Courses
Last updated Spring 2022
All courses carry 3 credits unless otherwise specified.
Literature and Film
559 Global Modernisms
Working outward from the tools and techniques used by modernist novelists in Europe and the Americas, this course explores the intersection of engagement and global modernism. The course focuses on the ways that novelists move beyond social realism, using formalist methods to create engaged narratives that serve the purposes of social critique and national building in the tradition of Joyce, Faulkner, Garcia Marquez, and Morrison. Questions to be explored include the implied readership, boundaries between modernism and postmodernism, and the porous genre boundaries of the novel internationally. Reading will include Soseki, I am a Cat; Le Sueur, The Girl; Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood; Sidwa, Cracking India; Roy, The God of Small Things; Pamuk, My Name is Red; Grenville, The Secret River; and Okri, The Famished Road.
591SF International Science Fiction Cinema
597 NY, LA, Paris: Literature of the Francophone Diaspora
This course examines different theoretical approaches to diaspora alongside contemporary francophone fiction produced in New York, L.A., Paris, and Montreal. We will read novels, short stories and poetry by such major figures as Condé, Césaire, Pineau, Laferrière, Mabanckou, Nichapour, Dongala, and Waberi
691GS Reading the Global South
This course explores topics in Comparative Literature and the cultural politics of the Global South, taking as a point of departure the history of decolonization and theoretical writings on the postcolonial condition. We will begin by considering the relationship between anticolonial nationalisms and literary culture, the impact of print-colonialism on the grounds of comparison, and debates on the "third world" and the "postcolonial" as both political and literary designations. Interdisciplinary approaches to the question of uneven "development" and cultural "progress" will be further explored through readings on globalization and world systems analysis, theories of cosmopolitanism and literary transnationalism, and comparative writings on the terms of "modernity" and the stakes of literary "modernism." The final segment of the course emerges as an outgrowth of critiques of "modernity" and global theories of uneven development: the assertion of (temporal) alterity, literary incomparability, and cultural exceptionalism within the Global South will be explored through readings on linguistic difference, secularism, and the sacred - investigating the question of literary circulation through the prism of translation and the prospects of linguistic untranslatability.
691A Literature and Music
This course examines the relationship between music and the 20th-21st-century novel. How has music influenced narrative form? How do texts appropriate musical elements in order to create the illusion of orality and presence? What political and ideological assumptions accompany music in literature? In our discussions, we will also address the status of musical metaphors in literary criticism. Readings will include selections from Abani, Kundera, Carpentier, Cortazar, Morrison, Chamoiseau, Coetzee, Djebar, Bakhtin, Said, Levi-Strauss, Lacoue-Labarthes, and Derrida.
691EA Literary Ethics/Literary Affects
Is the humanistic drive at the heart of liberal thought, both celebrated and problematized by Edward Said, a fundamentally conservative impulse? What are the ethics of reading literature in the neoliberal age? And what is the relationship between ethics and affects? Approaching these questions in the spirit of Said's democratic humanism, this graduate seminar will explore ethical criticism ("From Leavis to Levinas") and adjacent concepts (e.g. cultural memory, perpetrator trauma, the liberal discourse of empathy) in the wake of histories of settler colonialism and racial capitalism. Key to our inquiry will be the place of genocide in philosophical thought. In this vein, we will read exciting recent work that conceptualizes Emmanuel Levinas and his primary themes (the other, justice, hope, hospitality, forgiveness) in conversation with major thinkers of postcolonialism and philosophies of liberation, including Frantz Fanon, Enrique Dussel, and Said himself. The course will progress towards a consideration of affect and affect theory as a decolonizing move for the ethical. Considering the work of Sara Ahmed and others, we will bring Levinas' "lived embodiment" into dialogue with concepts such as affective economies, intensities, and structures of feeling. We will conclude our inquiry in the realm of critical pedagogy. While our literary interludes will primarily focus on Arabic and Hebrew literatures, we may also read works from other linguistic traditions. Assignments are designed with professionalization in mind: students will prepare concise weekly responses, an academic book review, two presentations, and a conference paper that can be expanded into an article or dissertation chapter. Theoretical readings may include texts by Sara Ahmed, Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, Enrique Dussel, Frantz Fanon, Paolo Freire, Gil Hochberg, Dominique LaCapra, Emmanuel Levinas, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Raya Morag and Edward Said.
