| source MIT (X) |
level |
department Literature (X) |
21L.000J Writing About Literature ( , ) (Same subject as 21W.734J) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Lecture: MW2.30-4 ( 1-277 ) Intensive focus on the reading and writing skills used to analyze literary texts such as poems by Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare or Langston Hughes; short stories by Chekhov, Joyce, or Alice Walker; and a short novel by Melville or Toni Morrison. Designed not only to prepare students for further work in writing and literary and media study, but also to provide increased confidence and pleasure in their reading, writing, and analytical skills. Students write or revise essays weekly. Enrollment limited. Fall: W. Kelley Spring: I. Lipkowitz
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.001 Foundations of Western Culture: Homer to Dante ( ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. Lecture: MW1-2.30 ( 1-150 ) +final Studies a broad range of texts essential to understanding the two great sources of Western conceptions of the world and humanity's place within it: the ancient world of Greece and Rome and the Judeo-Christian world that challenged and absorbed it. Readings vary but usually include works by Homer, Sophocles, Aristotle, Plato, Virgil, St. Augustine, and Dante. Enrollment limited. more information ... H. Eiland
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.002 Foundations of Western Culture: The Making of the Modern World ( ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Complementary to 21L.001. A broad survey of texts, literary, philosophical, and sociological, studied to trace the growth of secular humanism, the loss of a supernatural perspective upon human events, and changing conceptions of individual, social, and communal purpose. Stresses appreciation and analysis of texts that came to represent the common cultural possession of our time. Enrollment limited. more information ... H. Eiland
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.003 Reading Fiction ( , ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. Lecture: TR9.30-11 ( 56-167 ) or MW9.30-11 ( 56-180 ) or TR9.30-11 ( 66-154 ) Introduces prose narrative, both short stories and the novel. Examines the construction of narrative and the analysis of literary response. Enrollment limited. more information ... Fall: I. Lipkowitz Spring: S. Alexandre, R. Perry
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.004 Reading Poetry ( , ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 URL: http://web.mit.edu/lit/www/21L.004/21L.004.html You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. Lecture: WF10-11.30 ( 56-167 ) or MW3.30-5 ( 14N-325 ) Emphasis on lyric poetry in England and the United States. Syllabus usually includes sonnets by Shakespeare, selections from Milton's Paradise Lost , individual poems by Donne, Keats, Dickinson, Frost, Eliot, Langston Hughes, Lowell, and Plath. Enrollment limited. more information ... Fall: J. Hildebidle, N. Jackson Spring: Staff
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.005 Introduction to Drama ( ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. Lecture: MW1-2.30 ( 1-134 ) A study of the history of theater art and practice from its origins to the modern period, including its roles in non-Western cultures. Special attention to the relationship between the literary and performative dimensions of drama, and the relationship between drama and its cultural context. Enrollment limited. more information ... Staff
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.006 American Literature ( , ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. Lecture: MW1-2.30 ( 1-135 ) Studies the national literature of the United States since the early 19th century. Considers novels, essays, films, and poems, focusing on efforts to define and reform a sense of American identity amidst increasing awareness of cultural diversity. Readings usually include works by Hawthorne, Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Dickinson, Frost, Faulkner, Maxine Kingston, and Amy Tan. Enrollment limited. more information ... Fall: Staff Spring: J. Hildebidle
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.007 World Literatures ( ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 URL: http://web.mit.edu/lit/www/21L.007/21L.007.html Introduces students to a coherent set of textual and visual materials drawn from different geographical regions, languages, artistic genres, and historical periods. The focus may vary but usually cuts across national boundaries. Includes non-English works read in translation and examines different kinds of writing, both fiction and nonfiction. Pays special attention to such issues as identity formation, cultural contact, exploration, and exile. Previously taught topics include contemporary writing from Africa and South Asia, the impact of the discovery of the New World, and Caribbean literature. more information ... M. Fuller
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.008J Black Matters: Introduction to Black Studies ( ) (Same subject as 24.912J , SP.417J , 21A.114J , 21H.106J , 21M.630J , 21W.741J ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. Lecture: W1-2.30 ( 4-145 ) Recitation: M1-2.30 ( 4-145 ) or M EVE (7-8.30 PM) ( 4-145 ) Interdisciplinary survey of people of African descent that draws on the overlapping approaches of history, literature, anthropology, legal studies, media studies, performance, linguistics, and creative writing. Connects the experiences of African-Americans and of other American minorities, focusing on social, political, and cultural histories, and on linguistic patterns. Includes lectures, discussions, workshops, and required field trips that involve minimal cost to students. more information ... T. DeFrantz, S. Alexandre, C. Capozzola
