POL 290 - Seminar in Politics, Literature and the Arts

FDR: SS2
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: Set by instructor, vary with topic.In this course, we study how literature, film, and other media are used to examine political themes and how they are used to achieve political ends. We address how politics shapes the arts and how the arts shape politics. The topic is announced at registration. May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different. Only one such seminar may be counted towards the politics major.

Topic for Winter 2011:

POL 290: Seminar in Politics, Literature and the Arts (3) No prerequisites.What do diverse literary and cinematic representations of cowboys, samurai, caudillos, and politicians say about the character of leaders, the relationship between individual and society, and the nature of political life? Do novelists, poets, directors, and story tellers exercise their individual creativity for or against politics? Do proliferating stories of vampires (of creatures situated between life and death, being and non-being) tell a political allegory about belonging, ostracism, this-world and other-worldly transcendence? Five scholars, authors, and poets (from across the US and Argentina) lead seminars and lectures: on poetry written in times of political crises and war, the novels and stories Jorge Luis Borges, Robert Penn Warren, Bram Stoker, the films of John Ford and Akira Kurosawa, among additional popular culture artifacts. To weekly Friday seminars, guests also offer a Thursday evening lecture open to the public and required of students enrolled in the course (Jan. 27, Feb. 10, Mar. 10, Mar .17, and Mar. 31). (SS2) Velásquez.