Literature in Translation Courses Spring 2025

(3 credits)

• MWF 9:55 – 10:45 am

Instructor: Karen Evans-Romaine

202: 3 credits

204, Comm B: 4 credits: MWF 9:55 – 10:45 am plus weekly 50-minute discussion section on Thursday at 9:55, 11:00, 12:05, or 1:20

Course Description:  This course provides an overview of some of the most important works of 20^th– and 21^st-century Russian literature in their cultural context. We will examine major historical events and cultural trends of this period in Russia and the Soviet Union through the lens of literary texts, and we will talk about the many connections between literature and politics in Russia up to today, as well as about the big questions of life and love, oppression and freedom, ethics and creativity posed by various writers. Assigned texts include stories by Anton Chekhov, Evgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian novel We (a precursor to Orwell’s 1984), Mikhail Bulgakov’s magical novel of Stalin-era Moscow The Master and Margarita, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s gulag narrative One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, poetry and prose by women in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, and other literary works from the Soviet era to the present day. This course welcomes students of all majors and is open to students at all levels. All readings and materials will be available in English.

Lit Trans 204 (4 credits) fulfills the Communication B requirement. It includes both attendance at Lit Trans 202/204 lectures and a separate weekly discussion section and assignments.

Prerequisites: None. Open to first-year students.

(3 credits)

• TR 2:30 – 3:45 pm

Instructor: David S. Danaher

Course Description: In the United States, science fiction (SF) is typically thought of as a quintessentially American (or American-British) genre. This course explores the rich tradition of Slavic contributions to SF. We will survey major writers and their works in the Czech, Polish, and Russian contexts, most of which are little known in the US but are nonetheless, as we will see, fundamental to the genre. We will read these works as both anchored in their particular cultural-historical circumstances and also for their contribution to the development of SF as a world genre. In this regard, SF is perhaps the dominant contemporary genre for sociocultural commentary and critique aimed at reimagining the world in which we live, and Slavic SF texts have played a defining role in establishing SF as such. Since the rise of film coincides with the rise of modern SF and since the intertextual dimension in SF literature is particularly strong, we will also compare and contrast the literary works with, where available, their film adaptations.

Prerequisites: None

(3 credits)

• TR 11:00 am – 12:15 pm

Instructor: Maksim Hanukai

Course Description: This course introduces students to the life and works of Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). Through close reading and discussion of his short stories, novellas, and plays, students will learn about Chekhov’s treatment of such topics as childhood, religion, love and infidelity, death, mental illness, colonial expansion and the manifold dramas of modern life, while paying close attention to his developing artistic views and literary technique. All readings will be in English.

Prerequisites: None

(Meets-with Slavic 420.)

(3-4 credits)

• Lecture 1 (4 credits): MWF 2:25 – 3:15 pm
• Lecture 2 (3 credits): MWF 2:25 – 3:15 pm
• Discussion: T 2:25 – 3:15 pm

Instructor: Jennifer Tishler

(Meets with LITTRANS 266/SLAVIC 266)

(3-4 credits)

• Lecture 1 (4 credits): MWF 2:25 – 3:15 pm
• Lecture 2 (3 credits): MWF 2:25 – 3:15 pm
• Discussion: T 2:25 – 3:15 pm

(3 credits)

• MWF 1:20 – 2:10 pm

Instructor: Sara Karpukhin

(Crosslisted with Slavic 266.)

(3 credits)

• TR 1:20 – 2:10 pm

Instructor: Susan Brantly

Course Description: Can thrillers, science fiction novels, or films be literary masterpieces? Yes, they can! Explore the changing fashions in literature throughout the 20^th Century, while you learn important survival skills for the media age. Everybody wants something, so how do you assess what different writers want from you, and what tricks do they use to go about getting it? Through a selection of short texts, novels, and plays, we’ll be learning from some of the best: Nobel Laureates (Knut Hamsun, Pär Lagerkvist), medical doctors (P.C. Jersild), and other provocateurs (August Strindberg, Isak Dinesen, Ingmar Berman, Peter Hoeg, and the rest).

Prerequisites: None

(Frequent writing assignments and/or projects outside of class.)

(3 credits)

• TR 2:30 – 3:45 pm

Instructor: B. Venkat Mani

Course Description: You’ve been reading about refugees and migrants on social media and in the news, but don’t know where to start? You have some familiarity with the topic but want to engage with it through literature, film, and music on a global scale? Then this is a course for you.  The main aim of this course is to discuss how migrants and refugees shape and transform the world we live in.  

Migration continues to be a highly contested topic in the world today. In 2016 the number of people living outside nations of their birth was highest in recorded human history. For 2020, the United Nations’ High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates 82.4 million forcibly displaced people around the world. The Covid-19 global pandemic brought new challenges. Humans living in refugee camps, detention centers, or simply separated from their loved ones due to closing of international travel were impacted all over the world. The proliferation of refugees and stateless people in the world has coincided with the resurgence of exclusive nationalism, and divisive rhetoric centered on securing and insulating borders. In Europe and North America, immigration has defined the demographic make-up of specific nations for centuries. Especially since the end of the Second World War, waves of mass-migration have had a major impact on politics, society, and culture, giving rise to forms of aesthetic expression in literature, film, and music. 

