Graduate Level, 1995-2007

Representation, Power, and the Future of Critical Theory: Reading Foucault (Comparative Literature 200)

This seminar studies some of the seminal books, articles, and essays by Michel Foucault - by most accounts one of the most formative philosophers of the second half of the 20th century--, reconstructs the epistemological context for his arguments, and tries to establish his position in contemporary (and future) critical theory.

Dada (Art History 296A and Comparative Literature 200)

Examines the phenomenon of Dada in the context of the European Avant-gardes. Course Flier Syllabus

Calculating Images: Representation by Algorithm in Science and Art (Art History 296A / Comparative Literature 200)

This interdisciplinary seminar investigates the history of computing, and the way in which that history intersects with modern literature, art, and, science. I am particularly interested in the technological and epistemological break constituted by the invention of mechanical computing machines in the 18th century (Leibniz, Pascal, Slonimsky), and the way in which that invention affected the way we think about culture and its generation.

LA/Moscow: Repetition/Innovation (Art History 296A and Comparative Literature 200)

The class investigates "repetition" and the way in which this complex operation affects, shapes, or programs the relationship between the historical avantgarde and the neo-avantgardes of the late 1950s and 60s. Postwar art and philosophy during that time--from Foucault to Derrida and Lacan--seem to be re-playing the historical avantgarde, from constructivism to Dada and surrealism. Art from Los Angeles during the 1950s and 60s, too, "replays"--at various speeds and with various degrees of intensity and background noise--Russian constructivism of the 1920s, creating an unlikely axis between Central Russia and Southern California. Meanwhile Moscow artists of the 1960s, oddly, seem to be engaged in a rerun both of the Russian Avantgarde (TRACK 1) and of its Southern Californian remix (TRACK 2). The class will investigate the different modes and motivations of this complex East/West re(p)lay, and the way it relates to innovation and difference.
Syllabus 1 Syllabus 2

The Big Archive (Art History 296A)

The seminar investigates various theories of remembering, storage, and archivization (psychoanalysis, deconstruction) and the relations they maintain with post/modernist art. From Duchamp to Beuys and Kabakov, different techniques of archivization have engaged aesthetic theory and practice intensely over the last four decades. The seminar investigates the representation of the archive, but also the archivization of representation that it seems, at times, to imply. Readings by Derrida, Lacan, Freud, Benjamin, Deleuze, Foucault, Duchamp, and many others.
Syllabus 1 Syllabus 2

Crash: Trauma, Rupture Art (Art History 296A and Comparative Literature 200)

Explores the intersection between neo-avantgardist artistic practise and philosophy at a point where both of them reach their limit. Trauma marks the point at which experience is no longer subject to recording, the point where the programs that allow for such experience literally "crash". To view postwar art, literature, and philosophy from the point of view of this crash is to view art as rupture, and language as radically discontinuous. Apart from philosophical texts by Sigmund Freud, Soshana Felman, Jacques Derrida, Antonin Artaud, Jacques Lacan, T. Adorno, the seminar examines works by Anselm Kiefer, Piero Manzoni, Andy Warhol, Viennese Actionism, Dan Graham, Gerhard Richter, Samuel Beckett, Michel Butor, and others.
Syllabus

Surrealism, Psychoanalysis, and Beyond (Art History 296A and Comparative Literature 200)

Few moments in the history of 20th-century art and literature have engaged as many disciplines and discourses-from Marxism to psychoanalysis, theoretical physics, and 19th-century psychiatry-as surrealism. This seminar investigates key figures and strategies of surrealist practice at the point where they intersect with their theoretical elaborations. Readings by Freud, Breton, Aragon, Dali, Eluard, Duchamp, Bataille, Picabia, Caillois, Leiris, Bellmer.
Syllabus

Literature of Central Europe (Slavic 151C)

Survey of literature of central Europe ("Mitteleuropa") during the 20th century. Readings of Kafka, Schulz, Hashek, Roth, Musil.

Undergradate Level, 1995-2007

Dostoevsky (Slavic 130)

The class investigates select texts by Fyodor M. Dostoevsky. Close attention will be paid to the philosophical implications of Dostoevsky’s ideas.

Nabokov (Slavic 197I)

The class offers a detailed discussion and analysis of select novels by Vladimir Nabokov, inviting students to see his works both as important models and as critiques of modernist literature in general.

Russian Cinema (Slavic 119)

The course studies Russian film in a historical perspective and in its cultural, social, and technological settings.

Russian Thought and Philosophy (Slavic 168)

Study of key texts and movements in the development of Russian thought, from the Enlightenment to the revolution: Enlightenment, Mysticism, Schellingianism, Chaadaev, Slavophilism, Hegelianism, the 1860's, Populism, Soloviev, Marxism.
Syllabus

Nothingness (Comparative Literature 186NO; Slavic 156)

This class investigates the phenomenon of zero in a variety of contexts, from mathematics to literature and science to media studies.

Sergey Eisenshtein (Slavic 167C)

The class examines the cinema of Sergey Eisenshtein within the context of contemporary media culture, literature, philosophy, and technology.
Syllabus

Russian Literature and the Police (Slavic 139)

The police as a symbol of Russia's westernization. Narrative closure in the nineteenth-century novel. The notion of the law in Russian thought. Readings by Gøgøl, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Mayakovsky, Prigov, Derrida, Foucault, D.A. Miller.

The Avantgarde in Russia (Art History 144A; Slavic 144A)

The Russian avantgarde in its European context. The avantgarde and the revolution of 1917. Analysis of key figures and movements of the Russian avantgarde.
Syllabus

Contemporary Art in Russia (Art History 144C; Slavic 144C)

Study of central intellectual and aesthetic trends in the late Soviet period and in contemporary post-Soviet Russian and Central/Eastern Europe. Analysis of literary texts and the visual arts.

Modern Polish Literature (Slavic 170)

A comprehensive overview of modern Polish literature, with special attention to famous authors such as Czeslaw Milosz, Bruno Schulz and Zbigniew Herbert.


Russian Cinema (Slavic 119)

The course studies Russian film in a historical perspective and in its cultural, social, and technological settings.

Russian Thought and Philosophy (Slavic 168)

Study of key texts and movements in the development of Russian thought, from the Enlightenment to the revolution: Enlightenment, Mysticism, Schellingianism, Chaadaev, Slavophilism, Hegelianism, the 1860's, Populism, Soloviev, Marxism.
Syllabus