NYU > Gallatin > Course Listings Summer 2005

Gallatin Courses Abroad

Course Descriptions

Buenos Aires

Tango and Mass Culture

K20.9401 4 CR
Both English and Spanish sections of this course will be offered.

This course explores Tango as an aesthetic, social and cultural formation that is articulated in interesting and complex ways with the traditions of culture and politics in Argentina and Latin America more generally. During the rapid modernization of the 1920s and 1930s, Tango (like Brazilian Samba), which had been seen as a primitive and exotic dance, began to emerge as a kind of “modern primitive” art form that quickly came to occupy a central space in national(ist) discourse. The course explores the way that perceptions of “primitive” and “modern” converge in this unique and exciting art. In addition, the course will consider tango as a global metaphor with deeply embedded connections to urban poverty, social marginalization, and masculine authority.

Creative Writing: Argentina, Travel Writing at the End of the World

K30.9401 4 CR Stahl

A practical course in the writing of creative literary texts: prose (short stories as well as literary non-fiction) and poetry. Selected published works will be analyzed in class both to provide inspiration for student writing as well as to represent literary structures and strategies. Writing assignments ranging from spontaneous to long-term projects will promote creative exploration and self-expression. Critical skills are emphasized and enhanced as students respond to each others’ work. Awareness of correct conventional use of the English language will be upheld. Students build up a body of work over the semester. For full credit and in demonstration of a writing “process,” the final portfolios should include both first drafts and subsequent revisions. At least one longer text (or set of poems) will be selected for submission as would be appropriate to publishers or literary contests.

Florence

Postmodern Fiction: An International Perspective

K20.9001 4 CR D. Barrett

This course examines themes of recent fiction (e.g., war, sex, violence) as aspects of one basic theme: the individual's struggle to retain humanity in the face of 20th-century dehumanizing forces. Attention to the invention of new fictional techniques made possible by the achievements of modernist precursors. The focus is on fiction written after World War II, including such authors as Borges, Calvino, Grass, Barth, Hawkes, and Robbe-Grillet. Conducted in English.

The Idea of Travel

K20.9002 4 CR S. Palmer

The idea of travel is a crucial mechanism by which we place or remove ourselves in the world, at times no less exhilarating than being on the road itself. Such ideas become tightly bound not only with models of community expression such as nationality and class but also with more private conceptions of identity and family. This course will examine the genre of the travel narrative in two parts. The first section begins with the foundational stories that have shaped how voyages were conceived of and undertaken as expressions of historiography and collective cultural identity. During the second half of the semester we will examine more individualistic forms of imagined travel that come from the minds of those whose bodies cannot move freely exiles, invalids and prisoners. Throughout the semester, our emphasis will be on texts that treat travel both as an idea and as an actual event. Readings may include Homer’s Odyssey; Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy (R. Hol lander translation); Thomas More’s Utopia; Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities; Jeanette Winterston’s Sexing the Cherry; and Xavier De Maistre’s A Journey Around My Room.

Architectural Design: Art Installation in Florence

K40.9001 4 CR Prof. S. Cattiti

This course develops the students' skill in using graphical methods of representation as a language to explore and express architectural projects. Each student designs an installation for an artwork or small group of works, from any time period, in a historic building in Florence. This gives students the opportunity to address a range of issues, including the needs of different audiences, of the curator, and of setting, and of the works themselves. We explore the role of exhibition installations in the relationship between the exhibited works and space housing the show. We focus on contemporary spaces for exhibitions in Florence as the result of a well-established tradition in displaying works of art.

Service Learning: Community Service in Florence

K50.9001 3-4 CR Prof. L. Tarabusi

Section 001 Conducted in English

Section 002 Conducted in Italian

An in-depth experience of Italian language and culture through participation in a variety of community service organizations. Entails volunteer placements in agencies working with women, immigrants, and the poor and on issues of health care and the environment. Students are required to attend weekly two-hour seminars, where they may clarify cultural and language issues, share experiences, and participate in discussions with speakers from the various community organizations involved in the program. During the first week of this course, a learning contract will be discussed and then signed by each student in consultation with the professor. With this learning contract the student will commit to follow the requirements of the course in either English or Italian.

