World Lang & Lit: Lit English (WLL)

An interdisciplinary exploration of language as a dimension of community, identity, and power in the United States. Explores the history of English and linguistic diversity in the U.S., with particular emphasis on contemporary multilingual communities. Draws on applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and raciolinguistics to interpret contemporary representations of multilingual and multicultural American experiences, considering the interplay of language with race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, regional identity, etc. Students will conduct ethnographic interviews to better understand the intersections of language, identity, and power in their own communities. The significance of English and of multilingualism in the globalized economy will also be discussed.

An exploration of the identity formation and ongoing experiences of Asian Americans in American society. Students will examine how Asian Americans have been racialized, gendered, and sexualized in American culture both historically and contemporaneously, and what these cultural representations reveal about issues of identity, belonging, class, and citizenship in American society and the globalized world. Students will read stories written by Japanese/American writers on a variety of topics including immigration, labor, family, community, sexuality, militarism, globalization, and social movements while examining them through an intersectional lens.

An introduction to literary and cinematic texts by Chinese-American diaspora writers in North America from the nineteenth century to the present. The course will help students understand transnational and transcultural themes and issues in the Chinese-American milieu through literature and films. By focusing on the role of English as a chosen literary language, the course will allow students to discover the history of immigration, linguistic choices and possibilities, and the form of narrative. Students will leave the class with a better understanding of power and justice in the Chinese-American context. We will examine cultural formation and the construction of global identities through cultural narratives as lived experiences. Students will be interviewing Chinese-Americans and creating short podcasts and documentaries using the materials in their interviews. Those student projects will be shared in the Saratoga Springs community and as exhibitions at the Tang Museum.

This introductory course on Japanese society and culture explores Japanese popular culture as a way of understanding the changing character of media, cultural industries, fan communities, and contemporary societal issues. Topics include Japanese popular music, karaoke, popular arts, manga (Japanese comics), sports, anime (Japanese animation), television programs, street fashion and fashion designers, among others. Emphasis will be given to contemporary popular culture and theories of gender, sexuality, race, class, nationalism, and the workings of power in global cultural industries.

Students will read and discuss poetry, prose, and performance works of the Nara (710-794) to Edo (1615-1867) periods. They will trace the development of Japanese culture and literature from early history to modern times. Students will examine the broad themes of pre-Modern Japanese literature in historical, cultural, religious, and sociopolitical contexts.

A critical survey of modern Japanese prose literature in English translation beginning with the Meiji period and continuing to the present. Students will study the interaction of traditional Japanese sensibilities with Western literary ideas and techniques as represented in major literary movements in Japan. Works will be discussed in terms of their cultural, historical, and literary contexts.

An introduction to the world of Japanese animation (anime), one of the most important cultural products in contemporary Japan. Students will study prevailing themes and genres of anime, in their cultural and historical contexts and from a variety of perspectives. The course also focuses on anime in relation to popular culture and the role of anime fan culture.

An examination of masterworks of Chinese film and visual culture viewed within their cultural context and in light of both Chinese and Western literary traditions. Students will consider ways in which Chinese film has represented national identity, national trauma, and national history, and how globalization has given birth to a new transnational Chinese cinema. The course will address cinema as narrative, and in relation to visual art, music, psychology, and cultural history.  Course includes a film screening and discussion session each week. It does not require knowledge of East Asian languages.

Introduces and examines the experience of "the other" from both Chinese and Western standpoints. The image of the other has always been historically shaped to represent values that are considered different from one's own. In this course, we will look at China as an idealized utopia in the eyes of some eighteenth-century Europeans, or as a land of ignorance as described in some early modern literature and cultural texts. In discussing such issues as Orientalism vs. Occidentalism and cultural relativism vs. universalism, we will examine the polemics of cultural difference in ethical terms.

Examines several Chinese works of literature in terms of their special narrative modes, considering how each reveals the changing history of modern China and exploring how each makes its unique contribution to Chinese literature. Issues discussed include history in literature, history outside literature, literary histories, factual and fictional as literary categories, and the historical novel. Throughout the course, we will ask, Why is the novel a particularly valid source for the study of Chinese history?

An exploration of gender, gender relation, and sexuality in contemporary Japan. Topics include history, family, work, education, language, religion, politics, homosexuality, sex work, and popular culture.

Students will examine the changing image of the enemy in German cinema from 1919 to 1945. From its silent beginnings through the invention of sound, German cinema abounds in archetypal figures of unearthly destruction and social deviants from an equally hostile present. Nazi propaganda films adopted both realistic and mythic traditions to construct an image of the enemy threatening the survival of the Third Reich, and they became a powerful weapon in disseminating fascist ideology. Viewing film as a symbolic language which inscribes cultural identity, we will explore anti-Semitism, xenophobia, jingoism, misogyny, and fascism as well as changes in the public perception of the enemy that contributed to World War II and the Holocaust.

