Graduate Course Offerings for Fall 2025
Modern Languages and Linguistics
EALC-Chinese
#1
Graduate course number: CHI5505
Course Title: Readings in Chinese Literature
Linked to another course?: CHI4410
Instructor: Dr. Zhiying Qian
Time: T, Th 1:20-2:35 PM
Language of Class Discussion: Chinese
Reading knowledge required in target language: Yes
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
This course is designed for students who have completed advanced-level Chinese. Emphasizing authentic materials and real-world communication, it engages students with a variety of texts, including essays, news articles, and discussions on contemporary Chinese society and culture. Students will refine their grammatical accuracy, expand their vocabulary, and enhance their ability to express complex ideas in both spoken and written Chinese.
#2
Graduate course number: ASN 5825-01
Course Title: Graduate Seminar in East Asian Humanities
Linked to another course?: No
Instructor: Dr. (Aaron) Feng Lan
Time: M, W 3:05-4:20 pm
Language of Class Discussion: English
Reading knowledge required in target language: No
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
This graduate course in East Asian Humanities offers an in-depth exploration of key historical, religious, philosophical, and literary texts from Chinese and Japanese traditions. While rooted in specific cultural and historical contexts, these works address universal human questions that remain relevant today. The course follows a tripartite approach: close reading to understand key terms and concepts, contextual analysis of themes and arguments, and critical reflection on each text's historical significance and contemporary relevance. Through this structured engagement, students will develop a deeper appreciation of East Asian thought and its broader humanistic implications.
EALC-Japanese
#1
Course number: JPT 5525
Course Title: Contemporary Japanese Media Ecologies
Linked to another course?: JPT 4934
Instructor: Dr. Franz Prichard
Time: T, Th 1:20–2:35PM
Language of Class Discussion: English
Reading knowledge in required in target language: No
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
Study of contemporary Japan’s vibrant media cultures through major works of literature, film, anime, manga and more. The course will survey the entangled transformations of Japan’s urban and media ecologies and attend to the multi-sensorial vocabularies of embodiment, environment, and aesthetic experience found in significant media texts and media studies discourses. Students will develop competence working with interdisciplinary and transnational approaches to the study of contemporary Japan’s media cultures through weekly discussions, midterm and final writing assignments, as well as opportunities for creative engagements with the material.
#2
Graduate course number: JPN 5900
Course Title: Advanced Japanese Conversation
Linked to another course?: JPN 4931
Instructor: Brudenell
Time: T, Th 11:35–12:50
Language of Class Discussion: Japanese
Reading knowledge in required in target language: Yes
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes (Prerequisite: JPN 3202, or with instructor permission.)
Course Description:
This course is designed to enhance students’ ability to engage in more complex conversations on a wide range of topics, beyond the intermediate level (i.e., JPN3240L Conversational Japanese). Students will practice expressing opinions, develop advanced speaking and listening skills, learn new vocabulary and expressions, improve pronunciation and intonation, and understand the Japanese culture and customs of Japanese communication through real-time discussions, interactions, presentations, and vlog productions.
French
#1
Graduate course number: FRW 5567
Course title: Introduction to Global French Studies
Linked to another course?: No
Instructor: Murray-Roman
Time: T, Th 1:20-2:35 pm
Language of Class Discussion: English
Reading knowledge required in target language: Yes
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course description:
This course introduces first- and second-year graduate students in French to the methodologies, skills, and strategies that will prepare them to succeed academically in their field of scholarly expertise. It will orient graduate students’ interests to the program faculty’s research by crossing spatial and temporal boundaries between areas of expertise to explore the “interconnect[ions] of cultural difference within and beyond the nation,” as Suleiman and Macdonald write in their introduction to “French Global: A New Approach to Literary History.” Rather than organize itself around the traditional spatial and temporal boundaries that have divided Francophone from French Studies and historical periodization's from each other, the course will consider every area and era of the literary and cultural production of the French-speaking world in relation. Additionally, students will learn about the traditional organization of fields by examining conference calls for papers and job ads that are organized around historical eras and spatial areas of the world, as well as concepts and genres. This course critically explores how a Global French approach capacitates us to move nimbly among these field-based specificities and prepares us for the currently ongoing shifts within French Studies.
