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Literature in Translation Courses
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- Winter 2024
- Fall 2023
- Spring 2023
Winter 2024▲
See complete information about these courses in the course offerings database. For more information about a specific course, including course type, schedule and location, click on its title.
LIT210-01/WGSS210-01 Representations of Women, Gender and Sexuality in World Literature
LIT 210 - Radulescu, Domnica V.
Same as WGSS 210. This course examines a plethora of literary texts chosen from across historical periods from antiquity, through early modern times, to the modern and postmodern era and across several national traditions and cultural landscapes. Its main intellectual objective is to sensitize students to the ways in which women and gender have been represented in literary texts of various genres and to help them develop specific analytic skills in order to discover and evaluate the interconnections between the treatment of women in society and their artistic reflections in works of literature.
20th-Century Russian Literature in Translation
LIT 215 - Brodsky, Anna
In this course, we read some of the most famous works of Russian 20th and 21st centuries writers such as Vladimir Nabokov (the author of “Lolita”) and Svetlana Alexievich (the recent Noble Prize winner) among others. We will address issues like political violence, the wars led by USSR, the art of propaganda, and the various forms of resistance against powerful authoritarian regimes.
Modern Chinese Literature in Translation
LIT 220 - Zhu, Yanhong
This is a survey course to introduce students to the literature of 20th-century China. Through close reading of key literary texts from the 1910s to the present, students explore the social, historical and literary background that gave rise to the texts studied and the ways in which these texts address various issues that China faced at the time. Taught in English, the course presupposes no previous knowledge of China or Chinese culture. In addition to the selected literary texts, the course introduces several feature films that are cinematic adaptations of modern Chinese fiction and explore the complex and dynamic interchange between literary and cinematic language.
Japanese Literature in Translation
LIT 221 - Ikeda Yuba, Janet
An introduction to Japanese literature in its historical and cultural contexts from premodern to modern times. The course materials draw upon selections from the earliest prose works to contemporary fiction of representative modern writers.
Special Topics in Literature and Translation: Theater of War and Exile from the Balkans and Beyond
LIT 295M - Radulescu, Domnica V.
This course explores the aesthetic forms that emerge from the experience of political trauma in theatrical works from the areas largely within the Balkan regions, Eastern Europe and Israel. Its objectives are to enlighten students about the deep ramifications that war, genocide, political oppression and exile have on the creative imagination and the ways in which theater has the potential to resist, raise consciousness, bear witness and bring healing and reconciliation.
Fall 2023▲
See complete information about these courses in the course offerings database. For more information about a specific course, including course type, schedule and location, click on its title.
Pre-Modern Chinese Literature in Translation
LIT 218 - Wen, Zuoting
A survey of Chinese literature from the earliest period to the founding of the Republic in 1912. Taught in English, the course presupposes no previous knowledge of China or Chinese culture. The literature is presented in the context of its intellectual, philosophical and cultural background. Texts used may vary from year to year and include a wide selection of fiction, poetry, historical documents, Chinese drama (opera) and prose works. Audiovisual materials are used when appropriate and available.
LIT219-01/REL219-01 Augustine and the Literature of Self, Soul, and Synapses
LIT 219 - Kosky, Jeffrey L.
Same as LIT 219. A careful reading of the depiction of the restless soul in Augustine's Confessions is followed by study of fictional, philosophical, religious, and/or scientific literature. Students reflect on the state of the soul in a world made of selves or the fate of the self in a soulless world ... and whether there might be other options
Seminar in Japanese Literature in Translation
LIT 223 - Ikeda Yuba, Janet
Selected topics in Japanese literature, varying from year to year. Possible topics include the development of poetic forms, Heian court literature and art, diaries, epics, Buddhist literature, the culture of food and tea, and Noh drama.
Literature 223 Lab
LIT 223L - Ikeda Yuba, Janet
19th-Century Russian Literature in Translation
LIT 263 - Brodsky, Anna
In this course, we read some of the most famous Russian writers of the 19 century-- Lev Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, and Ivan Turgenev—with a view to exploring such issues as the rise of Russian nationalism; the moral and economic issues surrounding serfdom (the Russian form of slavery), Russian feminism, 19th century family values, and the struggle between the democratic and imperial visions of society.
Russian Short Fiction
LIT 264 - Brodsky, Anna
How do we encompass something as mammoth as Russian state violence, especially as evidenced in its brutal assault on Ukraine? In this survey of Russian short fiction from the 19th century to the 21st century, we approach this question from a literary angle. We will explore colonial wars, autocracy, conformity and resistance to oppressive state power.
Topics in Literature in Translation: Vampires, Ghosts and Other Friendly Spirits
LIT 295H - Radulescu, Domnica V.
An exploration of the fantastic and the supernatural in several works of literature, theater, and film by East European writers and film makers. The course deconstructs Western projections of vampiric presences and other such supernatural creatures onto East European cultures and focuses on several works of literature and film from Eastern Europe and about Eastern Europe.
Spring 2023▲
See complete information about these courses in the course offerings database. For more information about a specific course, including course type, schedule and location, click on its title.
Special Topics in Literature in Translation: The Literature of Bertolt Brecht
LIT 295J - Crockett, Roger A.
Bertolt Brecht was the most influential German dramatist and drama theorist of the first half of the 20th Century. His collaboration with Kurt Weill on the Threepenny Opera was an international sensation in the 1920s. Masterpieces like Mother Courage and her Children, The Caucasian Chalk Circle and The Life of Galileo Galilei loom large today in stage repertoires worldwide. The father of “Epic Theater” and master of “Alienation Effects,” he stood in opposition to Stanislavsky and developed a contrasting acting style. This course will cover Brecht’s master works in English translation, as well as some short stories and poems. We will read his most influential theoretical writing on the theater and practice acting scenes in Brechtian style.
Special Topics in Literature in Translation: Fairy Tales and Popular Culture
LIT 295K - Roots, Jaime W.
During the nineteenth century, several landmark folktale collections were produced—the most influential of which was arguably the Grimms’ Children’s and Household Tales. Throughout this edition, what constitutes a fairytale is quite clear: stepmothers are wicked, princes are heroic, the evil are punished, and the good are rewarded with happiness and prosperity. Yet as times change, do these black-and-white conceptions of the fairytale hold up with them? In this course we will explore questions of the role of the fairy tale as a cultural and social artifact. While these tales grew in popularity during the nineteenth century, they have continually been adapted and changed by others. We have experienced these tales in a variety of ways from the written word to the theater, cinema, television, and more recently to the world of Internet fan fiction where social commentary and fairy tale adaptation by amateur writers flourishes. In this course, we will focus on the evolving nature of the fairytale and their audiences by investigating links between the classic Grimm tales and their pop culture adaptations in film, novels, and internet fan fiction and how those adaptations and evolutions highlight changing historical, cultural, and socio-political contexts in which the adaptations emerge.