Spring 2025

AN N EA C123A – Coptic
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Ashby, S.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours. Introduction to Coptic, final phase of Egyptian language, which is attested in writing from circa 300 to 1400 CE. Devoted to learning Coptic alphabet, grammar, and vocabulary (Sahidic dialect), with particular emphasis on historical linguistics. Concurrently scheduled with course C223A. P/NP or letter grading.

ANTHRO 116XP – Collaborative and Community-Engaged Archaeology
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Acabado, S.B.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled); fieldwork, 10 hours. Community and stakeholder engagement make anthropological practice more meaningful, especially when results of research empower descendant communities. Anthropology is in great position to work with communities to empower them in strengthening their identity. There is increasing number of anthropologists and allied social sciences who have intensified their cross-disciplinary work and engagement with communities that they work with. Students interact with Philippine collaborators through online conference to discuss how community participation enhances research. Students work with community stakeholders in developing heritage education materials. P/NP or letter grading.

ARMENIA C152 – Modern Armenian Drama as Vehicle for Social Critique
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Cowe, P.S.
Course Description: Lecture, four hours. Readings of selected plays from 1668 to 1992 from three main genres of tragedy, comedy, and serious drama and featuring works by most significant Armenian playwrights, with focus on their role as commentators on contemporary mores and as agents for social reform. Concurrently scheduled with course C252. Letter grading.

ARMENIA C153 – Art, Politics, and Nationalism in Modern Armenian Literature
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Cowe, P.S.
Course Description: Lecture, four hours. Examination of role of literature in modern Armenian society in service to cause or causes, as propaganda for various ideologies, as art for art’s sake, etc. Exploration of contrasting aesthetics implicit in these differing interpretations. Concurrently scheduled with course C253. P/NP or letter grading.

ART HIS 22 – Renaissance and Baroque Art
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Wilson, B.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Survey of Renaissance and baroque art. P/NP or letter grading.

ART HIS 119B – Eastern Islamic Art
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Balafrej, L.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours. From Tigris and Euphrates Rivers through Afghanistan and parts of central Asia; Ottoman Empire. P/NP or letter grading.

ART HIS C139C – Inca Art and Architecture
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Nair, S.E.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours. Exploration of art, architecture, and urbanism of Incas from their empire’s height in late 15th century to their political and cultural fragmentation during Spanish occupation of Andes (1532 to 1824). Concurrently scheduled with course C239C. P/NP or letter grading.

CHIN 50 – Chinese Civilization
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Duthie, N.N.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 50W. Knowledge of Chinese not required. Introduction to most important aspects of Chinese culture. Topics include early Chinese civilization, historical development of Chinese society, issues of ethnicity, Chinese language and philosophy, and early scientific and technological innovation. P/NP or letter grading.

CHIN 110A – Introduction to Classical Chinese
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Duthie, N.N.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisite: course 3 or Chinese placement test. Course 110A is enforced requisite to 110B, which is enforced requisite to 110C. Grammar and readings in selected premodern texts. P/NP or letter grading.

CHIN C150B – Chinese Literature in Translation: Traditional Narrative and Fiction
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Wu, Y.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Knowledge of Chinese not required. Examination of formation and development of Chinese narrative traditions from Tang to mid-Qing periods (7th-18th centuries). Readings from biographical writings, fiction, drama, legal cases, etc., with emphasis on different narrative conventions and their cultural assumptions and intersections. Exploration of important issues in context of imperial China, including order and chaos, self and other, desire and transcendence, gender norms and transgression, violence and justice. May be taken independently for credit. Concurrently scheduled with course C250B. Letter grading.

CHIN M60 – Introduction to Chinese Religions
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Balkwill, S.
Course Description: (Same as Religion M60B.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Not open for credit to students with credit for course M60W. Knowledge of Chinese not required. General survey of religious life in China, with emphasis on everyday religious practice over doctrine, and themes common to Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. P/NP or letter grading.

CLASSIC 19 – Ancient Novel Book Club
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 1
Instructor: Spielberg, L.M.
Course Description: In book-club style, students read and discuss two of earliest Western novels: adventure-romances Callirrhoe by Chariton of Aphrodisias, and Anthea and Habrocomes by Xenophon of Ephesus. These are exciting reads: stories of erotic love, dramatic reversals, thrilling adventure, and startling coincidences. Focus on experiencing them as stories in both modern and ancient ways. Discussion topics include narrative construction, possible early audiences and their reactions, and similarities and differences between ancient novels and modern romantic fiction. Students also practice social reading, as this is primary way in which novels and other texts were experienced in pre-modern world: taking turns reading out loud and listening to others read, in friendly and welcoming environment.

COM LIT 100 – Introduction to Literary and Critical Theory
Lecture: Lec 1
Units 5
Instructor: Kanner-Botan, A.
Course Description: Lecture, four hours. Preparation: satisfaction of Entry-Level Writing and College Writing requirements. Requisites: two courses from Comparative Literature 1 or 2 series or English 10 series or Spanish 60 series, etc. Seminar-style introduction to discipline of comparative literature presented through series of texts illustrative of its formation and practice. Letter grading.

COM LIT 183 – Literature and Madness
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Kanner-Botan, A.
Course Description: Seminar, three hours. What separates rationality from madness? Who determines who is sane and who is mad? How does literary representation impact our understanding of sanity and insanity, and how does literature interact with medical approaches to mental health? Exploration of these questions with a transcultural approach to literary texts that addresses madness as an ancient phenomenon, and with contemporary approaches to psychology, disability, and mental health. Examination of questions on the medical categorizing of mental illnesses across time; the ethics of representing madness in literature; the relationship between madness, creativity, and resistance; and the interplay between institutionalized and noninstitutionalized forms of care. Primary sources range from Senecan tragedy; to the One Thousand and One Nights and holy fools in medieval Islam; to women’s complex relationship with the diagnosis of hysteria; to romance heroes and Romanticism; to anticolonial responses to psychoanalysis. P/NP or letter grading.

