Courses in English

The Department of Modern Languages and Culture (MLC) offers you the world through courses in the literature and cultures of France and Francophone nations, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, and Latin America.

Why study literature and culture at MLC?

  • Our literature and culture courses taught in English make great humanities clusters (see our clusters page).
  • MLC offers you the world in English translation. Read important works of world literature and theory taught by those fluent in the languages in which they are written.
  • Study the works and ideas of intellectual giants such as Cervantes, Dante, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Derrida, and Foucault.
  • Explore the worlds of French, German, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Hispanic cinema through the films of Bunuel, Kurosawa, Fassbinder, Eisenstein, Renoir, and others.
  • Examine the difficult issues of national identity, gender, cultural otherness, political ideology, and First vs. Third World outlooks.
  • MLC expands your horizons and multiplies your potential

National Literature, Film, and Theory Courses

The following courses are taught in English and do not require knowledge of a foreign language. For MLC language courses, see the language courses page.

 

Departmental Course

  • CLT/FR/GER/IT/RST 160: The New Europe: Formations and Transformations

Chinese

  • CHI 211: Introduction to Pre-Modern Chinese Literature and Culture
  • CHI 212: Cities and the Country in Modern China
  • CHI 214: Dreams of the Red Chamber
  • CHI 216: Toward a Social Literature: The Coevolution of Literature and Society in Late Qing China (Readings in Translation)
  • CHI 217: Writing Volatility and Processing Change: A Survey of the Literatures of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in the Turbulent Twentieth Century (Readings in Translation)
  • CHI 218: Introduction to Chinese Pop Culture
  • CHI 219: Encountering the Strange
  • CHI 221: Laborers, Sojourners, Immigrants: Chinese Journey's to the Americas (19th-20th Centuries)
  • CHI 230: Contemporary Chinese Art
  • CHI 235: Photography in East Asia
  • CHI 237: Chinese Film
  • CHI 274: Chinese Religions
  • CHI 275: Religions and Chinese Society

Comparative Literature

  • CLT 200: Topics in Critical Thinking
  • CLT 389: Major Research Seminar

French

  • FR 204: Contemporary French Culture
  • FR 230: French Social Thought
  • FR 235: Texts Beyond Borders
  • FR 237: Performance Studies
  • FR 239: Representing African-Americans in the African Imagination
  • FR 243: Mutilated Bodies: From Traditions to Cutting-Edge Technologies
  • FR 247/250: Black Paris
  • FR 252: Modern France
  • FR 255: Satre and Heidegger
  • FR 257: Sex, Lies, and Secrets
  • FR 265: Aesthetics
  • FR 269: Foucault and the Ethics of Theory
  • FR 279: Immigration in French Literature and Film
  • FR 285: Classic Film Theory
  • FR 288: French in Film: Africa, Caribbean, Quebec

German

  • GER 205: Nietzsche and the Nietzscheans: Nietzsche and the Jewish Question
  • GER 218: And Now... Deep Thoughts With German-Jewish Thinkers!
  • GER 221: Gender, Love, and Families
  • GER 230: Poe and Hoffman: Uncanny Stories
  • GER 247: Holocaust: Affect and Absence
  • GER 248: On the Move: Travelers, Wanderers, and Explorers
  • GER 260: Truth and Power
  • GER 261: Weimar Film and Film Theory
  • GER 262: Strangers
  • GER 272: Gender and Sexuality in the 20th Century
  • GER 280: Experimental Archives
  • GER 282: Fassbinder
  • GER 284: Hollywood Behind the Wall: Introduction to East European Cinema
  • GER 288: Mothers, Comrades, and Whores

Italian

  • IT 195/220: Dante's "Divine Comedy": A Journey from Inferno to Paradise, Part I. "Inferno" and "Purgatorio"
  • IT 196/221: Dante's "Divine Comedy": A Journey from Inferno to Paradise, Part II. "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso"
  • IT 197/225: The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Discover the Wonders of a Medieval Mind
  • IT 202: Introduction to Italian Culture
  • IT 223: Monuments of Ancient Italy: History, Structure, Form (in Arezzo, Italy)
  • IT 224A: Topics in Italian Culture (4.0 credits)
  • IT 224B: Topics in Italian Culture (2.0 credits)
  • IT 226: Italy and the New World
  • IT 227: Women's Power in Italian Art
  • IT 228: History: Italy Through Film (in Arezzo, Italy)
  • IT 231: Florence the Wonderous
  • IT 242: Films of Pasolini
  • IT 244: Art, Architecture, and Literature in the Age of Dante and Beyond (in Arezzo, Italy)
  • IT 246: Venice and the Jews
  • IT 247: Politics and Culture in Fascist Italy
  • IT 248: Modern Italy Through Film

Japanese

  • JPN 207: Film as Object
  • JPN 208: Traditions in Japanese Art
  • JPN 210: Anxiety, Identity, Fantasy: Topics in "Traditional" Japanese Culture
  • JPN 211: Fictions of Interiority: Modern Japanese Literature in Translation
  • JPN 212: Hello Kitty Must Die: Japanese Popular Culture in Global Contexts
  • JPN 214: Atomic Creatures: Godzilla
  • JPN 215: Modern Japan
  • JPN 217: Traditional Japanese Literature
  • JPN 217W: Mirror of the Modern
  • JPN 219A: Tourist Japan
  • JPN 227: Body Politics: Negotiating Public and Private Discourses of the Body in Japanese Culture
  • JPN 228: Journey to the Feast: Cuisine and Culture in Modern Japan
  • JPN 230: Poetry and Japanese Calligraphy
  • JPN 254: The Rises and Falls of Modern Japanese Literature
  • JPN 257: Japanese Mystery Fiction
  • JPN 258: Japanese Science Fiction in Global Perspective
  • JPN 273: Fictions of Femininity
  • JPN 274: Modern Japanese Women Writers
  • JPN 293: Life and Anime
  • JPN 294: Hayao Miyazaki and Planet Ghibli

Russian Studies

  • RUS 126: Russia Now (4 credits)
  • RUS 127: Russia Now (2 credits)
  • RUS 128: Russian Civilization
  • RUS 224: Russian Art
  • RUS 226: Culture in Chaos: Russia's Silver Age
  • RUS 231: Great Russian Writers
  • RUS 235: Tolstoy's War and Peace
  • RUS 237: Dostoevsky
  • RUS 240: Nabokov: Unusual Émigré
  • RUS 243: Chekhov and the Modern Short Story
  • RUS 267: Russia Goes to the Movies
  • RUS 289: Dangerous Texts

Spanish

  • SP 215: "Don Quixote": the Book, the Myth, the Image
  • SP 255: 1492 and Beyond
  • SP 261: Facing Facts: Non-Fiction Writing
  • SP 287: Latin American Film
  • SP 287A: Mexican Film
  • SP 288: Spanish Film
  • SP 289: Women in Hispanic Film