerliteratur: The German Gothic and Its Obsession with Artificial Life
German 423
While focusing on Gustav Meyrink’s 1915 novel The Golem, this course considers “monsters” before and after Meyrink. Starting with Goethe’s hubristic creators, the class moves on to the Romantic doppelgänger and finishes with Paul Wegener’s silent Golem films and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Embedding the German “Gothic” in its historical contexts allows students to explore such issues as Romanticism’s critique of the Enlightenment, theories of the sublime, and anti-Semitism and the rise of Fascism. Conducted in German.

Culture and Society in Weimar Germany
German 425
A critical exploration of German literature, theater, visual arts, architecture, and film in the period from 1918 to 1933. The Weimar Republic witnessed the emergence of a distinctive brand of modernism, characterized by an unprecedented openness to mass culture and to new technologies of reproduction. Students analyze works of literature and art in their relation to the rapid technological and social modernization that shaped the period, and to the sociopolitical conflicts to which this process gave rise.

Anarchy as Art: Karl Valentin’s “Surreal Comedy”
German 432
Born in 1882, Karl Valentin was a comedian who had a lasting influence on Weimar culture. Valentin’s sketches deride the complacency, conformism, and prejudice of Everyman and, through him, of the epoch. Students analyze Valentin’s films and texts and compare them with Dadaist and Expressionist poets. Conducted in German.

The Student Movement and the Neo-Avant-Garde in 1960s Germany
German 456
An interdisciplinary examination of the aesthetic and intellectual shifts that transformed West German cultural and political life in the years leading up to the student rebellion of 1968. Topics include experimental poetry (“Wiener Gruppe,” Enzensberger); theater, and antitheater (Handke, Weiss); “New German Cinema” (Fassbinder, Kluge); visual art (Beuys, Fluxus, Pop, Capitalist Realism); and pronouncements and manifestos of the student movement (Dutschke, Baumann, Gruppe SPUR). Conducted in German.

Hebrew

See Jewish Studies.

Italian

Accelerated Italian
Italian 110
This beginning course is designed for the student with some prior exposure to Italian or excellent command of another Romance language. The course covers the major aspects of grammar and provides intensive practice in the four skills (speaking, comprehension, reading, and writing). Students must enroll in a weekly tutorial. The course concludes with one month of study in Italy.

Accelerated Italian II
Italian 111
This course, open to students who have completed Italian 110 and the interterm program in Italy, continues to cover the major topics of grammar through intensive practice in speaking, comprehension, reading, and writing. Students are required to attend a weekly session with the foreign language tutor, in order to practice oral skills.

Intermediate Italian I, II
Italian 201-202
This course, which is for students who have completed the equivalent of one year of college Italian, constitutes a comprehensive review through practice in writing and conversation. Students engage in discussion and must complete compositions and oral reports based on Italian literary texts and cultural material.

Introduction to Italian Renaissance Literature and Thought
Italian 215
This course introduces students to the repertoire of basic cultural referents with which the early modern individual viewed knowledge and perceived history (as well as the present). Among the authors studied are Alberti, Dante, Ficino, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Pico della Mirandola, Landino, Ortensio Lando, Tasso, Sansovino, Manuzio, Doni, and Garzoni.

Forbidden Books, Prohibited Knowledge
Italian 220
cross-listed: human rights
This course explores the historical faces of forbiddenness and the subversions of it from antiquity to the 18th century through the works of Plato, Dante, Petrarch, Galileo, Descartes, Montaigne, Marlowe, Milton, Defoe, and Rousseau. Students also consider the rise of private and public societies in the early modern period as they relate to the idea of accessing, circumscribing, and censoring different bodies of knowledge. Conducted in English.

Lost in Language: The Search for Identity in the Italian Avant-Garde
Italian 229
This course presents the works of experimental Italian authors, including Elio Pagliarani and Andrea Zanzotto, focusing on their capacity to express the meaning of contemporary society through the use of nonlinear communication. Textual analyses and a comparative approach are used to explore topics such as the connection between psyche, body, and language; the search for identity within tortured linguistic expression; and the metamorphoses of the self and the world. Conducted in Italian.

