Instructor Yeon Woo Koo
Godzilla emerges from the radioactive currents of the Pacific Ocean. “Mecha” evangelion robots and cyborgs fight against kaiju-monsters and ghostly hackers. A giant everything bagel creates a blackhole that threatens to demolish the multiverse. This course ties together these monstrous, cataclysmic disasters set in the Pacific region to understand the geographical, oceanic, and cultural ties of that space. Is it possible to shift away from a Western-centered imagination of the post-apocalypse? How do we talk about global catastrophes in the Pacific? And what exactly constitutes the Pacific area? Is it based on national borders? The Paci_ic Ocean itself? With existing terms like the “Asia Pacific” and the “Pacific Rim” originating from colonial histories, is it possible to imagine a transpacific solidarity, especially after world-scale destruction?
To answer these questions, we will take global Asian and American literature in the broadest sense of forms and genre, from fictional narratives (monster invasions, female clone mutations, environmental disasters) to real events (the Vietnam War, the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the COVID pandemic). Materials will include acclaimed Hollywood films like Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, and Daniel Kwan’s and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All at Once; Japanese sci-_i anime (Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell); a Korean _ilm by Oscar-winner Bong Joon-ho (The Host); essays from Asian American and transpacific scholarship, as well as short and long fiction by Ken Liu, Larissa Lai, Chang-rae Lee, and Ruth Ozeki.
Assignments will include weekly reading responses (250 words), one short close-reading essay (2-3 pages), and a creative assignment (2-3 pages). These exercises will prepare students for the final project (6-8 pages). Each step of writing will be workshopped in class, peer reviewed, and undergo several drafts. No exams, no prerequisites necessary.
Instructor Ellie Vilakazi
In this course, we will explore the construction of contemporary masculinity. While this course is organized around a cis-masculine gender, intersections of race, sexuality, class, and differing cultural contexts will be essential in our exploration of masculinity. We will explore a variety of texts and mediums across time and space to explore the following conventional aspects of cis men’s lives: the quest for money, being in love, fatherhood, emasculation, and the construction of cis men through a woman’s eyes. Each week, students will be asked to post a close reading reflection of 250-500 words. Students will then be asked to submit a 5 page midterm paper which will then be workshopped. The workshop will set students up well to polish and extend their 5 pages into a final paper of 8-10 pages.
Instructor Katherine Carithers
Vampires. Werewolves. Witches. Why do centuries-old creatures continue to haunt us? In this class, we’ll investigate why and when authors invent monsters and why these creatures captivate us today.
We’ll look to some of literature’s most infamous monsters like Medusa, Frankenstein’s creature, and Carmilla, the lesbian vampire who inspired Dracula. To examine what happens when these creatures travel to new centuries, continents, and contexts, we’ll look at more recent examples of “monsters” in television and film like Tim Burton’s Wednesday and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things.
Over the semester, we’ll explore how societal changes like technological inventions, scientific advances, and new sexual norms shape what’s deemed monstrous, abnormal, or strange. We’ll also investigate how shifting ideas about race, gender, and sexuality influence science fiction and horror genres. To do so, we’ll turn to literature, poetry, film, and television as well as excerpts from prominent medical, scientific, and political writings.
Primary texts will include novels like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad. We’ll also read shorter works by horror writers like Edgar Allan Poe as well as excerpts from early psychologists and sexologists like Havelock Ellis and Richard von-Krafft Ebing.
No exams, no prereqs. Students will develop their analysis in readings, class discussion, collaborative workshops, and peer review sessions. Assignments include short blog posts, two argument-based essays (4 pages), and a final project that students will work on during the second half of the semester.
English Department