Graduate Course Descriptions

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WINTER QUARTER
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31100 13900 History and Theory of Drama-2; Bevington, David; Rudall, Nick
32800 12800 Theories of Media; Mitchell, W.J.T.
33000 13000 Academic and Professional Writing (Little Red Schoolhouse); McEnerney,Larry; Cochran,Kathryn; Weiner, Tracy
33400 13400 Graduate Poetry Workshop; Volkman, Karen
33700 13700 Advanced Playwriting; Allen, Claudia
34701 14701 Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction; Obejas, Achy
35100 15100 Seminar at the Newberry Library-Sin and Forgiveness in Anglo-Saxon England; Frantzen, Allen
35200 15200 Beowulf; von Nolcken, Christina
37200 Shakespeare and His Contemporaries: The End of an Era; Bevington, David
38000 18000 Microhistory and Historical Narrative; Brewer, John
38101 28101 The Films of Max Ophuls; Hansen, Miriam
39900 Intensive Reading Research; Staff
41100 Victorian Childhood; Hadley, Elaine
42900 12900 Poetry Workshop: Radical Strategies; Volkman, Karen
45300 Post-Modern Autobiography; Nelson, Debbie
48900 29600 History of International Cinema II-Sound Cinema to 1960; Tsivian, Yuri
50100 Graduate Teaching Colloquium: The Craft of Teaching; Staff
51000 PhD Colloquium; Knight, Janice
59400 Realism, Modernism, Socialism: The Politics of Literary Form; Kruger, Loren
59900 Reading Course; Staff
60800 Wordsworth, Coleridge and Lyrical Ballads; Makdisi, Saree
65400 Race, Theory, and the African Americanist Project; Warren, Kenneth

31100 13900 History and Theory of Drama-2
History and Theory of Drama I is not a prerequisite. A survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in Western drama from the late-seventeenth century into the twentieth: Moliere, Goldsmith, Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, Wilde, Shaw, Brecht, Beckett, Stoppard. Attention will also be paid to theorists of the drama, including Stanislavsky, Artaud, and Grotowski. The winter-quarter course, like the autumn-quarter course, features voluntary but highly recommended end-of-week workshops in which individual scenes will be read aloud dramatically and discussed. Assignments at mid-quarter and at the end of the quarter will give the option of two substantial essays, or (in place of either or both) the putting on of a short scene in cooperation with some other members of the class. Acting skill is not required; the point is to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report.

32800 12800. Theories of Media
MW 1:30-2:50 C 307; Tu 7:00-10:00 Scr C 307. Mitchell, W.J.T. This course will explore the concept of media and mediation in very broad terms, looking not only at modern technical media and mass media, but at the very idea of a medium as a means of communication, a set of institutional practices, and a habitat" in which images proliferate and take on a "life of their own." The course will deal as much with ancient as with modern media, with writing, sculpture, and painting as well as television and virtual reality. Readings will include classic texts such as Plato's Allegory of the Cave and Cratylus, Aristotle's Poetics, and modern texts such as Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media, Regis Debray's Mediology, and Friedrich Kittler's Gramaphone, Film, Typewriter. We will explore questions such as the following: What is a medium? What is the relation of technology to media? How do media affect, simulate, and stimulate sensory experiences? What sense can we make of concepts such as the "unmediated" or "immediate"? How do media become intelligible and concrete in the form of "metapictures" or exemplary instances, as when a medium reflects on itself (films about films, paintings about painting)? Is there a system of media? How do we tell one medium from another, and how do they become "mixed" in hybrid, intermedial formations? We will also look at recent films such as The Matrix and Existenz that project fantasies of a world of total mediation and hyperreality. Students will be expected to do one "show and tell" presentation introducing a specific medium. There will also be several short writing exercises, and a final paper. PQ: Any 100-level ArtH or COVA course, or consent of instructor.

33000 13000. Academic and Professional Writing (Little Red Schoolhouse)
TuTh 3:00-4:20. McEnerney,Larry; Cochran,Kathryn; Weiner, Tracy. This course teaches the skills needed to write clear and coherent expository prose and to edit the writing of others. The course consists of weekly lectures on Thursdays, immediately followed by tutorials addressing the issues in the lecture. On Tuesdays, students discuss short weekly papers in two-hour tutorials consisting of seven students and a tutor. Students may replace the last three papers with a longer paper and, with the consent of relevant faculty, write it in conjunction with another class or as part of the senior project.

33400 13400. Graduate Poetry Workshop
Tu 3:00-5:50. Volkman, Karen. This graduate-level workshop features intensive reading, discussion, and critique, as well as occasional exercises. Along with students' weekly writing, we will discuss a number of recent books-considering a range of lyric gestures, deformations of convention, music and movement, and the poetic possibilities (and perplexities) they imply. (Although First priority is given to graduate students, senior students may apply for admission based on an manuscript submission and a statement of interest) P.Q. Consent of instructor, Sample submission of 3-5 poems due into Gates-Blake 309 by November 15, 2001.

