Courses for Spring 2025
| Title | Instructors | Location | Time | Description | Cross listings | Fulfills | Registration notes | Syllabus | Syllabus URL | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COML 0006-401 | Hindu Mythology | Deven Patel | STNH AUD | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | Premodern India produced some of the world's greatest myths and stories: tales of gods, goddesses, heroes, princesses, kings and lovers that continue to capture the imaginations of millions of readers and hearers. In this course, we will look closely at some of these stories especially as found in Purana-s, great compendia composed in Sanskrit, including the chief stories of the central gods of Hinduism: Visnu, Siva, and the Goddess. We will also consider the relationship between these texts and the earlier myths of the Vedas and the Indian Epics, the diversity of the narrative and mythic materials within and across different texts, and the re-imagining of these stories in the modern world. | RELS0006401, SAST0006401 | Arts & Letters Sector Cross Cultural Analysis |
||||
| COML 0007-401 | Introduction to Modern South Asian Literatures | Apurva Ashok Prasad Gregory Goulding |
DRLB 4C2 | TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | This course will provide a wide-ranging introduction to the literatures of South Asia from roughly 1500 to the present, as well as an exploration of their histories and impact on South Asian society today. How are literary movements and individual works - along with the attitudes towards religion, society, and culture associated with them - still influential in literature, film, and popular culture? How have writers across time and language engaged with questions of caste, gender, and identity? We will read from the rich archive of South Asian writing in translation - from languages that include Braj, Urdu, Bangla, and Tamil - to consider how these literatures depict their own society while continuing to resonate across time and space. Topics of dicussion will include the Bhakti poetries of personal devotion, the literature of Dalits - formerly referred to as the Untouchables - and the ways in which literature addresses contemporary political and social problems. Students will leave this course with a sense of the contours of the literatures of South Asia as well as ways of exploring the role of these literatures in the larger world. No prior knowledge of South Asia is required; this course fulfills the cross-cultural analysis requirement, and the Arts and Letters sector requirement. | SAST0007401 | Arts & Letters Sector Cross Cultural Analysis |
||||
| COML 0022-601 | Study of a Theme: Life Writing | Batsheva Ben-Amos | BENN 141 | W 5:15 PM-8:14 PM | The subject of the course is life writing and its genres of autobiography, autofiction, memoir, the diary, and online diaries. Genre theory frames the discussions that focus upon time perspective, the construction of self, issues of truth and fiction and of literary representation of experience, and the relation between private writing and public reading. The examination of these genres follows their literary historical paths, in their social contexts. It traces the transformation of religious confessions of men to secular autobiographies, such as Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions and Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography and their expansion to autobiographical writing of marginalized women as Sally Morgan’s hybrid text My Place. The study of the memoir follows the genre from its medieval traces to modern memoirs, their political utilization, and the influences of market shifts. For autofiction we shall examine Rachel Cusk’s Outline, compared to her memoir Aftermath, Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be, and Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon. In the history of the diary the analysis focuses on the role of the early canonical diary, as Samuel Pepys’s diary, and its literary function in subsequent diary writings by women and men in times of war and peace, concluding with online diaries.The course assignments will consist of short writing assignments related to the readings and a final paper. There will be no exams. | ENGL0022601 | Arts & Letters Sector Cross Cultural Analysis |
||||
| COML 0030-402 | Introduction to Sexuality Studies and Queer Theory | Eva Pensis | BENN 322 | MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | This course will introduce students to the historical and intellectual forces that led to the emergence of queer theory as a distinct field, as well as to recent and ongoing debates about gender, sexuality, embodiment, race, privacy, global power, and social norms. We will begin by tracing queer theory's conceptual heritage and prehistory in psychoanalysis, deconstruction and poststructuralism, the history of sexuality, gay and lesbian studies, woman-of-color feminism, the feminist sex wars, and the AIDS crisis. We will then study the key terms and concepts of the foundational queer work of the 1990s and early 2000s. Finally, we will turn to the new questions and issues that queer theory has addressed in roughly the past decade. Students will write several short papers. |
ENGL0160401, GSWS0003401 | Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. | ||||
| COML 0090-401 | The Fantastic Voyage from Homer to Science Fiction | Scott M Francis | WILL 705 | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | Tales of voyages to strange lands with strange inhabitants and even stranger customs have been a part of the Western literary tradition from its inception. What connects these tales is that their voyages are not only voyages of discovery, but voyages of self-discovery. By describing the effects these voyages have on the characters who undertake them, and by hinting at comparisons between the lands described in the story and their own society, authors use fantastic voyages as vehicles for incisive commentary on literary, social, political, and scientific issues. In this course, we will see how voyage narratives as seemingly distant as Homer’s Odyssey and Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes fit into a bigger tradition of speculative fiction. We will determine what the common stylistic elements of speculative fiction are, such as the frame narrative, or story-within-a-story, and what purpose they serve in conveying the tale’s messages. We will see how voyagers attempt to understand and interact with the lands and peoples they encounter, and what these attempts tell us about both the voyagers and their newly discovered counterparts. Finally, we will ask ourselves what real-world issues are commented upon by these narratives, what lessons the narratives can teach about them, and how they impart these lessons to the reader. Readings for this course, all of which are in English or English translation, range from classics like the Odyssey and Gulliver’s Travels to predecessors of modern science fiction like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells to seminal works of modern science fiction like Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes, Karel Čapek’s War with the Newts, and Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris. We will also look at how films like Planet of the Apes (1968) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) or television shows like Star Trek and Futurama draw upon literary or cinematic models for their own purposes. Students will also have the opportunity to examine and present on pieces from the Mark B. Adams Science Fiction Collection at Penn’s Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts, which comprises over 2,000 volumes of science fiction, speculative fiction, and fantasy. This course is meant not only for SF fans who would like to become better acquainted with the precursors and classics of the genre, but for all those who wish to learn how great works of fiction, far from being intended solely for entertainment and escapism, attempt to improve upon the real world through the effect they have on the reader. |
FREN0090401 | Cross Cultural Analysis Arts & Letters Sector |
https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML0090401 | |||
| COML 0149-401 | World Socialist Literature and Film | Anna Linetskaya Kevin M.F. Platt |
VANP 425 | TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | In 1989-1991, a whole world, perhaps many worlds, vanished: worlds of socialism. In this course we will investigate key works of literature and film spanning the socialist world(s), focused around the USSR, which was for many the (not uncontested) center of the socialist cosmos for much of the twentieth century. Further, we will study the cultural and political interrelationships between the socialist world(s) and anticolonial and left movements in the developing and the capitalist developed nations alike. Finally, we will investigate the aftermaths left behind as these world(s) crumbled or were transformed beyond recognition at the end of the twentieth century. Our work will be ramified by consideration of a number of critical and methodological tools for the study of these many histories and geographies. The purview of the course is dauntingly large—global in scale—and therefore “coverage” will of necessity be incomplete. Readings and viewings may include works by: Tengiz Abuladze, Bertolt Brecht, Slavenka Drakulić, Sergei Eisenstein, Howard Fast, Ritwik Ghatak, Langston Hughes, Audre Lorde, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Pablo Neruda, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Sembène Ousmane, Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, Rabindranath Tagore, Christa Wolf, Zhang Meng, and others. | ENGL1460401, REES0149401 | |||||
