MLL Graduate Course Offerings

Summer 2023

Program:         EALC-Japanese                                    Term:   Summer A (May 15–June 23)

Graduate course number:     JPT 5935

Course Title:  Touched by Japanese Cinema

Instructor:  Matt Mewhinney

Time:  Tues. & Thurs. 3:05–6:15 pm

Language of Class Discussion:  English

Reading knowledge in required in target language:  No

Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes

Course Description: 

This six-week course examines a selection of films by the greatest artists of Japanese cinema from the 1960s to the present day. We will approach film as a work of art, exploring aesthetic questions: What makes a film “touch” us? What makes a film beautiful? Why do we cry? Why do we cringe? Students will learn how to read aesthetically, paying attention to “cinematic form” (what makes a film a film), especially its sonic dimension, and how sound, in concert with image, allows for the viewer to have a moving cinematic experience. The course introduces the fundamentals of film analysis, along with critical lenses from aesthetic philosophy, film and literary theory, and cognitive science on topics including empathy, affect, and the imagination. Films are screened in class with English subtitles. Prerequisites: None.

This course is cross-listed with undergraduate section JPT4934. Graduate students enrolled in JPT5935 will be required to do extra readings and to watch additional films. 

Program: Spanish                                                                   Term: Summer A (May 15–June 23)

Graduate course number: SPW 5337                                                

Course Title: Spanish Poetry to 1700

Instructor: Howard

Time: TR 3:05-6:15

Language of Class Discussion: Spanish

Reading knowledge in required in target language:  Yes

Course Description: 

In this course, we will study Spanish Golden Age lyric poetry as a tradition, in the sense that we will assume that each subsequent author was familiar with all previous authors in the same tradition. In this way we may track the evolution of Petrarquismo, as well as other movements, through the Renaissance and the Baroque, as the poets attempted to "imitate" their predecessors, but with some difference. We will begin with Juan Boscán and Garcilaso de la Vega, who brought Italianate verse to Spain, and cover the major Spanish Golden Age lyric poets in roughly chronological order.