Fall Words Sections

Morning Sections

MWF 11:30am-12:30pm

Identity and Belonging - {Added 7/2}

Brittney Peake, Inst in Academic English Studies

• Core 120-01 - MWF 11:30am-12:30pm

In this course, we will explore the complexity of identity and how authenticity and intentionality help cultivate belonging. We will adopt a systems approach, focusing on the interconnections between identity and social position, as well as navigating belonging in relation to place and practices of true belonging.

We will immerse ourselves in various works of literature- including a memoir, short stories, and poetry- that connect to the course themes, along with essays and books focused on personal development and community empowerment. Longer works will include Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart: A Memoir, Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s Sabrina & Corina, and Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone. We will also engage with shorter pieces by Beverly Daniel Tatum, David Sedaris, Kai Chang Thom, and Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Throughout the course, you will be encouraged to reflect on your own identities and your processes for cultivating belonging both within yourself and in your relationships with others.

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Knowledge, Power, Responsibility

Catherine Sprecher Loverti, Visiting Prof of World Languages & Literature - German

• Core 120-02- MWF 11:30am-12:30pm

In public discourse, you often hear the expression ‘Knowledge is Power.’ Yet what does this really mean? What is knowledge, and what is its relation to power? And what are the ethical implications of this power for individuals, groups, and society at large? In this course, we will look at different forms of knowledge and how writers, film-makers, and other artists envision power, as well as the responsibility that comes with it. In some works, knowledge as power can lead to the liberation of individuals and whole groups, especially if that knowledge is forbidden (examples include Plato, Frederick Douglass, Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo, The Matrix, Black Panther). In other works, knowledge leads to a different form of power, namely a power that reaches beyond its creators and threatens to destroy them (examples include Frankenstein, The Sandman, Dr. Strangelove, Blade Runner, Oppenheimer). Throughout the semester, we will explore how knowledge leads to power, and how the individual is faced with the responsibility resulting from this power. We will investigate these ideas by studying works ranging from the Bible to Barbie.

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MWF 1:50-2:50pm Sections

(Main time)

Taking Flight:  Germany and Migration  — {added 8/13}

Katja Altpeter-Jones, Assoc Prof of German

• Core 120-15 - MWF 1:50-2:50pm

In this course, we will study films, short stories, and novels as well as autobiographical, historical and theoretical writings that examine the topic of migration, of choosing or being forced to leave home.

While we will focus on materials from the German speaking world (all in English translation), our readings, discussions and explorations allow us to examine the topic of migration in a way that is broadly and globally applicable. This topic also lends itself to personal exploration as most of us have some personal experience with what it feels like to take flight, to be in transit, to leave home, or to lose a feeling of belonging.

Please Note:  Students taking this course should be prepared to grapple with material that can be disturbing.

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Death and the Afterlife (Pod)

Andrew Bernstein, Prof of History

Susanna Morrill, Assoc Prof of Religious Studies

• Core 120-03 – MWF 1:50-2:50pm (Bernstein)
• Core 120-04 – MWF 1:50-2:50pm (Morrill)

Death is universal, but how people experience and imagine it is not. In this course we will explore how humans from a wide range of times and places have dealt with death and its consequences. Topics include funeral rituals, ghosts, realms of the dead, the aesthetics of death, and the quest for immortality. Readings include ancient texts such as The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Bhagavad Gita as well as more recent works like Jessica Mitford’s The American Way of Death and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. We will also hear from a funeral director, a clergy person, and the founder of End of Life Oregon about their experiences working with both the dying and the bereaved. Students taking this course should be prepared to grapple with material that can be disturbing.

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The Greatest American Novels: 2014-2023

Rachel Cole, Assoc Prof of English

• Core 120-10- MWF 1:50-2:50pm

Each November, five distinguished judges choose one novel or story collection as the winner of that year’s National Book Award for Fiction. Each panel of judges is free to set its own criteria for the award, and as such the list of winners through the years represents an evolving sense of what can and should count as the very best of American literature. In this course, we will read and study some of the novels that have won the National Book Award over the last ten years. (As well as one that was awarded the Booker Prize.) As we read, we will try to answer three questions: What stories and characters, what questions and concerns, occupy the “best” American literature today? How consistent are these novels in their interests and preoccupations—do they converge in their understandings of what it means to be American in the second-third decades of the twenty-first century? Finally, to what extent do each of us recognize their questions and concerns as our own? Do these, publicly celebrated novels represent our own Americas—our cultures, our present moments, our worries and joys?

