Graduate courses in Modern Thought and Literature

Primarily for graduate students; undergraduates may enroll with consent of instructor. Students in the doctoral program in Modern Thought and Literature are advised to read through the offerings in English as well as offerings of the non-literature departments in which they wish to concentrate: for example, courses dealing with culture listed under Anthropology, courses dealing with film under Communication or Art and Art History, courses in intellectual and cultural history under History. If the area of nonliterary interest is thematic rather than disciplinary, doctoral students should look under program listings such as Feminist Studies, African and African American Studies, or Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.

MTL 299. Edgework: New Directions in the Study of Culture

Workshop. Required of first-year students in the doctoral program. Methodologies of different disciplines, the possibility and difficulty of interdisciplinary work within these disciplines, and their connection with the individual projects of students in Modern Thought and Literature. May be repeated for credit.

2 units, Win (Heise, U)

MTL 300. Modern Thought and Literature Colloquium

Required of first-year graduate students in the program; open to all students in the program and to others by consent of instructor. Weekly meeting of students in the program to discuss interdisciplinary scholarship, writing, and issues pertaining to the requirements for the Ph.D. Presentations by affiliated faculty and by student panels. (Mudimbe-Boyi)

1-3 units, Spr (Simpson, R)

MTL 334A. The Modern Tradition I

(Same as LAW 501.) The development over the modern period of ideas about state regulatory power and legal rationality; recent critiques of those ideas. Focus is on justice, legal interpretation, individual agency and moral choice, equality, punishment, legislation, the nation state, and international society. Readings from Sophocles, Grotius, Kant, Rousseau, Hegel, Montesquieu, Wollstonecraft, Austin, Bentham, Marx, Weber, Arendt, Foucault, Said, Spivak, Butler, Habermas, MacKinnon, Rose, and Kennedy.

5 units, not given this year

MTL 334B. The Modern Traditions II: The Study of Culture in the Age of Globalization

(Same as ENGLISH 334B.) 20th-century theory with focus on the concept of culture and methods of studying it from diverse disciplines including sociology, anthrolopogy, history, literary and cultural studies. Modernization, postmodernization, and globalization in their relations to culture broadly understood, cultures in their regional, national, and diasporic manifestations, and cultures as internally differentiated such as high and low culture, subcultures, and media cultures. Readings include Gramsci, Adorno, Horkheimer, Williams, Hall, Gilroy, Hebdige, Jameson, García Canclini, Foucault, Bourdieu, Geertz, Clifford, Saïd, Appadurai, and Appiah.

5 units, Aut (Heise, U)

MTL 390. Qualifying Paper

Preparation and writing of the qualifying paper for the Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature.

1-5 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)

MTL 395. Ad Hoc Graduate Seminar

Graduate students (three or more) who wish to study a subject or an area not covered by regular courses and seminars may plan an informal seminar and approach a member of the faculty to supervise it. May be repeated for

1-5 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)

MTL 398. Research

Students pursue a special subject of investigation under supervision of a member of the committee or another faculty member. May be repeated for credit.

1-15 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)

MTL 399. Reading for Orals

Reading in preparation for the University Oral Examination. May be repeated for credit.

1-15 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)

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Stanford Bulletin, Archive 2008-09

Stanford Bulletin, Archive 2008-09

Alphabetical Index

Bulletin Archive

Graduate courses in Modern Thought and Literature