Comparative Literature Department :: University at Buffalo

COL 250 - Masterpieces of World Literature: Manga, Anime and the Japanese Classics
COL 280 - (Perver-) City in Literature
UGC 111 - World Civilization
COL 443 - Literature and War
COL 470 - Marked Bodies

COL 250 - MASTERPIECES OF WORLD LITERATURE: MANGA, ANIME AND THE JAPANESE CLASSICS (top)

Professor Margherita Long
Tues/Thurs.

This course is an introduction to premodern Japanese culture using a survey of classical literature and its adaptation into nô drama, kabuki theater, haiku poetry, bunraku theater, manga, film, and Japanimation. Texts will familiarize students with many of Japan's best known cultural traditions and institutions: the emperor system, samurai government, ritual suicide, the Shinto and Buddhist religions, seasonal aesthetics, calligraphy and textiles. The immediate objective is to explore Japanese literature from the 8th to the 19th centuries, and to show how vibrantly it continues to be celebrated in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The broader intellectual objective is to discover a set of universal questions to help us understand what will seem at first to be a bafflingly particular set of texts. What is the relationship between aesthetics and politics? Between religion and the state? Between high culture and low culture?

Students may choose from a range of assignments depending on their interests and abilities. Options include creative writing, art, diaries, aesthetic essays, bibliographic research, and written analyses of theater, film, literature, and poetry.

Requirements: 25%, Two Short Projects: 45%, One Final 6-Page Paper: 30%.

COL 280 - (PERVER-) CITY IN LITERATURE (top)

Professor Birger Vanwesenbeeck
Mon/Wed, 9:30-10:50am
Room: 640 Clemens

Los Angeles: city of angels or dystopic nightmare? This course will explore the various and often perverse relationships which novelists, movie-directors, theorists and architects of the past century have had with the city of Los Angeles and will try to reveal why L.A. can indeed be called "the city we love to hate", as Richard Lehan puts it.

The hardboiled detective novel, which originated in Los Angeles in the 1930s was the first genre to openly display this strain of "L.A. perver-city". We will read the detective stories of Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy, as well as watch the noir film Chinatown, and discuss their views of L.A. as a realm of utter crime and terror. Next we will read a couple of L.A. accounts by European war exiles such as Aldous Huxley, Bertolt Brecht, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer and their disdain for the emergent Hollywood mass industry.

Finally we will look at a couple of recent "dystopias" of Los Angeles in which computers, cyborgs and technology have gained control over society. We will read Neal Stephenson's cyberpunk novel Snow Crash and watch the movies Strange Days and Blade Runner in which Los Angeles appears as an apocalyptic city on the verge of disintegration. The architectural as well as technocratic depiction of L.A. in these latter two movies is often called "postmodern" and we will discuss what is meant by the postmodern in the context of L.A. Finally we will turn away from the perverse and focus on a recent counter-apocalyptic view of L.A. in the movie City of Angels, and more specifically on the theory of "angelology" as well as on the possibility of a postmodern sublime. Course requirements: one midterm paper (5-7 pages) and one final paper (8-10 pages) Required texts: Chandler, Raymond. Trouble is my Business. Ellroy, James. Hollywood Nocturnes. Huxley, Aldous. Jacob's Hands. Stephenson Neal. Snow Crash

UGC 111 - WORLD CIVILIZATION (top)

Professor Henry Sussman
Tues/Thurs

Course Description Soon

COL 443 - LITERATURE AND WAR (top)

Professor Rodolphe Gasché
Tues/Thurs, 3:30-4:50
Room: 127 Baldy
Registration Number: 104481

We will read a number of philosophical and literary texts ranging from the fifth century BC to the present. We will be examining how the concept of war and the art of strategy have developed from the Chinese sage Sun Tsu to the great continental strategist of the 19th century von Clausewitz. The literary portraits of war that we will be dealing with will be analyzed with regard to the ideas of these thinkers. In doing this, we will also be looking at the specific issues, historical, psychological, autobiographical, that these literary works are concerned with. This course will also be interested in the question of why wars have been such a privileged subject in literature, and how the art of military strategy can be compared with the art of writing. Readings will include the following: Sun Tsu, The Art of War, J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens (selections), Carl v. Clausewitz, On War (selections), S. Freud, "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death," and "Why War?", G. Flaubert, Salammbô, E. Junger, The Storm of Steel, J. Swift, The Battle of the Books, S. Crane, The Red Badge of Courage.

