This course examines intersections of artistic production and radical politics in the 20th and 21st centuries. It addresses art from across a wide array of media: street art, film, theater, poetry, performance art, fiction, graphic arts, digital media, and urban interventions. We will examine artistic movements and artists from across the Americas, including revolutionary Latin American theater, film, and literature; the art of Black Liberation in the U.S.; the Chicano art movement and its queer dissidents; street performance and protest produced in the context of dictatorship; anticolonial performance art and alternative reality gaming; and activist art, political theater, and cinema from the 21st century. Through its focus on the relationship between art and politics, this course also introduces students to foundational concepts related to the relationship between culture and power more broadly.

What do we talk about when we talk about love? Is love just empty talk, or the stuff of dreams offered by novels, poems and plays? Can literature and film, if they contribute to the emotional swindle of popular romance, address our anxieties about the untruth of love? Raymond Carver’s title (“What we talk about when we talk about love”) sends us back to disabused times, a moment when love seemed debased, reduced to weak sublimation or mindless satisfaction. The Freudian thesis is that we only love our parents under different disguises, and use the noble word of love only because we must sublimate our murderous impulses, but there is an even longer history of cynical accounts of love. This class will explore the theme of love when it ceases to be taken for granted and has to be understood in a critical perspective. We will tackle the theme with the help of Plato’s Symposium, Freud on the psychology of love, Peter Sloterdijk on ancient and modern cynicism, and Alain Badiou’s In Praise of Love. We will discuss Aristophanes’ plays Lysistrata and Women in Parliament, Chi-rak, Spike Lee’s 2015 version of Lysistrata, Edith Wharton’s critique of marriage in Custom of the Country, Carver’s stories, Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, Beckett’s “First Love” and Play, and the “comedy of remarriage” The Awful Truth.

There will be eight film journals: Blue Valentine; Monsieur Verdoux; Chi-rak; Shortcuts; The Age of Innocence; L’Atalante; Journey to Italy; Jules and Jim.

Bibliography:
Plato’s Symposium (on line)
Freud Psychology of Love (Penguin, 2006, or texts available via PEP Web).
Selections from Peter Sloterdijk’s Critique of Cynical Reason (online).
Aristophanes Lysistrata and Assembly of Women (on line).
Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country (on line).
Alain Badiou, In Praise of Love (online).
Samuel Beckett, “First Love” (on line) and Play.
Raymond Carver, Collected Stories (Library of America)
Erica Jong, Fear of Flying.

Requirements: eight film journals (2 pages each, due before the assigned film is discussed) and one final paper (8 pages).

Please see English Department for description.

Students are provided a general introduction to a country's history, politics, environment, and performance through a range of resources: scholarly literature, film, music, and online resources; with particular focus on sites, communities, and events included in the 12 day intensive travel to that country (either Fall semester Intro with winter break travel; or spring semester Intro with late spring intensive travel). Students are given guidelines for writing about and representing live performances and experiences of exhibits and heritage sites for journaling and are expected to produce a written/creative project at the end of the travel. The itinerary and specific course content will vary according to the travel site and focus of each class.

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.

The reappearance of the concept of Central and Eastern Europe is one of the most fascinating results of the collapse of the Soviet empire. The course will provide an introduction into the study of this region its cultures, histories, and societies from the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire to the enlargement of the European Union. Students are encouraged to delve deeper into particular countries, disciplines, and sub-regions, such as Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, through an individual research paper and class presentations. Prerequisite: This course is one of two required core courses for the Russian and East European Studies (REES) major.

Artificial intelligence, big data, and the internet of things are rapidly changing every aspect of our lives. The methods and questions of the humanities are critical to understanding these shifts. Run like a workshop, this course will explore various sites at Penn and around Philadelphia where humanists and artists are collaborating with scientists and engineers to solve the big problems facing our planet and our species. We’ll visit museums and special collections in search of the future of past. We’ll learn how scholars of race and gender are combating algorithmic bias in our search engines. And we’ll meet librarians who are helping climate scientists save their data from politics. Students will gain hands-on experience with writing grants, collaborating across disciplines, and developing research questions in digital humanities. They will also acquire basic facility and literacy with key digital tools like GitHub, XML/HTML, and online publishing platforms like WordPress and Scalar. Together, we will gain a critical, historical framework for understanding technology’s impact on our lives. Absolutely no prior coding experience is required. Coursework will involve regular in-class exercises, short response papers, and one mid-sized digital project.

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.

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.

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.