Course Descriptions
PIC
550A(ALSO TAUGHT AS COLI 517L)
MEMORY, LANGUAGE, FASCISM
GISELA BRINKERGABLER
T 1:15PM-
4:15PM
This course will examine approaches of postwar poetics in Europe after
World War II. The major focus is on the work of Ingeborg Bachmann, one
of postwar Europe s most innovative writers. Her poems and prose
paradigmatically explore the possibility of literature as an
ethical-aesthetical project after catastrophy. For Bachmann fascism is
an experience of language, and language an experience of fascism. The
search for a new language, therefore, is the unending struggle with the
violence of the everyday, forgetting, genocide, colonial wars, the
murder of women. Discussing her work in context of larger debates on
the limits of language, poetry and politics. memory and resistance,
crime and fiction we will include readings of Wittgenstein, Adorno,
Benjamin, Arendt and Agamben.
PIC
550U (ALSO TAUGHT AS COLI 574D, PHIL 460Q, PHIL 655B)
DERRIDA'S
VOICES
STEPHEN DAVID ROSS
T 4:25PM- 7:25PM
A course reading Jacques Derrida, including selected works spanning his
career, for example, Speech and Phenomena, Of Grammatology, Writing and
Difference, Margins of Philosophy, Dissemination, Specters of Marx, The
Politics of Friendship, The Work of Mourning, etc., including his
readings of philosophers such as Plato, Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas,
etc. and readings of his works by others, with an attempt to evoke an
understanding and an affirmative way of life inspired by--in his own
words--the processes of differance, trace, iterability,
ex-appropriation, and so on; the problematics of the work of mourning,
idealization, simulacrum, mimesis, iterability, the double injunction,
the "double bind," and so forth.
PIC
550Z (ALSO TAUGHT AS COLI 574R)
GRUNDRISSE
WILLIAM HAVER
R 4:25PM- 7:25PM
What is at stake in Marx's concept of political economy? What are the
logical and existential coordinates of the concept? Our hypothesis is
this: that if the texts of Marx have any pertinence to the current
situation, it is because the concept of political economy as
articulated in the GRUNDRISSE opens upon another experience of
aesthesis, another relation of poiesis to praxis, an other experience
of the common, another communist, ontology. We pursue these issues in a
close reading of the GRUNDRISSE.
PIC
603A (ALSO TAUGHT AS PHIL 480Z)
CONSCIOUSNESS, SCIENCE & RELIGION
II
ERICH DIETRICH
R 1:15PM-
4:15PM
Consciousness, science and religion are quintessential human
properties. Which is odd because they are in such conflict. Science and
religion clash: they make different and substantial claims about the
world. Though it tries, science cannot explain consciousness. And yet
consciousness is necessary for both science and religion. In this
course, we will examine this unhappy, tripartite partnership. Our texts
will be very new philosophy books on consciousness and its place in the
universe, and the scientific explanation (i.e., atheistic explanation)
of religion, which may or may not actually work, to put it mildly.
PIC
604K (ALSO TAUGHT AS ARTH 575J)
LANGUAGES OF CONTESTATION IN POSTWAR ART AND
CULTURE
THOMAS MCDONOUGH
M
9:40AM-12:40PM
This seminar takes up the subject of cultural contestation as it was
reinvented by postwar theorists and neo-avant-garde artists, with
special attention to Europe in the 1960s. In particular, we will
examine attempts to rethink resistance to late capitalism and its
administered everyday life outside of orthodox leftist positions.
Opening classes will analyze a number of themes: the rearticulation of
montage strategies from the interwar period, developing the work of
Brecht and Duchamp; the cultural politics of decolonization; notions of
the reciprocal readymade, or the ambivalent function of art in
revolutionary culture; and the concept of festivity and the
carnivalesque. The relevance of these projects for contemporary
cultural production will also be explored.
PIC
604L (ALSO TAUGHT AS ARTH 503F)
ART HISTORY AFTER STRUCTURALISM
JOHN TAGG
T 4:25PM-
7:25PM
The aim of this seminar will be to grasp the challenge of a set of
arguments and modes of analysis from Saussure to
Lévi-Strauss, Lacan, Barthes, Althusser, Foucault and
Derrida that have had an enormous influence on the humanities over the
past forty years, yet still stir up controversy. They do so precisely
because they have interrupted the established analytical procedures and
conceptual frameworks upon which the disciplines that make up the
humanities including art history were founded in the nineteenth
century. Yet, the effects of these disciplinary challenges have been
far from negative. They have rather opened the way to a new urgency of
debate and an intellectual productivity that came late to art history,
but came nonetheless, provoking those varieties of dissent that the
interests of marketing and established institutions have tried to
repackage as The New Art History.
