33 courses with the subject COML H, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
Introduction to Persian/Farsi language. This course is designed for beginners and will combine the study of grammar with listening, writing, reading and speaking.
An introductory survey of English literature from regions that used to be part of the British Empire, focusing on topics such as the representation of first contact, the influence of western education and the English language, the effects of colonial violence, displacement, migration, and exile. Also considered will be the specific aesthetic strategies that have come to be associated with this body of literature.
An exploration of the long, narrative poems that shape the epic tradition in Anglophone literature from Ancient Greece to Medieval England to Africa and the Caribbean. Crosslisted: English, Comparative Literature
An introduction to the trans-disciplinary field of Visual Studies, its methods of analysis and topical concerns. Traditional media and artifacts of art history and film theory, and also an examination of the ubiquity of images of all kinds, their systems of transmission, their points of consumption, and the very limits of visuality itself. Crosslisted: Visual Studies, Fine Arts, Comparative Literature
This course introduces the study of literature across geographical, linguistic, cultural, disciplinary, and chronological barriers. In order to do so, it explores an idea that transcends such barriers: the idea that literature may and perhaps even ought to blow one's mind. This idea, often called "the sublime" or "sublimity," raises a series of questions: —Why should a person have, or avoid, mind-blowing experiences? —How does literature compare to other cognitive challenges? —What is "literature" in the first place? —How is it possible to "compare" things, especially very different things, without doing injustice to one, the other, or all of them? The course materials consist mainly of texts and films by Jane Austen, Italo Calvino, Miguel de Cervantes, Aimé Césaire, Daniel Kwan/Daniel Scheinert, Michel de Montaigne, Raoul Peck, William Shakespeare, and Lina Wertmuller, among others.
This course focuses on the trajectories of time, space, and gender in the Latin American Jewish experience. We will concentrate mainly on representations of Jewishness but will also explore the historical and contemporary relationships between Jews and non-Jews in Latin America. Our materials will include literary texts, films, and essays, approaching the topic through history, literary criticism, and cultural studies. We will discuss identity, immigration, memory, assimilation, diaspora, and nationalism. We will also analyze transnational experiences, language use, and gender issues. This course is conducted in English (with the option of taking it for Spanish credit if students do the readings and writing in Spanish). Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): SPAN 102, placement, or instructor consent
An exploration of the Arthurian legend, from its earliest versions to most recent retellings. The tradition of Arthurian tales is complex and various, combining Celtic and Christian mythologies. Sometimes called the "matter of Britain" the Arthurian narrative has been critical in establishing national and ethnic identities ever since the Middle Ages. Medival notions of chivalry and courtly love also raise fascinating questions about the conflict between personal and private morality, and about the construction of both identity and gender.
Exploration of Latin American film. The course will discuss approximately one movie per week. The class will focus on the analysis of cinematic discourses as well as the films’ cultural and historic background. The course will also provide advanced language training with particular emphasis in refining oral and writing skills. This course is conducted in Spanish. Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 102, or placement, or instructor consent.
This course explores how contemporary writers and artists can help us re-learn the way we understand the ancient world. Each week students will examine a contemporary creative practice (e.g. creative writing, installation and multi-media art, music, photography, and performance) alongside a selection from ancient Greek literature or art. We will focus on both the works themselves and the practices of writers and artists—we’ll talk about how one gives us a way into the other. We will pay particular attention to how research, archives, and “interdisciplinarity” are an inherent part of the creative process. Our goal is twofold: to explore 21st century responses to the ancient world, and to examine how 21st century practices challenge and question notions of the “classics” and how we study them. Crosslisted: Classical Studies, Comparative Literature
This course will explore ideas of nation-building in regard to the transnational relations between Europe and Africa. We will discuss African and European experiences of nation-creation to distinguish between exclusionary and inclusionary visions of nation states, and focus in particular on literary texts from Great Britain, Germany, and France in comparison with literary texts from Nigeria, South Africa, and Algeria.
This course will focus on authors of the Caribbean and its diaspora, engaging fiction, theory, memoir, poetry and drama from the mid-twentieth century through the present. Core themes will include migration, class, colonialism, racial identity, gender and sexuality. Crosslisted: English, Africana Studies
This course combines language instruction with hands-on collaborative work of literary translation. Students enrolled will be involved in intensive studies of the Persian language, in particular its Dari variant. This will be coupled with course readings on the history and literature of the Persophone Hazara community in Afghanistan and translation practices using contemporary Persian Hazara poems collected from Hazara poets in exile across the world. COML 100 Intro to Persian is recommended. Crosslisted: RELG, COML.
