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.

This course is a study of modern Arabic literary forms in the context of the major political and social changes which shaped Arab history in the first half of the twentieth century. The aim of the course is to introduce students to key samples of modern Arabic literature which trace major social and political developments in Arab society. Each time the class will be offered with a focus on one of the literary genres which emerged or flourished in the twentieth century: the free verse poem, the prose-poem, drama, the novel, and the short story. We will study each of these emergent genres against the socio-political backdrop which informed it. All readings will be in English translations. The class will also draw attention to the politics of translation as a reading and representational lens.

This course addresses the history and theory of gender and sexuality. Different instructors will emphasize different aspects of the topic. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a complete description of the current offerings.

Requesting that undergrad registration is by permit only.

This class consists of two mini-seminars, each focusing on the histories of race and sexuality in premodern England, and the literature and cultural texts that were shaped by, and in turn shaped these histories. Taken together, the two seminars will explore key texts that show how racial and sexual identities were mutually constitutive, and how they were shaped by English contact with other parts of the world, as well as changing class relations within England. Through these histories, the seminars will seek to interrogate and revise theories of race and sexuality.

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 European thought. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.

This course explores an aspect of cultural studies intensively. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.

“No problem is as consubstantial with literature and its modest mystery as the one posed by translation.”—Jorge Luis Borges In this class we will study and translate some of the major figures in 19th- and 20th-century poetry, including Gabriela Mistral, Wislawa Szymborska, Mahmoud Darwish, Anna Akhmatova, Rainer Maria Rilke, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Arthur Rimbaud, and Shu Ting. While the curriculum will be tailored to the interests and linguistic backgrounds of the students who enroll, all those curious about world poetry and the formidable, irresistible act of translation are welcome. Those wishing to take the translation course should have, at least, an intermediate knowledge of another language. We will study multiple translations of major poems and render our own versions in response. Students with knowledge of other languages will have the additional opportunity to work directly from the original. A portion of the course will be set up as a creative writing workshop in which to examine the overall effect of each others’ translations so that first drafts can become successful revisions. While class discussions will explore the contexts and particularity of poetry writen in Urdu, Italian, Arabic, French, Bulgarian, and Polish, they might ultimately reveal how notions of national literature have radically shifted in recent years to more polyglottic and globally textured forms. Through famous poems, essays on translation theory, and our own ongoing experiments, this course will celebrate the ways in which great poetry underscores the fact that language itself is a translation. In addition to the creative work, assignments will include an oral presentation, informal response papers, and a short final essay.

The course explores an aspect of 20th-century American literature intensively; specific course topics will vary from year to year. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.

This course explores an aspect of film studies intensively. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.

Watching Chaucer at work, modern poet Lavinia Greenlaw says, is like meeting English "before the paint has dried." Before rules (even of spelling) have hardened. Before live oral performance is subordinated to written record. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.