691MA The Idea of Writing in the Middle Ages
This course will investigate the concepts of authorship, subject-construction, and reading in medieval literature. In the Middle Ages, the word "author" meant something quite different from what we understand it to mean today, and this distinct notion of authorship - associated with accepted authority rather than originality and with citational interrelationships between texts - had implications for medieval explorations of what it meant to write. Seminar readings will draw from medieval visionary and dream literature, vernacular and Latin prologues, and romance, as well as contemporary critical scholarship. All texts will be available in translation, but students will be expected to read in the original languages when possible.
691NS Literature and the Formation of the Nation-State in the 19th Century
This course examines the formative role literature played in the process of nation-building in the Americas during the 19th century with particular emphasis on Argentina, Peru and the United States. Authors include--but are not limited to--James Fenimore Cooper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ricardo Palma, Clorinda Matto de Turner, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Esteban Echeverria. After a brief introduction to methodology and theory and a careful historical contextualization of each writer we will analyze the texts focusing on topics such as gender and romance, race and miscegenation, the past, and space/nature/frontier.
691NW Writing the New World
This course offers a hemispheric and comparative approach to the study of Anglo- and Latin American literature and culture from the late fifteenth until the eighteenth century, from the age of exploration to the late colonial period. We will look at a wide variety of texts produced in the wake of European imperial expansion in the Americas (e.g. letters, journals, natural histories, ethnographies, captivity narratives and travel accounts) that chronicle the creation of the so-called New World. How has exploration and travel writing produced the Americas for a European readership and what were the epistemological challenges authors were facing when writing the “New World”? How did non-Europeans (e.g., indigenous and Creole writers) react to these representational practices and what revisionist accounts did they provide? How was culture contact portrayed and how were racial ideologies constructed? These are just a few of the questions this course will address.
692F Fauna and Flora: Ideas of Ecocriticism
This graduate seminar will offer an introductory overview of the broad field of ecocritcism and its interaction with literature. What is environment? In what ways do we interact with it? How does the environment figure in literature? What are implications of the environment on our language, actions and policies? In the light of these preliminary questions we will read critical environmental theory and diverse works of literature, exploring the ethnical, political, social, creative and aesthetic reverberations of these texts.
692S The Sociology of Film
A survey of film and media studies of Marxist, neo- and post-Marxist inspiration. Films under scrutiny will include early Soviet cinema, classical Hollywood genre films, European New Wave Films (France, Poland, the Soviet Union), New Hollywood popular fare, as well as more recent productions. After looking at case studies from the readings, we will apply a sociological and/or Marxist grid of interpretation to contemporary films from the US, Russia, Poland, South Korea and others.
693A Critical Approaches to North African Literature
This seminar explores the dialogue between North African literature and critical theory since the 1950s. We will consider how writers engage with and contest prevailing theories of memory, nationalism, gender, language, ethnicity, subjectivity and trauma. Among the writers we will study are Kateb Yacine, Assia Djebar, Albert Memmi, Driss Chraibi, Albert Cossery, Yasmina Khadra, Leila Sebbar, Ahlam Mosteghanemi and Boualem Sansal. Reading knowledge of French is highly recommended; class discussions will be conducted in English.
693D Truth in Representation
This seminar will sample the recent critical debate on truth, representation and relativism; we will look at a selection of scientists, critics, writers, and artists as well, in order to describe a variety of dances on the head of this pin. Ours will be a cross-disciplinary investigation of the claims on truth - or the will to truth - across a variety of narrative representations, e.g. in scientific (Oliver Sacks) or psychoanalytic case studies (Freud), in war reporting (Mathew Brady, Paul Fussell, Semezdin Mehmedinovic), in stand-up comedy (Richard Pryor), in film (Haneke) and theater (Beckett), in the graphic novel (Joe Sacco), as well as in more traditional literary texts (Kafka, Woolf, Ondaatje, Saer, Danticat).
695C Fassbinder/Godard/Melodrama
What were Godard's early films for Fassbinder? Instead of rejecting the most influential avant-garde film maker of the sixties, Fassbinder adopted Godard as father. Yet this fathering was a highly selective progeneration. What does the juxtaposition of these film makers reveal and conceal - and not only about Fassbinder's films, since we cannot now see those of Godard without having our past viewings of Fassbinder films in our heads. Fassbinder sets us on track with two remarks: "Godard believes that film is the truth 24 frames per second, while I believe film is the lie 25 frames per second," and "Both Godard and I despise our characters." The course will raise theoretical issues of spectatorship, tone (irony, distanciation, citation) gender, genre, while being firmly grounded in the formal analysis of filmic text; the construction of the filmic text and its "meaning," and the destruction of subject by means of abyssal structures (mises-en-abyme, structural or metaphoric infinite regresses); Fassbinder's ideological fatigue and complex sexual politics, Godard's political innocence (which is not the same as naivete), his cinematic energy amidst his films' increasing cultural despair. Pre-requisites: familiarity with film theory and discourse, preferably by at least two courses in film analysis. Course meets as intensive seminar, once a week for 4 hours. Films selected from: Why Does Herr R. Run Amok and Breathless; American Soldier and Les Carabiniers; The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant and Une Femme Mariée; Effie Briest and Vivre sa Vie; Beware of the Holy Whore and Contempt.