This course proposes a bilingual reading of Miguel de Cervantes’ famous novel, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha. The adventures of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza force readers to probe the fraught and circular relationship between life and art. How do we know when something is true? What happens when fictions, dreams, or outright lies become confused with the truth? What role does art play in catalyzing this desire to transform the world? Course readings and discussion will be largely in Spanish with the option of reading the novel in translation and participating in course discussion in either Spanish, English or Spanglish. Please be advised: Students who wish to receive credit towards a SPAN major or minor must complete course readings and assignments in Spanish. This course fulfills the “pre 1898” requirement. Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature.
Students will learn about different Hispanic Caribbean migratory experiences through a selection of short stories, novels, memoirs, and essays, as well as in film, and performative production. The tales featured in this course will consider how gender and sexuality shape migration experiences. The texts that will be analyzed are mostly originally written in Spanish. Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): SPAN H102 or 200-300 level in the placement test
This course is an introduction to the history of French colonization through some popular films released, most of them, in the 80s and 90s (Camp de Thiaroye, Chocolat, Fort Saganne, Indochine, La victoire en chantant, Outremer, to name a few). We will begin with an overview of the history and critique of French imperialism, talk about economic, political, ideological and psychological foundations of the colonial enterprise, and then study the films. These materials offer complex and sometimes divergent views on colonization but from their confrontation should arise not only a general but also a critical understanding of colonization and its repercussions. Crosslisted: COML. Pre-requisite(s): First-year writing course
You must change your life. This line of poetry written by Rainer Maria Rilke has always had an enormous impact on readers. But can a poem actually change our lives or our thinking? What about other artforms like film or painting? These questions will be central to the journey undertaken in this course, which examines how philosophers, writers, and filmmakers have sought to give forms of meaning to the world through diverse kinds of expression. Crosslisted: COML. Lottery Preference: None
Where should the law come from, the individual or the state? How can you protest an unjust system, and how can an ancient story help you do it? Who owns a “Classic”? These are just a few questions that Sophocles’ Antigone has raised for philosophers and playwrights from the Enlightenment to today. We'll read several versions of the Antigone myth and explore this character’s enduring relevance to theories of gender, performance, world literature, and politics. Crosslisted: COML,PEAC.
This course meets twice a week and will either be taught in English with an extra-session in German or in German if all registered students speak German. It is the aim of this course to contextualize the #MeToo Movement in a transnational U.S. - European context. We will read a variety of texts and watch selected European/U.S. films that impacted the historical relationship between and representation of women in film. While this course focuses primarily on female directors, our discussion will also include the works of some male directors. Crosslisted: German, Comparative Literature
SF—science fiction, speculative fiction—is the primary allegorical mode of the contemporary world and permits reflections upon and critiques of the world we inhabit today. This course explores the explosion of the genre in the decades since the WWII and the advent of atomic weapons. We will read classics of post-apocalyptic fiction from the ‘50s and ‘60s before turning to stories that engage queer identities, Afrofuturism and African Futurism, and the global threat of climate change. Crosslisted: ENGL. Pre-requisite(s): None
This course explores the visual and poetic life of sports, ancient and modern. It brings together cultural criticism, visual analysis, and historical study to theorize the beauty of athletics. Concepts of the body, gender, race and performance, and tropes such as "for the love of the game," "feel for the game" and "poetry in motion" will organize our work on the sensory and aesthetic dimensions of sports. No prior expertise in classics, art or sports necessary. Crosslisted: COML,VIST.
What sets Quebecois society apart from the rest of Canada’s provinces? And what about the First Peoples, colonized twice over? How has French paradoxically become, for them, a tool of resistance against cultural erasure and colonization? The semester is divided into two parts: allochthonous communities and Indigenous communities. Themes explored through literary and cinematic works include: memory, loss of territory, community resilience, linguistic assimilation and cultural reclamation, identity issues, and postcolonial perspectives. Crosslisted: FREN, COML. Pre-requisite(s): FREN 102
This course investigates the clash between imperial artwork and the modern urban experiment that is a central dynamic of the Viennese experience. Drawing upon Viennese writers, artists, and intellectuals, course texts by Freud, Joseph Roth, Ingeborg Bachmann and others establish the discursive tradition of the city as artwork, while readings by Adolf Loos, Arthur Schnitzler, Veza Canetti bring into focus the modernist critique of aestheticization of the urban landscape. Crosslisted: COML.
