Correspondence Directory

Majors and Courses of InstructionHumanities-ClassicsMango Street, Mishima Yukio’s Forbidden Colors, Fatima Mernissi’s Beyond the Veil, and the Japanesepre-modern classic of gender bending, The Changelings.227. Rites of Passage (Staff)A study of the human life span with emphasis on the ways major authors from different nationstreat the transitions from stage to stage: infancy, childhood, adolescence, a adulthood, old age. Theprimary goal of the course is to enable students, through study of selected novels, essays, dramas,short stories, and poetry, to deepen their understanding of human development and to sharpentheir perceptions of their own lives – past, present, and future. In short, to help them “see lifesteadily and see it whole.” Readings will include Erikson’s Childhood and Society; Sophocles’ Oedipusat Colonus; Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard; Montaigne’s Essays; Schwarzbart’s Bridge of Beyond, andRoy’s The God of Small Things.250. The Ancient Novel (Lateiner)The world-view, fears, and fantasies of the Greeks and Romans. Prose fiction is the focus, buttexts of similar tone and function will be read. Topics include romance, travel, freedom and slavery,divine interference in human affairs and chance, retreat from public life, and sexual identity. Textsinclude: Herodotus, Menander’s The Grouch, Theocritus’ Idylls, Petronius’ Satyricon, Heliodoros’Ethiopian Tale, Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, Apuleius’ Golden Ass.251. Women in Antiquity (Lateiner)A historical survey of women’s lives and roles in Lesbos, Sparta, Athens, Alexandria, and Rome.Topics will include political, economic, legal, medical, religious, familial, and artistic questions.Contrasts between various communities and various periods will be examined. Useful evidenceincludes: archaeology, inscriptions; prose works of history, law, medicine, and philosophy; drama;poetry by and about women. Serves as a core requirement in Women’s and Gender Studies.255. The Devil, the Hero, and God (Merkel)The human image, or the hero, as it is related to exterior forces of good and evil; God as sustainingpower against the Devil as destroyer. Works to be read include Homer’s Iliad, Job, Dante’s Inferno,Goethe’s Faust, and Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.260. Public Life and Private Lives (Staff)Through selected readings in continental European literature ranging from Plato to the eighteenthcentury, this course will investigate tensions inherent in the opposing principles of public andprivate spheres, the individual and society, and work and leisure. Readings may include Plato’s Critoand Apology; Abelard, Historia calamitatum; Machiavelli, The Prince; excerpts from Montaigne andRabelais; Madame de Lafayette, The Princess of Clèves; Molière, Tartuffe; Pascal, Pensées; Diderot;Laclos, Dangerous Liaisons.265. Freedom and Constraint (Sokolsky)This course is an inter-disciplinary study of the way freedom and constraint are defined andrepresented in various types of literature, film, and art from different cultures with particularemphasis on Asia, Arab, European, and American cultures. The many connotations of freedomand the ways in which people feel constrained as well as resist such constraint will be drawn outthrough an examination of historical, cultural, political, religious, andgendered contexts. We will bediscussing slavery, colonialism, genocide, female sexual mutilation and oppression, and the ways inwhich people have fought against such atrocities. We will read both fiction and non-fiction. Works159