The History of Italian Cinema
Italian 275
cross-listed: film and electronic arts
This survey course, taught in Italian, examines the evolution of Italian cinema from its inception to the present. Featured directors include Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti, Fellini, Bertolucci, Antonioni, Scola, Wertmüller, Pasolini, and Salvatores. Readings are selected from film theory and criticism, screenplays, interviews, and Italian historical and literary texts. Prerequisite: one 200-level course in Italian or permission of the instructor.

Origins of Italian Literature
Italian 301
Early Italian poets sought to redefine love and distinguish the array of nuances within it. This course examines the various permutations of the concept of love from the medieval to the early modern age. Authors include Lentini, Cavalcanti, Guinizelli, Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Ficino, Ariosto, Bembo, Machiavelli, Aretino, Franco, Michelangelo, Stampa, Patrizi, Bruno, Marino, Pallavicino, and Casanova. Taught in Italian with critical readings in Italian and English.

Theory, Crisis, and Form in Modern Italian Literature (Advanced Grammar Review)
Italian 315
This course surveys modern Italian literature in light of the major aesthetic and historical developments that have shaped what the philosopher of history Giambattista Vico called the “sapientia Italorum” (“Italian wisdom”). This course provides a comprehensive grammar review, significant work in Italian conversation and composition, and a mandatory weekly meeting with the tutor. Authors include Alfieri, Foscolo, Manzoni, Leopardi, Calvino, Deledda, among others. All course work in Italian. Prerequisite: Italian 201 or the equivalent.

The Fantastic Tale
Italian 317
Fantastic fiction, said Italo Calvino, “meditates on the nightmares and hidden places of contemporary man.” This course discusses this seminal idea through a reading of short stories by Italian authors including Pirandello, Calvino, Eco, Ortese, and Tabucchi. Topics include the inherently subversive nature of the fantastic, the link between fantastic texts and politics, and the theoretical debate about the fantastic in critics such as Freud and Todorov. In English.

European Literature and the Making of Italy
Italian 340
This course addresses such themes as the emergence of Italy as the “world’s university” and the “mother of European art” in Byron, de Staël, Goethe, and Wordsworth; the influence of Dante on Romantic autobiography; and the representation of the Italian body politic as a woman. Students explore the works of Ugo Foscolo, Giacomo Leopardi, and Alessandro Manzoni, the leading authors of Romantic Italy.

Japanese

Introductory Japanese I, II
Japanese 101-102
This two-semester sequence introduces the fundamentals of modern Japanese. Students systematically develop listening, speaking, writing, and reading abilities. Because fluency in Japanese requires sensitivity to the social setting in which one is speaking, the course also provides an introduction to fundamental aspects of daily life and culture in contemporary Japan.

Intensive Japanese
Japanese 106
This course is intended for students who have completed Japanese 101 or have an equivalent background. Students continue to focus on the oral and written aspects of the language and, upon completion of the course, are qualified to enroll in a five-week summer immersion program in Kyoto, Japan. Financial aid available.

Intermediate Japanese I, II
Japanese 201-202
This course accelerates the learning of characters begun in Japanese 101-102 and introduces more complex grammatical patterns and expressions, to refine students’ mastery of reading, speaking, writing, and listening. Study includes intensive grammar review and practice of idiomatic expressions. Conducted in Japanese. Prerequisite: Japanese 102 or the equivalent.

Advanced Japanese I
Japanese 301
The course introduces more complex grammatical structures, especially those common to written material, and accelerates character acquisition and advanced vocabulary. Students learn the fundamentals of dictionary use and acquire the skills necessary for speed-reading and accurate composition of written material. Conducted in Japanese. Prerequisite: Japanese 202 or the equivalent.

Advanced Japanese II
Japanese 302
Students deepen their reading skills and engage in essay-writing exercises and formal oral presentations. Materials are selected on the basis of student interest and include newspaper articles, handwritten letters, popular songs, haiku, and selections from films.