| COML 0320-401 | Modern Hebrew Lit. & Film in Translation: The Image of the City | Nili R Gold | DRLB 2C4 | T 12:00 PM-2:59 PM | This course is designed to introduce students to the rich art of Modern Hebrew and Israeli literature and film. Poetry, short stories, and novel excerpts are taught in translation. The course studies Israeli cinema alongside literature, examining the various facets of this culture that is made of national aspirations and individual passions. The class is meant for all: no previous knowledge of history or the language is required. The topic changes each time the course is offered. Topics include: giants of Israeli literature; the image of the city; childhood; the marginalized voices of Israel; the Holocaust from an Israeli perspective; and fantasy, dreams & madness. | CIMS0320401, JWST0320401, MELC0320401 | Cross Cultural Analysis Arts & Letters Sector |
||||
| COML 0510-401 | National Epics | David Wallace | VANP 627 | MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | Nationalism, even in our globally-connected world, is making a comeback. And each one of us, and our families before us, have been affected by the particular traditions of nations, and rivalries between them. This course considers how texts become “national epics,” how they “represent” a nation. Times change, nations change, and old poems may no longer serve. Can the Song of Roland, once compulsory study for all French schoolchildren, and children in French colonies, still be required reading today — especially if I am French Muslim? What about El Cid in Spain? How do some texts — such as the Mahabharata in India, or Journey to the West in China — seem more adaptable than others? The course begins in western Europe, then pivots across Eurasia (Russia, Mongolia) to end with China, Vietnam, Korea, and the Philippines. All of us have complex family histories-- Chinese-American, French Canadian, Latino/a/x, Jewish American, Pennsylvania Dutch—and all are rewarding to investigate. Some students choose to research, for their final project, the “epic” of their own family histories; talking with grandparents is a good way to start. | ENGL0510401 | Cross Cultural Analysis Arts & Letters Sector |
||||
| COML 0540-401 | Literary Theory Ancient to Modern | Rita Copeland | BENN 322 | MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | This is a course on the history of literary theory, a survey of major debates about literature, poetics, and ideas about what literary texts should do, from ancient Greece to examples of modern thought. The first half of the course will focus on early periods: Greek and Roman antiquity, especially Plato and Aristotle; the medieval period (including St. Augustine, Al-Farabi, and Boccaccio); and the early modern period (including Giambattista Vico). In the second half of the course we will turn to modern concerns by looking at the literary (or “art”) theories of some major philosophers and theorists: Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Walter Benjamin, and Franz Fanon. We end the course in the later twentieth century with readings from cultural theorists such as Edward Said and Paul Gilroy. The purpose driving this course is to consider closely how this tradition generated questions that are still with us, such as: What is the act of interpretation? Whose interpretation matters? What is the “aesthetic”? What is representation or mimesis? When does an author’s intention matter, and how are we to know it? | CLST3508401, ENGL0540401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML0540401 | ||||
| COML 0590-401 | Arts of Abolition and Liberation | Julia Alekseyeva Chi-Ming Yang |
NRN 00 | M 10:15 AM-1:14 PM | This interdisciplinary film & literature course will approach a 300-year history of documenting abolition through the lens of history, art, and activism. The class will be divided roughly in half: pre-20th century, and post-20th century. We will put into dialogue the legacy of the 18th and 19th-centuries’ movements to document and abolish racial slavery in the North Atlantic world, with the history of journalistic art-making and media activism. The diverse activist art forms include but are not limited to: woodcut engravings, ceramics, petitions, boycotts, manifestos, graphic novels, poetry, and documentary films. The course will also include a number of abolitionist and activist speakers working today. Authors will include earlier transatlantic writers like Thomas Clarkson and Sojourner Truth, as well as contemporary abolitionists and critics of the prison industrial complex, for example: Angela Davis and Jackie Wang. Films and media will span early agitational documentaries, especially by Dziga Vertov and Joris Ivens, and will continue through the 1960s with documentaries by Alain Resnais, Santiago Alvarez, Madeline Anderson, and others. The course will conclude with viewings of contemporary films and media centering around Black Lives Matter and other liberatory movements. Alongside works from the US we will also discuss abolition and activism from a global perspective, thus analyzing films and media from the former USSR, East Asia, South America, and beyond. Along with academic research papers and analyses, as well as discussion board posts, the course will integrate a substantial number of creative projects, and the course will culminate in a final creative-critical project, to be completed collaboratively between students, and possibly in conjunction with an activist organization. Readings will be primarily in electronic format although some (especially the graphic novels/comics, which aren’t available in electronic format) will need to be purchased in print form. The approximate cost of all print materials should not exceed $60. There will be no timed quizzes or exams. | CIMS0590401, ENGL0590401 | Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. Arts & Letters Sector |
||||
| COML 0700-401 | Iranian Cinema: Gender, Politics and Religion | Mahyar Entezari | WILL 220 | TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | This seminar explores Iranian culture, society, history and politics through the medium of film. We will examine a variety of cinematic works that represent the social, political, economic and cultural circumstances of contemporary Iran, as well as the diaspora. Along the way, we will discuss issues pertaining to gender, religion, nationalism, ethnicity, and the role of cinema in Iranian society and beyond. Discussions topics will also include the place of the Iranian diaspora in cinema, as well as the transnational production, distribution, and consumption of Iranian cinema. Films will include those by internationally acclaimed filmmakers, such as Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Asghar Farhadi, Bahman Ghobadi, Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Dariush Mehrjui, Tahmineh Milani, Jafar Panahi, Marjane Satrapi and others. All films will be subtitled in English. No prior knowledge is required. | GSWS0700401, MELC0700401 | Cross Cultural Analysis | ||||
| COML 0701-401 | Medieval Roadtrip: Reading and Writing with Chaucer | Emily R Steiner | VANP 625 | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | In the fourteenth century, the short story was all the rage, and Geoffrey Chaucer was a master of the form. In this course, we will read his most famous work, The Canterbury Tales—these pathbreaking tales feature some memorable narrators and range from raunchy to preachy, from fable to romance, and from comedy to horror. They ask us to consider whether stories that entertain us can also make us better humans, how we should react when stories offend us; what power short stories have to challenge hierarchies and inequalities, and finally, how adapting and critiquing old stories can fashion communities of readers and writers across time. We will read Chaucer alongside his own favorite tales by Italian and classical authors as well as read modern authors inspired by Chaucer, such as Patience Agbabi, Caroline Bergvall, and Zadie Smith. Finally, we will try our hands at writing like, with, and against Chaucer. We will translate and annotate his tales, and experiment with his language and meter. Our final project will be to assemble an anthology of tales to which students will be asked to contribute either a critical or a creative piece. In the past, students have translated Chaucer into Spanish and Chinese, written an entirely new tale, created comics and animations, and even composed operas (really!). Other assignments will include short weekly writing pieces and an oral presentation. No knowledge of medieval literature is required. Students from all disciplines are welcome. | ENGL0701401, RELS0701401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML0701401 | ||||
| COML 0784-401 | Anne Carson and the Unclassifiable Text | Taije Jalaya Silverman | BENN 25 | TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | A eulogy shaped like an accordion. An ancient Greek fragment transformed into a queer romance. A performance piece merging Marilyn Monroe with Helen of Troy. Tiny essays about the Brontë sisters and the Book of Isaiah. An analysis of Proust in the form of a list. In this intensive Critical-Creative Seminar, we will investigate the genre of hybrid text through perhaps its most renowned practitioner, Anne Carson—classicist, poet, translator, playwright, essayist, critic, and performance artist. Readings will include Nox, a multimedia reflection on the death of Carson’s brother, If Not, Winter, an unhinged translation of Sappho, and Men in Off Hours, a multi-genre collection about Emily Dickinson, Freud, Virginia Woolf, and others. We will also study some of Carson’s muses, such as Sappho, Catullus, Aeschylus, Dickinson, and Proust. Short creative and critical assignments will deepen our understanding of the central texts, culminating in a final project that may be an essay, prose poems, or performance piece—your choice. Students from all disciplines are welcome. | CLST3712401, ENGL0784401 | |||||