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.009 Shakespeare ( , ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. Lecture: TR11.30-1 ( 56-167 ) or TR3.30-5 ( 1-273 ) +final Focuses on a close reading of six to eight of Shakespeare's plays, as well as their adaptation for stage and/or film. Selected texts cover the range of genres in which Shakespeare wrote (i.e. history, comedy, tragedy, and romance). Plays vary between sections and from term to term, and have recently included Henry IV Part 1, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, King Lear, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest. Enrollment limited. more information ... Fall: P. Donaldson, S. Raman Spring: P. Donaldson
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.011 The Film Experience ( , ) Prereq: None Units: 3-3-6 You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. Lecture: T4,T EVE (7 PM) ( 3-270 ) Lab: T EVE (8-10 PM) ( 3-270 ) Recitation: R3 ( 2-146 , 2-105 ) or R4 ( 2-146 , 2-105 , 2-139 ) +final An introduction to narrative film, emphasizing the unique properties of the movie house and the motion picture camera, the historical evolution of the film medium, and the intrinsic artistic qualities of individual films. Syllabus changes from term to term, but usually includes such directors as Griffith, Chaplin, Renoir, Ford, Hitchcock, De Sica, and Fellini. more information ... Fall: D. Thorburn Spring: M. Marks
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.012 Forms of Western Narrative ( ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. Lecture: TR3.30-5 ( 14N-112 ) Examines forms of storytelling that have developed in Western cultures from Homer to the present. Emphasis on literary and cultural issues; the emergence of different narrative genres and media; story forms as anthropological artifacts. Syllabus varies but usually includes folk tales, and authors such as Homer, Sophocles, Cervantes, Laclos or Tolstoy, Poe, and at least one film. more information ... J. Buzard
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.013J The Supernatural in Music, Literature and Culture (New) ( ) (Same subject as 21A.113J , 21M.013J ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. Lecture: MW11-12.30 ( 14W-111 ) Explores the relationship between music and the supernatural, focusing on the social history and context of supernatural beliefs as reflected in key literary and musical works from 1600 to the present. Provides a better understanding of the place of ambiguity and the role of interpretation in culture, science and art. Explores great works of art by Shakespeare, Verdi, Goethe (in translation), Gounod, Henry James and Benjamin Britten. Readings will also include selections from the most recent scholarship on magic and the supernatural. Writing assignments will range from web-based projects to analytic essays. No previous experience in music is necessary. Projected guest lectures, musical performances, field trips. more information ... C. Shadle, M. Fuller, J. Howe
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.014J Empire: Introduction to Ancient and Medieval Studies (New) ( ) (Same subject as 21H.007J) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Lecture: MW2.30-4 ( 4-370 ) Interdisciplinary investigation of three of the best-documented pre-modern empires: the Roman empire of Augustus, the Frankish empire of Charlemagne, and the English empire in the age of the Hundred Years? War. Focuses on how large, multi-ethnic empires were created, sustained, legitimated, and contested through conquest, government, literature, art, architecture, thought, social relationships, economic organization, and technology. Students examine several different types of evidence, read across a variety of disciplines, and develop skills to identify continuities and changes in ancient and medieval societies. A. Bahr, W. Broadhead, E. Goldberg
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.016 Learning from the Past: Drama, Science, Performance ( ) (Subject meets with 21M.616 ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Explores the creation (and creativity) of the modern scientific and cultural world through study of western Europe in the 17th century, the age of Descartes and Newton, Shakespeare, Milton and Ford. Compares period thinking to present-day debates about the scientific method, art, religion, and society. This team-taught, interdisciplinary subject draws on a wide range of literary, dramatic, historical, and scientific texts and images, and involves theatrical experimentation as well as reading, writing, researching and conversing. more information ... D. Henderson, J. Sonenberg
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.017 The Art of the Probable ( ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Examines literary texts and films in relation to the history of the idea of probability. Traces the growing importance of probability both as a measure of the reliability of ideas or beliefs and also as a basic property of things and the world. Connects the development and use of probabilistic reasoning (e.g., in the lottery, the insurance industry, and the stock market) with literary and cultural concerns regarding the rationality of belief, risk and uncertainty, free will and determinism, chance and fate. Discussion of the work of scientific and philosophical pioneers of probabilistic thought (e.g., Pascal, Leibniz, Bernoulli, Laplace, and Einstein) in conjunction with a variety of literary texts and films, including works of Shakespeare, Jane Austen, H. G. Wells, and classic Hollywood cinema. more information ... A. Kibel, S. Raman