33700 13700. Advanced Playwriting
Allen, Claudia. This course presumes the basic principles and techniques of playwriting and explores the steps toward developing a production worthy script for contemporary theater. In addition to main instructor Claudia Allen, students will have the benefit of Michelle Volansky, Dramaturg and Literary Manager at Steppenwolf Theater, who will discuss dramatic structure and what she looks for in a play, and Sandy Shinner, Artistic Associate at Victory Gardens Theater, who will share a directors viewpoint for bringing the text to production. Prerequisite: Introduction to Playwriting.

34701 14701. Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction
Obejas, Achy. The Advanced Creadtive writing workshop is for students who already have a background in creative writing. Students are expected to rewrite, revise and reevaluate their origional work on a week to week based on out readings, discussions, and analysis. lectures are based on issues that arise from student work. There are occasional excercises outside the students' own writing. This Advanced workshop meets weekly.

35100 15100. Seminar at the Newberry Library-Sin and Forgiveness in Anglo-Saxon England
F 2:00-5:00 ??. Frantzen, Allen. PQ: Eng 149/349 or equivalent. This course meets at the Newberry Library; for more information, consult Christina von Nolcken (702-7977, mcv4@midway.uchicago.edu).

35200 15200. Beowulf
TuTh 9:00-10:20. von Nolcken, Christina. This course will aim to help students read Beowulf while also acquainting them with some of the scholarly discussion that has accumulated around the poem. We will read the text primarily as edited by Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, Beowulf: An Edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998); we will also draw on the Newberry Library's rich collection of early printed and facsimile editions when discussing textual and paleographical matters. Once students have defined their particular interests, we will choose which recent approaches to the poem to discuss in detail; we will, however, certainly view the poem both in itself and in relation to Anglo-Saxon history and culture in general. Prerequisite: Eng 149/349 or equivalent.

37200. Shakespeare and His Contemporaries: The End of an Era
TuTh 1:30-3:00. Bevington, David. This course will examine, in context, a group of plays around 1598-1603, the last half decade or so in Elizabeth's reign, to include HAMLET, TROILUS aND CRESSIDA, HENRY V, AS YOU LIKE IT, JULIUS CAESAR, TWELFTH NIGHT, MEASURE FOR MEASURE, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, EVERY MAn in HIS HUMOUR, EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR, THE SHOEMAKER'S HOLIDAY, and A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS. The contextual frame will consider debate about the Earl of Essex and England's confrontation with Catholicism, competition among rival dramatic companies (including public versus "private" stages), the challenge posed by an increasingly strident Puritanism, changing values on sex and marriage, cross-dressing, and still more.

38000 18000. Microhistory and Historical Narrative
TuTh 9:00-10:20. This course has two aims: to introduce students to a number of classic microhistories through a close reading of such texts as Le Roi Ladurie's Montaillou, Carlo Ginsburg's The Cheese and the Worms, and Natalie Zemon Davis's The Return of Martin Guerre; and to raise historiographical, methodological and theoretical issues about the techniques they use to write about the past.

38101 28101. The Films of Max Ophuls
MW 1:30-2:50 C 310; Su1:00-4:00 Scr C 307; Tu 7:00-10:00 Scr C 425. Hansen, Miriam. Max Ophuls has variously been discussed as master of the long take and mise-en-scene,of theatrical adaptation and self-conscious narration; as director of the "woman's film," of melodramatic pathos and irony; and a s artist and analyst of erotic and cinematic--obsession. Following the trajectory of his life and work from Germany through Fance, Italy, Hollywood, and back to Europe, we will consider Ophuls' films in terms of style and genre; the question of his gynocentric aesthetic and the feminist debate surrounding it; filmmaking and reception under the conditions of exile and industrial production. Films include Liebelei, La Signora, Madame De...., Le Plasir, and Lola Montes. (M.A. Studetns require permission of instructor)

39900. Intensive Reading Research
ARR ARR. Staff. A student who wishes to study an author or a topic not covered by the course offerings may arrange for independent study with a professor willing to supervise that study. The student should indicate on the Registration Program Card the name of the professor from whom a grade is to be expected.

41100. Victorian Childhood
TuTh 10:30-11:50. Hadley, Elaine. Building on trends that began in the eighteenth century, nineteenth-century England witnessed the emergence of a culture of childhood that newly emphasized what were deemed the unique characteristics of young people. In this course, we will explore the formation of this normative concept by examining its class, gender, and racial variations in novels by Dickens and Eliot, in contemporary child-rearing manuals, in children's literature, and in medical and psychological discourses. We also examine the material culture of children's toys and the representation of children in popular illustrations.