#2
Graduate course number: FRW 5586 /FRW4420
Course Title: Gender and Genre in Medieval and Renaissance French Literature
Linked to another course?: Yes
Instructor: Leushuis
Time: T, Th 11:35-12:50
Language of Class Discussion: French
Reading knowledge in required in target language: Yes
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments:
Course Description:
Departing from a socio-historical context, this course will examine how literary genre shapes representations of and attitudes toward gender in the French Middle Ages and Renaissance. How do specific literary forms, such as love poetry, humanist dialogue, and novella and storytelling define, question, idealize, parody, glorify, vilify, etc., gender categories as well the interactions between the sexes as they are variously defined by desire, affect, love, friendship, marriage, and religious and spiritual practices? We will focus not only on how the various genres treat these issues, but also on how authors used literary form to mimetically convey them to the spheres of thought and action of their readers.
#3
Graduate course number: FRW5765/FRW4761
Course Title: (Post)Colonial Migration
Linked to another course?: Yes
Instructor: Bumatay
Time: W 3:05-6:05 pm
Language of Class Discussion: French
Reading knowledge in required in target language: Yes
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
In the francophone context, since the early 20th century, selected people from the French colonies traveled to the métropole to attend French schools. With World Wars I and II, colonial soldiers traveled to Europe to defend their supposed motherland and during the interwar period, many soldiers remained and interacted with students and artists from other parts of the French empire and the world. After World War II, during les Trentes Glorieuses, France encouraged large numbers of workers, mainly from Algeria, the French Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa, to help rebuild and modernize the nation. More recently, many people fleeing oppressive contexts or seeking better economic opportunities have made the difficult decision to leave their homes. In this course we will consider how writers, filmmakers, and artists represent the complexities of migration including the shifts in discourse about and around migration in the French-speaking world in the 20th and 21st centuries. Taught in French and cross-listed with a graduate section.
German
#1
Graduate course number: GEW5596
Course Title: German Romanticism
Linked to another course?: GEW4592
Instructor: C. Weber
Time: M, W 3:05-4:20
Language of Class Discussion: English
Reading knowledge in required in target language: No
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
Romanticism is a term commonly used to characterize the period between 1770 and 1830 in whole Europe, but its origins are German. During these revolutionary years, artistic creativity and scientific experimentation literally exploded and produced some of the greatest works that ushered in a new era and defined our modern age: Kant’s Critique of Judgment and Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Goethe’s Faust, Grimm’s fairy and Hoffmann’s fantastic tales, Beethoven’s symphonies and Schubert’s songs, the great paintings by Caspar David Friedrich that are presently exhibited in a great retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
Additional Comments: Like “romanticism” itself, this course – taught in English – is truly interdisciplinary and welcomes interested students from all languages and disciplines.
#2
Graduate course number: GEW5597
Course Title: Stud. In Auth/Theme (Masculinities)
Linked to another course?: GEW4591
Instructor: D. Weber
Time: T, Th 4:50-6:05
Language of Class Discussion: German
Reading knowledge in required in target language: Yes
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
“Mann” or a “Mensch”? Man or human? How is masculinity defined? How many masculinities are there? And what can we learn from German cultural artifacts about the cultural parameters of masculinity in its texts, films, and media? In this course, students engage with masterpieces of German literature and film and theoretical writings and analytical methods from masculinity studies. Questions that will guide our conversations are, among others: how has masculinity been defined across time? What are its continuities and disruptions, and what aspects of gender trouble does it address?
