This is an interdisciplinary course that examines literary and other creative representations of cities, particularly those arising from colonization and historical and contemporary globalization.  We will explore such themes as power relationships between cities in the Western world and the global south, migrations, neoliberalism, environmental concerns, gender and sexuality, and the unique place of world cultures amid more vexing concerns about the impact of globalization.

Fall semester. First year students only. Limited to 16 students. Prof. C. Bailey

Graphic novels have become a potent way to tell stories about individual lives lived during moments of cultural and social upheaval. Once known as “the funnies,” comics have breathed new life into periods and events as diverse as the Renaissance, the Holocaust, the Iranian Revolution, and dictatorship Spain. But has the graphic novel killed the novel? Authors and illustrators have adapted canonical works of literature into a vibrant visual format, perhaps even putting text-only literature in peril. Some graphic novels have been criticized for trivializing serious topics.

Leo Tolstoy insisted that War and Peace was not a novel, all appearances to the contrary. As we carefully read his subversive masterpiece, we will consider the ways in which the book attempts to revolutionize what literature can do, by posing radical questions about freedom, violence, the relationship between the life of the mind and everyday experience, the value of culture, the possibility of change, and the search for an authentic self.

This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of physical space and the sense of belonging and rootedness we call place. The organizing principle of the course is the expanding circle; we will begin with the individual, then move to the home and family, the city, the nation, and end with the globe as a whole. We will cover a range of topics along the way, including memory, imagination, nationalism, borders, war, exile, imperialism, and globalization. Works range across philosophy, history, anthropology, film, fiction, photography, and environmentalism, among others.