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Graduate
Course Descriptions
Spring 2008
Comparative Literature | Foreign Languages | French | German | Greek | Latin | Russian | Spanish
| Comparative Literature |
CPLT 760: Literature and Translation, or “Translating Translation
Taught by Professor Garane
TH 3:30 pm – 4:45 pm
According to Comparatists like Susan Bassnett and Emily Apter, “Translation Studies” is the newest name for “Comparative Literature.” In exploring the development of the field of “Translation Studies,” this course will in fact constitute an examination of “Translation Studies” as literary theory. While students will be invited to discuss and present their own translation practices, this course will focus primarily on theories of translation. Therefore, students need not have any prior experience as practicing translators. Readings will be from The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti along with materials from other sources. Students will be asked to attend sections of a translation conference to be held at USC in March which will feature Sherry Simon, author of, among other works, Gender in Translation and Translating Montreal, and Marjolijn de Jager, the translator of many well-known Francophone writers. Additional coursework includes student presentations, and discussion of the assigned material. There will be a midterm and a 15-20-page research paper. |
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CPLT 880K [=ENGL 812K]: Literary Metamorphosis from Ovid to Shakespeare
Taught by Professor Miller
TTH 12:30 pm – 1:45 pm
LINK TO SYLLABUS PDF - LINK TO SYLLABUS WORD
LINK TO READING LIST
Metamorphosis is a central topic in European cultural history—so central that it comes to stand for the powers of the artistic imagination itself. In this seminar we’ll start with Ovid and follow the metamorphoses of metamorphosis through Dante and Petrarch to the English Renaissance, ending with Spenser and Shakespeare.
Our guide for this journey will be Leonard Barkan, whose book on metamorphosis is a modern classic in the field of comparative literature. We’ll work through The Gods Made Flesh chapter by chapter as we read the primary texts for the course. In the process we’ll have the opportunity to reflect on the goals and methods of comparative literary study as they are embodied in a model scholarly text. In April, Professor Barkan will visit our campus to give a talk based on his current work, and to meet with the class for a discussion of metamorphosis in the visual arts.
Course requirements: class presentation (10%), short paper (5-10 pages, 20%), seminar paper (20-25 pages with bibliography, 50%), participation (20%).
Class presentation to be on a related literary or philosophical text, e.g. Timaeus, Consolation of Philosophy, Cosmographia, Oration on the Dignity of Man.
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| Foreign Languages |
FORL 511: Teaching Foreign Languages to Secondary Schools
LINK TO SYLLABUS
Taught by Professor Moreno
TTH2:00 pm – 3:15 pm
This course will provide present and future secondary school teachers with an introduction to the theoretical underpinnings as well as skills, tasks, and technologies that can be used to enhance foreign language instruction. The content of the course will focus on both practical and theoretical aspects of foreign language teaching within the framework of various methods and approaches associated with foreign language instruction in secondary schools. Through peer teaching, members of the class will have the opportunity to put theory into practice and gain experience planning and teaching lessons in the target language. The seminar format requires that everyone contribute actively to class discussions where diversity of opinion is expected and encouraged.
FORL 772: Technology in Foreign Language Education
Taught by Professor Lomicka
M5:00 pm – 7:45 pm
This course will acquaint graduate students with the principles and practices concerning the use of technology in foreign language education. Its main focus will be to explore the connection between Second Language Acquisition theories and the implementation of current Internet and multimedia technologies. Specifically, we will examine ways in which technology can be used to support the development of communicative competence as learners engage in the process of acquiring another language. Open to students of any specialization, this course aims to cover the essentials that language educators need in the field of second/foreign language education. Only basic prior technical experience is required (i.e., e-mail and World Wide Web). |
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| French |
FREN 780: 19th-Century French Literature
LINK TO SYLLABUS
Taught by Professor Day
W 4:00 pm – 6:30 pm
A survey of French poetry, theater, and fiction from the nineteenth century, with appropriate attention to the cultural context and literary movements such as romanticism, realism, decadence, and naturalism. Our readings will be attentive to style, narrative structures, image, theme, normativity and difference, and perceptions of the historical moment.
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| German |
GERM 500: Survey of German Culture
Taught by Professor Ivory
TTH 12:30pm – 1:45 pm
What is “German”? Who are the “Germans”? Where is “Germany”? Finding answers to these questions is harder than it may at first appear and involves plumbing the length and breadth of “Germany’s” cultural development. Using a variety of media (PowerPoint, film, music) this course is designed as an introduction to that culture, starting with Tacitus’s famous description of the Germanic tribes around A.D.98 and ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall and unification of Germany in 1989/90. The focus will be on culture in the widest sense, meaning not only attention to the peaks of literature, the visual arts, and music, but also to the development of major trends in thought as formulated by significant philosophers and reflected in political and social shifts. Class readings and discussion will be conducted in German.