The seminar will be conducted as a structured reading group whose
emphasis will be on the close analysis of specific texts that will,
however, be located in an unfolding argument, from week to week. No
prior knowledge of the literature or terminology will be assumed, but a
serious commitment to the reading program will be essential. Meetings
will be focused on weekly readings, with regular student presentations
and a variety of research tasks designed to develop specific critical
and research skills. The seminar assignment will involve the
preparation of a detailed syllabus on an agreed topic, including a
synopsis, structured outline, readings and full bibliography. Taught
concurrently with ARTH 500.
PIC
606E (ALSO TAUGHT AS AFST 373)
THE AFRICAN
NOVEL
ISIDOR OKPEWHO
T R 4:25PM- 5:50PM
Explores the development of the novel in Africa, both historically and
thematically. On one hand, it traces the formal growth of genre,
beginning with its emergence from oral narrative traditions of the
continent, through its attachment to certain European trends and
techniques, to its present achievement in blending various traditions
(African and non-African) in articulation of key problems in
contemporary African socio-political life. On the other hand, it
examines some of the key concerns that have engaged one generation of
writers after another: e.g., confrontation with European presence,
critique of post-colonial leadership, apartheid and the place of women
in African society.
PIC
612B (ALSO TAUGHT AS TRIP 572)
TRANSLATION WORKSHOP: LITERARY
ROSEMARY ARROJO
T R 11:40AM- 1:05PM
Specialized workshop training students to translate literary works from
foreign languages to English. Workshop is geared to graduate students;
undergraduates may be admitted with consent of TRIP director. Students
interested in German should register under the TRIP rubric.
Format may vary: Individual tutorials or group sessions depending on
language pairs and number of students.
Prerequisites: Fluency in a foreign language (Spanish, French,
Portuguese or German) and effective expression in English. (Only truly
advanced students should consider enrolling for German section; consent
of instructor Dr. N.C. Pages is
required.)
PIC
612C (ALSO TAUGHT AS TRIP 573)
TRANSLATION WORKSHOP (NON-LITERARY) ROSEMARY ARROJO
T R 11:40AM-
1:05PM
Specialized workshop training students to translate from fields
dependent on translation (e.g., cross-cultural scholarship,
international affairs, world trade) from foreign language to English.
Students interested in German should register under the TRIP rubric.
PIC
612D (ALSO TAUGHT AS TRIP 580C)
INTRO TO COMPUTER-ASSISTED TRANSLATION TOOLS
ROSEMARY ARROJO
M 1:10PM-
4:10PM
Practical introduction to computer-assisted translation and terminology
management tools. This course will present a variety of computer tools
for translators, including both Web-based applications and software
specially designed for translation and terminology management. There
will be an initial presentation of basic concepts in terminology
management and documentation, as well as an introduction to translation
project management. The course is not language-specific; the skills
will be useful for various disciplines.
Prerequisites: A basic knowledge of MS Office programs, and at least
some practical experience in translation.
PIC
612J (ALSO TAUGHT AS COLI 580T)
POSTCOLONIAL TRANSLATION STUDIES
ROSEMARY ARROJO
W 1:10PM-
4:10PM
This seminar will examine contemporary notions of translation as
transformation, and their consequences for an ethics of interpretation.
We will concentrate on theoretical statements associated with
postcolonial thought with an emphasis on Latin American approaches.
Prerequisites: This is a graduate seminar also open to advanced
undergraduates who are familiar with either translation studies or
postcolonial theories.
PIC
622G ALSO TAUGHT AS AFST 480R, COLI 574C,LACS 580G, PHIL 647N
CARIBBEAN
PHILOSOPHY
MARIA LUGONES
M 4:40PM-
7:40PM
PIC
624A (ALSO TAUGHT AS AAAS 480P)
THE QUESTION OF THE ORIENT
JI-SONG KU
T 4:25PM-
7:25PM
Where or what exactly is the Orient? What are its geographic, cultural,
political and imaginative boundaries? What different definitions,
forms, and symbols have the Orient and its related fields ( e.g., "the
East," "Asia," "Asian America") embodied in the past and what are its
manifestations today? Using inter- and multidisciplinary sources and
methods of inquiry, this graduate seminar explores the "question of the
Orient," including a close scrutiny of its possible origins, visages,
uses and abuses. Each week, the course examines a different aspect of
the Orient, including the Orient as literary device, as political tool,
as entertainment, as playground, as cuisine, as sexual object, as
friend and as foe. Authors considered include Salman Rushdie, E.M.
