COL 160 - Culture of Rebellion: Youth Culture and Literature
COL 302 - Literary Theory: History | The Quarrel Between Philosophy and Literature
COL 303 - Feminist Theory and Literature
COL 320 - Literature and Desire: Reading Marcel Proust
COL 443 - Literature and War
COL 160 - CULTURE OF REBELLION: YOUTH CULTURE AND LITERATURE (top)
Professor Melanie ConroyMon/Wed, 9:30-10:50 am
Room: Clemens 640
Registration Number: 235683
"The foundation of every state is the education of its youth."
--Diogenes Laertius
"The youth rebellion is a worldwide phenomenon that has not been seen before in history. I do not believe they will calm down and be ad execs at thirty as the Establishment would like us to believe."
--William S. Burroughs
The twentieth century saw massive shifts in the way that youth and youth culture are interpreted. There is a world of difference between the traditional idea of youth as receptacle of tradition and the newer idea of youth as a cultural force in its own right - even as a source of open rebellion. Literature has both been a witness to and a force behind much of the youthful energy that has remade culture in general. Novels such as Jack Kerouac's On the Road inspired the culture of rebellion that defined the 1960s, while texts such as Manuel Puig's Betrayed by Rita Hayworth showed us how pop culture can redefine traditional cultures throughout the Americas. What is youth culture today? Is it always as rebellious as William S. Burroughs would have us believe? How is mass media changing younger generations? Is there continuity with the past?
In this course, we will compare a variety of twentieth-century texts from throughout North and South America, considering how youth is portrayed and how it portrays itself in the cultures of the Americas. Literature will include works by William Faulkner, Gabrielle Roy, Jack Kerouac, Manuel Puig, and others. Theoretical texts will include works by Franco Moretti, John Dewey, Deleuze and Guattari, Freud, and others.
Requirements: regular attendance and participation, a presentation, and two papers (one short and one longer). For more information see: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~mrconroy/litandrebellion.html
COL 302 - LITERARY THEORY: HISTORY | THE QUARREL BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE (top)
Professor Krzysztof ZiarekWed, 4:10-6:50 pm
Room: 218 Clemens
Registration Number: 208873
Why do philosophers read poets, and why do poets read philosophy? This course will trace the history of this question, beginning with the "quarrel" between philosophy and poetry in antiquity and leading up to the contemporary conversations and polemics between the two disciplines. The course is an introduction to the history of criticism but is open to all students interested in exploring the fascinating and challenging intersections between the two main areas of the humanities: literature and philosophy. Reading literary and philosophical texts, we will discuss such questions as the nature of human existence, the problem of time, death, and finitude, the role of gender, as well as the differences and similarities between the imagination and reason, passion and logic, literary language and philosophical argumentation. In the first part of the course, we will examine convergences and differences between literary and philosophical texts in antiquity (Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Sophocles' tragedies), the Middle Ages (Boethius and Dante), the Enlightenment (Voltaire, Candide), and Romanticism (Schlegel, Philosophical Fragments, Hölderlin, poetry.) Rethinking the heritage of Greek culture and tragedy for the moderns, Nietzsche's influential study The Birth of the Tragedy will serve as the transition to the questions, which will characterize contemporary debates between philosophy and literature. After The Birth of Tragedy, we will read several essays by Heidegger and Irigaray, and a number of literary texts: short stories by Dinesen and Borges, excerpts from Joyce's Ulysses, and poetry by Gertrude Stein and Wislawa Szymborska.
Requirements: presentation, participation in discussion, term paper.
COL 303 - FEMINIST THEORY AND LITERATURE (top)
Professor Ewa Plonowska ZiarekMon, 6:30-9:10
Room: 640 Clemens
Registration Number: 197186
What is feminism? Can this question be asked in the singular? What are the models of feminist interpretation of literature, culture, and politics? How does feminist thinking reconceptualize the problems of subjectivity, equality, oppression, and resistance? How do feminist theorists redefine differences of race, gender, class in the context of power, on the one had, and sexuality, on the other? Does the current emphasis on differences and conflicts within feminism preempt the ideal of solidarity among women? And finally, what do these political, philosophical, and ethical questions have to do with the analysis of literary texts? The purpose of this course is to raise these questions, provide the forum for discussion, and to introduce students to the main debates in feminist theory. Toward this end, we will study a wide variety of interdisciplinary theoretical texts, read selected literary works, and discuss contemporary gender issues. The course will be organized around the key concepts in feminist theory--such as embodiment, desire, sexual difference/sexuality/gender, performativity, power, resistance, race, and class and the main controversies surrounding these concepts.
Requirements: active participation in class discussion, multiple interdisciplinary group presentations, a research paper devoted either to Larsen's Passing or Woolf's To the Lighthouse, midterm.
COL 320 - LITERATURE AND DESIRE: READING MARCEL PROUST* (top)
Martin HägglundTues/Thurs, 11:00-12:20
Room: 640 Clemens
Registration Number: 334661
This course will serve as an introduction both to Marcel Proust and to modern literary theory. The guiding idea is that the implications of a given literary theory-and the often subtle but profound differences between competing theories-are best understood by studying the effects the theory has for the practice of reading. We will thus examine and compare readings of Proust by theorists that exemplify different "schools" of reading, from thematic criticism to deconstruction. This provides an opportunity not only to learn the elementary axioms of different literary theories, but also to study how their most prominent proponents practice the art of reading.
After reading the first volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time (Swann's Way in Lydia Davis's translation), we will explore different readings of Proust by such pivotal critics and theorists as Georges Poulet, Gilles Deleuze, Gerard Genette, Paul de Man, Paul Ricoeur, Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Derrida.
Requirements: Active class participation and two ten-page papers.
*This course fulfills the requirements for ENG 301-Criticism.
COL 443 - LITERATURE AND WAR (top)
Professor Rodolphe GaschéTues/Thurs, 3:30-4:50
Room: 121 Baldy
Registration Number: 345460
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.