Advanced Readings in Japanese
Japanese 303
This course enhances the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills of third- and fourth-year Japanese language students through the examination of various kinds of cultural material, including literature, history, political analysis, newspaper editorials, poetry, and film. Students are also introduced to higher-level grammatical structures and idiomatic phrases important for reading and writing modern Japanese. Prerequisite: Japanese 302 or the equivalent.

Literary Japanese
Japanese 306
An introduction to the literature of Japan from earliest times through the middle of the 20th century. Students read, in the original language, some of Japan’s most revered works of poetry, fiction, myth, and history, and deepen their linguistic and cultural understanding. Prerequisite: Japanese 301 or the equivalent.

Soseki: Authorship Text and the Question of Non-Western Modernity
Japanese 310
The works of writer and literary critic Natsume Soseki (1867–1916) offer a window onto a formative period in the evolution of Japanese literature and a critical moment in Japan’s social history. Working through Soseki’s major novels and essays, students address a larger set of questions and themes relating to authorship, the relation of literary text to history, and the possibilities for imagining a non-Western mode of modernity. All readings in English.

Japanese Tradition: Theory and Methodology
Japanese 340
Through practice, students consider the nature and limits of translation with the Japanese context and focus on the techniques and craft of translation. They are also introduced to translation theory, both Western and Japanese, and to various translation approaches, in different genres. They examine well-known translations by comparing source and target texts, and have the opportunity to complete their own translation projects as part of the class. Prerequisite: Japanese 302 or the equivalent.

Russian

For a description of Smolny College and the Bard–Saint Petersburg State University exchange program, see International Programs and Study Abroad.

Beginning Russian
Russian 101
This course introduces the fundamentals of the spoken and written language, as well as Russian culture. Creative expression is encouraged through autobiographical and fictional compositions. In addition to regular class meetings, students are required to attend a weekly tutorial.

Intensive Russian
Russian 106-107
This course is for students who have completed Russian 101 and those who have had the equivalent of one semester of Russian at Bard or at another institution. It culminates in a June program in St. Petersburg that includes 24 hours a week of Russian-language classes. Successful completion of this program qualifies the student to pursue study at Smolny College.

Continuing Russian I
Russian 206
Students increase their oral proficiency by expanding their vocabulary and studying the syntax of complex Russian sentences and grammatical nuances. They develop reading and viewing strategies appropriate to a variety of texts (literature, poetry, and newspapers) and Russian television and film. They keep a weekly diary, write short essays on numerous topics, and do audiovisual work in the language laboratory. Conducted in Russian.

Continuing Russian II
Russian 207
Students continue refining and engaging their practice of speaking, reading, and writing Russian. Advanced grammar topics are addressed through a variety of texts and contexts, with emphasis on literary analysis and the modern press. The course is structured around a semesterlong group project that provides an opportunity to research aspects of modern Russian culture; build a Web design dictionary; and analyze and present findings in a collaborative creative effort, such as a play, news broadcast, or newspaper.

Rise of the Russian Novel
Russian 2314 / Literature 2314
See Literature 2314 for a full course description.

Dostoevsky and Tolstoy
Russian 240
This course examines contrasts and parallels between two great authors of Russia: Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. The works include Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov and Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and “The Kreutzer Sonata.” Conducted in English.

Generation “P,” the Invention of the 21st Century
Russian 2701 / Literature 2701
See Literature 2701 for a full course description.

Advanced Russian
Russian 301
Students increase oral proficiency and develop reading strategies appropriate to the widest variety of written texts, including artistic literature, poetry, and newspapers. Study includes vocabulary, syntax of the complex Russian sentence, and grammatical nuances. Students write essays on a variety of topics and study audiovisual materials in the language laboratory. In Russian.

An Appointment with Dr. Chekhov
Russian 3021 / Literature 3021
See Literature 3021 for a full course description.

Nabokov: Puzzle, Pattern, Game
Russian 312
In this seminar, students approach a selection of Nabokov’s works as “players” and treasure seekers, training their senses to discern what has been so carefully and lovingly hidden. Students read—in addition to poems, short stories, and critical articles—The Defense, Invitation to a Beheading, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Pnin, and Pale Fire, as well as Nabokov’s autobiography, Speak, Memory. In English.