Forster, Marguerite Duras, Mishima Yukio, Maxine Hong Kingston, Edward
Said, Lisa Lowe, Vijay Prashad, among others. Also considered are
additional materials drawn from visual and filmic arts, including works
by Jean-Léon Gérôme, David Lean, Steven
Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, among others.
PIC 645M
(ALSO TAUGHT AS AAAS 486F, AFST 480E,COLI 574T,PHIL 647M,WOMN 412D)
TURMULTUOUS PLACE, FATE AND BELONGING
JEFFNER ALLEN
M 3:30PM-
6:30PM
Recent innovative narratives of African and Asian diasporic panoramas
of memory, history, and psychic emotion, shift and reshape
understandings of cultural, racial, and colonial relationalities.
Impelled by trans-disciplinary, interactive discussions, the course
will focus on distinctive narratives, yet in process, of tumultuous
place, fate, and belonging at the beginning of the 21st century.
Questions of trans-literacies, of foreignness, of diaspora with no
margins, and of the narrator as medium, will be considered in
conjunction with experimentation in listening, trans-generational
interpretation, and imagination.
Our points of departure include the mixed genre poetic writing Dionne
Brand, Inventory, Padcha Tuntha-obas, Trespasses and composite
diplomacy,Harold Sonny Ladoo and Dionne Brand, No Pain Like This Body,
Yunte Huang, CRIBS, Paul D. Miller’s sonic essay, Rhythm
Science, selections from Aihwa Ong, Neoliberalism as
Exception:Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty,
Kimsooja’s visual work and invisible projects, To
Breathe/Respirare, Okwui Enwezor, Snap Judgments: New Positions in
Contemporary African Photography, and film and video by Mansour Sora
Wade, The Price of Forgiveness, Altaf-tyrewala, No God in Sight,
Ming-liang Tsai, What Time is it There?, Apichatpong Weerasethakul,
Syndromes and a Century.
PIC 659A
(ALSO TAUGHT AS COLI 574N, ENVI 481A,PHIL 480V, PHIL 659D)
NATURE ECOLOGY
HUMANITY
STEPHEN DAVID ROSS
W 3:30PM-
6:30PM
An exploration of nature and the earth in ecological terms, responding
to issues arising in the critique of metaphysics and scientific and
technological rationality, especially feminist and poststructuralist
writings, in environmental and ecological writings, and in contemporary
aesthetics and art. Nature in general, the earth (universe, world,
environment, being); the nature of things, what makes them what they
are (essence, substance, intrinsic qualities, relationality). Nature as
intelligible, rational, open to scientific investigation. Nature as
animate: abundant, teeming, growing, touching, embracing, caressing;
frightful, dangerous, risky, threatening; full of wonder, peace,
radiance, and glory. Nature as expressive: squawking, hissing, buzzing,
howling, ringing, gurgling, screaming, screeching, shrieking; calling,
signing, pointing, questioning, answering, writing, tracing, coding,
marking, touching, inscribing, imprinting; full of cacophony, sound and
fury. Nature as essence, form, substance, space, and time; nature as
formlessness, interruption, disruption, overwhelming. Nature as
wildness, wilderness, beyond humanity; nature as human settlement,
dwelling, city, place. The nature of human beings, animals, plants, and
things, what makes them what they are. The nature of things, always
growing, changing, relational, on the move.
A major feature of the course is to approach nature in all these
aspects through the prisms of aesthetics and art, poiêsis,
technê, and mimêsis, through issues of
representation, presentation, expression, image, simulation, and
imagination. What if art and aesthetics were not separate from and
inferior to the sciences in relation to nature? What would that reveal
of nature? What would that say of science? In return, what might a
truly ecological science--even ecological nonsciences--say of nature,
art, and humanity? What of other, different ecologies?
From the Greek oikos, ecology (and economy) as humanity in relation,
intimate and excessive, concerned with household management, economy,
property; nature, relationality, habitation, space, time; science,
philosophy; aesthetics, gardening, art, literature; rationality,
enchantment.
Half the course is devoted to writings that historically have defined
humanity and nature in the Western philosophical tradition, the rest to
alternative visions of the earth and humanity: dwelling, living,
knowing, caring, cherishing, building, writing, thinking, imagining;
including ecology, ecological aesthetics and fiction, ecological
philosophy, landscape gardening, and place.
Students are responsible for 15-minute presentations initiating small
group discussions, raising questions rather than supporting theses. At
least one such presentation is required at each discussion. Students
are also responsible for 30-minute presentations at a class
miniconference at the end of the semester.
Each presentation is to employ and present images from the following
sensory or expressive modalities and media: sight, hearing, touch,
taste, smell; painting, sculpture, music, drama, dance, film,
photography, dress, body ornamentation; images, sounds, aromas,
textures; etc. etc.
Other Semester Offerings