An exploration of German life, culture, and politics from the eighteenth century to the present. The course focuses on Germany's quest for national unity, emphasizing the relationship between Germany's political development and its cultural life. Course materials include historical readings, political essays, musical compositions, art works, films, and literary texts. Offered in alternate years.

A study of German cinema from the turn of the millennium until today as a vehicle to understand recent developments in the German culture. Students will examine how films engage with significant issues in contemporary German culture and society while viewing motion pictures as both daydreams of society and instruments of social change. Topics in this course will include the pleasures and pitfalls of urban life in the Berlin Republic, the complications of modern love and sexuality, the violence of Germany's past (Third Reich, GDR, leftwing terrorism), the desire for utopian solutions to social and economic inequities, and the problems of a multicultural, multiethnic society.

An examination of the literary and sociopolitical trends of Italian culture as portrayed by the media of literature and film. The course will focus on the literary works of Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Moravia, De Filippo, Bassani, and the cinematographic adaptations of those works by such directors as Pasolini, Lattuada, Visconti, and De Sica. The course also specifically examines the role in Italian cinema of such director-authors as Fellini and Wertmuller and the importance of Italian cinematic Neorealism in the films of Rossellini, De Sica, and Visconti.

Study of the development of Italian civilization with emphasis on the historical, artistic, philosophical, literary, musical, and sociopolitical background. Fall semester: late Medieval period to the Baroque. Spring semester: seventeenth century to the present.

A survey of major developments in film theory and methods of analyzing film from the invention of cinema to today. Working with the notion that cinema is an art form, a commodity, and a form of communication, we examine how historical, commercial, and aesthetic contexts influence film production and reception. Students read key texts in classical and contemporary film theory and criticism to develop an understanding of a film's narrative, visual structure, and place within established theoretical traditions. Subjects to be considered include formalism, realism, auteur theory, feminism, spectatorship, genre and star analysis, narratology, queer theory, cultural studies, post-colonialism, and critical race theory.

An exploration of twenty-first century themes in Italian films. The narrative of Italian film in recent decades follows the development of social, cultural, political, and economic issues. Students view films which explore a series of thematic clusters: social change and urban challenge, work scene and workplace, politics and the media, immigration and integration, cultural revolution and terrorism, and organized crime. Critical materials contextualize the films and provide tools for interpretation and discussion. Students will explore different writing styles: analytical (considering both the visual text of the films and the prose of secondary sources), descriptive (in relation to historical analyses of the periods depicted), and creative (writing or re-writing a movie scene). The final project, a brief iMovie relating to Italy and a theme from the course, puts discussion into practice. In English.

A critical survey of twentieth-century Chinese literature up to the present. Readings include short stories, novels, poetry, music, painting, and drama. Special emphasis is placed on Chinese thought and culture compared to the Western tradition.

A survey of Chinese civilization from the Shang dynasty to the present with emphasis on the historical, artistic, philosophical, literary, musical, sociopolitical background. Tenth century to the present.

Literary or cultural study of an author, a genre, a period, or a topic. Topics will vary from semester to semester.

An exploration of the mobility of individuals and groups across maritime Asia with a focus on the travels of migrants in different times.  Special attention given to the changing dynamics between "center" and "periphery" through interdisciplinary lenses.  By looking at texts in geography, literature and trans-national culture in the past and more recently, we will study the multi-lingual, multiethnic encounters and interactions in maritime Asia and beyond. The course fulfills both the "global cultural perspectives" requirement and the requirement in "humanistic inquiry and practice" in the new Gen Ed Curriculum (or current humanities requirement and non-Western and cultural diversity requirements).     Fulfills non-western, cultural diversity and humanities requirements; fulfills humanistic inquiry and global cultural perspective.

A survey of modern Japanese culture and society from 1945 to the present. Students will analyze Japan's modernization and internationalization, paying attention to the interplay between traditional cultural values and modern society. Topics include class, work, education, gender, family, minority groups, religion, and politics. Visual media will be incorporated to illustrate contemporary Japanese society and culture.

A course surveying twentieth-century Chinese literature, film, and popular culture, introducing some important cultural and intellectual issues of contemporary China. Students will consider the impact of cultural changes in Chinese society, their causes, and their representations in fiction, poetry, popular literature, film, and music. Students will gain a critical understanding of the intricate relationship between self and society, social change and alienation, family and gender relationships, nationalism and orientalism, revolution and memory, media and propaganda, and love and violence in China.

Discussion group for close reading and consideration of literary or theoretical texts, translations or research projects of interest to students in any section of the department of World Languages and Literatures.  The course enables students from different language areas to study together on topics of common interest in the field. Can be repeated for credit.