| COML 1027-401 | Sex and Representation | Rose Akua-Domfeh Poku | COHN 337 | MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | In this course, students will engage with themes of gender, queerness, race, sex and representation in literature, particularly of the Black world. The course will begin by providing students with theoretical groundings in gender theory and intersectional theory. These theoretical texts will allow us to consider the ways in which people of color have grappled with their multifaceted identities and how those shape their experiences in the world. Theorists will include Hortense Spillers, Judith Butler, bell hooks, and C. Riley Snorton. The rest of the course will be dedicated to critically reading and engaging with literary texts by authors from various parts of the Black world. We will read stories and watch films by authors and filmmakers such as Audre Lorde, Akwaeke Emezi, and Cheryl Dunye. The course will explore a range of literary genres and forms through which ideas of sex and gender have been represented, including short stories, novels, biomythographies, and films. This course will meet twice a week for 1.5 hours each. This is a reading intensive and highly interactive course. You are expected to keep up with weekly readings, and encouraged to ask questions and comment on readings during class. You will be encouraged to debate, reflect, bring personal experiences and share opinions in a generous, generative and collaborative manner. |
CIMS1027401, GSWS1027401 | Arts & Letters Sector | ||||
| COML 1054-401 | Forest Worlds: Mapping the Arboreal Imaginary in Literature and Film | Simon J Richter | WILL 25 | MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | The destruction of the world's forests through wild fires, deforestation, and global heating threatens planetary bio-diversity and may even, as a 2020 shows, trigger civilizational collapse. Can the humanities help us think differently about the forest? At the same time that forests of the world are in crisis, the "rights of nature" movement is making progress in forcing courts to acknowledge the legal "personhood" of forests and other ecosystems. The stories that humans have told and continue to tell about forests are a source for the imaginative and cultural content of that claim. At a time when humans seem unable to curb the destructive practices that place themselves, biodiversity, and forests at risk, the humanities give us access to a record of the complex inter-relationship between forests and humanity. Forest Worlds serves as an introduction to the environmental humanities. The environmental humanities offer a perspective on the climate emergency and the human dimension of climate change that are typically not part of the study of climate science or climate policy. Students receive instruction in the methods of the humanities - cultural analysis and interpretation of literature and film - in relation to texts that illuminate patterns of human behavior, thought, and affect with regard to living in and with nature. | CIMS1520401, ENVS1550401, GRMN1132401 | Arts & Letters Sector | ||||
| COML 1097-401 | Madness and Madmen in Russian Culture | Molly Peeney | WILL 218 | TR 5:15 PM-6:44 PM | Is "insanity" today the same thing as "madness" of old? Who gets to define what it means to be "sane," and why? Are the causes of madness biological or social? In this course, we will grapple with these and similar questions while exploring Russia's fascinating history of madness as a means to maintain, critique, or subvert the status quo. We will consider the concept of madness in Russian culture beginning with its earliest folkloric roots and trace its depiction and function in the figure of the Russian "holy fool," in classical literature, and in contemporary film. Readings will include works by many Russian greats, such as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Bulgakov and Nabokov. | REES0172401 | Humanties & Social Science Sector Cross Cultural Analysis |
||||
| COML 1097-402 | Madness and Madmen in Russian Culture | Molly Peeney | WILL 723 | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | Is "insanity" today the same thing as "madness" of old? Who gets to define what it means to be "sane," and why? Are the causes of madness biological or social? In this course, we will grapple with these and similar questions while exploring Russia's fascinating history of madness as a means to maintain, critique, or subvert the status quo. We will consider the concept of madness in Russian culture beginning with its earliest folkloric roots and trace its depiction and function in the figure of the Russian "holy fool," in classical literature, and in contemporary film. Readings will include works by many Russian greats, such as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Bulgakov and Nabokov. | REES0172402 | Humanties & Social Science Sector Cross Cultural Analysis |
||||
| COML 1110-401 | Jewish American Literature | Kathryn Hellerstein Chaya Sara Oppenheim |
WILL 202 | TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | What makes Jewish American literature Jewish? What makes it American? This course will address these questions about ethnic literature through fiction, poetry, drama, and other writings by Jews in America, from their arrival in 1654 to the present. We will discuss how Jewish identity and ethnicity shape literature and will consider how form and language develop as Jewish writers "immigrate" from Yiddish, Hebrew, and other languages to American English. Our readings, from Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology, will include a variety of stellar authors, both famous and less-known, including Isaac Mayer Wise, Emma Lazarus, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Celia Dropkin, Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, and Allegra Goodman. Students will come away from this course having explored the ways that Jewish culture intertwines with American culture in literature. | GRMN1110401, JWST1110401 | Arts & Letters Sector Cultural Diviserity in the U.S. |
||||
| COML 1181-401 | Writing the Translation | Timothy Straw | CANCELED | Literary translation is many things. Perhaps most of all, though, it is writing. It is a craft, and it is also a particular kind of imagination that both haunts and supersedes craft. Every translation, then, is as much the making of a new original as it is the learning from and listening to the ‘old’ one. We will pursue what Kornei Chukovsky calls “the high art of translation” in its multiple forms: as a discipline, as a tradition, as a force of disruption and change, and as a form of play. This is a course in two parts: seminar and workshop. We’ll first read and discuss translated texts, and texts about translation, from a multiplicity of language traditions. This will help us develop a shared theoretical and imaginative language for the course’s second portion, the workshop, in which you will try out your own translation work in conversation with your peers and me. A majority of the writers, poets, and theorists that we will encounter are working in the Russian-language tradition, but we will supplement this with texts by Anne Carson, John Keene, Sawako Nakayasu, among others. We will also consider translation between mediums, including video, music, and comics. And a user’s note: if you are concerned that your language skills are not far enough along to participate meaningfully in class, please set that worry aside! Translation is a great way to improve your language, and this course is less about result than about process. | REES1181401 | ||||||
| COML 1210-401 | Witnessing, Remembering, and Writing the Holocaust | Liliane Weissberg | WILL 205 | MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | Witnessing, Remembering, and Writing the Holocaust What is a witness? What do the witnesses of the Shoah see, hear, experience? And how will they remember things, whether they are victims, perpetrators or bystanders? How are their memories translated into survivors' accounts: reports, fiction, art, and even music or architecture? And what does this teach us about human survival, and about the transmission of experiences to the next generation? The course will ask these questions by studying literature on memory and trauma, as well as novels, poetry, and non-fiction accounts of the Holocaust. We will also look at art work created by survivors or their children, and listen to video testimonies. Among the authors and artists discussed will be work by Primo Levi, Paul Celan, Jean Amery, Christian Boltanski, Daniel Libeskind. The course is supported by the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives. | ARTH2871401, GRMN1210401, JWST1210401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML1210401 | ||||
| COML 1232-401 | Perspectives in French Literature: The Individual and Society | Jacqueline Dougherty | WILL 633 | MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | This basic course in literature provides an overview of French literature and acquaints students with major literary trends through the study of representative works from each period. Special emphasis is placed on close reading of texts in order to familiarize students with major authors and their characteristics and with methods of interpretation. Students are expected to take an active part in class discussion in French. French 1232 has as its theme the Individual and Society. | FREN1232401 | Arts & Letters Sector Cross Cultural Analysis |
https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML1232401 | |||
| COML 1232-402 | Perspectives in French Literature: The Individual and Society | Scott M Francis | WILL 205 | TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | This basic course in literature provides an overview of French literature and acquaints students with major literary trends through the study of representative works from each period. Special emphasis is placed on close reading of texts in order to familiarize students with major authors and their characteristics and with methods of interpretation. Students are expected to take an active part in class discussion in French. French 1232 has as its theme the Individual and Society. | FREN1232402 | Cross Cultural Analysis Arts & Letters Sector |
