Comparative Literature

This course will introduce you to global and foreign films. We will discuss film terminology, international film history, film theory, national and regional film, international markets, audiences, and distribution channels. We will examine films from multiple countries, including Senegal, Korea, Algeria, Hong Kong, France, the United Kingdom, Iran, Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico. Some covered themes include globalization, colonialism, gender/sexuality/national culture, ecology, dystopia, technology, and history.

An exploration of central issues in historical and contemporary feminist philosophy. The focus of the course will vary, and may be drawn from social and political philosophy, ethics, or epistemology. It will generally consider such issues as: ""woman"" as a socially-constructed category; the nature of women's oppression; and the relations between gender, race, and class as they function as structures of domination.

This course explores the crime fiction genre (literature, television, and film) from the Nordic countries. The course will focus on the political and social critique embedded in crime stories, the values of the societies represented, and the function of the crime fiction genre as a critique of ideologies and institutions. Starting in the 1970s with Sjöwall/Wahlöo and ending in the present day, the class will cover a variety of themes in the Nordic context: Marxism, the welfare state, immigration, the EU and the Third World, feminism, racism, neoliberalism, and global capitalism. It will also introduce students to typically Nordic perspectives on crime prevention and punishment.

This course is a historical survey of women writers in the U.S. We will examine multiple genres of autobiography, poetry, fiction, drama, and the essay, and trace a tradition of women's writing concerned with both national issues and women's experiences. The course will pay particular attention to the ways in which women's literature resists patriarchal oppression, and engages with liberation and empowerment of women. U.S. Women's literature offers valuable insights into U.S. gender construction, feminist thought, and intersectional identities. This course counts toward the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies major/minor.