London

Immigration

K20.9101 4 CR Feldman

To provide an understanding of the main immigration trends in Britain, France and Germany since 1850 To provide an understanding of the problems attending the social and political integration of immigrants in contemporary Western Europe To compare the experience and understanding of immigration in Europe with the experience and understanding of immigration in the United States To examine the ways in which the memory of immigration is represented in literature and contemporary culture.

Paris

The French Art World in the 19th Century

K20.9301 4 CR Comte

The course explores the dramatic evolution of French painting in Paris, from its Classical origins under the Old Regime, through its radical transformations during Revolutionary and Napoleonic upheavals, up to its Romantic, Realist and Impressionist experimentations through the Restoration and Second Empire. By analyzing the reciprocity between artists and the capital, in relation to political and cultural institutions, we examine the reasons and manner by which this art—heralded as ‘Modern’ once harnessed to the Revolution—operated as a figural and discursive program within French society. Using case studies of artists working in Paris, the role of painting as a symbolic language of communication and persuasion, and/or as a critique of society dominates our investigation of this tumultuous 250-year period. Conducted in English.

Paris Monuments and Political Power in the 19th & 20th Centuries

K20.9302 4 CR von Koehler

This course examines aspects of political and social change in France from the end of the French Revolution to the present day. Through an exploration of Paris neighborhoods, monuments and museums, we will look at how the city’s evolution has been inscribed on the urban landscape, and reflect on how history and national identity are imagined, produced and contested through the carving up of urban space. Major dates and events of French political history form the chronological backbone for this course, while class discussions are organized thematically from the perspective of social history and the history of ideas. Classes include walking tours and site visits in and around Paris. Conducted in English.

Topics in French Culture: The Media of Displacement—Postcolonial Culture

K20.9303 4 CR Shohat

This course examines questions of displacement as represented, mediated, and narrated in the cinema/media, confronting exclusionary and essentialist discourses with a rich cultural production that foregrounds a complex understanding of such issues as “home,” “homeland,” “exile,” “hybridity,” and “minorities”. Particular areas of interest include the way film/video has represented dislocations that have come in the wake of colonial partitions, and of regional, ethnic and religious conflicts; the way it challenges traditional genres about immigration, transcending neat divisions among the social documentary, the ethnographic media, the experimental autobiography, and the fictional narrative. Finally, we will consider how notions of “nostalgia” and “return” are imagined within the context of new communication technologies. Conducted in English.

Topics in French Literature: Autobiography and First-Person Narration in French and Expatriate Literature

K20.9304 4 CR TBA

This course studies the literature of such great writers as Balzac, Hugo and Baudelaire, for whom Paris was an inspiration, and of expatriate writers such as Miller, Fitzgerald, Wharton, Hemingway, Baldwin, Stein, and Wright, who made Paris their home. Texts and authors to be determined. Conducted in English.

Prague

Kafka and His Contexts

K20.9201 4 CR P. Zusi

This course aims both to familiarize students with Kafka’s major works and to defamiliarize the literary icon by placing him in contexts usually ignored. We will consider Kafka as a central figure within the complex phenomenon of Prague modernism by reading him alongside Czech writers from the fin-de-siècle to the First Republic, less-known figures of Prague German literature, and other major Central European modernists. Finally, we will pay some attention to the echoes of Kafka’s work in later literature, especially American.

Literature and Place of Central Europe

K20.9202 4 CR Cloutier

Central Europe is where West meets East. Some writers revel in this geographically liminal space, some long to free themselves from it, and some are conflicted in their feelings. The remarkable diversity of literary representations of the region has helped shape its culture, history and politics. In this course, students will study the work of prominent Czech, Pole, Slovene and Hungarian writers who have influenced people’s understanding of the region. Authors to be studied may include Václav Havel, Franz Kafka, Imre Kertész, Barbara Korun and Czeslaw Milosz.