GERM 580A/Film 598A: Topics in German Film: World War II in German Film
Taught by Professor Vazonyi
MW12:45 pm – 2:00 pm[Regular class meeting]
M 7:00 pm -10:00 pm[Film screening]
Syllabus Spring 2008
The problematic process of “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” or “overcoming the past” has been a major theme in German culture since the end of World War II. Did it ever happen and, if so, how and with what results? This course will investigate to what extent the 20th-century’s most popular cultural medium was involved in this process. When did Germans start making films about World War II, and how do they portray themselves and their enemies? What were the continuities and discontinuities of this representation over time?
After introducing the cinematic “image of Germany” during the Nazi era, as well as theoretical interrogations of Nazi Germany by Benjamin, the Frankfurt School and others, this course will look at German films made between 1946 and 2005, which in the broadest sense deal with the war years and their aftermath. The mixed medium of film will be approached in an interdisciplinary manner, investigating and discussing the works within their historical, cultural and theoretical contexts, as well as considering visual, musical, textual, and technical aspects.
GERM 710: Middle High German Language and Literature
Taught by Professor Goblirsch
The course gives an introduction to Middle High German language, literature and culture. Daily reading and translation of texts will be coordinated with an overview of grammar. Linguistic comparison with modern Standard German will enhance development of translation skills. Literary texts include courtly romances and courtly love lyric of the High Middle Ages. They will be discussed in the context of courtly culture. Complete romances will be read in modern translation. A semester paper will allow students to delve more deeply into a literary or linguistic topic.
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| Russian |
RUSS 598N: Tolstoy & Dostoevsky
Taught by Professor Ogden
TTH2:00 pm – 3:15 pm
| Spanish |
SPANISH 534 - NINETEENTH-CENTURY SPANISH LITERATURE (3). Survey of the works of major literary figures of this period.
Taught by Professor Charlebois
MW 4:00 pm – 5:15 pm
This course will focus specifically on the prose, poetry, and drama that have traditionally been included in Spain's nineteenth-century literary canon. Because of the dichotomy which exists between Romanticism and Realism in Spanish letters, the course will be divided accordingly. A Xeroxed packet of selections from (complete) works as well as entire texts will be used. In addition to these texts, outside readings will be assigned. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers will be used in the preparation of all papers, and Spanish will be the language of instruction (including papers and presentations). The goal of this course is to examine Spanish literature of the nineteenth century in the context of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and the political and social upheavals that plagued Spain throughout the 1800s (as precursor to the Spanish Civil War of the twentieth century).
SPAN 711: Introduction to Contemporary Literary Theory and Criticism.
Taught by Professor Mabrey
M 5:30pm – 8:00 pm
The course presents an overview of formalism, cultural theory, psychoanalysis, structuralism and poststructuralism, deconstruction, historicism, and feminist/gender theory. Methods in analyzing literary theory will be examined reading Spanish and Spanish-American literature. Text selections include: Don Quijote de la Mancha, poetry by Quevedo, Góngora, Machado, García Lorca, short stories by J. L. Borges, J. Cortázar, Cristina Peri Rossi, Cristina Fernández Cubas, and essay by Ortega, Mariátegui y Paz.
SPAN 763: Contemporary Spanish-American Narrative
Taught by Professor Alejandro Bernal
W 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Study of the Spanish-American narrative of the 20th century (novel and short story).
Emphasis on works published in the second half of the 20th century. Some of the topics of study and discussion will be: fiction and reality, rhythm in narrative and polyphonic voices, psychological narrative, detective fiction, pop culture, hybrid cultures, dictatorship, political and sexual repression, mythology, empowerment of a feminine and feminist narrative voices, and the problematic heritage of the mestizo. Authors: Bombal, Borges, Puig, Donoso, Fuentes, Mastreta, Bolaño, and Vallejo.
SPAN 783 Seminar Selected Topics
Instructors: Camacho, Lagos, and Sanchez
T 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm
TOPIC: Imperial Contradictions. The Encounter and Spanish Conquest of America
The course introduces graduate students into the historiographical cannon of the so-called Spanish Conquest from a trans-Atlantic perspective. The goal is to discuss a region and a period that produces a contradictory discourse of the conquest Readings include literary texts, essays and plays.
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