Texts: Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad (2016); George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo (2017); Sigrid Nunez, The Friend (2018); Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown (2020); and Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch (2023).

Note: Several of these texts engage difficult topics, including racial violence, sexual violence, and suicide. They have graphic descriptions of violent acts or experiences and disturbing accounts of the physical and emotional aftermath. If you find reading about and discussing such topics traumatic, this might not be the section for you. If you have any questions or would like to talk before selecting this section, please let me know—I would be happy to chat over email or on Zoom.

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The Power of Song: Music and Social Critique — {added 8/12}

John K. Cox, Visiting Prof of Music

• Core 120-14 - MWF 1:50-2:50pm

This course examines music as a medium for social critique, focusing on the combination of sound and lyrics to confront issues of injustice, identity, and resistance. Using examples from folk, popular, jazz, rock, punk, and hip-hop students will explore how these genres have reflected and shaped political and cultural movements and given voice to their respective communities. Topics include protest and resistance, censorship, race, class, gender, and the role of music in social change. Students will be expected to critically analyze, discuss, and write about the meaning and context of song lyrics. As a final project, students will also be asked to compose song lyrics in response to a current or past social issue.

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This American Language

Keith Dede, Prof of Chinese

• Core 120-12 - MWF 1:50-2:50pm

From the texts, emails, and essays we read and write to the lunch chats, lectures and dorm-room deep-dives we participate in, we spend our days swimming in language. What patterns can be discerned in this ocean of communication, and what do those patterns say about our country, our community and ourselves? In this class we will turn a scientific eye to language itself, asking such questions as, “What influences our language choices?”, “What judgments do we make about language use?”, and, “Why do my parents put … in their texts?!”. We will discuss such issues as linguistic diversity, linguistic discrimination, language endangerment and language revitalization. Through essays (such as Rosina Lippi-Green’s “Language Ideology and Language Prejudice”), films (such as, “The Linguists”), novels (“James”), and podcasts (“Vocal Fry”), we will explore the rich diversity of language in North America with the aim of understanding some of the many issues with which it is entangled.

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Blake and Biodiversity

Kurt Fosso, Prof of English

• Core 120-08 - MWF 1:50-2:50pm

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright”! Although relatively unknown in his own era, the English poet, painter, engraver, and visionary artist William Blake (1757-1827) created brilliant works whose influence has stretched to Bob Dylan, Philip Pullman, Patti Smith, and the Wachowskis, and from poetry and painting to graphic design, book arts, music, and philosophy. Blake believed true liberation could only be gained by unlocking the “mind-forg’d manacles” of perception and being. In this pursuit he was also a profoundly ecological visionary, proclaiming “Everything that lives is Holy” and depicting biodiverse environments throughout his art, from the Songs of Innocence and of Experience to his satirical Marriage of Heaven and Hell and later Auguries of Innocence, with its famous opening line, “To see a World in a Grain of Sand.” We’ll focus on these and other of Blake’s amazing poems and designs, and especially on how they illuminate our complicated place in a biodiverse and sublime world.

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Black Studies: Introduction and Critique

JM Fritzman, Assoc Prof of Philosophy

• Core 120-06- MWF 1:50-2:50pm

This section of Words will introduce us to Black Studies. We will learn what it is. And we will discover its strengths, limitations, and potentials.

Text: Jacqueline Bobo, Cynthia Hudley, and Claudine Michel, eds., The Black Studies Reader.

Note: You must be prepared to engage sympathetically and critically with material that will be difficult and challenging. And you must recognize that while our positionalities might be where we begin, they do not determine where we go or who we become. If you have questions or concerns about this section, please email me, fritzman@lclark.edu

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The Stories That Bind Us

Kristin Fujie, Assoc Prof of English

• Core 120-11 - MWF 1:50-2:50pm

Society is held together by our need; we bind it together with legend, myth, coercion, fearing that without it we will be hurled into that void, within which, like the earth before the Word was spoken, the foundations of society are hidden. ~James Baldwin

They say a song can be a bridge, Ma. But I say it’s also the ground we stand on. And maybe we sing to keep ourselves from falling. Maybe we sing to keep ourselves. ~Ocean Vuong

