Lower-Division

LIT1 Literary Interpretation

Close reading and analysis of literary texts, including representative examples of several different genres and periods. An introduction to practical criticism required of all literature majors; should be completed prior to upper-division work in literature.

Credits

5

Instructor

S. Keilen, W. Godzich

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing and Composition requirements. Enrollment is restricted to first-year students and sophomores, or literature and proposed literature majors and literature minors.

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Fall, Spring, Summer

LIT61C Devils, Dervishes, and Bawdy Tales from Baghdad to Canterbury: The Story within the Story

A story within a story, the frame tale is a playful and enduring literary genre. Focuses on frame tales of the global middle ages, tracing their movement from the Indian subcontinent to the British Isles. Readings include selections from Fables of Bidpai, The Arabian Nights, Libro de Buen Amor, and The Canterbury Tales. (Formerly The Frame Tale.)

Credits

5

General Education Code

CC

Quarter offered

Fall

LIT61F Introduction to Reading Fiction

Close reading of short stories and some novels with the aim of developing critical methods for the analysis and interpretation of prose fiction. Topics include character, plot, narrative structure, and the poetics of prose. The course topic changes; please see the Class Search for the current topic.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

General Education Code

TA

LIT61H Introduction to Film Analysis

Introduces techniques for the close reading of film, with particular attention to film form (shot-by-shot analysis), cinematic codes, narrative structure, and the ideological burdens of the basic cinematic apparatus. Case studies of select works by major directors from the Hollywood studio period.

Credits

5

General Education Code

IM

LIT61J Introduction to Jewish Literature and Culture

Surveys 3,000 years of Jewish literature and culture. Themes include origins of the Jews in the ancient world; formation and persistence of the Jewish diaspora; coherence and diversity of Jewish experience; Jewish narrative and textual traditions; interaction between Jews and other cultures; tensions between tradition and modernity.

Credits

5

Instructor

Bruce Thompson

General Education Code

ER

Quarter offered

Winter

LIT61K Introduction to the Fairy Tale

Introduces the fairy tale as a genre, including historical, cultural, and political contexts; relation to identity, performance, transnationalism; contemporary transformations of tales and their expression in other media (e.g., film, art, theater); and current scholarship.

Credits

5

Instructor

Kimberly Lau

General Education Code

TA

LIT61L True Stories: Memoir

Historical overview of the genre from Augustine to contemporary experiments in memoir. Student write weekly creative-critical responses and a final creative-critical paper.

Credits

5

Instructor

Micah Perks

General Education Code

PR-C

LIT61M Approaches to Classical Myth

Introduction to Greek myths, including selected ancient texts and visual artifacts, historical and cultural context of their creation and reception, modern theoretical approaches such as structuralism and psychoanalysis, and interpretations in various media.

Credits

5

Instructor

Martin Devecka

General Education Code

TA

LIT61N Introduction to Children's Literature

Introduction to children's literature as a literary genre, including historical, cultural, and political considerations of the genre's relationship to gender, race, sexuality, nationalism, colonialism, and popular culture through primary texts, secondary criticism, and other media (e.g., film, illustration, comics).

Credits

5

General Education Code

TA

LIT61P Introduction to Reading Poetry

An introduction to selected modes and forms of poetry with an emphasis on close textual analysis. Examples will be taken from different historical periods and poetic traditions. Course topic changes; please see the Class Search for the current topic.

Credits

5

Instructor

Christopher Chen

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Spring

LIT61R Race in Literature

An investigation into the various uses and abuses of race in literature. Course topic changes; see the Class Search for current topic.

Credits

5

Instructor

Christine Hong

General Education Code

ER

LIT61S Sacred Texts

Studies religious texts held sacred by different cultures and communities around the world, concentrating primarily on their literary dimensions. Course topic changes; please see the Class Search for current topic.

Credits

5

Instructor

Daniel Selden

General Education Code

CC

LIT61T Travel Narratives

Travel narratives may be of many types: odysseys of self-discovery, adventures in nature, or journeys to exotic lands off the beaten track. This course examines travelers' accounts drawn from periods ranging from the Middle Ages to the contemporary.