Italian
#1
Graduate course number: ITW5445r
Course Title: 18th- and 19th-Century Literature
Linked to another course?: ITW4440r
Instructor: Zanini Cordi
Time: M 16:50-19:40
Language of Class Discussion: Italian and English
Reading knowledge in required in target language: No
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
The eighteenth-century novelist and playwright Pietro Chiari defined this period “The century of Women” to indicate the relevance of women in the public sphere, be it in physical presence or as topic of discussion. Enlightenment culture debates the advantages and disadvantages of women’s education and tries to define their role while the booming of print culture creates a space for female readership and grants them a voice as writers. In the gatherings within the semi-public space of the salotto (salon) Italian women find fertile ground to foster their education, shape their identity and contribute in unique ways to the nation-building effort. In this course, we will learn about the history and culture of the Italian 18th century through the lens of Social Network Theory. We will explore: The means and modes of circulation of the scientific, literary, and artistic culture of the Italian Enlightenment; The role of fashion and manners in the construction of self; The roles of the protagonists of the major Italian “salotti dicultura” of the 18th and 19th century; The works (literary, artistic, musical) that defined that culture and spurred conversation and debates in the salons; Contemporary novels and films that aim at reconstructing the story of the exceptional women involved in this culture.
#2
Graduate course number: ITW5485
Course Title: 20th Century Literature: The Boom Years
Linked to another course?: ITW4480
Instructor: Pietralunga
Time: T, Th 16:50-18:05
Language of Class Discussion: Italian
Reading knowledge in required in target language: Yes
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
Through the selection of representative literary, cinematic, and cultural works, this course examines the relationship between the Italian intellectuals and the industrial and technological changes in Italy during the so-called economic "miracle," or “boom” years, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It is during this time that the Italian society begins to exhibit many of the general characteristics of a modern Western industrial society. Consumerism becomes a prominent subject in these years. Within this context, we will discuss the effects of mass culture on "high culture." We will also explore how literature, film, and other cultural products penetrate the reality of "industry" and how to redefine the human project in the face of the proliferation of "industrial" objectives. Additionally, we will consider such questions as the changing roles of women, the transformation of the city, the effects of emigration on society and culture, the impact of technology and industry on language, the reaction, resistance, and changes in Italians’ eating habits and musical taste, the question of Italian style and the role of design, the best seller “di qualità” and the "Americanization" of Italian culture.
Linguistics
#1
Graduate course number: LIN5744
Course Title: Introduction to Language, Language Learning, and Language Instruction
Linked to another course?: No
Instructor: Patience
Time: T, Th 3:05-4:20 pm
Language of Class Discussion: English
Reading knowledge in required in target language:
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes (1st year MLL students)
Course Description:
The overall goal of this course is to give all incoming language instructors in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics an overview of the basics of language, the major processes of language acquisition, and the principles underlying communicative approaches to second language instruction (as informed by research and theory in second language acquisition).
#2
Graduate course number: LIN 5703
Course Title: Psycholinguistics I: Sentence Processing
Linked to another course?: No
Instructor: Muntendam
Time: T, Th 9:45-11:00 am
Language of Class Discussion: English
Reading knowledge in required in target language:
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
This seminar examines the psycholinguistics of sentence processing. We will discuss the main experimental findings in sentence processing, experimental methods (including behavioral tasks, eye-tracking and ERP), and models of sentence processing. We will read studies on different languages, and different types of bilinguals (including L2 learners and heritage speakers) as well as monolinguals. (The minimum requirement for the M.A. exam in psycholinguistics is this course or LIN 5695. Psycholinguistics II: Lexical Processing)
#3
Graduate course number: LIN 5510
Course Title: Transformational Grammar
Linked to another course?: No
Instructor: Reglero
Time:T, Th 1:20-2:35 pm
Language of Class Discussion: English
Reading knowledge in required in target language:
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
This course is an introduction to syntax, that is, the study of the structure of sentences. In this course, we will approach syntax from the perspective of generative /transformational grammar and we will focus on the concepts and principles which have been of central significance in the recent development of syntactic theory, such as Phrase Structure grammar, X’-schema, θ-Theory, Government, Case, Transformations and Binding Theory.