In this course we will immerse ourselves in works of literature (novels, short stories, personal essays) that explore how stories bind us. In its most literal sense, to bind means to tie up, but also to tie together (e.g. binding a book); it can furthermore mean to bandage a wound or place under obligation. That stories can restrain and imprison but also connect, unite, and heal creates a paradox that lies at the heart of this class and the texts we’ll encounter. I think you’ll find our writers at once captivating and highly self-reflexive; they compel us to get caught up in their stories, but also to step back and reflect on how those stories work—how the narratives that their characters tell about themselves and each other bind them (and us!) in conflicted, transformative, and sometimes heart-breaking ways. Longer works include Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous , Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go , and/or Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me . We will also read shorter works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, James Baldwin, Leslie Marmon Silko, Maxine Hong Kingston, and/or Jhumpa Lahiri. I want students to know in advance that course readings could include difficult material related to domestic violence, sexual assault, racism, mental illness, and addiction. You are warmly encouraged to reach out to me with questions.

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Protest, Politics, & Putin

Leah Gilbert, Assoc Prof of Political Science

• Core 120-05 – MWF 1:50-2:50pm

Vladimir Putin has dominated Russian politics for decades. Constitutional amendments passed in 2020 even make him eligible to serve as Russia’s president until 2036. Despite this apparent stability, Russia’s politics are anything but static, as the political, economic, and social status quo has been and continues to be contested. This course delves into this contested space by examining the sources of Putin’s popularity, the role of protests in Russia’s political system, and how and when protests occur and either undermine or support Putin’s authority. The topics will primarily be investigated by drawing on works from the social sciences (political science and sociology), but students will also be exposed to various materials from novels, news media, and films. At the conclusion of the course, students will have a solid understanding of the dynamic nature of Russia’s political regime and how this impacts Russia’s relations with the world.

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Renaissance Wordplay — {added June 26th, changed Aug 18th}

Hannah Crummé, Head of Watzek Library Special Collections and College Archivist

• Core 120-13 – MWF 1:50-2:50pm

What makes something clever? or charming? or hilarious? Why are some lyrics so good? And others unmemorable? The English Renaissance had nearly formulaic answers to these questions, using different stylistic techniques - borrowed from classical sources - to enhance their writing. This course will seek to understand the aesthetic preferences that underpin some of the most influential works of English literature that still have rhetorical power in English to this day. In so doing, we will decode the jokes, bon mots, and pithy sayings that have become commonplace, but are how writers like Shakespeare, Wroth, Milton, Donne, and Jonson won their place in history. The knowledge gained in this class will allow students to decode works of English literature throughout their lives.

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Suspense / Horror / Paranoia

Michael Mirabile, Asst Prof w/Term of English

• Core 120-09 – MWF 1:50-2:50pm

This course will be devoted to examining varieties of fear from a number of distinct but related perspectives: cultural, psychological, historical, and social. Special attention is given to how these fears correspond to genre categories in literature and film: namely, the thriller, the Gothic or horror story, and the conspiratorial narrative (often cited as an example of a general “paranoid style”). Does the mechanism of suspense change over time? Do objects of horror also change? Why do collective expressions of suspicion and paranoia undergo periodic renewals, such as during the Cold War era in the United States? Our goal in this course will be to look closely at shifts in perspective and at the contexts within which are found powerful inducements to anxiety. Our primary materials for analysis and discussion will be twentieth-century films and works of literature. Authors may include Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier, and Richard Matheson. Film directors may include David Cronenberg, Jordan Peele, Steven Spielberg, and Ridley Scott.

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(Ir)realities

Matthieu Raillard, Assoc Prof of Hispanic Studies

• Core 120-07 - MWF 1:50-2:50pm

What is real? Is reality defined as something you can touch, see, or hear? Is it something that others confirm is real? Are you certain that there is a real world outside of your own perception? Are dreams any less real than the waking world? Are you sure that you exist?

In this course, we will grapple with these ageless, infuriating, perplexing, and fascinating questions through the works of various authors, artists and filmmakers who all shared the same doubts and wonder as to the nature of reality. Coming from a wide range of cultures, backgrounds, and ethnicities, these thinkers and visionaries took on the challenge of figuring out what is “real” in a similarly wide array of styles, genres, and media. We’ll dive into short stories, novels, plays, films and comics that engage with the nature of reality. What can we learn from them?