Body, Mind, and Spirit in Dostoevsky
Russian 325
An exploration of Dostoevsky’s multifaceted world. Particular attention is paid to the way the writer experiments with the themes of body and sexuality, intellectual pursuit and philosophy, spiritual quest and religion. Readings include “Bobok,” “A Gentle Creature,” Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov; letters and excerpts from A Diary of a Writer; and major critical and theoretical writings. In English.

Dramatic Difference: Russia and Its Theater
Russian 330
An examination of the evolution of Russian dramaturgy in connection with parallel developments in literature and theater. Students explore aspects of Russian culture by discussing the specifics of Russian drama. Readings include Fonvizin, Griboedov, Gogol, Petrushevskaya, Pushkin, Ostrovsky, Chekhov, Bulgakov, Erdman; and theoretical texts by Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, and Mikhail Chekhov. The class attends a performance of a Russian play in New York. No knowledge of Russian required.

Kino
Russian 331
An advanced Russian class for students who wish to increase their language proficiency by watching, discussing, and analyzing in writing Russian/Soviet films of various periods and genres. Discussions are based on the narrative, historical, and aesthetic elements of the films. The focus of weekly writing assignments is on formal clarity, syntactic structures, and development of personal style.

Russia on the Opera Stage
Russian 340
cross-listed: music
The combination of vocal and instrumental faculties in Western Europe resulted in the creation of numerous forms of musical art, including opera. The flourishing of this genre in Europe affected the progress of musical life in Russia. Material studied includes literary texts, musical recordings, and opera performances on video. Offered under the auspices of the Bard-Smolny Virtual Campus Project.

Translation: Russian to English
Russian 390
This practical and theoretical course consists of regular weekly reading and translation of a variety of literary texts. Students also work on an independent project throughout the semester. Texts include short stories and poems by Bunin, Chekhov, Babel, Tolstaya, Dovlatov, Akhmatova, Pasternak, and others.

Russian Poetry
Russian 409
A historical study of Russian versification—the technical aspects of poetry, structural analysis of poetic texts, and translation of selected poems. Poets studied include Pushkin, Lermontov, Baratynsky, Tyutchev, Fet, Blok, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva, Tarkovsky, Pasternak, Mayakovsky, Brodsky, and Rein. In Russian.

Detskii mir / A Child’s World
Russian 420
This course consists of reading, discussion, and lexical analysis of Russian literature for and about children. Texts include fairy tales, as well as works by Pushkin, Odoevskii, Tolstoy, Zakhoder Chekhov, Sologub, Chukovsky, Kharms, Marshak, and Mayakovsky. Videotapes and films are used for developing skills in language comprehension. Conducted in Russian.

Spanish

Basic Intensive Spanish
Spanish 106
This course enables students with little or no previous knowledge of Spanish to complete three semesters of college Spanish in five months (8 credits at Bard and 4 credits in Mexico in January). Students attend eight hours of class per week, plus two hours with a Spanish tutor. Oral communication and reading and writing skills are developed through a variety of approaches. Admission is by permission of the instructor.

Accelerated First-Year Spanish
Spanish 110
This course, designed for the student with prior exposure to Spanish or command of another Romance language, covers major topics in grammar with intensive practice in speaking, comprehension, reading, and writing. Practice with a Spanish tutor and work in the language lab are required. The course prepares students for summer language programs abroad or Spanish 201. Admission by permission of the instructor.

Intermediate Spanish I
Spanish 201
This course is designed to perfect the command of all four language skills (speaking, comprehension, reading, writing) through intensive grammar review, conversation practice, reading of modern Spanish texts, writing simple compositions, and language lab work. Prerequisites: Spanish 106 or 110 or the equivalent, and permission of the instructor.

Intermediate Spanish II
Spanish 202
This course continues to refine the student’s mastery of speaking, reading, comprehension, and writing. Advanced study of grammar is supplemented with a video series and reading on a variety of topics related to Spanish and Latin American history, literature, music, and art. Reading includes excerpts from Don Quijote, indigenous Mexican poetry, and a short modern novel. Prerequisite: Spanish 201 or permission of the instructor.

