The primary goal of the workshop is to introduce students to the practice and theory of literary translation, and to show how texts travel across cultural borders. At the same time, methodologies derived from the art and craft of translation can be used to revitalize the dialogue with the literary text and provide students with new ways of interpreting literary and humanistic texts. Focus is on the actual process of translating: what the translator does and why. Special attention is paid to the structural differences between English and other languages; to the significance of tone and style; to the author's "voice" and the translator's "ear"; to the ongoing problems of fidelity, literalness, freedom, imitation, and analogy; and, finally, to what, if anything, is "betrayed" in this process.

Students will study the various approaches to the history, theory, and criticism of literary and humanistic translation. Topics of discussion may include the translator’s working methods, interviews with translators, multiple translations, the changing nature of interpretive approaches, theoretical models of translation, and criteria for the evaluation of translations.

The Advanced Translation Workshop is designed for students with a higher language ability who define translation projects of a scope and quality that could be considered for publication. In general, students choose contemporary international authors who have not been published in English. Students will also explore strategies for reviewing translations.

By working closely with one or more faculty members, students will work toward an M.A. Portfolio or Ph.D. dissertation based on a translation project. Special topics can also include courses on specific subject matters related to the field of translation studies.

This seminar will introduce students to the scene of contemporary international writers, whose works will be read in English translation. The majority of the writers will be chosen from the literary scene of Latin America and Europe. A general background for the development of contemporary literature from the middle of the 19th century to the present will be presented by the instructor at the beginning of the seminar. Seminar sessions will be dedicated to close readings of individual texts from poetic, fictional, and dramatic works.

This course will explore the development of Latin American political, social, and cultural thought through the careful reading of paradigmatic texts by major Latin American writers and thinkers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Students will focus on the ways in which the texts we read both characterize the Latin American past and propose projects for its future and question the historical and ideological implications of these constructions.

This course is an introduction to twentieth-century Chinese literature with a focus on fiction. It will cover the rise of modern Chinese literature, major historical periods, and selected works of major writers. Part of the focus will be on the impact of Western literature and culture upon the making of modern Chinese literature and society. The major aims of the course include (1) to acquaint students with major phases of modern Chinese literaturel; (2) to read chosen masterpieces of representative writers in relation to political and social changes; and (3) to relate the rise and development of modern Chinese literature to Western literature and world literature. All readings are in English and no prior knowledge of Chinese language, literature, and culture is required.

This seminar introduces students to basic concepts of the arts and humanities. Students learn how linkages between the various forms of verbal, visual, and musical texts can be established in a technological age. Students will acquire techniques to facilitate interpretive approaches to texts of various kinds and will be challenged to formulate questions that address current problems in the humanities. In order to facilitate the interpretation of scholarly and artistic texts, the instructor will introduce students to the methodologies derived from the art and craft of translation, since all acts of reading and communication are acts of translation. Students are encouraged to develop non-linear or associative thinking, which can be promoted through techniques associated with translation. The ultimate goal of the course is to provide students with practical and theoretical models that will assist them to delineate and implement research projects of an interdisciplinary nature.

In this class, we will examine how the technological change from the analog to the digital affects the ability to produce and disseminate knowledge and how networked media are changing society. Once powerful institutions seem to be losing relevance by the day (consider how quickly Wikipedia has trumped Britannica). At the same time we should not too quickly view these new networked digital spaces as utopian democracies, for there are still substantial rhetorical and cultural forces at work. While focusing on the practice of writing (blog, wikis), we will at the same time question what it means to "write" (should podcasts, Youtube, and Twitter count as writing?). Central to our examination will be how technology, rhetoric, and ethics shape our use of networked communication. (No prior technical skills required.)

Students will engage in the composition of a series of completed short stories--a minimum of four in number--plus some exercises in common. They will share and critique one another's work with an eye toward effectiveness and originality. Students will read and analyze a series of short stories in common. Students should be prepared to write more or less constantly throughout the semester and at an accelerated level of intensity. Considerable distribution of original work will be required.

Creative nonfiction is not a new form of writing, but it is a newly defined genre that is receiving favorable attention in literary circles. Creative nonfiction, as it is currently defined, may take the form of stories, essays, memoirs, newspaper columns, and magazine and journal articles. Writers of creative nonfiction often combine the skills of the journalist, the essayist, and the fiction writer and utilize reportage, reflection, research, and techniques commonly used in fiction writing to turn their experiences, knowledge, and observations into artful stories, essays, and articles that are both truthful and artful, that both inform and entertain readers. Students will produce three original nonfiction pieces, will participate in written and oral critiques of other students' work, and will also read and analyze nonfiction works by well-known writers.

This course will examine the development of a body of modern thought in the United States during a particularly fruitful period: the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The 1890s have long been seen as a transitional era in which Victorian modes of political, religious, and social thought were challenged by a host of new approaches to reality that are often described as "modern." The historian and philosopher Morton White dubbed the new pragmatism, cultural organicism, and historicism of the era a "revolt against formalism" -- a rejection of abstract systems of thought and deductive logic in favor of concrete experience, particularity, and contingency. The focus in this course will be on philosophy and social thought, and topics will include pragmatism, the rise of sociology, Darwinism, religion and secularism, and cultural criticism.