COL 470 - MARKED BODIES (top)

Professors Andrea Spain and Alla Ivanchikova
Tues/Thurs, 11:00-12:20
Room: 354 Fillmore
Registration Number: 152558
Crosslisted as WS401 (#127717); ENG406 (#225121)

Why does Western thought have such an aversion to the body? We often think about our bodies as tools we use, spaces we inhabit (spaces somehow separate from who we are), and/or as machines animated and controlled by our sheer will-power. In each of these conceptions, the body is figured either as a passive object or the unruly stuff of nature that we attempt to maneuver, control, and even seek to overcome. How did we come to think - and profoundly sense - the body in such ways? Furthermore, what are the implications of thinking the body this way, especially given the fact that 'Woman' is habitually aligned with the body, nature, the earth, and materiality in general?

The first part of this course will try to approach these questions: we will trace a history of how the body has been situated as that which must be dominated and controlled by the mind. Then we will ask to what extent feminists and cultural critics have inherited this aversion to the body. Next, we will analyze ways of re-thinking bodies as well as theorize how to think different bodies, such as virtual bodies, raced bodies, sexed bodies, machinic bodies, monstrous bodies, fragmented bodies. We will ask questions such as, how do particular bodies become marked as different while others pass as neutral or unmarked? What does it mean to call a body "raced"? "Sexed"? "Sexualized"? "Anorexic"? "Other"?

Finally, we will explore the notion of the body as a surface of social inscription, marking and training. We will end the course by exploring practices of resistance through which these modes of inscription might be contested or even overcome.