Spanish for Bilinguals
Spanish 211
This course is for students who have been exposed to Spanish at home and wish to achieve confidence in speaking, writing, and reading the language. Emphasis is placed on written composition, accelerated grammar review, and the discussion of issues pertinent to Hispanic cultures. Admission is by permission of the instructor.

Hispanic Presence in the United States
Spanish 220
cross-listed: human rights, sre
This multidisciplinary course provides an in-depth study of historical, social, political, legal, and linguistic issues surrounding the Hispanic presence in the United States. It also gives advanced Spanish students an opportunity to utilize and improve their communication skills and broaden their cultural perspectives. Conducted in Spanish and English. Prerequisites: at least one year of college-level Spanish and permission of the instructor.

Creative Writing in Spanish
Spanish 233
Students at the advanced-intermediate level present their own work (in Spanish) for group analysis and evaluation. Workshop exercises include writing poetry and short prose pieces, as well as writing in response to various Spanish and Latin American writers whose poetics are examined in class. Conducted in Spanish. Prerequisites: Spanish 202 or higher, and permission of the instructor.

The Moral of the Story
Spanish 235
The tension between didactic and aesthetic imperatives provides this course with a framework with which to examine a wide range of short stories and think about the function of art in general. Writers studied include Don Juan Manuel, Miguel de Cervantes, Mariano José de Larra, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Pío Baroja, Ignacio Aldecoa, and Ana María Matute.

Surrealism in Latin American Literature and Art
Spanish 239 / Art History 239
See Art History 239 for a full course description.

Testimonies of Latin America: Perspectives from the Margins
Spanish 240
cross-listed: gss, human rights
Students engage critically with texts that serve as a public forum for voices often silenced in the past. Some of the questions discussed are: How best to represent memories of violence and pain? What are the ultimate effects of mediations of the written word, translations to hegemonic languages, and interventions of well-intentioned intellectuals? The course integrates diaries, testimonial narratives, and films that portray the issues and time periods documented in them.

Writing Wrongs: The Literature of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish 260
cross-listed: human rights
This course considers the ways in which literary texts represent the events surrounding the Spanish Civil War. While the class focuses on literary works in Spanish, students also explore other artistic mediums, such as painting and film, and accounts of the war from non-Spanish writers. Authors include Camilo José Cela, Ramón J. Sender, Mercè Rodoreda, Pablo Neruda, and Javier Cercas. In Spanish.

Introduction to Spanish Literature
Spanish 301
An introduction to Spanish literature through a variety of genres, including poetry, short stories, novels, dramas, and essays, from the 11th through the 20th century. Students read texts closely, in the original language, and also explore music, painting, and sculpture. Writers include Gonzalo de Berceo, Miguel de Cervantes, Teresa de Jesús, Lope de Vega, Benito Pérez Galdós, Ramón del Valle-Inclán, and Federico García Lorca, among others. Conducted in Spanish.

Introduction to Latin American Literature
Spanish 302
This writing-intensive course covers a broad historical range, presents all literary genres, and prepares students for more advanced and specialized courses in Hispanic literature. Critical skills, both verbal and written, are developed. Students spend an hour a week in a writing lab, and regular short writing assignments are required. Conducted in Spanish. Prerequisites: Spanish 301 and permission of the instructor.

Five Latin American Poets
Spanish 306
This course examines the work of Pablo Neruda (Chile), César Vallejo (Peru), Octavio Paz (Mexico), Nicolás Guillén (Cuba), and Alejandra Pizarnik (Argentina). Outside readings orient students to the historical, social, and political contexts in which these writers worked. Students write critical essays and memorize and recite short poems.

20th-Century Mexican Literature
Spanish 315
This writing-intensive course begins with the novel of the Mexican Revolution, ends with contemporary poetry, and includes short stories, essays, drama, and certain works of art and music. The common thread is the notion of La Mexicanidad, or authentic “Mexican-ness.” Students spend an hour a week in a writing lab, learning to develop, compose, organize, revise, and edit analytical prose. Conducted in Spanish (writing lab in English). Prerequisite: Spanish 301 or 302, or permission of instructor.