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.310 Bestsellers ( , ) Prereq: None Units: 2-0-4 Lecture: W EVE (7-10 PM) ( 14N-112 ) Focuses on works that caught the popular imagination in the past or present. Emphasizes texts that are related by genre, theme or style. Books studied vary from term to term. May be repeated once for credit so long as the content differs. Enrollment limited. Fall: S. Tapscott Spring: W. Kelley
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.315 Prizewinners ( ) Prereq: None Units: 2-0-4 Examines the work of major prize-winning writers or filmmakers. Texts and authors are chosen that have won such prestigious literary awards as the Nobel Prize, the Booker Prize, or the National Book Award, or films that have been feted at major international film festivals. Authors and works vary from term to term. May be repeated once for credit so long as the specific works studied differ. Topic for Spring: Nobel Laureates ? Derek Walcott and Seamus Heaney. Enrollment limited. D. Thorburn
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.320 Big Books ( ) Prereq: None Units: 2-0-4 Lecture: R EVE (7-8.30 PM) ( 14N-112 ) Intensive study of a single major literary work or a very small set of related literary works. Emphasizes texts that encourage close analysis in a way that cannot easily be integrated into the regular literature curriculum. Content varies from term to term. May be repeated once for credit so long as the works studied differ. Enrollment limited. M. Fuller
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.325 Small Wonders ( ) Prereq: None Units: 2-0-4 Lecture: R10-1 (ENDS OCT 23) ( 4-251 ) Close examination of a coherent set of short texts and/or visual works. The selections may be the shorter works of one or more authors (poems, short stories or novellas), or short films and other visual media. Content varies from term to term. May be repeated once for credit so long as the works studied differ. Enrollment limited. J. Picker
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.330 Latin I ( ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-3 Lecture: MW1-2.30 (ENDS OCT 23) ( 14N-325 ) Introduces rudiments of Latin to students with little or no prior knowledge of the subject. Aimed at laying a foundation to begin reading ancient and/or medieval literary and historical texts. Latin I and Latin II may be combined by petition (after completion of both) to count as a single HASS Elective. Enrollment limited to 20. Staff
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.335 Latin II ( ) Prereq: 21L.330 or permission of instructor Units: 3-0-3 Lecture: MW1-2.30 (BEGINS OCT 26) ( 14N-325 ) Introductory Latin subject for students with some prior knowledge of basic grammar and vocabulary. Intended to refresh and enrich ability to read ancient and/or medieval literary and historical texts. May be taken independently of Latin I with permission of instructor. Latin I and Latin II may be combined by petition (after completion of both) to count as a single HASS Elective. Enrollment limited to 20. Staff
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.420 Literary Studies: The Legacy of England ( ) Prereq: One subject in Literature Units: 3-0-9 Examines English literature across genre and historical period. Designed for students who wish to study English literature or writing in some depth, or wish to know more about English literary culture and history. Learn about the relationships between literary themes, forms, and conventions and the times in which they were produced. Students examine Renaissance lyrics, Enlightenment satire, and modernist short stories. Focused on England because of its historical importance and its usefulness as an example for illustrating patterns over the centuries. Students form a framework for understanding how more focused subjects fit into literary studies, and what terms, concerns, and methods provide connections among the diverse subjects grouped under "literature." S. Tapscott
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.421 Comedy ( , ) Prereq: None Units: 3-3-6 You must enter the HASS-D lottery to take this subject. Lecture: MW3.30-5 ( 14E-310 ) Surveys a range of comic texts in different media, the cultures that produced them, and various theories of comedy. Authors and directors studied may include Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Moliere, Austen, Wilde and Chaplin. more information ... Fall: H. Eiland Spring: W. Kelley
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page
21L.422 Tragedy ( ) Prereq: None Units: 3-0-9 Aspects of the tragic as a mode of literature and a quality of lived experience pursued in readings that extend from the warfare of the ancient world to the experiences of modern life. Authors include Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Balzac, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Conrad, Dinesen, Faulkner, and Camus. Includes viewing of at least two films. H. Eiland
Score: 9.4563675 Details | Listing | Web page