https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML1232402 | |||
| COML 1262-401 | Tolstoy’s War and Peace and the Age of Napoleon | Peter I. Holquist Filipp Kruchenov |
FAGN 114 | TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | In this course we will read what many consider to be the greatest book in world literature. This work, Tolstoy's War and Peace, is devoted to one of the most momentous periods in world history, the Napoleonic Era (1789-1815). We will study both the book and the era of the Napoleonic Wars: the military campaigns of Napoleon and his opponents, the grand strategies of the age, political intrigues and diplomatic betrayals, the ideologies and human dramas, the relationship between art and history. How does literature help us to understand this era? How does history help us to understand this great book? Because we will read War and Peace over the course of the entire semester, readings will be manageable and very enjoyable. | HIST1260401, REES1380401 | Cross Cultural Analysis | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML1262401 | |||
| COML 1340-401 | In Babel: Translation and Narration in the Jewish World | Marina Mayorski | WILL 214 | MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | “Modern Jewish culture speaks with many voices,” wrote the poet, translator, and scholar Benjamin Harshav. In this course, we will echo these voices by exploring how Jewish life was shaped by cross-cultural contact and exchange with non-Jews and other Jewish communities, by studying literary manifestations of multilingualism, translation, adaptation, and circulation of texts and ideas. With a wide variety of texts - fiction, poetry, historiography, and literary criticism - from different languages and cultural contexts, this course will address several fundamental questions about, on the one hand, the ways Jews translated texts for Jewish readers, and, on the other, how Jewish experiences and traditions were translated for broader audiences. In a broader sense, we will consider what is at stake in translating Jewishness and how cultural and linguistic borders are crossed and discussed in different historical contexts. Course assessment is comprised of two short response papers to key concepts and a literary text (with the option for a creative format), and a final paper that can be either research-based or a translation and a translator’s introduction. All materials will be available in English but students are encouraged to read materials in their original languages if they are fluent. |
GRMN1340401, JWST1340401, YDSH1340401 | |||||
| COML 1351-401 | Contemporary Fiction & Film in Japan | Sophie Clare Eichelberger Ayako Kano |
MCNB 286-7 | MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | This course will explore fiction and film in contemporary Japan, from 1945 to the present. Topics will include literary and cinematic representation of Japan s war experience and post-war reconstruction, negotiation with Japanese classics, confrontation with the state, and changing ideas of gender and sexuality. We will explore these and other questions by analyzing texts of various genres, including film and film scripts, novels, short stories, manga, and academic essays. Class sessions will combine lectures, discussion, audio-visual materials, and creative as well as analytical writing exercises. The course is taught in English, although Japanese materials will be made available upon request. No prior coursework in Japanese literature, culture, or film is required or expected; additional secondary materials will be available for students taking the course at the 600 level. Writers and film directors examined may include: Kawabata Yasunari, Hayashi Fumiko, Abe Kobo, Mishima Yukio, Oe Kenzaburo, Yoshimoto Banana, Ozu Yasujiro, Naruse Mikio, Kurosawa Akira, Imamura Shohei, Koreeda Hirokazu, and Beat Takeshi. | CIMS1351401, EALC1351401, EALC5351401, GSWS1351401 | Cross Cultural Analysis Arts & Letters Sector |
||||
| COML 1500-401 | Greek & Roman Mythology | Jesse Hover Amar Gwyneth Marion Fletcher Julieta Vittore Dutto Emily Wilson |
MCNB 286-7 | MW 12:00 PM-12:59 PM | Myths are traditional stories that have endured many years. Some of them have to do with events of great importance, such as the founding of a nation. Others tell the stories of great heroes and heroines and their exploits and courage in the face of adversity. Still others are simple tales about otherwise unremarkable people who get into trouble or do some great deed. What are we to make of all these tales, and why do people seem to like to hear them? This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as a few contemporary American ones, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations. We will also pay some attention to the way the Greeks and Romans themselves understood their own myths. Are myths subtle codes that contain some universal truth? Are they a window on the deep recesses of a particular culture? Are they entertaining stories that people like to tell over and over? Are they a set of blinders that all of us wear, though we do not realize it? We investigate these questions through a variety of topics creation of the universe between gods and mortals, religion and family, sex, love, madness, and death. | CLST1500401 | Cross Cultural Analysis Arts & Letters Sector |
https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML1500401 | |||
| COML 1500-402 | Greek & Roman Mythology | Gwyneth Marion Fletcher Emily Wilson |
MCNB 582 | R 12:00 PM-12:59 PM | Myths are traditional stories that have endured many years. Some of them have to do with events of great importance, such as the founding of a nation. Others tell the stories of great heroes and heroines and their exploits and courage in the face of adversity. Still others are simple tales about otherwise unremarkable people who get into trouble or do some great deed. What are we to make of all these tales, and why do people seem to like to hear them? This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as a few contemporary American ones, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations. We will also pay some attention to the way the Greeks and Romans themselves understood their own myths. Are myths subtle codes that contain some universal truth? Are they a window on the deep recesses of a particular culture? Are they entertaining stories that people like to tell over and over? Are they a set of blinders that all of us wear, though we do not realize it? We investigate these questions through a variety of topics creation of the universe between gods and mortals, religion and family, sex, love, madness, and death. | CLST1500402 | Arts & Letters Sector Cross Cultural Analysis |
||||
| COML 1500-403 | Greek & Roman Mythology | Jesse Hover Amar Emily Wilson |
MCNB 582 | F 10:15 AM-11:14 AM | Myths are traditional stories that have endured many years. Some of them have to do with events of great importance, such as the founding of a nation. Others tell the stories of great heroes and heroines and their exploits and courage in the face of adversity. Still others are simple tales about otherwise unremarkable people who get into trouble or do some great deed. What are we to make of all these tales, and why do people seem to like to hear them? This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as a few contemporary American ones, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations. We will also pay some attention to the way the Greeks and Romans themselves understood their own myths. Are myths subtle codes that contain some universal truth? Are they a window on the deep recesses of a particular culture? Are they entertaining stories that people like to tell over and over? Are they a set of blinders that all of us wear, though we do not realize it? We investigate these questions through a variety of topics creation of the universe between gods and mortals, religion and family, sex, love, madness, and death. | CLST1500403 | Arts & Letters Sector Cross Cultural Analysis |
||||
| COML 1500-404 | Greek & Roman Mythology | Jesse Hover Amar Emily Wilson |
WILL 217 | R 12:00 PM-12:59 PM | Myths are traditional stories that have endured many years. Some of them have to do with events of great importance, such as the founding of a nation. Others tell the stories of great heroes and heroines and their exploits and courage in the face of adversity. Still others are simple tales about otherwise unremarkable people who get into trouble or do some great deed. What are we to make of all these tales, and why do people seem to like to hear them? This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as a few contemporary American ones, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations. We will also pay some attention to the way the Greeks and Romans themselves understood their own myths. Are myths subtle codes that contain some universal truth? Are they a window on the deep recesses of a particular culture? Are they entertaining stories that people like to tell over and over? Are they a set of blinders that all of us wear, though we do not realize it? We investigate these questions through a variety of topics creation of the universe between gods and mortals, religion and family, sex, love, madness, and death. | CLST1500404 | Arts & Letters Sector Cross Cultural Analysis |
||||
| COML 1500-405 | Greek & Roman Mythology | Julieta Vittore Dutto Emily Wilson |