Introduction to Central American Literature
Spanish 334
Students read a selection of 20th-century authors from this region and explore aesthetic and ideological concerns within the violent political and historical context that often becomes a theme in Central American fiction. Authors studied include Miguel Ángel Asturias, Gioconda Belli, Roque Dalton, Tatiana Lobo, and Sergio Ramírez. Conducted in Spanish. Prerequisites: Spanish 301 or 302, and permission of the instructor.

Staging Marriage in the Spanish Drama
Spanish 339
In what ways does the Spanish drama confirm or subvert the social conventions governing the institution of marriage? Why do wooing and wedding tend to be funny, while being married inevitably leads to tragedy? This course examines stock characters and the questions raised by the institution of marriage in the works of Lope de Rueda, Lope de Vega, Tirso, Cervantes, Calderón, and Sor Juana, among others.

Cervantes’ Don Quijote
Spanish 340
This course examines the role of difference in Miguel de Cervantes’ masterpiece. What are the ideological forces that compel conformity in Don Quijote? How are language and violence posited as instruments of change? Apart from Don Quijote, readings include Lazarillo de Tormes, Amadis de Gaula, and El Abencerraje. Conducted in English; texts may be read in English or Spanish.

Transatlantic Travel Writing: Two Centuries of Writing the Americas and Spain
Spanish 346
This course looks at a variety of travel writers, beginning with French and North American revolutionary hero Francisco de Miranda and continuing through El País (Madrid) columnist Maruja Torres’s sentimental journey through Latin America. Texts range from travel diaries and fully conceived travel books to Juan Ramón Jiménez’s innovative poetic notebook of his visit to the United States. Conducted in Spanish. Prerequisites: Spanish 301 or 302, and permission of the instructor.

Mayan Identities: Negotiating Tradition and Modernity
Spanish 349
cross-listed: anthropology, human rights
What does it mean to be Maya today and what has it meant in the past? Using materials from Guatemala and southern Mexico, this course approaches this question from many different angles, drawing from the fields of literature, anthropology, and history. Students read selections from precolonial texts, such as the Popol Vuh or Rabinal Achi, and contemporary Mayan novels, poetry, and testimonies. In English.

Through Spanish Eyes: Recent and Past Cinema from Spain
Spanish 351
An examination of a selection of films from 1929—the year in which Buñuel made Un chien andalou—to the present. Special attention is given to the historical and cultural frameworks of these films, particularly to the period of the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s subsequent dictatorship. Conducted in Spanish.

Mapping the City in Latin American Literature
Spanish 352
Students read several 20th-century Latin American texts that address the many tensions that arise in the process of modernization. Students pay close attention to considerations of centers and margins, inclusions and exclusions, feelings of alienation and, ultimately, a search for community. Among the authors read are Carlos Fuentes (Mexico), Roberto Arlt (Argentina), Fernando Vallejo (Colombia), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), and Diamela Eltit (Chile). Conducted in Spanish.

Spanish Literary Translation
Spanish 356
The focus of this course, designed for students who have completed at least two years of college Spanish, is theoretical texts on translation. Students first translate brief texts from genres selected by the instructor and then choose texts to translate. The goal is to encourage thoughtful examination of literary language across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Conducted primarily in Spanish. Prerequisites: thorough knowledge of Spanish grammar; broad vocabulary in Spanish; permission of the instructor.

Writing Toward Hope: The Literature of Human Rights in Latin America
Spanish 357
cross-listed: human rights
Based on Marjorie Agosín’s anthology of the same title, this seminar considers the regenerative power of language after the experience of traumatic historical and political events in Latin America. Among the authors read are Timerman, Arenas, Velenzuela, and Alegría. Conducted in Spanish. Prerequisites: Spanish 301 or 302, and permission of the instructor.

Literature of the Conquest
Spanish 423
This course explores texts by indigenous and European writers during the first century of the Spanish Conquest. Issues covered include the ways in which Native Americans found a place in their mythologies for these often brutal strangers, and the Europeans’ motivation and ideological justification for their treatment of indigenous populations. Students establish links between the recorded experiences of the conquest.