Considers the construction of genders and sexualities in the medieval period. Crosslisted: English, Comparative Literature
Maud McInerney Division: Humanities
In this course students will watch short films that center queer identity and experience and put them in conversation with theory (Jack Halberstam, Jose Esteban Munoz, Sara Ahmed, Sianne Ngai, et. al) We will ask: what constitutes the canon? What are queer affects? What does the short form offer visual storytellers? Conversely, how might queerness reimagine the short form? All students will write two short papers and produce a final essay video project. Crosslisted: VIST,COML,GSST Pre-requisite(s): VIST 142 - Intro to Visual Studies
Have you ever wondered whether machines can think? This course explores the question by uncovering the contested origins of mechanical culture in early modernity. We will study the inventions of calculating and thinking machines by Descartes and Pascal, as well as their appropriations and critiques by Madame de Lafayette and La Fontaine. We will then use our findings to reassess: 1) democratic constitutions as self-adjusting mechanisms; mechanical dimensions of constitutional democracy, and 2) the impacts of artificially intelligent chatbots on democratic educations, including at liberal arts colleges such as Haverford. Readings (as well as those mentioned above) will include works by Alan Turing ("Computing Machinery and Intelligence"), Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), Michael Kammen (A Machine That Would Go of Itself), and others. The course will also feature experimental imitation games using Chatgpt. Taught in French. Crosslisted: FREN and COML Pre-requisite : 1 course FREN 2xx,The goal of this course is to put modern ideas about education into historical perspective by looking at some of their early-modern French counterparts. Will consider how certain subjects— inclusivity, civility, technology, poetry, reason, and passions, as well as persons of different social categories—developed into educational fixtures. The syllabus will centrally feature three authors whose works connect and collide with one another: Descartes, La Fontaine, and Rousseau. We will also read some recent pedagogical theories in order to see how they reflect, reform, or reject early-modern notions. In French. Crosslisted: FREN and COML Prerequisite(s): At least one 200-level course
An investigation of Western drama through close study of major representative plays from Aeschylus and Sophocles to Beckett and Shange. Differing notions of the dramatic event, from classical to modern and "post-modern" theaters, will be examined in relation to evolving ideas of character, consciousness, destiny, social structure, linguistic power, and theatricality itself. Emphasis placed on both thematic and structural problems of "play" and on the relation of the text to consequences of performance (e.g., acting, stagecraft, and audience response). Prerequisite: 1 course in English, Comparative Literature, or Theater Studies..
It’s no secret that media shape the world around us. Cell phones use GPS to help us navigate through traffic and platforms like Instagram connect us to millions of people. Have things always been this way? How did people react to new technologies like film or television in the past? How do modern media impact us now? For German credit there will be an extra 60-minute session in German. Crosslisted: GERM,COML,VIST.
Humans are animals and yet most people consider animals to be something other than humans. This course sets out to understand from a specifically Iberian perspective how humans have come to define themselves in relation to animals and vice versa how animals have come to be defined in relation to humans. Readings in this course will approach animals as both living and literary figures with an emphasis on the medieval and early modern periods as well as key theories in Animal Studies. Crosslisted: COML. Pre-requisite(s): A 200 level-course; or permission of the instructor Lottery Preference: Spanish majors; Spanish minors; Comparative Literature majors; LAILS concentrators
An interdisciplinary exploration of writing as a social institution, personal ritual, cultural artifact and a technology, this course theorizes the interface between tradition and innovation as a way to think about intertextuality using Jewish American fiction as a case study Crosslisted: COML
This course mobilizes the concept of “imperial intimacies” to theorize the rich historical, imaginative, and political horizons of imperialism. Taking our cue from Hazel Carby’s book of the same name—and from what Lisa Lowe has influentially described as The Intimacies of Four Continents—this interdisciplinary class will study literary works (novels, memoir, poetry, film) that bring into critical focus the lasting contradictions and critical challenges of colonial and postcolonial literature and culture. Crosslisted: English, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): Two 200-level English courses or instructor consent
This course is both a seminar on theory and method and a workshop on the deveopment of the senior thesis. It introduces students to a variety of critical approaches and their application, and assists them in developing conceptual frameworks for the senior thesis projects they are in the process of formulating. Prerequisite(s): Open to comparative literature senior majors and minors
Oral and written presentations of work in progress, culminating in a senior thesis and comprehensive oral examination. Prerequisite(s): students must be senior majors in Comparative Literature
Source: Haverford College's catalog, linked per course · table learning_unit · CourseShelf publish 59