Credits

5

Instructor

Sharon Kinoshita

General Education Code

CC

LIT61U Introduction to Speculative Fiction

Examines speculative and science fiction (SF) texts to develop critical methods for the analysis and interpretation of SF as a critique of science, technology, and culture. Themes include encounters across species; novelty and change; expanded concepts of life; and the role of technology in human development.

Credits

5

Instructor

Zachary Zimmer

General Education Code

PE-T

Quarter offered

Winter, Summer

LIT61W Writing and Research Methods

Intensive training in the practice of literary analysis and the writing of polished research papers. Topics include manuscript sources, variant editions, reading techniques, publication technologies, web research. Workshop format. Strongly recommended for majors and/or transfer students who have completed LIT 1 or its equivalent.

Credits

5

Instructor

C. Kersten

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Fall

LIT61X Tragedy: Learning Through Suffering

Reading representative Greek tragedies with attention to history, form, and content. Course examines how Greek tragedy responds to the fact of human mortality, i.e., to the myriad and culturally specific ways in which characters in tragedy accept, evade, or deny death.

Credits

5

Instructor

Karen Bassi

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Spring

LIT61Z Introduccion a generos literarios de Espana y America Latina

Speaking, reading, and writing proficiency in Spanish required. The study of poetry, drama, and prose in Spain and Latin America.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jorge Aladro Font

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Fall

LIT80B Monsters and Literature

Every age has the monsters it needs. From medieval marvels to GMO chimeras, monsters serve as figures of a culture's deepest fears, anxieties, and hidden desires. This course takes a multidisciplinary, transhistorical approach to the problems and promises of monsters, and introduces monster theory.

Credits

5

General Education Code

TA

LIT80D Literary Traditions of India

Introduces the fundamental questions of interpretation and cultural analysis through engagement with varying literary and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent since antiquity. Emphasis is on language, communicative media, literary form, memory, transmission, interpretive approaches, and translation. The course topics change; please see the Class Search for the current topic.

Credits

5

Instructor

Guriqbal Sahota

Repeatable for credit

Yes

General Education Code

CC

LIT80E Animals and Literature

Examines the copresence in literary works (fiction and non-fiction prose and poetry) of nonhuman and human animals from antiquity to the present across a variety of cultures.

Credits

5

Instructor

Carla Freccero

General Education Code

TA

LIT80H The Politics of Fashion

Surveys the politics of fashion, focusing on how style has shaped ideology, culture, power, revolution, resistance, and a variety of identities, including nation, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class.

Credits

5

Instructor

Vilashini Cooppan

General Education Code

ER

Quarter offered

Fall

LIT80I Topics in American Culture

A history of one or more cultural genres in written, visual, and/or musical forms. Course topic changes; please see the Class Search for the current topic.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

General Education Code

TA

LIT80K Topics in Medical Humanities

Medical Humanities designate an interdisciplinary field of humanities (literature, philosophy, ethics, history, and religion) concerned with application to medical education and practice. The humanities provide insight into the human condition, suffering, personhood, and our responsibility to each other; and offer a historical perspective on medical practice.

Credits

5

Instructor

Wlad Godzich

General Education Code

PE-T

LIT80L The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry

Focus is on the destruction of the Jews of Europe by Nazi Germany. Issues are historically grounded, and include works of literature, social sciences, philosophy, and film.

Credits

5

General Education Code

ER

LIT80M China in the Post-Reform Period

Speaking, reading, and writing proficiency in Mandarin Chinese required. Lectures, discussions, writing assignments, and all readings in Chinese. An investigation of Chinese culture, society, and politics in the post-1978 period through literature, film, critical essays, and internet media. Topics include labor, gender, generational divisions, family, urban life, social media, nationalism.

Credits

5

Instructor

C. Connery

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Winter

LIT80N Latino Expressions in the U.S

An introduction to Latino literature and culture in the U.S. A study of the creative expressions of Chicanos/as, Nuyoricans, Cuban Americans, and other Latin Americans in the U.S.

Credits

5

Instructor

Kirsten Gruesz

General Education Code

ER

LIT80O Love, Anarchy, Revolution

Considers love, anarchy, and revolution as three modes of liberation. Concentrating on the contemporary period, with explorations of philosophy, literature, film, popular culture, political movements and manifestos, and personal or collective experience, this course considers these variant, but overlapping, scenes of the dialectics of liberation.