In this course, we will give human faces to statistics through their stories. We will engage with “migration” as a concept and a lived reality of our world, as a social, cultural, political, and historical phenomenon. In addition to discussing migration as a journey from the nation of birth to the adopted nation of residence we will discuss migration as a multidirectional, multi-lingual movement of ideas. The focus of our course will be migration into Germany, but we will compare and contrast it with migrations into US and UK.  

What is so special about the German migration history in the 20th century? How does migration change the social fabric of Germany and other European nations? How has migration enriched literature, culture, music, food, and sports? How do racial, ethnic, religious, and other forms of discrimination pose challenges to inclusion of German/ European migrant subjects? What is the difference between willful and forced migration? How do we understand refugee narratives? These and other questions will be central to this course.  

We will discuss how the understanding of migration in the Euro-American world has changed in the 20th and 21st  centuries. We will analyze how migration as an experience is manifested in literature, cinema, and music, and how issues of identities and difference, tolerance and acceptance, nationalism and cosmopolitanism form and inform societies today. Most importantly, we will explore how categories such as home and elsewhere, the self and the other, belonging and cultural citizenship find expression in contemporary nations. 

(Meets-with German 276. Open to Freshmen; Fulfills Literature and Humanities Breadth Requirements. Also Counts toward: International Studies Major [Culture in the Age of Globalization Track], German Major, European Studies Certificate, South Asia Studies Certificate)

(3 credits)

• TR 2:30 – 3:45 pm

Instructor: Sabine Moedersheim

Course Description: “Climate Fiction “ is an emerging genre of literature, graphic novels, and film exploring the consequences of climate change in the age of the “Anthropocene”, the epoch in which human impacts on the planet’s ecological systems reach a dangerous tipping point. The aim of this course is to discuss the human experience of climate change on a global scale through analyses of works by German authors such as Lutz Seiler, Yoko Tawada, Ilija Trojanow, Christa Wolf as well as writers from around the world, including Margaret Atwood, Octavia E. Butler, Amitav Ghosh, and others. We will explore dystopian, and apocalyptic stories but also works that imagine a more just future of resilience and social equality.

All materials will be in English translations or with English subtitles. Lectures and discussions will be in English. Prior knowledge of German is welcome but not required.

Prerequisites: Satisfied Communications A requirement

(Level: Intermediate. Breadth: Literature. L&S credit type: Counts as LAS credit (L&S). Cross listed: GERMAN 276, LITTRANS 276)

(3 credits)

• TR 11:00 am – 12:15 pm

Instructor: B. Venkat Mani

Course Description: What makes “Great Books” so great? Who decides which literary works are classics or masterpieces? Why do some literary works become international bestsellers or “most read” books, while others do not? How do we, as readers in the 21^st century read and give new meanings to the so-called great books? How have our reading habits changed as we move from physical books to e-reading devices using screens?

These and other questions will guide us through this course, as we learn how literary works enter a larger world literary space through translations. We will engage with a few classics from the ancient to the modern eras alongside the magnificent histories of their circulation through orality, and later in print in translation. We will read and discuss some contemporary works that became instant bestsellers, and try to understand what made them so popular and well-received globally. We will also learn about how the world of literature transformed materially: from stone tablets to leaves, papyrus, paper and now to e-tablets. We will explore how literary awards such as the Nobel Prize impact literary markets and contribute to readerships. Last but not least, we will follow the “afterlives” of classic works and authors, both dead and alive, on film, TV, and social media platforms such as Book-Tube, Book-Tok and Bookstagram to see how readers today engage with them and re-circulate them globally in the digital age.

Prerequisites: Declared in Honors program

(Open to Freshmen; Fulfills Literature and Humanities Breadth Requirements. Meets-with German 276)

(3 credits)

• MWF 1:20 – 2:10 pm

Instructor: Sunny Yudkoff

Course Description: American literature has never been written in one language. While English has become dominant in the United States, there has been a long tradition of American literary and cultural production in other languages. This class focuses on the Jewish immigrant experience in Yiddish—a fusion language that brings together German, Hebrew, English, Russian, Latin, and more. We will follow Yiddish culture from the beginning of the twentieth century until today as it has been alternatingly supported, neglected, and imbued with nostalgia. The questions driving our inquiry will be: What does it mean to translate America into Yiddish and what does it mean to translate Yiddish for America? Major terms to be discussed include: cultural translation, ethnicity, migration, “Melting Pot,” multilingualism, and assimilation. Themes include: Jewish-Christian difference, ethnic American humor, race and Jewish culture.

Prerequisites: None

(This course counts as a cognate course for the German major. This course fulfills the General Education requirement in Ethnic Studies.)

