Topics course.: This course charts the evolution of the theme of reason and its limits in the European novel of the modern era. Beginning with an examination of humanist assumptions about the value of reason in Rabelais, the course focuses on the Central European novel of the 20th century, the age of “terminal paradoxes.” Texts include Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground, Kafka’s The Trial, Musil’s Man Without Qualities and Kundera’s The Joke, The Farewell Party and The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Ever since Genesis, the garden has been depicted not only as a paradise, a refuge and a women’s place, but also as a jungle that challenges definitions of the self and of that self’s place in the world. How have shared notions about the relation of gardens to their inhabitants changed from one culture and historical period to another? Some attention to the theory and history of landscape gardening. Texts by Mme. de Lafayette, Goethe, Austen, Balzac, Zola, Chekhov, Colette, D.H. Lawrence and Alice Walker.

Same as CLT 232. Can literature inspire personal and social transformation? How have modern Chinese writers pursued freedom, fulfillment, memory and social justice? From short stories and novels to drama and film, we explore class, gender and the diversity of the cultures of China, Taiwan, Tibet and overseas Chinese communities. Readings are in English translation and no background in China or Chinese is required. Open to students at all levels.

Same as EAL 232. Can literature inspire personal and social transformation? How have modern Chinese writers pursued freedom, fulfillment, memory and social justice? From short stories and novels to drama and film, we explore class, gender and the diversity of the cultures of China, Taiwan, Tibet and overseas Chinese communities. Readings are in English translation and no background in China or Chinese is required. Open to students at all levels.

Creative responses to the destruction of European Jewry, differentiating between literature written in extremis in ghettos, concentration/extermination camps, or in hiding, and the vast post-war literature about the Holocaust. How to balance competing claims of individual and collective experience, the rights of the imagination and the pressures for historical accuracy. Selections from a variety of artistic genres (diary, reportage, poetry, novel, graphic novel, film, monuments, museums), and critical theories of representation. All readings in translation.

Same as CLT 215. Medieval legends of Arthurian Britain as they developed in Wales, France and England, and more recent retellings. Readings include early Welsh tales, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chrétien de Troyes, Marie de France, the Gawain-poet Malory, Tennyson, and Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant. Enrollment limited to 40.

Same as ENG 204. Medieval legends of Arthurian Britain as they developed in Wales, France, and England, and more recent retellings. Readings include early Welsh tales, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chrétien de Troyes, Marie de France, the Gawain-poet, Malory, Tennyson and Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant. Enrollment limited to 40.

An introduction to Homeric Greek via selections from the Iliad and the Odyssey. May be repeated for credit, provided the topic is not the same. Prerequisite: 212 or permission of the instructor.: Attention to dialect, meter and formula; structure and plot; the Odyssey as epic, adventure and romance.

The construction of gender, sexuality, and erotic experience is one of the major sites of difference between Greco-Roman culture and our own. What constituted a proper man and a proper woman in these ancient societies? Which sexual practices and objects of desire were socially sanctioned and which considered deviant? What ancient modes of thinking about these issues have persisted into the modern world? Attention to the status of women; the role of social class; the ways in which genre and convention shaped representation; the relationship between representation and reality.

Topics course.: Coral reefs occupy a small portion of Earth’s surface, but their importance to the marine ecosystem is great. This seminar considers the geologic importance and ecological interactions of coral reefs. We focus on the status of coral reefs worldwide, considering effects of environmental and anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., major storms, eutrophication, acidification, overfishing). Methods for reef conservation are examined. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.