Undergraduate Courses
LITR 324 Representations of the Underworld
What is the underworld? What questions have different ideas about the underworld posed about mortality, freedom, and goodness? Topics include dreams, hell, ghosts, the unconscious, and string theory.
Sophomore standing required.
LITR 324A: Latin American Political Thought in Comparative Perspective
Historical examination of Latin American political thought through key texts in the history of political theory in the Spanish-American continent and through the lens of comparative political theory.
LITR 327: Saying Goodbye: Meditations on Art, Death and Afterlives, the Bible through Shakespeare and Sor Juan
How do we take leave of the people, places, and work that we love? Our course objectives are to strive to understand the important role that leavetakings play in life and artistic expression, especially between 1300-1700; to probe the differences between religious faiths of early modernity with respect to rituals of saying goodbye and the afterlife; to sharpen our skills as readers, spectators, and listeners of works that engage with complex questions regarding the meaning of life and one’s lifework; and to contextualize our readings within more contemporary conversations by theologians and theorists about dying, grief, and letting go. We also examines rites of passage and departure, even as our main focus is figures such as Dante, Michelangelo, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, whose differing faiths during a period of religious crisis produced various kinds of finished—and unfinished—works. Our class is held in the Beinecke library, where we regularly consult first editions and in some cases (Donne’s letters and poems) autograph copies, as well as evaluate the material evidence for ways that manuscripts and books reveal how authors parted with their works (dedications, envois), and how readers comment on their own encounters with leavetakings.
LITR 329: Caribbean Baseball: A Cultural History
A study of the origins and evolution of baseball in the Caribbean (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico) in the context of the region’s political and cultural history and its relationship with the United States. The course begins with a consideration of the nature of games and the development and dissemination of sports by imperial powers since the nineteenth century: soccer, rugby, and tennis by the UK and basketball and baseball by the U.S. Topics to be considered: nationalism, the role of race, popular culture, the development of the media, the rise of stars and famous teams, the importance of the Negro Leagues, access of Caribbean players to the Major Leagues, the situation in the present.
LITR 330: Heidegger's Being and Time
Systematic, chapter by chapter study of Heidegger’s Being and Time, arguably the most important work of philosophy in the twentieth-century. All major themes addressed in detail, with particular emphasis on care, time, death, and the meaning of being.
Course multi titled as CPLT699
Systematic, chapter by chapter study of Heidegger’s Being and Time, arguably the most important work of philosophy in the twentieth-century. All major themes addressed in detail, with particular emphasis on care, time, death, and the meaning of being.
Systematic, chapter by chapter study of Heidegger’s Being and Time, arguably the most important work of philosophy in the twentieth-century. All major themes addressed in detail, with particular emphasis on care, time, death, and the meaning of being.
Systematic, chapter by chapter study of Heidegger’s Being and Time, arguably the most important work of philosophy in the twentieth-century. All major themes addressed in detail, with particular emphasis on care, time, death, and the meaning of being.
LITR 332 Philosophy as Literature: Nietzsche's Zarathustra
A scrupulous reading of Nietzsche’s “great” book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Beyond the three explicit doctrines taught in the book—god’s death, the will to power, and the eternal recurrence of the like—there is a landscape of riddles, paradoxes and parables, songs, screeds and speeches, wise animals, dumb wisemen, teachers who can’t teach, and students who learn everything but the lesson. In short, the book is a summa literarum. We ask what it means to philosophize in and as literature, and how this reckless experiment transforms both.
LITR 332: Narratives of Blackness in Latino and Latin America
Focus on the cultural and literary treatments of Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latina/o subjectivity in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Latin America and in the United States through the study of literature, historical first-hand accounts, film, and scholarship produced from the 16th century to the present. Themes include slave insurrections, the plantation system, piracy and buccaneering, the black roots of several Latin American musical genres, miscegenation, and the central role of sexuality in race-based social hierarchies.
LITR 334 Game of Thrones and the Theory of Sovereignty
Introduction to the classical and modern theory of sovereignty in the context of G.R.R. Martin’s popular Game of Thrones series and, secondarily, the television series. Although A Song of Ice and Fire is not a work of German literature, it addresses theoretical and literary‐historical discourses prominent in the German context. Emphasis on literary and theoretical analysis; literature as a testing ground for theory and theory as an analytical framework for evaluating literary and cultural depictions; questioning the basis of the contemporary relevance and popularity of Martin’s fictional universe in light of questions of tragedy, individual agency, myth (vs. history, modernity), realism (vs. fantasy), environmental catastrophe and geopolitics.
Students previously enrolled in GMAN 051 are not eligible to enroll in this course.
LITR 334: Zombies, Pirates, Ghosts, and Witches
Study of the literature and history of the Atlantic Caribbean region (including the U.S. Northeast and Deep South) through its most subversive and disturbing icons—zombies, pirates, ghosts, vampires, and witches. Texts include Francis Drake on piracy, Katherine Dunham on zombies, Lauren Derby on vampires (chupacabras), Maryse Condé and Sandra Cisneros on witchcraft, and Toni Morrison and William Faulkner on ghosts. Films include documentaries and several horror classics, including White Zombie (1932), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), The Witch (2015), and Get Out (2017).
LITR 335 Crossing Cultures in the Portuguese Diaspora
Inquiry into the first encounters of the Portuguese with the people and cultures of Africa, Asia, and Brazil after the voyage of Vasco da Gama (1497-99). Topics include acculturation, contact peoples and languages, creolistics and hybrid cultures, music, plants and cuisines, and the theory of space in between cultures. Readings include the epic, histories, memoirs, and travel literature, and the “Cannibal Manifesto.” Reading knowledge of Portuguese suggested.
Kenneth David Jackson k.jackson@yale.edu
LITR 335: Cultural Encounters
Course multi titled as PORT341/ER&M441
Instructor: K. David Jackson
LITR 338 Representing the Holocaust
The Holocaust as it has been depicted in books and films, and as written and recorded by survivors in different languages and national contexts. Questions of aesthetics and authority, language and its limits, ethical engagement, metaphors and memory, and narrative adequacy to record historical truth. Interactive discussions about films (Life Is Beautiful, Schindler’s List, Shoah), novels, memoirs (Primo Levi, Charlotte Delbo, Art Spiegelman), commentaries, theoretical writings, and testimonies from Yale’s Fortunoff Video Archive.
LITR 339 Global Shakespeares: Race, Gender, and the Idea of the Human
Shakespeare today is a global phenomenon: over five hundred years after his death, the playwright’s legacy continues to flourish with new performances, reworkings, appropriations, and adaptations continuously produced across the world in a range of languages and across various media. Once exported along with the ideologies and practices of empire, Shakespeare’s works have now become an index for the complex histories of colonialism and postcolonialism as well as a crucial site for studying processes of racialization and the universalizing idea of “the human.” How did Shakespeare become global? Was the cultural imagination of his plays always already global, written at a time with the very notion of the modern world as we know was being shaped? This course explores the political afterlives of “Shakespeare” as a cultural icon and aesthetic touchstone for the Western tradition through a close reading of four plays alongside their adaptations: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Antony and Cleopatra. We look at films, novels, manga comics, memoirs, stand-up comic routines, along with classic stagings of the plays to elucidate the themes that have made Shakespeare global—in particular, questions of race, gender, sexuality, generational conflict, and political intrigue. Authors and directors include Akiro Kurosawa, Vishal Bharadwaj, Janet Suzman, Iqbal Khan, James Baldwin, Sulayman Al-Bassam, Tayeb Salih, Preti Taneja, and Derek Walcott. This is the non-intensive writing version of LITR 340 and is worth 1 credit. It meets with LITR 340. Students may earn credit for LITR 339 (1 credit) or for LITR 340 (1.5 credits) but not for both.
Shakespeare today is a global phenomenon: over five hundred years after his death, the playwright’s legacy continues to flourish with new performances, reworkings, appropriations, and adaptations continuously produced across the world in a range of languages and across various media. Once exported along with the ideologies and practices of empire, Shakespeare’s works have now become an index for the complex histories of colonialism and postcolonialism as well as a crucial site for studying processes of racialization and the universalizing idea of “the human.” How did Shakespeare become global? Was the cultural imagination of his plays always already global, written at a time with the very notion of the modern world as we know was being shaped? This course explores the political afterlives of “Shakespeare” as a cultural icon and aesthetic touchstone for the Western tradition through a close reading of four plays alongside their adaptations: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Antony and Cleopatra. We look at films, novels, manga comics, memoirs, stand-up comic routines, along with classic stagings of the plays to elucidate the themes that have made Shakespeare global—in particular, questions of race, gender, sexuality, generational conflict, and political intrigue. Authors and directors include Akiro Kurosawa, Vishal Bharadwaj, Janet Suzman, Iqbal Khan, James Baldwin, Sulayman Al-Bassam, Tayeb Salih, Preti Taneja, and Derek Walcott. This is the non-intensive writing version of LITR 340 and is worth 1 credit. It meets with LITR 340. Students may earn credit for LITR 339 (1 credit) or for LITR 340 (1.5 credits) but not for both.
LITR 340 (Writing Intensive) Global Shakespeares: Race, Gender and the Idea of the Human
This course explores the political afterlives of “Shakespeare” as a cultural icon and aesthetic touchstone for the Western tradition through a close reading of four plays alongside their adaptations: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra. We look at films, novels, manga comics, memoirs, stand-up comic routines, along with classic stagings of the plays to elucidate the themes that have made Shakespeare global—in particular, questions of race, gender, sexuality, generational conflict, and political intrigue. Along the way, we consider the challenges of decolonizing the canon and the particular place Shakespeare occupies as an index of cultural value. Authors and directors include Akiro Kurosawa, Vishal Bharadwaj, Janet Suzman, Iqbal Khan, James Baldwin, Sulayman Al-Bassam, Tayeb Salih, Preti Taneja, and Derek Walcott. This is the intensive writing version of LITR 339 and is worth 1.5 credits. Meets with LITR 339. Students may earn credit for LITR 339 (1 credit) OR for LITR 340 (1.5 credits) but not for both.
This course explores the political afterlives of “Shakespeare” as a cultural icon and aesthetic touchstone for the Western tradition through a close reading of four plays alongside their adaptations: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra. We look at films, novels, manga comics, memoirs, stand-up comic routines, along with classic stagings of the plays to elucidate the themes that have made Shakespeare global—in particular, questions of race, gender, sexuality, generational conflict, and political intrigue. Along the way, we consider the challenges of decolonizing the canon and the particular place Shakespeare occupies as an index of cultural value. Authors and directors include Akiro Kurosawa, Vishal Bharadwaj, Janet Suzman, Iqbal Khan, James Baldwin, Sulayman Al-Bassam, Tayeb Salih, Preti Taneja, and Derek Walcott. This is the intensive writing version of LITR 339 and is worth 1.5 credits. Meets with LITR 339. Students may earn credit for LITR 339 (1 credit) OR for LITR 340 (1.5 credits) but not for both.
LITR 342: Jewish Literary Masterpieces
Exploration of the nature of Jewish identity through a literary prism, focusing on novels, stories, poetry, and homilies. Study of texts written over a three thousand year period by Jews living in the Middle East, Europe, and America, from biblical writings through modern works composed by Franz Kafka, Philip Roth, as well as Israeli Literature. Special attention given to the role of gender, minority identities, and the idea of nationalism. Taught in translation, readings in English.