695A International Film Noir
Often referred to as the only indigenous American film style, "film noir" in its very appellation reveals that its major effects (for certain modern conceptions of cinema) lay elsewhere. We will examine film noir in its American heyday (1945-1957) and how it came to be a major propelling force in the new European cinema of the 1960's (Godard, and the Cahiers du cinema). How film noir displaces American social mores and their constitution of "reality" within the imaginary and symbolic fields, and within the symptomatic concretization of those fields that is normative (dominant) cinema. How film noir both makes film different and allows already latent difference to be manifested. How film noir takes shape in the U.S. as expression of the inexpressible (and the "unheimlich”) or, at least, of the allusion to it; which in the lens and on the screen of directors such as Godard and Fassbinder becomes pseudomorphic.
697D Writing Death in the Middle Ages
Using medieval literature for our case studies, this course investigates how writers write death. Beginning with a broader consideration of the theoretical problems of writing death that draws from Derrida, Gallop, and others, we will then use a series of medieval texts across a range of genres to deepen our understanding of how death functions textually. We will study the relationship between sanctity and dying, mystical death in relation to biological finitude, and literary treatments of grief and mourning. In the final weeks, students will be invited to share how our study pertains to and illuminates their own research interests, beyond the boundaries of the European Middle Ages.
697S International Screenplays
This course proposes a survey of celebrated literary and filmic texts produced in a variety of countries (the US, the Soviet Union, France, Sweden, Italy, Poland and South Korea) interrogating the methodologies of filmic adaptation and the national specificities and technical limitations of screenplays/screenwriting. The course will also show samples of actual screenplays in foreign languages, explaining the cultural differences in format, emphasis and presentation of the "medium" that in the shooting script. Please note that this course is not a screenwriting/creative writing class. However, it may be of interest as well to those students who want to learn about techniques and efficient ways of storytelling in the screenplay format.
752 Theory and Practice of Comparative Literature
Comparative Literature as literary theory and as academic practice. Nineteenth-century background and the rise of "literary studies"; traditional concepts of influence, periods, themes, genres, "extraliterary" relations, translation studies, and their development in modern theory. Questions of textuality, canonicity, cultural identity, the politics of cross-cultural literary images, metatheory, and institutional setting as they affect current practice.
791MN Engagement and the Modern Novel
A comparative approach to the writing of James Joyce, William Faulkner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Toni Morrison. These writers are linked in their ability to reveal and comment upon their cultures, their ideological perspicuity, and yet their avoidance of polemic or didacticism. An exploration of their textual methods that make possible these effects will include the following topics: speaking from the margin; scrupulous meanness; localism and the creation of imaginative space; mythic structuring as a narrative mode; symbols, reification, and dissociated metaphors; apparitions and voices; repetition as a narrative device; methods of stream-of-consciousness; the power of focalization; modernist and postmodernist strategies. A broad comparative perspective will be set through student reports on additional authors.
Translation and Interpreting Studies
551 Translation and Technology
This is an introduction to the exciting world of translation and multilingual computing. The course covers a range of technologies that are useful for students of all languages, helping them expand their international communication skills. Technologies covered include multilingual word processing, desktop publishing, proofing tools, Web translation and design, video subtitling, and the transfer and translation of sound and image files. Open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates. Readings with discussion, experiments with latest technology, practice in lab.
681 Introduction to Translation and Interpreting Research and Practice I
This is a required course for the Graduate Certificate in Translation and Interpreting Studies. This course is open to graduate students working in any discipline at UMass and the Five Colleges. While no prior experience in translation or interpreting is necessary, students must have a strong command of English and at least one other language. The course will introduce students to research in the field of translation and interpreting studies and to a number of practical skills required of professional translators and interpreters. Translation and interpreting will be viewed throughout the course as socio-cultural and ethical activities as well as linguistic ones. Students will work with written and spoken texts to develop an understanding of micro-textual elements and macro-textual structures and patterns and understand how to analyze both written and spoken texts. They will be introduced to consecutive and simultaneous interpreting skills using recorded texts in the language lab. Role plays will be conducted to familiarize students with the triadic nature of interpreted communication.