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	:: Fall 2003 - Undergraduate Courses
Graduate Undergraduate Course Archive	COL 250 - Masterpieces of World Literature: Manga, Anime and the Japanese Classics COL 280 - (Perver-) City in Literature UGC 111 - World Civilization COL 443 - Literature and War COL 470 - Marked Bodies COL 250 - MASTERPIECES OF WORLD LITERATURE: MANGA, ANIME AND THE JAPANESE CLASSICS (top) Professor Margherita Long Tues/Thurs. This course is an introduction to premodern Japanese culture using a survey of classical literature and its adaptation into nô drama, kabuki theater, haiku poetry, bunraku theater, manga, film, and Japanimation. Texts will familiarize students with many of Japan's best known cultural traditions and institutions: the emperor system, samurai government, ritual suicide, the Shinto and Buddhist religions, seasonal aesthetics, calligraphy and textiles. The immediate objective is to explore Japanese literature from the 8th to the 19th centuries, and to show how vibrantly it continues to be celebrated in the 20th and 21st centuries. The broader intellectual objective is to discover a set of universal questions to help us understand what will seem at first to be a bafflingly particular set of texts. What is the relationship between aesthetics and politics? Between religion and the state? Between high culture and low culture? Students may choose from a range of assignments depending on their interests and abilities. Options include creative writing, art, diaries, aesthetic essays, bibliographic research, and written analyses of theater, film, literature, and poetry. Requirements: 25%, Two Short Projects: 45%, One Final 6-Page Paper: 30%. COL 280 - (PERVER-) CITY IN LITERATURE (top) Professor Birger Vanwesenbeeck Mon/Wed, 9:30-10:50am Room: 640 Clemens Los Angeles: city of angels or dystopic nightmare? This course will explore the various and often perverse relationships which novelists, movie-directors, theorists and architects of the past century have had with the city of Los Angeles and will try to reveal why L.A. can indeed be called "the city we love to hate", as Richard Lehan puts it. The hardboiled detective novel, which originated in Los Angeles in the 1930s was the first genre to openly display this strain of "L.A. perver-city". We will read the detective stories of Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy, as well as watch the noir film Chinatown, and discuss their views of L.A. as a realm of utter crime and terror. Next we will read a couple of L.A. accounts by European war exiles such as Aldous Huxley, Bertolt Brecht, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer and their disdain for the emergent Hollywood mass industry. Finally we will look at a couple of recent "dystopias" of Los Angeles in which computers, cyborgs and technology have gained control over society. We will read Neal Stephenson's cyberpunk novel Snow Crash and watch the movies Strange Days and Blade Runner in which Los Angeles appears as an apocalyptic city on the verge of disintegration. The architectural as well as technocratic depiction of L.A. in these latter two movies is often called "postmodern" and we will discuss what is meant by the postmodern in the context of L.A. Finally we will turn away from the perverse and focus on a recent counter-apocalyptic view of L.A. in the movie City of Angels, and more specifically on the theory of "angelology" as well as on the possibility of a postmodern sublime. Course requirements: one midterm paper (5-7 pages) and one final paper (8-10 pages) Required texts: Chandler, Raymond. Trouble is my Business. Ellroy, James. Hollywood Nocturnes. Huxley, Aldous. Jacob's Hands. Stephenson Neal. Snow Crash UGC 111 - WORLD CIVILIZATION (top) Professor Henry Sussman Tues/Thurs Course Description Soon COL 443 - LITERATURE AND WAR (top) Professor Rodolphe Gasché Tues/Thurs, 3:30-4:50 Room: 127 Baldy Registration Number: 104481 We will read a number of philosophical and literary texts ranging from the fifth century BC to the present. We will be examining how the concept of war and the art of strategy have developed from the Chinese sage Sun Tsu to the great continental strategist of the 19th century von Clausewitz. The literary portraits of war that we will be dealing with will be analyzed with regard to the ideas of these thinkers. In doing this, we will also be looking at the specific issues, historical, psychological, autobiographical, that these literary works are concerned with. This course will also be interested in the question of why wars have been such a privileged subject in literature, and how the art of military strategy can be compared with the art of writing. Readings will include the following: Sun Tsu, The Art of War, J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens (selections), Carl v. Clausewitz, On War (selections), S. Freud, "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death," and "Why War?", G. Flaubert, Salammbô, E. Junger, The Storm of Steel, J. Swift, The Battle of the Books, S. Crane, The Red Badge of Courage. COL 470 - MARKED BODIES (top) Professors Andrea Spain and Alla Ivanchikova Tues/Thurs, 11:00-12:20 Room: 354 Fillmore Registration Number: 152558 Crosslisted as WS401 (#127717); ENG406 (#225121) Why does Western thought have such an aversion to the body? We often think about our bodies as tools we use, spaces we inhabit (spaces somehow separate from who we are), and/or as machines animated and controlled by our sheer will-power. In each of these conceptions, the body is figured either as a passive object or the unruly stuff of nature that we attempt to maneuver, control, and even seek to overcome. How did we come to think - and profoundly sense - the body in such ways? Furthermore, what are the implications of thinking the body this way, especially given the fact that 'Woman' is habitually aligned with the body, nature, the earth, and materiality in general? The first part of this course will try to approach these questions: we will trace a history of how the body has been situated as that which must be dominated and controlled by the mind. Then we will ask to what extent feminists and cultural critics have inherited this aversion to the body. Next, we will analyze ways of re-thinking bodies as well as theorize how to think different bodies, such as virtual bodies, raced bodies, sexed bodies, machinic bodies, monstrous bodies, fragmented bodies. We will ask questions such as, how do particular bodies become marked as different while others pass as neutral or unmarked? What does it mean to call a body "raced"? "Sexed"? "Sexualized"? "Anorexic"? "Other"? Finally, we will explore the notion of the body as a surface of social inscription, marking and training. We will end the course by exploring practices of resistance through which these modes of inscription might be contested or even overcome.
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