Discussion group for close reading and consideration of literary or theoretical texts, translations or research projects of interest to students in any section of the department of World Languages and Literatures.  The course enables students from different language areas to study together on topics of common interest in the field. Can be repeated for credit.

An examination of Dante's Divine Comedy from an interdisciplinary perspective, including literature, history, politics, philosophy, and theology. Course topics will include concerns of the medieval world such as allegory, love, justice, secular and spiritual authority, images of women, education, and the relationship between philosophy and religion. Supplementary readings will provide a context for the medieval world, its life and literature, and will also demonstrate how Dante's text reflects the Zeitgeist of the Middle Ages. The course will also take into account Dante's Divine Comedy in relation to the visual arts by viewing several illustrations from Botticelli and Renaissance illustrators to Gustave Dore, and selected modern and contemporary paintings inspired by Dante's poem.

Preparation for the study abroad experience through development of knowledge and skills to promote translingual and transcultural competence. Students will gain a deeper awareness of the concept of culture and acquire strategies for language and culture learning. Students will examine their own cultural identity and learning style as a point of departure for developing skills to maximize linguistic and cultural competence while abroad. This course is intended for students studying abroad where foreign languages are used.

An examination of the history, genres, and trends of East Asian cinemas.  Students will examine influential cinematic texts from the silent era to the present, including films produced in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.  Special attention is given to issues such as historical representation, various waves, local/transnational production and reception, postmodernism, and globalization of East Asian films. Designated a non-Western culture course; fulfills humanities requirement; fulfills humanistic inquiry and global cultural perspective.

Analysis of women writers and female stereotypes since the French Revolution as seen primarily through novels and plays of such writers as de Staël, Sand, Flaubert, Stendhal, Colette, Claudel, de Beauvoir, Duras, and Sarraute. Historical, sociological and artistic documents will also be examined for what they reveal of the changing consciousness of women in France. Offered every third year.

Study of some of the key features of the cinema of France, beginning with an historical overview of the development of the idiom, from the silent films of the Surrealists and René Clair, to the Golden Age of sound in the thirties and concluding with the New Wave and its posterity. The course will also study film as a language and use it as a means for exploring cultural identity. Students will view a selection of films by Clair, Dali/Bunuel, Vigo, Renoir, Carne, Duvivier, Truffaut, Godard, Eustache, Tanner, and Rohmer, among others, and read criticism by directors, critics, and theorists.

An exploration of the cultural history of France in the 1960s. This was a decade of radical political, social, and cultural change in France, as in the U.S. and elsewhere: it was a time of post-war prosperity and development but also a period of intense struggle and contestation. The emergence of youth culture and consumer culture was shadowed by social conflict at home and decolonial war abroad. Students will consider a variety of cultural representations that draw out these tensions, including novels, essays, films, songs, and print media. Topics will include: American-style consumerism and resistance to it; the changing roles of women; decolonization and the Algerian War; and the student and worker uprising of May 1968. Students will have the opportunity to delve deeper into a historical phenomenon of their choosing through independent research.

An exploration of the relationship between race and nature in Francophone literatures and cultures. Students will discuss how literary and visual cultures from and about French-speaking sub-Saharan and Caribbean spaces have grappled with the Anthropocene, which has disproportionately affected racialized communities around the globe for more than 400 years. This course will be of particular interest to students interested in/working on questions of environmental justice, environmental sciences, and sustainability.

A relatively small country in southern Europe, Spain offers a surprisingly nuanced context in which to study questions of race and ethnicity. This course enters into critical dialogue with films, theater, social media, and other types of performance that represent the construction of race at different history moments in Spain. We will look at texts that shore up hegemonic discourses of Spanish whiteness as well as texts that intervene in this discussion and consider to what degree they do so effectively. By reading Spanish texts in this course asks students to consider how learning about the Spanish context invites them to reflect on their own subject positions. The culminating project for this course will be a public-facing video essay that articulate issues relating race and ethnicity in Spain for a U.S. audience.

A detailed interdisciplinary exploration of an author, a genre, a period, or a topic. Topics will vary from semester to semester. 

Individual study projects under the guidance of department.

A detailed exploration of a theme reflected in the cultures of Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish-speaking civilizations. Frequent oral reports in English by members of the class. Close attention to development, organization, and writing of an extensive paper. May be repeated for credit)

Professional experience at an advanced level for juniors and seniors with substantial academic and cocurricular experience in the major field. With faculty sponsorship and departmental approval, students may extend their educational experience into such areas as the communications fields, the media, pedagogy, and translation. Primarily but not exclusively for students participating in Skidmore's Junior Year Abroad programs.