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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.