MCNB 395 | F 12:00 PM-12:59 PM | Myths are traditional stories that have endured many years. Some of them have to do with events of great importance, such as the founding of a nation. Others tell the stories of great heroes and heroines and their exploits and courage in the face of adversity. Still others are simple tales about otherwise unremarkable people who get into trouble or do some great deed. What are we to make of all these tales, and why do people seem to like to hear them? This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as a few contemporary American ones, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations. We will also pay some attention to the way the Greeks and Romans themselves understood their own myths. Are myths subtle codes that contain some universal truth? Are they a window on the deep recesses of a particular culture? Are they entertaining stories that people like to tell over and over? Are they a set of blinders that all of us wear, though we do not realize it? We investigate these questions through a variety of topics creation of the universe between gods and mortals, religion and family, sex, love, madness, and death. | CLST1500405 | Cross Cultural Analysis Arts & Letters Sector |
||||
| COML 1500-406 | Greek & Roman Mythology | Julieta Vittore Dutto Emily Wilson |
WILL 23 | F 10:15 AM-11:14 AM | Myths are traditional stories that have endured many years. Some of them have to do with events of great importance, such as the founding of a nation. Others tell the stories of great heroes and heroines and their exploits and courage in the face of adversity. Still others are simple tales about otherwise unremarkable people who get into trouble or do some great deed. What are we to make of all these tales, and why do people seem to like to hear them? This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as a few contemporary American ones, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations. We will also pay some attention to the way the Greeks and Romans themselves understood their own myths. Are myths subtle codes that contain some universal truth? Are they a window on the deep recesses of a particular culture? Are they entertaining stories that people like to tell over and over? Are they a set of blinders that all of us wear, though we do not realize it? We investigate these questions through a variety of topics creation of the universe between gods and mortals, religion and family, sex, love, madness, and death. | CLST1500406 | Arts & Letters Sector Cross Cultural Analysis |
||||
| COML 1500-407 | Greek & Roman Mythology | Gwyneth Marion Fletcher Emily Wilson |
WILL 5 | F 1:45 PM-2:44 PM | Myths are traditional stories that have endured many years. Some of them have to do with events of great importance, such as the founding of a nation. Others tell the stories of great heroes and heroines and their exploits and courage in the face of adversity. Still others are simple tales about otherwise unremarkable people who get into trouble or do some great deed. What are we to make of all these tales, and why do people seem to like to hear them? This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as a few contemporary American ones, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations. We will also pay some attention to the way the Greeks and Romans themselves understood their own myths. Are myths subtle codes that contain some universal truth? Are they a window on the deep recesses of a particular culture? Are they entertaining stories that people like to tell over and over? Are they a set of blinders that all of us wear, though we do not realize it? We investigate these questions through a variety of topics creation of the universe between gods and mortals, religion and family, sex, love, madness, and death. | CLST1500407 | Cross Cultural Analysis Arts & Letters Sector |
||||
| COML 1601-401 | Ancient Drama | Nathaniel F Solley | COLL 319 | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | This course will introduce students to some of the greatest works of dramatic literature in the western canon. We will consider the social, political, religious and artistic functions of drama in ancient Greece and Rome, and discuss both differences and similarities between ancient drama and modern art forms. The course will also pursue some broader goals: to improve students skills as readers and scholarly critics of literature, both ancient and modern; to observe the implications of form for meaning, in considering, especially, the differences between dramatic and non-dramatic kinds of cultural production: to help students understand the relationship of ancient Greek and Roman culture to the modern world; and to encourage thought about some big issues, in life as well as in literature: death, heroism, society, action and meaning. | CLST1601401 | Cross Cultural Analysis Arts & Letters Sector |
||||
| COML 1859-401 | The Play: Structure, Style, Meaning | Rosemary Malague | MCNB 409 | TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | How does one read a play? Theatre, as a discipline, focuses on the traditions of live performance. In those traditions, a play text must be read not only as a piece of literature, but as a kind of "blueprint" from which productions are built. This course will introduce students to a variety of approaches to reading plays and performance pieces. Drawing on a wide range of dramatic texts from different periods and places, we will examine how plays are made, considering issues such as structure, genre, style, character, and language, as well as the use of time, space, and theatrical effects. Although the course is devoted to the reading and analysis of plays, we will also view selected live and/or filmed versions of several of the scripts we study, assessing their translation from page to stage. | ENGL1859401, THAR0103401 | |||||
| COML 2071-401 | Modernism Seminar: When was Modernism? | Jean-Michel Rabate | BENN 244 | TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | This class will provide a survey of international modernism by historicizing it in a non-linear manner by surveying three decades in the first half of the twentieth century. Critics agree that the year 1922 exemplifies the peak of modernism with masterpieces and canonical texts by Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, and Jean Toomer. We will read selections from these “monuments” and ask when modernism began, which will take us back to the pre-war years. In this second moment, we will focus on the years 1910-1913. We will examine texts by Willa Cather, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jules Romains and Guillaume Apollinaire. Finally, we will investigate the possibility of a closure by looking at passages from texts like Richard Wright’s Lawd Today! (1935), Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood (1936), Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea (1938), Samuel Beckett’s Murphy (1938), Nathaniel West’s The Day of the Locust(1939), Jean Rhys’s Good Morning Midnight (1939) and Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts (1941). A comparison between those “slices” of cultural history will reveal important trends, displacements and movements in the arts and literature. The years that produced modern masterpieces saw the emergence of a modern classicism, a development ushering in the mixture of the new and tradition that has become the hallmark of modernism, thus turning it into our own classicism while anticipating what has been called “postmodernism.” | ARTH3850401, ENGL2071401, GRMN1304401 | |||||
| COML 2082-401 | American Literature in the Cold War | Catherine C Turner | VANP 113 | TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | What happens when literature becomes a front in a global contest over national and ideological superiority? In the contest between the United States and the Soviet Union called the Cold War, literature was often co-opted to show the ways in which the US was more free and more supportive of artistic and personal expression than literature of the USSR. As a result, literature both became part of a national strategy of containment of Communism. Beginning with texts and films that represented American’s anxieties and fears about Communism and the atomic bomb, this course will show the ways in which the sense of crisis and anxiety drove literary experimentation and increasingly personal forms of poetry and prose. Alongside that experimentation, this course will examine works like Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar to begin to see how freedom of expression reflected and resisted social and state efforts to contain demands for freedom from women and racial minorities. Finally, the course will end by looking at a range of experimental novels which worked to defy assumptions about cultural superiority and freedom of expression including Thomas Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49 and Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo. | ENGL2082401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML2082401 | ||||
| COML 2190-401 | The Indian English Novel: From Colony to Nation | Sara Kazmi | BENN 141 | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | This course explores an aspect of Postcolonial literature intensively. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. | ENGL2190401 | Cross Cultural Analysis | ||||
| COML 2225-401 | Imagining New Futures: Science Fiction and the Fantastic in South Asian Literature | Nudrat Kamal | CHEM 514 | MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | This course examines the many ways in which writers have imagined the future, the past, and the unreal in South Asia. Rather than view science fiction as an isolated, modern genre, we will situate it alongside a range of genres and approaches to the fantastic. Although literature called science fiction is today a dynamic genre across South Asian languages, with a literary history in the twentieth and nineteenth centuries, writers draw from a range of other South Asian literary and cultural traditions, including Hindu mythology, Persian Qissa story cycles, and Sanskrit literature. In this course, therefore, we will explore the many genealogies of contemporary South Asian literature. Science fiction, and fantastic literature more generally, often functions as a means to depict social and technological change, the perception of the larger world, and contemporary politics. How did writers use amazing stories of brilliant inventions, dreams of a woman-led utopia, or dark conspiracies of disease to explore a range of questions. We will also consider how popular literary genres, such as the detective story, intersect with these other genres. Students will leave this course with a knowledge of the dynamic history of South Asian science fiction as part of a long history of imaginative literature, as well as well as a deeper understanding of genre and the social history of literature. | ENGL2161401, SAST2225401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML2225401 | ||||
