Students will choose, early in the semester, one author to focus on in fiction, poetry, or drama, with the goal of arriving at a 15-20 page sample, with commentary, of the author's work. All work will be translated into English and discussed in a workshop format. Weekly readings will focus on the comparison of pre-existing translations as well as commentaries on the art and practice of literary translation.

This course explores the formal inventions of modern and contemporary writers--from Woolf, Borges, Perec to Bolaño--who reinvent storytelling through hybrid structures, fragmented voices, and experimental forms, who carve new paths through language and narrative. Each session will spotlight authors from the French, English, and Spanish literary worlds, examining how each writer responds to the ruptures of the modern world through the invention of forms, how literature might respond to (and reshape) the world to come.

Our aim is to design an aesthetics of space. We think practically about place and abstractly about space--and politically about both--in the fields of architecture, architectural theory, continental philosophy, critical theory, Black studies, border studies, decolonial writings, and literature. We explore spacetime as a spatial unconscious while mindful of the limits of body, our senses, language, and figuration. And we contemplate the dystopian actualities and utopian possibilities of the built environment. This seminar will interest students across all disciplines whose research includes, even minimally, a spatial component.

The Arabian Nights (The 1001 Nights) is a masterpiece of world literature. However, its reception and popularity are fraught with challenges and problems. By tracing its journey from its Persian origins, through its Arabic adaptations, and finally its entry into Europe, this class will consider how the Nights were used to construct imaginings about the Self and the Other in these different contexts. We will cover topics such as orientalism, gender and sexuality, and narrative theory as they relate to the Nights' most famous story cycles and look at the influence of the Nights on modern authors and filmmakers. All readings will be in English.

This seminar covers the nuts and bolts of undergraduate teaching, discussing pedagogical theory and practice as well as job market preparation. Topics include weekly class preparation, running a discussion, active learning strategies, handling sensitive issues with students, writing instruction, grading and feedback, new media in the classroom, syllabus design, and teaching statements. We will devote considerable attention to race, gender, neurodiversity, and disability in the classroom. Our last two weeks are dedicated to radical pedagogy.

This course studies contemporary Latin American & Caribbean literature and visual arts. Looking at the changing relationships between aesthetics and politics, we will analyze how textual and visual works respond to different forms of violence and express other forms of imagining relations among bodies, communities, and territories. Texts will be available in the original & translation. Some classes will take place at the Art Museum study room at Firestone

Students will choose, early in the semester, one author to focus on in fiction, poetry, or drama, with the goal of arriving at a 10-15 page sample, with commentary, of the author's work. All work will be translated into English and discussed in a workshop format. Weekly readings will focus on the comparison of pre-existing translations as well as commentaries on the art and practice of literary translation.

This class explores games and the culture of play in East Asia through a variety of angles, ranging from the aesthetic to the ideological, from the historical to the technological. By doing so, we familiarize ourselves with the increasingly prolific literature on (video) games as well as the longer history of game theory. Though the class serves foremost to explore the theoretical readings within this new discipline, game studies, it also allows the hands-on exploration of particular East Asian games, entertains the question of how to teach games, and encourages students to apply game theory beyond the realm of games studies itself.

An introduction to the literature, art, religion and philosophy of China, Japan and Korea from antiquity to ca. 1600. Readings focus on primary texts in translation and are complemented by museum visits and supplementary materials on the course website; we emphasize close reading and discussion, encouraging students to engage with both the past and present meanings of these texts. The course explores the unique aspects of East Asian civilizations and the connections between them through assignments integrating text with visual and material sources. No prior knowledge of East Asia is required.

What does postcolonial literature have to do with economic development? How can literature and literary analysis help us better understand global economic inequality? This course examines the role that literature and literary thinking have played in legitimating, critiquing, and revising the 20th and now 21st century project of "development." Reading global works of literature and film alongside documents such as the World Bank's first "mission" report and its 2000 World Development Report, we'll study how narrative shapes issues like poverty and industrialization, international aid and (neo)colonialism, and economic justice and debt relief.