Civil Resistance in Central Europe: Reflections in Literature, Art and Film

K20.9203 4 CR M. MacDonagh-Pajerová

Civil resistance is not the same as opting out of society or having views that go against the grain. It is fundamentally about deciding not to conform with repressive regimes. It is also about choosing a mode of action that brings with it personal dangers even when, as is usual, it advocates non-violence. This course examines the nature and significance of civil resistance in Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th century. In studying resistance literature (including poetry and song), art and film, we will draw on ideas and arguments from the disciplines of history, political science, literature, art criticism, film studies and psychology.

Central European Film

K20.9204 4 CR I. Dolezalova

This interdisciplinary seminar is designed to discuss and question the identity of specific nations in European space, which has always been a fascinating crossroad of ideas and ideologies as well as the birthplace of wars and totalitarian systems. The course will cover masterpieces of Russian, Hungarian, German, Polish and Czech cinematography, focusing on several crucial periods of history, in particular WWII and its aftermath, showing moral dilemmas of individuals and nations under the Nazi regime as well as revealing the bitter truth of the Stalinist years.

21st Century Theatremakers

K40.9201 4 CR D. Peimer

Take an empty space. Let a few actors, a director, engage with the creativity of collaborative play; play with an idea, an image, characters, bodies in space, a script. After hard work and sudden flashes of inspiration, it takes shape. The formless hunch becomes theatre; the group theatremakers.

Theater Production

K40.9202 4 CR D. Peimer

NYU in Prague has excellent relationships with numerous internationally renowned theaters in the city. Students enrolled in this Arts Workshop will work on one or more aspects of an actual production at one of the theaters, including acting, singing, dancing, playing music, casting, dramaturgy, assisting the director, assisting the designer, marketing, stage management, production management, lighting, sound, and arts management. (Depending on the position, students may be required to audition.) As such, the course is more experiential than theoretical or historical, although students will also study the text of the play itself, well-known examples of their particular area of expertise in the production, and the history and social significance of theater in Prague in general. Readings will be supplemented by seminar discussions with the instructor and workshops run by working professionals from the city’s theaters. Students will be assessed on attendance at weekly meetings of the course and through journals they keep, oral presentations they give on their work in the production, and the instructor’s evaluation of that work. NB. Previous theatre experience is not a prerequisite.

Shanghai

Creative Writing

K30.9501 4 CR D. Perry

Shanghai is a city in radical flux, an historical East-West hybrid that is reinventing itself daily on an epic scale in the 21st century. Home now to some 18 million, counting the “floating population” of migrants, it is an easy place to “lose” oneself. Our exploration of Shanghai’s contemporary self-reinvention sets the scene for a visceral encounter with our rapidly changing world, selves, and places in it. If, like Shanghai, we reinvent ourselves in our season here—as writer, traveler, critic, perhaps even as cultural voyeur—what might we find? In this course, we will explore what it means to “lose” and then “find” oneself anew in this city—primarily as a writer, but also as a traveler from the West, an outsider inhabiting, and shifting among, different cultural identities. This investigation will bring us to look closely at Chinese and Western writers’ works—fiction, creative nonfiction, travel writing, poetry, film and other genres—that use the city, and the experience of being “alien” or “other,” as a vital site of exploration of self, culture, identity and society.

Tel Aviv

Politics and the Production of Everydayness in Israel

K20.9601 4 CR Emmerich

This course offers a unique opportunity to explore various aspects of the production of everydayness in Israel as it is manifested in different sites: the arts, the leisure industry and the spatio-temporal arrangements of daily routines and practices. The course will include: 14 lectures on aspects of Israeli politics and culture; visits to art exhibitions, music venues and the cinema; and observation of street life in Tel Aviv (day and night). Given its unique geo-political circumstances as well as its symbolic position, Israel has attracted much attention. This is equally true of media coverage as well as more scholarly treatment of the Israeli-Arab or Israeli-Palestinian conflict. More often than not, Israel is portrayed through the lens of high politics or treated as an exotic anomaly. Whether popular or academic in its orientation, the study of Israeli society has thus tended to neglect everyday life in Israel.