(3 credits)

• MWF 1:20 – 2:10 pm

Instructor: Melissa Sheedy

Course Description: From wolves to witches, Rumpelstiltskin to Rapunzel, the German fairy-tale tradition is filled with rich imagery, familiar themes, and political and social subversion. Of enduring popularity and as constant subjects of reimagination and revitalization, German tales and their retellings serve as a unique lens through which to view the social, political, and cultural contexts in which they were produced. Through these texts, we will glimpse the underlying perceptions and values regarding family, gender, nation, nature, religion, and society, both in the first half of the 19th century and in the Germany of the last 25 years. With an eye to depictions of gender and gender roles as well as to conceptions of the environment and civilization, we will critically engage with these works and contextualize them within the social and political landscapes that shaped them. Our investigations will center on tales and their retellings in a variety of forms, with a special focus on fairytales by women writers. In recognizing and analyzing the Märchen’s influences in literature, art, music, poetry, and pop culture, we will begin to appreciate the fairy-tale’s enduring legacy and its place within German literary and cultural history. This course counts as a cognate course for the German major.

(3 credits)

• TR 11:00 am – 12:15 pm

Instructor: Ida Moen Johnson

Course Description: In Henrik Ibsen’s famous play, The Wild Duck (1884), the animal is often understood as a symbol for the drama’s damaged characters. But is the duck just a metaphor, or is the duck a duck, too? As for the humans in the story: are they people, animals, or both? In this course, we will study Nordic texts that center the animal, from ugly ducklings and charismatic reindeer to Moomintrolls and hobbyhorses. We will also learn from the fields of animal studies and posthumanism, whose lessons are critical at a time when human-made climate change threatens all forms of life on Earth. Through fiction, film, and theory, this course tackles questions such as: Can art created by humans ever be “true to the animal?” How might literature and film help us challenge humanist hierarchies? And, what can Nordic texts teach us about the possibilities and limits of being an animal—including the human kind?

Prerequisites: Sophomore standing

(Counts as LAS credit (L&S))

(3 credits)

• TR 2:30 – 3:45 pm

Instructor: Helen Durst

Course Description: A comparative literary analysis grounded in history and culture of two prominent Scandinavian authors of the 20th century and their works: Tove Ditlevsen (Danish) best known in U.S. for the Copenhagen Trilogy and Tove Jansson (Finnish/Swedish) best known in U.S. for the Moomins. 

Prerequisites: Sophomore Standing 

(Meets-with LitTrans 324-001. Combined sections: 872 436-001 LEC (35231), Topics-Scandinavian Literature, 551 324-001 LEC (35232), Topics-Scandinavian Literature.)

(3 credits)

• TR 4:00 – 5:15 pm

Instructor: Jolanda Vanderwal Taylor

(Meets-with German 325 and German 625.)

(3 credits)

• Lecture: TR 2:25 – 3:15 pm
• Discussion 1: W 3:30 – 4:20 pm
• Discussion 2: W 4:35 – 5:25 pm
• Discussion 3: W 5:40 – 6:30 pm
• Discussion 4: R 1:20 – 2:10 pm
• Discussion 5: R 12:05 – 12:55 pm
• Discussion 6: R 3:30 – 4:20 pm
• Discussion 7: F 11:00 – 11:50 am
• Discussion 8: F 12:05 – 12:55 pm
• Discussion 9: F 1:20 – 2:10 pm

Instructor: Benjamin Mier-Cruz

Course Description: Explores the development of the vampire legend in folklore, rumor, literature, cinema, television, and popular culture and in relation to topics such as colonization, race, gender, sexuality, and class.

Prerequisites: Sophomore standing

(3 credits)

• TR 1:00 – 2:15 pm

Instructor: Scott Mellor

Course Description: Telling stories is as old as time. Folk storytelling, which originate in the distant past, has often been scorned by the literary establishment, but the fact that they survived through centuries of oral transmission until they were finally recorded in the fairly recent past testifies to their lasting existential appeal. The stories these texts tell are dashingly entertaining and often deeply disturbing: they may offer a profoundly fatalistic view of existence, but they may also voice an angry and, at the same time, humorous protest against oppression. When this narrative type was discovered by scholars and the societal elite about 1800, it inspired many first-rank Nordic authors, e.g., Hans Christian Andersen, Henrik Ibsen, Selma Lagerlöf; and in the 20th century it has cast its spell over Isak Dinesen, Villy Sørensen, and Pär Lagerkvist and its influence has moved from literary to other media today. The course examines both the original folktales, its modern “imitations” and literature as well as gives an introduction to the critical methodologies that have recently been developed to deal with this seemingly simple, but in reality, highly sophisticated, narrative.

Prerequisites: Sophomore or higher

(3-4 credits)

• TR 4:00 – 5:15 pm

Instructor: Susan Brantly

Course Description: As the 19th Century reached its end, there was a feeling among some literary figures that the world was in a state of decay. Mercantile barbarism was taking over and destroying the fragile and sensitive old aristocratic world. Women, who had gained some small advances in society were seen as dangerous, even fatal. How does one respond to a world in collapse? With indulgences, apathy, criminality, hypersensitivity, aestheticism…and some fairly strange hobbies.  We will explore the odd world of the Nordic decadents and compare them to their European counterparts. Be prepared to be amazed and amused.

Prerequisites: None

(An extra project is required for the 4th credit.)

(3 credits)

• TR 1:00 – 2:15 pm

Instructor: Lukasz Wodzynski