Credits

5

Instructor

Christopher Connery

General Education Code

PR-E

LIT80Q Jane the Virgin: Latinx Readers and (Latin) American Literature

What does a telenovela spoof about a virgin Latinx mother and aspiring romance novelist have to do with literature? Course explores Jane the Virgin as a commentary on the tastes, identities, and politics of 21st-century Latinx readers and writers.

Credits

5

Instructor

Amanda Smith

General Education Code

CC

LIT80T Literature and Magic

Explores the history of magic in relation to the written word. Concerns include the gendering of magic; interconnections among Judaic, Arabic, and Christian worlds; magic in the age of rationalism; and the recent popular fascination with magic.

Credits

5

General Education Code

CC

LIT80U Introduction to Contemplative Reading

Combines contemplative practice, including meditative practice, with close reading of literary works to provide students with a more precise ability to interpret and respond to texts, both literary and non-literary. Works include poetry, imaginative prose, and essays.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jody Greene

General Education Code

PR-C

LIT80V Literature and History

Examines literature's relationship to the past and to the experience of history. Course topic changes; please see the Class Search for current topic.

Credits

5

General Education Code

TA

LIT80W Captive Minds: The Literature of Pre-modern Slavery

Examines the literary production of slave societies by looking at the literatures of several pre-modern slave societies; also develops a cultural-historical narrative that explains the origins of genocidal forms of plantation slavery in the Americas by tracing their origins back to Greece and Rome.

Credits

5

Instructor

Martin Devecka

General Education Code

CC

LIT80X Global Narratives

A survey of global narratives, with a focus on the novel over several centuries, traditions, languages, and cultures.

Credits

5

Instructor

Vilashini Cooppan

General Education Code

TA

LIT80Y Harry Potter

From The Sorcerer's Stone to The Deathly Hallows, this course approaches the Harry Potter books and films from a variety of critical angles, using the analytical tools of literary and cultural studies to shed new light on this dizzying phenomenon.

Credits

5

Instructor

Renee Fox

General Education Code

TA

LIT80Z Introduction to Shakespeare

Study of representative plays. No previous experience with Shakespeare is assumed.

Credits

5

General Education Code

TA

LIT81A Homer's Odyssey

Introduction to Homer's Odyssey, its hero, and its world. An epic tale of a man who abandons his family to fight in the Trojan War, then returns two decades later, the Odyssey was a profound influence on the culture of ancient Greece and Rome, and continues to shape our self-understanding today.

Credits

5

Instructor

M. Devecka

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Fall

LIT87 Introduction to Literary Topics

Introduces topics in literature. The course topic changes; please see the Class Search for the current topic.

Credits

2

Instructor

Abigail Heald

Repeatable for credit

Yes

LIT90 Introduction to Creative Writing

Introduction to the crafts and techniques of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, identifying and exploring traditional and non-traditional literary forms and genres while working on individual creative writing projects. An author reading and two workshop sections per week.

Credits

5

Requirements

Prerequisite: satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing requirement. Enrollment is restricted to first-year students, sophomores, and juniors.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

General Education Code

PR-C

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

LIT90X Introduccion a la Escritura Creativa/Introduction to Creative Writing

Speaking, reading, and writing proficiency in Spanish is required. Explores creative writing from a bilingual (Spanish-English) perspective, and considers bilingualism in the literary arts (como el ejercicio de una identidad), as a way of thinking and a way of being, as a creative lens (el pensamiento de frontera), as a framework, as a border (que quiere ser cruzada).

Credits

5

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing requirement. Enrollment is restricted to first-year, sophomore, and junior students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

General Education Code

PR-C

Quarter offered

Winter

LIT91A Intermediate Fiction/Prose Writing

An intermediate-level course in fiction designed for prospective applicants to the creative writing concentration.

Credits

5

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): LIT 90. Enrollment is restricted to first-year, sophomore, and junior students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

General Education Code

PR-C

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LIT91B Intermediate Poetry Writing

An intermediate-level course in poetry designed for prospective applicants to the creative writing concentration.

Credits

5

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): LIT 90.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

General Education Code

PR-C

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LIT99A Tutorial

Study of literature in English or English translation. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LIT99B Tutorial

Speaking, reading, and writing proficiency in French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Spanish or other non-English language required. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LIT99C Tutorial

Study of creative writing. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LIT99F Tutorial

Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

2

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring