Undergraduate Courses
LITR 294: World Cities and Narratives
Study of world cities and selected narratives that describe, belong to, or represent them. Topics range from the rise of the urban novel in European capitals to the postcolonial fictional worlds of major Portuguese, Brazilian, and Lusophone cities.
Conducted in English.
LITR 020 World Literature After Empire
An introduction to contemporary French fiction in a global perspective that will transform the way you think about the relationship between literature and politics. Together we read prizewinning novels by writers of the former French Empire—in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean—alongside key manifestos and theoretical essays that define or defy the notion of world literature. Keeping our focus on questions of race, gender, imperialism, and translation, we ask: has literature gone global? What does that mean? What can we learn from writers whose texts cross and confound linguistic and national borders?
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program. No previous knowledge of French is required.
LITR 022 Music and Literature
This seminar explores the rivalry between music and literature, the attraction and repulsion between these two art forms, and the dialogue between writers and composers. In select fiction and poetry spanning a variety of cultures and times, we look at the aesthetic challenges of conveying music in words; in select music from the same periods, we study the use of literary themes and narrative. How does music inhabit literature, and literature influence music? We read fiction describing music and borrowing musical forms; we study symphonies and opera inspired by literature; we look at films that bring together these two arts. Students examine theoretical approaches and learn comparative methods useful for literature and culture courses. Though not required, musical experience and/or interest is welcomed for the seminar, which may be taken simultaneously with gateway courses in the humanities. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
LITR 022, Music and Literature
This seminar explores the rivalry between music and literature, the attraction and repulsion between these two art forms, and the dialogue between writers and composers. In select fiction and poetry spanning a variety of cultures and times, we look at the aesthetic challenges of conveying music in words; in select music from the same periods, we study the use of literary themes and narrative. How does music inhabit literature, and literature influence music? We read fiction describing music and borrowing musical forms; we study symphonies and opera inspired by literature; we look at films that bring together these two arts. Students examine theoretical approaches and learn comparative methods useful for literature and culture courses. Though not required, musical experience and/or interest is welcomed for the seminar, which may be taken simultaneously with gateway courses in the humanities. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
LITR 022: Music and Literature
This seminar explores the rivalry between music and literature, the attraction and repulsion between these two art forms, and the dialogue between writers and composers. In select fiction and poetry spanning a variety of cultures and times, we look at the aesthetic challenges of conveying music in words; in select music from the same periods, we study the use of literary themes and narrative. How does music inhabit literature, and literature influence music? We read fiction describing music and borrowing musical forms; we study symphonies and opera inspired by literature; we look at films that bring together these two arts. Students examine theoretical approaches and learn comparative methods useful for literature and culture courses. Though not required, musical experience and/or interest is welcomed for the seminar, which may be taken simultaneously with gateway courses in the humanities. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
LITR 023: Modern South Asian Literature, 1857-2017
Exploration of literary texts from South Asia, 1857 to the present. Close reading of literary texts from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, alongside political speeches, autobiographies, and oral narratives. Topics include colonialism, history writing, migration, language, caste, gender and desire, translation, politics and the novel.
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration is required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
LITR 026 The Literature of Sports
Writers on sport examine ideas of beauty and human divinity; virtuosic performance; group identity; questions of race, class, and gender; global realities of migration; and the ubiquity of spectacle. Topics include origins and essence of play; and case studies in the literature of sports, including the Olympic games of classical Greece, bull fighting, Muhammad Ali, cricket and colonialism, and the globalization of soccer. Readings by Pindar, Hemingway, Huizinga, CLR James, Mailer, Delillo, Foster-Wallace, and Ben Fountain.
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
Robyn Creswell
LITR 026, The Literature of Sports
Writers on sport examine ideas of beauty and human divinity; virtuosic performance; group identity; questions of race, class, and gender; global realities of migration; and the ubiquity of spectacle. Topics include origins and essence of play; and case studies in the literature of sports, including the Olympic games of classical Greece, bull fighting, Muhammad Ali, cricket and colonialism, and the globalization of soccer. Readings by Pindar, Hemingway, Huizinga, CLR James, Mailer, Delillo, Foster-Wallace, and Ben Fountain.
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
LITR 027 Six Pretty Good Selves
Through the prism of thinking about the self, this course provides first-year students with an intensive introduction to studying the humanities at Yale. The course is anchored around six trans-historical models of thinking about selfhood: the ideal self, the lover, the revolutionary, the convert, the solipsist, and the social climber. We range widely across genres, media, periods, and geographies: from Plato’s Symposium to Machado de Assis’s Epitaph for a Small Winner, from the ghazals of Hafez to the Kamasutra. We also make extensive use of Yale’s rich manuscript archives, historical object collections, and art galleries and devote sustained attention to improving students’ academic writing skills. Friday sessions will alternate between writing workshops and field trips to Yale collections.
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
Ayesha Ramachandranayesha.ramachandran@yale.edu
LITR 027, Six Pretty Good Selves
Through the prism of thinking about the self, this course provides first-year students with an intensive introduction to studying the humanities at Yale. The course is anchored around six trans-historical models of thinking about selfhood: the ideal self, the lover, the revolutionary, the convert, the solipsist, and the social climber. We range widely across genres, media, periods, and geographies: from Plato’s Symposium to Machado de Assis’s Epitaph for a Small Winner, from the ghazals of Hafez to the Kamasutra. We also make extensive use of Yale’s rich manuscript archives, historical object collections, and art galleries and devote sustained attention to improving students’ academic writing skills. This is a 1.5 credit intensive writing course that fulfills one WR requirement. Friday sessions will alternate between writing workshops and field trips to Yale collections.
LITR 027: Six Pretty Good Selves
Through the prism of thinking about the self, this course provides first-year students with an intensive introduction to studying the humanities at Yale. The course is anchored around six trans-historical models of thinking about selfhood: the ideal self, the lover, the revolutionary, the convert, the solipsist, and the social climber. We range widely across genres, media, periods, and geographies: from Plato’s Symposium to Machado de Assis’s Epitaph for a Small Winner, from the ghazals of Hafez to the Kamasutra. We also make extensive use of Yale’s rich manuscript archives, historical object collections, and art galleries and devote sustained attention to improving students’ academic writing skills. Friday sessions will alternate between writing workshops and field trips to Yale collections.
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
LITR 028 Medicine and the Humanities: Certainty and Unknowing
Sherwin Nuland often referred to medicine as “the Uncertain Art.” In this course, we address the role of uncertainty in medicine, and the role that narrative plays in capturing that uncertainty. We focus our efforts on major authors and texts that define the modern medical humanities, with primary readings by Mikhail Bulgakov, Henry Marsh, Atul Gawande, and Lisa Sanders. Other topics include the philosophy of science (with a focus on Karl Popper), rationalism and romanticism (William James), and epistemology and scientism (Wittgenstein).
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
LITR 028 Medicine and the Humanities: Certainty and Unknowing
Sherwin Nuland often referred to medicine as “the Uncertain Art.” In this course, we address the role of uncertainty in medicine, and the role that narrative plays in capturing that uncertainty. We focus our efforts on major authors and texts that define the modern medical humanities, with primary readings by Mikhail Bulgakov, Henry Marsh, Atul Gawande, and Lisa Sanders. Other topics include the philosophy of science (with a focus on Karl Popper), rationalism and romanticism (William James), and epistemology and scientism (Wittgenstein).
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
Matthew Morrison
LITR 028, Medicine and the Humanities: Certainty and Unknowing
Sherwin Nuland often referred to medicine as “the Uncertain Art.” In this course, we address the role of uncertainty in medicine, and the role that narrative plays in capturing that uncertainty. We focus our efforts on major authors and texts that define the modern medical humanities, with primary readings by Mikhail Bulgakov, Henry Marsh, Atul Gawande, and Lisa Sanders. Other topics include the philosophy of science (with a focus on Karl Popper), rationalism and romanticism (William James), and epistemology and scientism (Wittgenstein).
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
LITR 028: Medicine and the Humanities: Certainty and Unknowing
Sherwin Nuland often referred to medicine as “the Uncertain Art.” In this course, we address the role of uncertainty in medicine, and the role that narrative plays in capturing that uncertainty. We focus our efforts on major authors and texts that define the modern medical humanities, with primary readings by Mikhail Bulgakov, Henry Marsh, Atul Gawande, and Lisa Sanders. Other topics include the philosophy of science (with a focus on Karl Popper), rationalism and romanticism (William James), and epistemology and scientism (Wittgenstein).
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
LITR 029 Performing Antiquity
This seminar introduces students to some of the most influential texts of Greco-Roman Antiquity and investigates the meaning of their “performance” in different ways: 1) how they were musically and dramatically performed in their original context in Antiquity (what were the rhythms, the harmonies, the dance-steps, the props used, etc.); 2) what the performance meant, in socio-cultural and political terms, for the people involved in performing or watching it, and how performance takes place beyond the stage; 3) how these texts are performed in modern times (what it means for us to translate and stage ancient plays with masks, a chorus, etc.; to reenact some ancient institutions; to reconstruct ancient instruments or compose “new ancient music”); 4) in what ways modern poems, plays, songs, ballets constitute forms of interpretation, appropriation, or contestation of ancient texts; 5) in what ways creative and embodied practice can be a form of scholarship. Besides reading ancient Greek and Latin texts in translation, students read and watch performances of modern works of reception: poems, drama, ballet, and instrumental music. A few sessions are devoted to practical activities (reenactment of a symposium, composition of ancient music, etc.).
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
LITR 031 Six Pretty Good Poems
This seminar that serves as an introduction to the Humanities. The course considers the way that poetry, across cultures and historical eras, allows authors to navigate the challenging relationship between the universal and the particular. We read six poems that are considered among the best in their respective, and very different, traditions. We also make extensive use of Yale’s rich manuscript archives, historical object collections, and art galleries, and we devote sustained attention to improving academic writing skills. Friday sessions alternate between writing workshops and field trips to Yale collections. Part of the “Six Pretty Good Ideas” program.
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program
Lucas Bender luke.bender@yale.edu
LITR 037 The Limits of the Human
As we navigate the demands of the 21st century, an onslaught of new technologies, from artificial intelligence to genetic engineering, has pushed us to question the boundaries between the human and the nonhuman. At the same time, scientific findings about animal, and even plant intelligence, have troubled these boundaries in similar fashion. In this course, we examine works of literature and film that can help us imagine our way into these “limit cases” and explore what happens as we approach the limits of our own imaginative and empathetic capacities. We read works of literature by Mary Shelley, Kazuo Ishiguro, Richard Powers, Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, and Jennifer Egan, and watch the movies Blade Runner, Ex Machina, Arrival, Avatar, and Her.
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.
LITR 039: Paris in the 1920s
Paris in the 1920s—as a place and an idea—was important to a whole generation of post-war writers who were trying to reinvent literature as a radical form of interiority. These writers wandered the streets of Paris in search of inspiration and raised café culture and the art salon to a new prominence. Why did this city, with its mix of tolerance and bourgeois values, become a place where iconoclasts such as the Surrealists could thrive? How did it allow expatriates and revolutionaries to take a critical look at their home cultures? How did salons, literary movements, and Paris neighborhoods allow space for new gender and racial identities and artistic formations to arise? Writers include Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Mina Loy, Langston Hughes, André Breton, Louis Aragon, and Colette. The focus is on French and American authors, with some attention to the role of the visual arts and music.
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program. This course is not open to students who previously enrolled in LITR S244.
LITR 099: Film and the Arts
A study of cinema as it developed into a significant art form, including its interactions with fiction, theater, and painting. Focus on André Bazin’s reflections on cinema in response to Chaplin, Welles, and Cocteau, as well as to writers such as Faulkner, Sartre, and Malraux.
Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.