Courses

This course will examine selected topics in modern literature and their relationship to nineteenth-and twentieth-century models of thought, society, and culture. We will consider, for instance, the influence of the naturalist Buffon on Balzac, of experimental medicine on Zola, of the philosopher Bergson on Proust, of technology on H. G. Wells, of physics on Pynchon, and of Freud on Kafka.

A topical course in music of the Western world. May be repeated for credit if the topic changes.

A topical course in music of the non-Western world. May be repeated for credit if the topic changes.

Major literary and cultural works of the French neoclassical age. Authors studied may include Molière, Racine, Corneille, Mme. de Lafayette, Pascal, and Descartes. May be repeated once for credit provided the topic is different.

Traditional, hand-drawn animation as well as cutout and stop-motion animation.

Readings from Chinese classical writers of prose and poetry. Selections vary each semester. The course may be taken for credit more than once if the topic is different.

Major tragic texts from various cultures and ages, with some attention to theories of tragedy. Students may take this course twice for credit if the works studied are different.

This course is concerned with the breakup and reconstitution of economic systems from antiquity to the present. The emphasis will be on primitive, feudal, and contemporary underdeveloped economies.

Why do some states evolve or choose to transform to democratic governance, while others do not? Why do some fail while others succeed? This course traces the process by which states transform from authoritarian to democratic governance, examining the effects that economics, culture, political development, and institutional factors have on the process of democratic transition and the likelihood of its success.

A practical study in the problems and skills of translation of Russian and English. May be repeated for credit.