682 Introduction to Translation and Interpreting Research and Practice II
In Comp Lit 682 students will build on the knowledge and skills acquired in Comp Lit 681. Students will work on understanding the institutional and discursive structures of particular institutional domains, gain relevant vocabulary in English and other languages and practice translating, sight translating and interpreting a variety of relevant texts. This course is a designated “Service-Learning” course and endorsed by the office of Civic Engagement and Service-Learning (CESL) at UMass. A part of the course has been designed to provide opportunities for students to engage in a service project outside the classroom that is guided by appropriate input from a community partner and contributes to the public good. Selected project sites have been selected and students, with the help of faculty, will be matched with one or more community partners in the first three weeks of the semester. The CESL component of this course reflects the view that interpreting and translation are socio-cultural activities as well as linguistic ones. Your experiences of serving the community will increase your understanding of the social, cultural, and ethical complexities of the role of interpreters and translators. It will give you first-hand knowledge of the significance of interpreting and translation (and its absence) for members of communities for whom English is not their primary language. All projects will involve some additional reading of relevant literature.
691Q Translation Workshop
Focuses on the practical challenges and creative activities of literary translation. Students discuss each other’s translations and read essays on the craft of translation by leading translators, developing the ability to talk and write about translators’ strategies and choices. Although open to translators of varying levels, students should have a particular translation project in mind since one of the goals of the workshop is to produce a polished English version of a text. All languages are welcome. In addition, students research the translation history of a specific text and discuss it in a comparative context, carry out a short collaborative translation project with a classmate, and write a critical review of a recently published literary translation. At the end of the semester, students submit a final portfolio. Visits from translators, editors, and publishers. In exceptional cases, this workshop may be open to advanced undergraduates when granted permission by the instructor.
691RS Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Translation
This course takes a critical look at issues of race, gender, and sexuality both in translated texts and in the translation profession. Readings will include: translation studies scholarship addressing race, gender, and sexuality; example translations dealing with these issues; and scholarship from critical race and ethnic studies and gender and sexuality studies. The objectives of the course include developing a reflective, ethical practice for translating discourse around race, gender, and sexuality as well as developing strategies to address the marginalization of certain identities in the profession (queering translation, combatting publication inequities for women authors and translators, increasing the number of domestic translators of color, etc.). Students will prepare a critical essay that can be developed into an article or dissertation chapter; or a translation with a critical reflection that can be submitted for publication.
751 Theory and Practice of Translation
A many-sided consideration of the practical problems and theoretical issues raised by translation. Consideration will be given to recent research on the role of translation and translated literature in the history of literary development; special attention will be paid to the politics of translation also. Practical aspects to be discussed include translation of genre and form (including poetry, dramatic literature), language register and tone, metaphor and imagery, word play. Lecture/discussion with workshop elements.
791B Translation and Postcolonial Studies
In a postcolonial context, translation has taken on a broader meaning. Sturrock and Asad see ethnography as an act of translation; Niranjana and Cheyfitz employ it as a metaphor for empire; Bhabha and Rushdie view it as an hybrid intercultural space. Students discuss these issues in light of post-colonial scholarship in India, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Sections on technology and translation, genre and translation, gender and translation, and caste and translation help widen the field of study. Readings by Spivak, Trivedi, Simon, Chatterjee, Mehrez, Niranjana, and Ngugi. Several short discussion papers and one final paper/project. Staff
791K Translation, Ethics, and Ideology
This course investigates the ethics of translation in relation to language, culture, literary form, and ideology. How is the translator conceptualized in terms of ethics and ideology? What is meant by the metaphor “in-between” in translation studies? What is the intersection of translation and power? What are the ethical implications of translating difference? How can translation impact on and shift culture and values? Readings consist of articles by contemporary translation and postcolonial theorists.
791SJ Translation and Social Justice
This course will explore the role of translation and interpreting in the fair distribution of social justice within communities, societies, and nations, focusing on complex ethical issues that emerge in the process. It will examine the position of refugees and asylum seekers, foreign contract and domestic workers, and the role of translation and interpreting in waging war, maintaining peace, and attempting reconciliation. A central focus of the course will be on the function of translation and interpreting in situations where a clear bias, conflict, injustice, or imbalance of power is evident. The course will also explore the visual terrain or semiotic landscape within which different forms of translation occur, and the part this plays in promoting or constraining individual or collective forms of agency, particularly with regard to migrants and social movements. Students will examine street art and other forms of public signage, web-based materials, ethnographic and fictional texts, including plays, poetry, and graphic novels, non-fictional texts, and films representing a range of contexts in which translation and interpreting play a central role.