| COML 2301-401 | Queer Poetry from Homer to Hughes | Melissa E Sanchez | BENN 201 | TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | This course will offer students a preview of the first anthology of queer poetry available in English, “All The World in Thee”: An Historical Book of Queer Poems, edited by Stephanie Burt, Drew Daniel, and Melissa E. Sanchez (forthcoming from Columbia University Press in 2025). Reading selections of poetry from the classics through the early twentieth century, we will consider how this work makes visible a long history of queer desire and gender nonconformity right at the center of the Western canon. Students will conduct research projects on the poem of their choice, with research results to be presented at a final conference and celebration. | ENGL2300401, GSWS2300401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML2301401 | ||||
| COML 2320-401 | Medium Matters: How to Make Books, Cuneiform to Kindle | Francesco Marco Aresu | VANP 623 | MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | This course is a hands-on historical and theoretical investigation into diverse media of textual and literary expression from clay tablets to digital texts. Through the direct examination of rare books and various textual oddities from Penn’s Special Collections and Archives and the Penn Museum, we will inquire into the history of the book and the history of writing. We will focus on different textual technologies and modes of composition, circulation, transmission, and reception of texts (from antiquity to the present day). By engaging in such topics as the transition from manuscript to print, from scroll to codex, and from book to Kindle, we will consider the history of literacy and literature in relation to other forms of expression (oral, visual, networked) and analyze different practices of organizing textual materials (from punctuation to annotation). We will examine paratextual elements (titles, forewords, afterwords) and various forms of verbal and visual accretion (from commentaries to illustrations). We will survey shifting notions of authorship, intellectual property, creativity, and originality and explore different systems of storage (libraries, archives, museums). By questioning the multi-faceted, non-deterministic interplay between textual artifacts and the media by which they are formalized and materially formed, we will conduct a critical reflection on the nature of textuality, writing, literature, and media. Readings will set essays in the history of the book and media studies alongside key case studies from various periods and geographical areas. And we will engage with textual materiality through the creation of book-objects of our own. | ENGL0761401, ITAL2320401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML2320401 | ||||
| COML 2415-401 | Fascism and Anti-Fascism | Jennifer Lyn Sternad Ponce De Leon | BENN 138 | T 5:15 PM-8:14 PM | This course examines fascism and anti-fascist struggles through the study of film, literature, political theory, visual art, and history. While situating fascism in a global context, it focuses on its history in North and South America and Europe from the early 20th century into the 21st. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. | CIMS2415401, ENGL2415401, LALS2415401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML2415401 | ||||
| COML 3080-401 | Soccer Beyond the Field: Sport and Politics in Italian Culture | Massimiliano Lorenzon | WILL 205 | TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | In recognition of the 2026 FIFA World Cup—hosted also in Philadelphia among other cities—we will explore soccer’s centrality in Italian Culture. Italy is a country where cultural traditions run deep, and among its most compelling cultural phenomena is the nation’s fervent attachment to soccer, or “calcio” as it is known in Italian. As historian John Foot claims, “You can’t understand Italy without understanding football, and you can’t understand football without understanding Italy.” Indeed, beyond its role as a popular sport, calcio is a cultural phenomenon reflecting and influencing political discourses, national identities, social values, and local communities. This course seeks to explore the significance of soccer in and outside Italy, considering it not just as a pastime, but as a powerful cultural lens through which we can gain a deeper understanding of Italian society. We will analyze how calcio functions as a social institution that transcends regional differences, class divisions, and generational gaps, uniting diverse groups in shared experiences. At the same time, the course will investigate how soccer can also amplify differences, exclusion, and racist behaviors. Moreover, we will explore how soccer relates to design, architecture, music, and soccer icons (Maradona, Totti, Messi, Zidane, etc.). By examining the cultural, historical, and social dimensions of Italian soccer, this course will provide a rich framework for exploring how soccer intersects with broader cultural narratives and social dynamics in Italy and discussing crucial issues in Italian culture, such as multiculturalism, immigration, and anti-racist movements. Students will be exposed to a diverse array of films and visual, literary, theoretical, and historical materials, including Gramsci, Barthes, Nussbaum, Bourdieu, Pasolini, Saba, Soriano, Vázquez, Salvatores, and Sorrentino, among others. At the end of the course, students will gain a unique perspective on Italian culture and society, analyze the role of soccer in Italian culture and from a global perspective, understand how sports can be a lens for examining broader cultural issues, develop critical thinking skills to analyze complex social phenomena. Course taught in English. | ITAL3080401 | |||||
| COML 3303-401 | Global Film Theory | Karen E Redrobe | EDUC 121 | TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | This course will provide an introduction to some of the most important film theory debates and allow us to explore how writers and filmmakers from different countries and historical periods have attempted to make sense of the changing phenomenon known as "cinema," to think cinematically. Topics under consideration may include: spectatorship, authorship, the apparatus, sound, editing, realism, race, gender and sexuality, stardom, the culture industry, the nation and decolonization, what counts as film theory and what counts as cinema, and the challenges of considering film theory in a global context, including the challenge of working across languages. There will be an asynchronous weekly film screening for this course. No knowledge of film theory is presumed. | ARTH2952401, ARTH6952401, CIMS3300401, CIMS6300401, COML6592401, ENGL2902401, GSWS3300401, GSWS6300401 | |||||
| COML 3330-401 | Dante's Divine Comedy | Francesco Marco Aresu | MEYH B7 | MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | In this course we will read the Inferno, the Purgatorio and the Paradiso, focusing on a series of interrelated problems raised by the poem: authority, fiction, history, politics and language. Particular attention will be given to how the Commedia presents itself as Dante's autobiography, and to how the autobiographical narrative serves as a unifying thread for this supremely rich literary text. Supplementary readings will include Virgil's Aeneid and selections from Ovid's Metamorphoses. All readings and written work will be in English. Italian or Italian Studies credit will require reading Italian texts in their original language and writing about their themes in Italian. This course may be taken for graduate credit, but additional work and meetings with the instructor will be required. | ENGL0509401, ITAL3330401 | Cross Cultural Analysis | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML3330401 | |||
| COML 3603-401 | Do Books Make Revolutions? Writing, Publishing, and Reading in Early Modern Europe and the Americas | Roger Chartier John Pollack |
VANP 605 | M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | In this course we will consider the writing, publication, and reading of texts created on both sides of the Atlantic in early modern times, from the era of Gutenberg to that of Franklin, and in many languages. The seminar will be held in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts in Van Pelt Library and make substantial use of its exceptional, multilingual collections, including early manuscripts, illustrated books, plays marked for performance, and censored books. Any written or printed object can be said to have a double nature: both textual and material. We will introduce this approach and related methodologies: the history of the book; the history of reading; connected history; bibliography; and textual criticism. We will focus on particular case studies and also think broadly about the global history of written culture, and about relations between scribal and print culture, between writing and reading, between national traditions, and between what is and what is not “literature.” We encourage students with diverse linguistic backgrounds to enroll. As part of the seminar, students will engage in a research project which can be based in the primary source collections of the Kislak Center. History Majors or Minors may use this course to fulfill the US, Europe, or Latin America geographic requirement if that region is the focus of their research paper. | ENGL2603401, HIST3603401 | |||||
| COML 3923-401 | Twentieth Century European Intellectual History | Warren G. Breckman | MEYH B4 | MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | European intellectual and cultural history from 1870 to 1950. Themes to be considered include aesthetic modernism and the avant-garde, the rebellion against rationalism and positivism, Social Darwinism, Second International Socialism, the impact of World War One on European intellectuals, psychoanalysis, existentialism, and the ideological origins of fascism. Figures to be studied include Nietzsche, Freud, Woolf, Sartre, Camus, and Heidegger. | HIST3923401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML3923401 | ||||
| COML 4300-401 | Giants of Hebrew Literature, Pre-1948 | Nili R Gold | DRLB 3C6 | T 3:30 PM-6:29 PM | This course introduces students to selections from the best literary works written in Hebrew over the last hundred years in a relaxed seminar environment. The goal of the course is to develop skills in critical reading of literature in general, and to examine how Hebrew authors grapple with crucial questions of human existence and national identity. Topics include: Hebrew classics and their modern "descendents," autobiography in poetry and fiction, the conflict between literary generations, and others. Because the content of this course changes from year to year, students may take it for credit more than once. This course is conducted in Hebrew and all readings are in Hebrew. Grading is based primarily on participation and students' literary understanding. | JWST4300401, MELC4300401, MELC5410401 | |||||
| COML 5260-401 | The Trouble with Freud: Psychoanalysis, Literature, Culture | Liliane Weissberg | VANP 627 | T 1:45 PM-3:44 PM | For professionals in the field of mental care, Freud's work is often regarded as outmoded, if not problematic psychologists view his work as non-scientific, dependent on theses that cannot be confirmed by experiments. In the realm of literary and cultural theory, however, Freud's work seems to have relevance still, and is cited often. How do we understand the gap between a medical/scientific reading of Freud's work, and a humanist one? Where do we locate Freud's relevance today? The graduate course will concentrate on Freud's descriptions of psychoanalytic theory and practice, as well as his writings on literature and culture. | GRMN5260401, GSWS5260401 | |||||
| COML 5370-401 | Translating Literature: Theory and Practice | Kathryn Hellerstein | JAFF 113 | R 1:45 PM-3:44 PM | The greats all have something to say about translation. The Hebrew poet H. N. Bialik is attributed with saying that “he who reads the Bible in translation is like a man who kisses his bride through a veil.” That, however, is a mistranslation: What Bialik really wrote was, “Whoever knows Judaism through translation is like a person who kisses his mother through a handkerchief." (http://benyehuda.org/bialik/dvarim02.html), a saying that he probably translated and adapted from Russian or German. (https://networks.h-net.org/node/28655/discussions/116448/query-bialik-kissing-bride) Robert Frost wrote, “I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.” Walter Benjamin defines it: “Translation is a form. To comprehend it as a form, one must go back to the original, for the laws governing the translation lie within the original, contained in the issue of its translatability.” Lawrence Venuti rails against translation that domesticates, rather than foreignizes, thus betraying the foreign text through a contrived familiarity that makes the translator invisible. Emily Wilson wants her translation “to bring out the way I think the original text handles it. [The original text] allows you to see the perspective of the people who are being killed.” https://bookriot.com/2017/12/04/emily-wilson-translation-the-odyssey/ Is translation erotic? A form of filial love? Incestuous? A mode of communion, or idol worship? Is translation a magician’s vanishing trick? Is translation traitorous, transcendent? Maybe translation is impossible. But let’s try it anyways! In this graduate seminar, we will read key texts on the history and theory of translating literature, and we sample translations from across the centuries of the “classics,” such as the Bible and Homer. We will consider competing translations into English of significant modern literary works from a variety of languages, possibly including, but not limited to German, Yiddish, French, Hebrew, and Russian. These readings will serve to frame each student’s own semester-long translation of a literary work from a language of her or his choice. The seminar offers graduate students with their skills in various language an opportunity to take on a significant translation project within a circle of peers. | GRMN5370401, JWST5370401 | |||||
| COML 5384-401 | Plato and Aristotle in the Early Modern Period | Eva Del Soldato | VANP 625 | W 3:30 PM-5:59 PM | In one of the most evocative frescoes of the Renaissance, Raphael juxtaposes Plato and Aristotle. The pairing would seem obvious, since the two thinkers had been for centuries symbols of philosophy and wisdom. But only the recent revival of Plato, begun in the mid-fifteenth century, had allowed the Latin world to gain a better understanding of Platonic philosophy and, therefore, to compare Plato's doctrines directly to those of Aristotle. Were master and disciple in harmony? And if not, which of the two should be favored? Such questions were less innocent than one might think, and the answers to them had implications for philosophy, theology, speculation on the natural world, and even politics. The course will offer an overview of Renaissance philosophy and culture by focusing on the different ways in which Plato and Aristotle were read, interpreted, and exploited between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. The course will be conducted in English; a basic knowledge of Latin is desirable but not required. | ITAL5384401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML5384401 | ||||
| COML 5725-401 | Songs of Dissent: African American Poetry in the 21st Century | Herman Beavers | BENN 222 | M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | The aim of this seminar can be described as trying to figure out how poetry and poetics figure into the effort to theorize the African American subject in the 21st Century. At a time when the sheer number of African American poets publishing today (to say nothing of the major prizes they are winning) has exploded exponentially, why does poetry continue to be so marginal in African American literary and cultural studies? As we make our way through recently published anthologies of African American poetry, then turn to the works of individual poets, we will consider issues of influence, intertextuality, periodization, stylization, and tradition as they impact approaches to form, structure, and craft. Ultimately, however, we will focus on the question of why are these poets writing these poems at this particular time? Technologies like PennSound and YouTube will provide important critical tools in our endeavors and at various points during the term, guest lecturers will join our discussions. Submatriculated MA students should contact the instructor for permission to enroll and submit a permit request via Path@Penn. | AFRC5725401, ENGL5725401 | |||||
| COML 5771-401 | Inside the Archive | Liliane Weissberg | CANCELED | What is an archive, and what is its history? What makes an archival collection special, and how can we work with it? In this course, we will discuss work essays that focus on the idea and concept of the archive by Jacques Derrida, Michel de Certeau, Benjamin Buchloh, Cornelia Vismann, and others. We will consider the difference between public and private archives, archives dedicated to specific disciplines, persons, or events, and consider the relationship to museums and memorials. Further questions will involve questions of property and ownership as well as the access to material, and finally the archive's upkeep, expansion, or reduction. While the first part of the course will focus on readings about archives, we will invite curators, and visit archives (either in person or per zoom) in the second part of the course. At Penn, we will consider four archives: (1) the Louis Kahn archive of architecture at Furness, (2) the Lorraine Beitler Collection of material relating to the Dreyfus affair, (3) the Schoenberg collection of medieval manuscripts and its digitalization, and (4) the University archives. Outside Penn, we will study the following archives and their history: (1) Leo Baeck Institute for the study of German Jewry in New York, (2) the Sigmund Freud archive at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., (3) the German Literary Archive and the Literturmuseum der Moderne in Marbach, Germany, and (4) the archives of the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. | ARTH5690401, GRMN5770401, JWST5770401 | ||||||
| COML 5965-401 | Anticolonialism & Marxism | Jennifer Lyn Sternad Ponce De Leon | WILL 216 | M 5:15 PM-8:14 PM | In spite of the recent proliferation of scholarship on the topic of decolonization, Western academics have often failed to seriously engage with the rich corpus of anticolonial theory and analysis produced in the context of struggles against imperialism. This course examines theories of imperialism, neo- and internal colonialism, and decolonization developed in the 20th and early 21st centuries, focusing on thinkers and movements from the global South, and from Latin America and the Caribbean in particular. We will address differences among contemporary discourses on decolonization, while delving deep into national liberation Marxism. Theories and debates within Marxist thought concerning national self-determination, racism, and development will figure prominently in the course, as will analyses of cultural imperialism, ideology, and the role of intellectuals and artists. The course will be conducted in English; course readings will be in English and Spanish. Students with questions about language requirements should contact the instructor. This course is open to MA and Ph.D. students. Submatriculated M.A. students and advanced undergraduates should contact the instructor to request permission to enroll and should submit a permit request via Path@Penn. |
ENGL5965401, SPAN5965401 | |||||
| COML 6207-401 | Reading Caste Critically | Ketaki Umesh Jaywant | WILL 826 | W 1:30 PM-4:30 PM | This seminar explores trends and shifts in interdisciplinary scholarship on the caste question. It serves as an introduction to foundational texts and debates in the history of critical caste studies in fields like sociology, history, Indology, and political philosophy. The course will also engage various methods, pedagogical tools, and conceptual frameworks that have emerged out of anti-oppressive writings and anti-caste transformative politics. The course draws on primary and secondary source material, from the 19th century to the present, to examine how questions of labor, gender and sexuality, colonialism, socio-religious reform, and Ambedkarite politics have shaped discourse around both caste and the politics of its annihilation. | SAST6207401 | |||||
| COML 6460-401 | Linguistic Culture and Literary Development | D. Brian Kim | BENN 201 | T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | The opening pages of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” (1869), set in July 1805, feature a conversation between two nobles who are speaking in a combination of Russian and “that elegant French in which our forefathers not only spoke, but also thought.” Tolstoy’s remark points to a shift in the relative status — both practical and symbolic — of each of these languages in Russian high society that was occurring as the eighteenth century gave way to the nineteenth. Shifts in the functions and values of language(s) comprise the subject of this graduate-level seminar, which traces the emergence of the modern Russian literary tradition as it took place in dialogue with evolving attitudes and ideologies surrounding language, translation, nation, and empire. We will adopt a diverse array of theoretical approaches as we examine the influence of linguistic culture on literary development as well as how ideas about literature can exert their own influence on realities and discourses of language. | REES6460401 | |||||
| COML 6592-401 | Global Film Theory | Karen E Redrobe | EDUC 121 | TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | This course will provide an introduction to some of the most important film theory debates and allow us to explore how writers and filmmakers from different countries and historical periods have attempted to make sense of the changing phenomenon known as "cinema," to think cinematically. Topics under consideration may include: spectatorship, authorship, the apparatus, sound, editing, realism, race, gender and sexuality, stardom, the culture industry, the nation and decolonization, what counts as film theory and what counts as cinema, and the challenges of considering film theory in a global context, including the challenge of working across languages. There will be an asynchronous weekly film screening for this course. No knowledge of film theory is presumed. | ARTH2952401, ARTH6952401, CIMS3300401, CIMS6300401, COML3303401, ENGL2902401, GSWS3300401, GSWS6300401 | |||||
| COML 6628-401 | Essential Texts from Modern South Asia | Gregory Goulding | WILL 316 | M 3:30 PM-6:29 PM | SAST6628401 | ||||||
| COML 6750-401 | Topics in 19th Century Literature: France/Amerique | Andrea Goulet | WILL 304 | W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | Description: This graduate seminar will study French representations of modern America from the Revolutionary Age through the 20th century, with an eye to what stereotypes of the transatlantic Other say about France’s own cultural, political, and literary shifts. From Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1830’s observations on religious freedom and penal institutions in the new democracy to Jean Baudrillard’s 1986 musings on America as the site of the “hyper-real,” French writers have displayed an ambivalent fascination with their “brother nation” across the sea. The 19th century in particular set a template of stereotypes that contrasted the dynamism of capitalist growth and technological invention in American cities with their underside of materialist corruption and cultural lack of sophistication. In addition to reading Voltaire, de Tocqueville and Baudrillard, we will explore the nuanced range of literary representations of the United States through post-revolutionary ruralism (Chateaubriand, René/Voyages en Amérique), 19th-century vaudeville theater (De Leuvan, Les Sept Péchés Capitaux; Sardou, L’Oncle Sam), satirical writing (Assolant, Un Quaker à Paris), comic journalism (Allais, “Supériorité de la Vie américaine sur la nôtre”), the scientific fantastic (Villiers, Contes cruels), science fiction (Verne, Le Testament d’un excentrique/Voyage autour du monde en 80 jours), 20th-century experimentalism (Céline, Voyage au bout de la nuit), poetry (Cendrars, Les Pâques à New York), and travel writing (Duhamel, Scènes de la vie future; de Beauvoir, Amérique au jour le jour). Secondary works will include chapters from Extrême-Occident (Mathy), Posthumous America (Hoffmann), Fascination and Misgivings (Portes), The American Enemy (Roger), L’Amérique au tournant (Dubosson et Geinoz), and Frères Ennemis (Cloonan). • Readings in French/discussions in English. Comments (INTERNAL) | FREN6750401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202510&c=COML6750401 | ||||
| COML 7041-401 | Melodramatic Tactics | Michael C Gamer | BENN 25 | T 5:15 PM-8:14 PM | Early melodrama was deliberately experimental, even avant-garde: combining poetry, dance, and scenic effects to produce a new affective theatre of suspense. It presents a rare case study for theorists of genre, a form with clear origins and initial paths of dissemination. Audiences encountering it for the first time on German, Parisian, and London stages found in it an astonishing hyper-realism that we now associate with immersive theater: set to expressive music and featuring a host of visual, sonic, and olfactory effects. Today, melodrama is arguably even more pervasive than two centuries ago. (How “melodrama” became “melodramatic” will be one of the questions lurking behind our readings and discussions). Our seminar will begin in its first week with the performance poetry of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the groundbreaking stage designs of Jacques Phillipe de Loutherbourg, who in plays like Harlequin Robinson Crusoe (1781) and Omai, or A Voyage around the World (1785) created the first truly three-dimensional sets through which actors had to move. These sets were as arresting as they were global and exotic. Early in the course, therefore, we'll move from Europe to the Caribbean, reading works such as Inkle and Yarlco (1787), Columbus, or a World Discovered (1793), and the pantomimic (1800) and melodramatic (1830) versions of Obi, or Three-Finger'd Jack. Alongside these plays, we'll read selections from Benjamin Mosely's Treatise on Sugar (1799) and C.L.R. James's The Black Jacobins (1938). Around week five we'll then move into melodrama proper, reading foundational plays like Thomas Holcroft's A Tale of Mystery (1802) and Isaac Pocock's The Miller and His Men (1813). Born during a cease-fire and exploding into popularity during thirteen years of world war, English melodrama came to dominate British and American stages by 1815. We'll also sample other cultural forms, particularly Gothic fiction and poetry of the supernatural, asking how these new aesthetic forms shape emotional response, particularly as they traverse media. In our final weeks, the course will become a true seminar, with its members determining our final readings. Whether we move forward, backward, or laterally will be up to you. My hope is that our final meetings might see us moving into the medieval and the futuristic, the local and the diasporic. This course is open to all Ph.D and M.A. students. Submatriculants should contact me to request permission, as well as submitting a permit request via Path@Penn. Course work will be comprised of a few responses, a presentation, and a conference paper that may be expanded into a longer work. If possible, we'll also hold a session on digital tools and archival methods. I'm also working to bring in a few guest discussion leaders if possible, including our own Jacob Myers. |
ENGL7041401 | |||||
| COML 7350-401 | Premodern Trans Studies | Abdulhamit Arvas Caroline Batten |
BENN 139 | T 12:00 PM-2:59 PM | This seminar revisits the question of gender before modernity in light of new expansions and developments within gender and sexuality studies, particularly trans studies. Different instructors may emphasize different aspects of the topic. Please see English.upenn.edu for a full list of course offerings. | ENGL7350401, GSWS7350401 | |||||
| COML 7904-401 | New Directions in Twenty-First Century Black Studies | Margo N. Crawford | BENN 140 | W 5:15 PM-8:14 PM | This seminar will be a study of the conceptual turns and breaks that are shaping twenty-first century Black Studies. As we think about the space-clearing gestures that have re-energized Black Studies in the twenty-first century, the changing same will matter as much as new frames that dislodge what has been naturalized in earlier waves of Black Studies. We will situate our study in the most nuanced, emergent waves of inquiry. This attention to the most recent debates and fractured points of view will put a spotlight on the work that remains to be done (the theorizing, textual analysis, and archival work that is being hailed as scholars gesture to the unfinished). This course is open to all Ph.D. and terminal M.A. students. Submatriculated M.A. students interested in enrolling should contact the course instructors to request permission and submit a permit request via Path@Penn | AFRC7904401, ENGL7904401, GSWS7904401 |