Peqod :: Classes - Columbia University Catalog of Classes

In the Culture Wars of the 1990s and again over the past few years, the charge has arisen that criticism has become politicized, and that this is a bad thing—a violation of the fundamental nature of criticism’s object, whether that object is seen as literature, aesthetics, or culture. This course will examine fundamental conceptualizations of criticism, the object of criticism, and the goal of criticism as well as conceptualizations of politics, which is at least as confusing and indeed potentially misleading a concept. If politics is defined in relation to the nation-state, for example, in what ways is political criticism thrown into question in the era of globalization, when politics (like the politics of climate change) arguably spills over the boundaries of the nation-state? Is there a "cosmo-politics," and if so what about the particular brand or brands of criticism thereof? What was and is the politics assumed by the still relatively recent sub-field of "post-colonial studies," and to what extent is it compatible with its emergent competitor, "world literature"? What roles has criticism played, and what role should it play, in relation to so-called "identity politics"? What was and is "critique," what relation does it have to politics, and what is the political meaning of so-called "postcritique"? The course will undertake to study some of the most important past stages of intersection between criticism and politics, including classical rhetoric and the art of governing (Aristotle) and the overlap and tensions between Romantic imagination and the theory of democracy, as in Raymond Williams's classic
Culture and Society
(1958), as well as contemporary instances and controversies. It will be structured around the Table of Contents of my
Criticism and Politics: A Polemical Introduction
(Stanford UP, 2022). Two weeks each will be devoted to: Chapter 1: the impact on criticism of the 1960s movements Chapter 2: the concepts of criticism and critique, including “faultfinding” (politics as purely negative critique) and Matthew Arnold’s concept of culture Chapter 3: the social mission of criticism, the argument that it has lost its sense of vocation, the concept of the organic intellectual (Gramsci, Edward Said, Stuart Hall) Chapter 4: the relations between aesthetics (in Kant) and governing, with special reference to Foucault Chapter 5: criticism as a claim to victimhood: a violation of criticism’s true mission or a token of its importance to d

Department: English and Comparative Literature
M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
Instructor: Sarah Cole
CULPA: 23 Info
4 points

Details

ENGL GU4943

PLATE TECTONICS

Department: Earth and Environmental Sciences
TR 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
Instructor: W R Buck
CULPA: 1 h-index: 43 Info
3 points

Details

EESC GU4947

Architecture in the Age of Progress

Architecture and Progress

Department: Art History and Archaeology
M 10:10 a.m.-noon
Instructor: Samuel Isenstadt
Info
4 points

Details

AHIS GU4949

ECONOMICS & PHILOSOPHY

Department: Philosophy
M 10:10 a.m.-noon
Instructor: Melissa S Fusco
CULPA: 1 Info
4 points

Details

ECPH GU4950

Beginner Medical Spanish

BEGINNER MEDICAL SPANISH

Department: Nursing
W 7 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
Instructor: Ana I Esteban Gonzalez
Info
1 points

Details

NURS N4950

Reality Television

Department: Film
W 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
Instructor: Racquel Gates
Info
3 points

Details

FILM GU4953

Intermediate Medical Spanish

INTERMEDIATE MEDICAL SPAN

Department: Nursing
Instructor: Ana I Esteban Gonzalez
Info
1 points

Details

NURS N4955

THE ASIAN AMERICAN NOVEL

What does it mean to write an Asian American novel? In this seminar, we will explore this question by examining a range of novels written by Asian American authors. I use the term “Asian American” to underscore its political importance as an identity and community formation that consolidated in the late 1960s. These novels we will read were published from the early twentieth century to as recently as earlier this calendar year. Some are bestsellers, prize winners, or have been deemed as pivotal to the development of Asian American literature and its history. Others are not. Some are well known authors; others are newer or emergent writers. Some feature characters who are Asian or Asian American. Others explicitly questions our assumptions and expectations regarding literary and cultural representations of Asians and Asian Americans. Across their work, these authors are nevertheless held together in part by their engagement with transnational relations in Asia and North America, including U.S. expansion across to the Pacific, migration and immigration legislation, labor exclusions and political resistance, and the changing dynamics of the United States in the wake of a so-called global Asian century. A guiding principle will inform our work: Asian American writers have long been interested in theorizing the novel as an artistic, literary, and political form. While the content of these novels will of course be important, we will also examine how Asian American writers have explicitly experimented with the
form
of the novel as a genre, including romance,
bildungsroman
, hybrid creative nonfiction, speculative fiction, postmodern palimpsest, YA novel, apocalyptic dystopia. To guide us in this goal, we will read scholars who have theorized the novel as a genre, we’ll also situate this work alongside the substantial history of Asian American literary scholarship on the novel.

Department: English and Comparative Literature
T 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
Instructor: Denise Cruz
CULPA: 8 h-index: 6 Info
4 points