ENGL 578

Fall 2012

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Seminar Lit &Other Disciplines
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Credit: 4 hours.

May be repeated if topics vary. Prerequisite: One year of graduate study of literature or consent of instructor.

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CRN Type Section Time Day Location Instructor Section Details
60133
Lecture-Discussion
A
9:00AM -11:50AM
W
ARR English Building
Rosenstock, B
Part of Term:
1
Date Range:
08/27/12-12/12/12
Section Info:
ENGL 578 will meet in room 109 English Bldg. Topic: The Brain and the Subject of Culture - introduces humanities students to the fundamental concepts and practices of contemporary neuroscience and some of the major research areas currently under investigation. Special emphasis will be placed on the intersection of neuroscientific research in cultural and social questions also addressed in humanities disciplines. The course will situate contemporary neuroscience within its historical context, tracing the rise of brain science from the nineteenth century to the present. Themes to be addressed include the interrelation of nueroscience and the study of religion; neuroscience as a literary theme and as a shaper of literary form ("stream of consciousness," e.g.); philosophical implications of brain plasticity; neuroscience and new models of selfhood; emotions and embedded cognition.
58162
Lecture-Discussion
G
3:00PM -5:30PM
W
English Building
Rothberg, M
Part of Term:
1
Date Range:
08/27/12-12/12/12
Section Title:
Distant Suffering Lit & Theory
Section Info:
Topic Section G: The Implicated Subject: Distant Suffering in Literature and Theory What kinds of claims does the past make on the present? In what ways are we responsible for events that take place at a great distance as well as those that are close at hand? This seminar will address the ethics and politics of distant suffering from literary, cinematic, and theoretical angles. With a focus on both the temporally and the spatially distant?including a focus on how ?distance? and ?proximity? are constructed?the course will explore what might be called an ?archive of implication?: a deliberately open-ended term that gathers together various modes of historical and ethical relation that do not necessarily (or simply) fall under the more direct forms of participation associated with traumatic or violent events, such as victimization and perpetration. Such ?implicated? modes of relation encompass bystanders, beneficiaries, latecomers of the postmemory generation, and others connected powerfully to pasts they did not directly experience or to contemporary contexts that might seem far away. A consideration of the issues associated with these implicated subject positions moves us away from overt questions of guilt and innocence and into the more uncertain moral and ethical terrain of complicity. Problems of ethical and political implication will be explored via contemporary literary, cinematic, and theoretical texts dealing with: war, genocide, slavery, apartheid, colonialism, and contemporary globalization. Since the course is meant as an experiment in developing new ways of thinking about social and historical relationality, students will be encouraged to draw on their own research interests and explore archives of implication beyond those mentioned here. To the extent possible, we will try to incorporate such interests into the syllabus. Requirements will include: active participation, several short response papers, and a seminar paper. Likely readings will include (but will not be limited to): Judith Butler, Frames of War; Octavia Butler, Kindred; Stanley Cohen, States of Denial; Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss; Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist; Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother; Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place; Antje Krog, Country of My Skull; Joe Sacco, The Fixer; Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others; films by Stephanie Black (Life and Debt), Michael Haneke (Cach�), and William Kentridge (Drawings for Projection); and essays by Timothy Bewes, Luc Boltanski, Marianne Hirsch, Primo Levi, Mark Sanders, Gabriele Schwab, and others. For more information or to make suggestions about possible material to include in the course, please contact me by email: mpr [at] illinois.edu.
Restriction(s):
Restricted to Graduate - Urbana-Champaign.
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