Slavic
#1
Graduate course number: RUS5845
Course Title: History of the Ukrainian and Russian Languages
Linked to another course?: RUS4840
Instructor: Romanchuk
Time: T, Th 9:45AM - 11:00AM
Language of Class Discussion: English
Reading knowledge in required in target language: Yes (any Slavic language or Greek)
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes, with knowledge of a Slavic language or Greek
Course Description:
This course is about how the Ukrainian and Russian languages evolved overtime. How do they differ from other Indo-European and Slavic languages? What are the historical causes of their irregularities and variants? This course also teaches you to read Old Russian and Church Slavic.
#2
Graduate course number: RUW5930.1
Course Title: Special Topics: Solzhenitsyn and Underground Literature
Linked to another course?: RUS4930.1
Instructor: Efimov
Time: Th 4:50PM - 7:50PM
Language of Class Discussion: English
Reading knowledge in required in target language:
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
The course investigates the contemporary significance of Russian dissident writings in the battle waged by the Soviet state against its own people and the novels of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn--a labor camp survivor and Nobel prize winner –which changed common Soviet citizens’ perception of the regime.
#3
Graduate course number: RUW5930.2
Course Title: Special Topics: Nabokov
Linked to another course?: RUS4930.2
Instructor: Wakamiya
Time: W 4:50PM - 7:50PM
Language of Class Discussion: English with tutorial in Russian
Reading knowledge in required in target language: No
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
The Russian-American novelist, poet, screenwriter, translator, and lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) is one of the most remarkable literary figures of the twentieth century.
#4
Graduate course number: RUS 5415
Course Title: Graduate Russian Conversation and Composition
Linked to another course?: RUS 4410
Instructor: Efimov
Time: T, Th 1.20-2.35
Language of Class Discussion: Russian
Reading knowledge in required in target language: Yes
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes, with knowledge of Russian
Course Description:
The course explores subtle points of advanced Russian grammar and journalist style in Russian mass media.
Spanish
#1
Graduate course number: SPN 5060
Course Title: Graduate Reading Knowledge in Spanish
Linked to another course?: No
Instructor: Gutiérrez
Time: M, W, F 9:20-10:10
Language of Class Discussion: English/Spanish
Reading knowledge in required in target language: No
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
This course develops reading knowledge for graduate students who are seeking to take the Graduate Reading Knowledge in Spanish Exam.
Additional comments: Not open to graduate students in Spanish
#2
Graduate course number: SPW5357
Course Title: Contemporary Spanish-American Poetry
Linked to another course?: SPW4930r
Instructor: Galeano
Time: M 4:50-7:20
Language of Class Discussion: Spanish
Reading knowledge in required in target language: Yes
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
This course is on Latin American poetry of the 20th and 21st centuries and studies the main poetic voices of Latin America in the context of the evolution of artistic movements, and culture in the region.
#3
Graduate course number: SPW 5496
Course Title: Spanish-American Women Writers
Linked to another course?: SPW4491
Instructor: Poey
Time: W 4:50-7:20
Language of Class Discussion: Spanish
Reading knowledge in required in target language: Yes
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
This course studies Spanish-American women writers, varying from year to year, focusing on prose fiction, non-fiction and/or drama. Supplementary readings from critical and theoretical works.
#4
Graduate course number: SPW 6934
Course Title: Special Topics: Federico García Lorca and His Cultural Afterlives
Linked to another course?: SPW4190
Instructor: Álvarez
Time: T, Th 1:20-2:35
Language of Class Discussion: Spanish
Reading knowledge in required in target language: Yes
Open to graduate students from other MLL programs/departments: Yes
Course Description:
This course explores the work of Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) and the global reception of his writing across historical time, cultural domains, and national traditions. The course will be taught and discussed in Spanish, although some of the reading materials might be in English.