42900 12900. Poetry Workshop: Radical Strategies
M 3:00-5:50. Volkman, Karen. For this workshop, we will read poems and documents from some of the major avant-garde movements of the last century (including French Surrealism, Russian Futurism, and Oulipo), discussing and borrowing strategies from each. Students will write poems each week and keep a reading journal. Workshop discussion will necessarily focus on how to critique and e valuate innovative work, and will engage current debate over the problematic nature of terms such as experimental and avant-garde. P.Q. Consent of instructor, Sample submission of 3-5 poems due into Gates-Blake 309 by December 15, 2001.

45300. Post-Modern Autobiography
TuTh 1:30-2:50. Nelson, Debbie. This course will look at experimental autobiographies such as Berrymanis Dream Songs, Lordeis Zami, Nabokobvis Speak Memory, Milletis Loony Bin Trip, Hejinianis My Life, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Maus. We will ask how these autobiographies shape postmodern theories of identity as well as how these theories have influenced self-representation.

48900 29600. History of International Cinema II-Sound Cinema to 1960
TuTh 12:00-1:20 C 307; M 7:00-10:00 Scr C 307; W 7:00-10:00 Scr C 307. Tsivian, Yuri. This is the second part of the international survey history for film covering the sound era up to 1960. It is strongly recommended that students take the first section first. This survey will deal with issues of film form, industry organization, and film culture during three decades, the 30', 40's, and 50's. The crystallization of the Classical Hollywood Film in terms of style and genre, as well as industry organization, will be a key issue. But international alternatives to Hollywood will also be discussed, from the unique forms of Japanese cinema to movements like Italian Neo-realism and the beginnings of the New Wave in France. The writings of Andre Bazin and issues of film in relation to realism and narrative form will provide a thread throughout the course. Film style, from the classical scene break down to the introduction of deep focus, stylistic experimentation, and technical innovation (sound, wide screen, location shooting) will form the center of the course, while the development of a film culture will also be discussed. Text will include Thompson Bordwell, Film History an Introduction, and works by Bazin, Belton, Sitney, Godard, and others. Screenings will include films by Hitchcock, Welles, Rossellini, Bresson, Ozu, Antonioni, and Renoir.

50100. Graduate Teaching Colloquium: The Craft of Teaching
TBA. Staff. This year-long colloquium is open to all PhD students in the department, regardless of teaching experience. We will meet four times each quarter to practice, read about, and theorize teaching. Topics will range from the pragmatics of grading, lecturing, and leading discussions to the meaning of "professionalism," the contradictions and overlaps of teaching and scholarship, and the politics of literacy generally. A planning meeting will be held early in the fall quarter to take stock of immediate needs and interests. The fall quarter will probably focus on inventing and describing courses and constructing syllabi. Issues of authority, "contracts with students," etc., will undoubtedly arise.

51000. PhD Colloquium
F 12:00-2:50. Knight, Janice.

59400. Realism, Modernism, Socialism: The Politics of Literary Form
Tu 1:30-4:20 C 310; M 3:30-6:30 Scr C 307. Kruger, Loren. The ongoing influence of arguments in the 1920s and 1930s about the relative value of realism and modernism on present-day theory is well-know, but the historical entwinement of these arguments about literary form with political conflict over the merits and meaning of socialism is less so. This intensive reading course will attempt to historicize theory by re-evaluating the work of relatively familiar theorists such as Adorno, Benjamin, Kenneth Burke, Lenin, and Lukacs in the light of their interlocutors in fiction, film and drama -- Brecht, Gladkov, Gorki, Pudovkin, Eisenstein, Dovzhenko, Mike Gold, the Living Newspaper, Film and Photo League--as well as in theory--Bloch, Plekhanov, Zhdvnov, Gold, John Howard Lawson. We will end the course with a reading of Peter Weiss's extraordinary synthesis of fiction and (marxist) theory in his newly translated Aesthetics of Resistance. Working knowledge of German and/or Russian and/or marxist basics would be helpful, but essential tests are available in English (though not all in print). Interested MA's should consult instructor before class begins...Requirements: Two class presentations and regular participation; these and short position paper (grade).

59900. Reading Course
ARR. Staff.

60800. Wordsworth, Coleridge and Lyrical Ballads
Th 3:00-5:50. Makdisi, Saree. This course will explore the relatively early work of Wordsworth and Coleridge from the years surrounding the collaborative project of Lyrical Ballads. We will consider various editions of Lyrical Ballads as well as of the poems that constitute it, in addition to other poetry and writing (political, philosophical and aesthetic) by Wordsworth, Coleridge and others from the period.

65400. Race, Theory, and the African Americanist Project
MW 1:30-3:00. Warren, Kenneth. What are the challenges to, possibilities for, and limitations on the study of African American literature and literary history posed by such critical and theoretical initiatives as whiteness studies, cultural studies, and transatlanticism? As we seek answers to these questions we will attempt to converge on an understanding of African Americanist inquiry that critiques its idealist orientations and directs attention to the institutional and organizational practices and imperatives that have shaped the development of the field.

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