Introduction to World Drama will enable you to discover the power and excitement of drama in a global context. You will encounter a variety of cultural contexts as you observe how playwrights portray local histories and lifestyles, in settings from many parts of the world. The course will offer an introductory overview of concepts and terms associated with understanding drama. It will present traditional dramatic forms such as tragedy, comedy, history play, allegory, Noh, etc., as seen in plays prior to the twentieth century; and recent dramatic forms such as testimonial, other politically engaged plays, drama online or on film, etc., as seen in plays from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Attention will be given to the dramatic contributions of multiple cultural groups in the U.S., with African American, Asian American, Latino, and other U.S. plays seen not in isolation, but in relation to world drama. Finally, the course will consider ways in which drama, as a form of world literature, can have an international and intercultural impact, both in earlier periods and recently, when global circulation and international collaboration are increasingly frequent.
Here is a sample of the texts we will analyze this semester:
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (Italy)
The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman (US)
Tsotsi by Athol Fugard (South Africa)
Shipwrecked Body by Ana Clavel (Mexico)
Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman (Chile)
Even the Rain dir. Icíar Bollaín (Spain, Bolivia)
Deconstructing Harry dir. Woody Allen (US)
A Moment of Innocence dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Iran)
Tsotsi dir. Gavin Hood (South Africa)
Puccini for Beginners dir. Maria Maggenti (US)
Zulu Love Letter dir. Ramadan Suleman (South Africa)
This course compares narrative and artistic techniques employed by literature and film in portraying different social and cultural environments, which will range widely around the globe and may include Africa and the Middle East, East Asia, and South America, as well as European and American examples. Students will view approximately twelve to fourteen films and read five or six novels or other texts such as short stories, plays, or poems. The purpose of this course is to allow students to examine how the selected artists have developed their intentions and their subject matters in their respective medium (literature or film) and guide students through the study of narration across different cultures and media. Through a combination of lectures and comparative discussions, students will examine how narrative components, including plot, genre, environment, character, and point of view, are developed in films and fiction from diverse cultures. The comparative nature of this course allows students to understand, evaluate, and appreciate both the universal and unique qualities of the human condition. The study of narrative technique will help students develop analytical skills in discussing and writing about the literary and cinematic expression of cultural values.
The video game industry is larger than the film industry, and yet the academic study of video games has only just begun. This course is a comparative introduction to the nature and history of video games as cultural artifacts, from Pong to online role-playing. It introduces students to academic discussion on and creative work in new digital forms including hypertexts, video games, cell phone novels, machinima, and more. Students will learn basic narrative theory, and study its impact on game studies and game production. They will survey major debates over the meaning and value of video games, and review its history from Pong to contemporary games, including online world-based games. The course extends students' skills in literary interpretation to a variety of new objects, and makes them aware of the role medium plays in aesthetic development and production. Students will leave with a far sharper understanding of how the interpretive tools used in the humanities can be extended to include new media, and with a sense of the historical role video games have played and will continue to play in global cultural production.
Narrative Theory: Film and Literature
Honors Introduction to Comparative Literature
Honors Comparative Human Rights
Literature of the Americas
Internet Course: International Film and Literature
Spanish and Latin American Film
Spanish American Literature through “Modernismo”
Iberian Civilization
Ibero-American Civilization
Capstone course on Globalization
Introduction to Film