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Overview of ancient Egyptian pasts, from predynastic times to Greco-Roman rule, roughly 3000 BCE to 30 BCE. Attention to archaeological sites and artifacts; workings of society; and cultural productions, both artistic and literary.

(English majors and others taking 5 units, register for 143.) African American literature from its earliest manifestations in the spirituals, trickster tales, and slave narratives to recent developments such as black feminist theory, postmodern fiction, and hip hop lyricism. We will engage some of the defining debates and phenomena within African American cultural history, including the status of realist aesthetics in black writing; the contested role of literature in black political struggle; the question of diaspora; the problem of intra-racial racism; and the emergence of black internationalism. Attuned to the invariably hybrid nature of this tradition, we will also devote attention to the discourse of the Enlightenment, modernist aesthetics, and the role of Marxism in black political and literary history.

Preference to sophomores. The inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president in May 1994 marked the end of an era and a way of life for S. Africa. The changes have been dramatic, yet the legacies of racism and inequality persist. Focus: overlapping and sharply contested transitions. Who advocates and opposes change? Why? What are their historical and social roots and strategies? How do people reconstruct their society? Historical and current sources, including films, novels, and the Internet.

Preference to freshmen. The everyday lives of African American women in 19th- and 20th-century America in comparative context of histories of European, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American women. Primary sources including personal journals, memoirs, music, literature, and film, and historical texts. Topics include slavery and emancipation, labor and leisure, consumer culture, social activism, changing gender roles, and the politics of sexuality.

Interdisciplinary. Central themes in African American culture and history related to race as a definitive American phenomenon. African survivals and interpretations of slavery in the New World, contrasting interpretations of the Black family, African American literature, and art. Possible readings: Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Alice Walker, and bell hooks. Focus may vary each year. This course is a WIM course.

Examination of the explosion of African American artistic expression during 1920s and 30s New York known as the Harlem Renaissance. Amiri Baraka once referred to the Renaissance as a kind of ¿vicious Modernism,¿ as a ¿BangClash,¿ that impacted and was impacted by political, cultural and aesthetic changes not only in the U.S. but Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. Focus on the literature, graphic arts, and the music of the era in this global context.

How literary works outside the realm of western culture struggle with questions such as identity, minority, and the issue of the other. How the Arab is viewed in Hebrew literature and how the Jew is viewed in Arabic literature. Historical, political, and sociological forces that have contributed to the shaping of the writer's views. Arab and Jewish (Israeli) culture.

The role of biblical myths in shaping Israeli identity and the development of a secular Hebrew literature. Readings include modern Hebrew poems and novels which offer new meanings to the stories of Genesis, Exodus, David, and the Song of Songs and make them relevant to the context of modern and postmodern Israeli culture. Readings in Hebrew and English. Prerequisite: intermediate Hebrew.

Not since the turn of the last century have Americans experienced such a profound gap between those who have and those who do not, between wealthy and working poor, between defacto upper and lower classes, between those of the status quo and those who slip to the social periphery. We will be examining literary and artistic explorations of social and economic inequity, fiction and art that looks at reversals of fortune as well as the possibilities for social change. Readings include Jacob Riis¿ How the Other Half Lives, W.E.B. Du Bois¿ The Souls of Black Folk, Edith Wharton¿s House of Mirth , James Agee & Walker Evans¿ Let Us Not Forget Famous Men , T.C. Boyle¿s The Tortilla Curtain, Julie Otsuka¿s When the Emperor Was Divine and Occupy Movement art.