ENGL 10A – Literatures in English to 1700
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Fisher, M.N.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisites: English Composition 3 or 3H, English 4W or 4HW. Survey of major writers and genres, with emphasis on tools for literary analysis such as close reading, argumentation, historical and social context, and critical writing. Minimum of three papers (three to five pages each) or equivalent required. P/NP or letter grading.

ENGL 19 – Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
Seminar: Sem 1
Units:
Instructor: Thomas, A.
Course Description: Seminar, one hour. Discussion of and critical thinking about topics of current intellectual importance, taught by faculty members in their areas of expertise and illuminating many paths of discovery at UCLA. P/NP grading.

ENGL 90 – Shakespeare
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Little, A.L.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisite: satisfaction of Entry-Level Writing requirement. Not open for credit to English majors or students with credit for course 150A or 150B. Survey of Shakespeare’s plays, including comedies, tragedies, and histories, selected to represent Shakespeare’s breadth, artistic progress, and total dramatic achievement. P/NP or letter grading.

ENGL 108 – Interracial Encounters: Castaways, Captives, and Converts
Lecture: Lec 1
Units 5
Instructor: Mazzaferro, A.M.
Course Description: Exploration of three quintessential New World experiences: being shipwrecked in unfamiliar environment, becoming captive of foreign culture, and converting to new religion. These experiences are frequently linked in early American literature. Castaways are taken captive; captives are forcibly relocated; and victims of these traumas use new spiritual frameworks to make sense of them. Examination of both castaway episodes and Native American captivities endured by European settlers; and dislocation and enslavement they inflicted on indigenous and African people. Comparison of Europeans’ conversion experiences with those of non-Europeans, for whom Christianity could seem to either sanction oppressive status quo or offer new sources of dignity and power. Reimagining colonial America as space of spectacular suffering and personal transformation, consideration of Christianity’s paradoxical take on liberty and slavery; connections between castawayism and colonialism; and role of faith, race, and gender in narrating tragedy. Not open to students who took ENGL 87 in 21S.

ENGL 140A – Chaucer: “Canterbury Tales”
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Jager, E.
Course Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Enforced requisites: courses 10A, 10B. Introductory study of Chaucer’s language, versification, and historical and literary background, including analysis and discussion of his long major poem, “Canterbury Tales.” P/NP or letter grading.

ENGL 149 – Medievalisms: Filthy Lucre: Fraudster, Trader, and Usurer in Medieval and Post-Medieval Ages
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Thomas, A.
Course Description: Fraudsters, traders, and usurers have been around ever since humans were infected by love of vile profit, or what in Middle Ages was called filthy lucre. Students learn not just about tricks of their trades but also about intersection of commerce and literature in texts from medieval to early modern. Medieval readings include some of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales such as The General Prologue and Shipman’s, Merchant’s, Pardoner’s, and Summoner’s Tales; excerpts from Piers Plowman; and Robin Hood narratives, such as A Gest of Robyn Hode, Robin Hood and the Potter, and Robin Hood and the Monk. Early modern texts include Gerard Malynes’s Saint George for England, Christopher Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, Thomas Wilson’s Discourse on Usury, and Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Texts read in light of premodern thinking about filthy lucre (turpe lucrum) found in treatises on usury, equitable exchange, and simony; and on exchange-rate, just price, and proportion.

ENGL M138 – Topics in Creative Writing: Narrative Nonfiction
Seminar: Sem 2
Units: 5
Instructor: Jager, E.
Course Description: (Same as English Composition M138.) Workshop-style study devoted to narrative nonfiction. Students read short samples of this genre and write their own pieces to be shared and discussed in class. Assignments include first-person pieces (i.e., memoir), profiles based on interviews, and fact pieces or features incorporating library and Internet research. Open to non-English majors. Enrollment by instructor consent.

GREEK 20 – Intermediate Greek I
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Gunkel, D.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Requisite: course 3 or 16. Formal review of Greek grammar and syntax and development of skills in reading original texts of Greek prose. Readings selected to introduce literature and culture of ancient Greece. P/NP or letter grading.

HIST 11A – History of China: To 1000
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Zhang, M.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Survey of early history of China–genesis of characteristic Chinese institutions and modes of thought from antiquity to 1000. Focus on social, political, intellectual, and economic aspects of early and middle empires. P/NP or letter grading.

HIST 20 – World History to AD 600
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Koh, C.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Examination of earliest civilizations of Asia, North Africa, and Europe–Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, India, China, Greece, and Rome–from development of settled agricultural communities until about AD 500, with focus on rise of cities, organization of society, nature of kingship, writing and growth of bureaucracy, varieties of religious expression, and linkage between culture and society. P/NP or letter grading.

HIST 119D – Topics in Medieval History: Medieval Myth of Superhero
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Goldberg, J.L.
Course Description: Heroes are created. They embody values that are admired, qualities one desires to see in oneself, and sometimes superpowers that express shared longings. Exploration of evolution of superheroes in Western Christian tradition with emphasis on Middle Ages. Through close reading of primary sources, students learn to contextualize heroic tales of past societies; and identify policies, institutions, worldviews, and circumstances that shaped heroic ideals. Study also uses contemporary superhero culture as reflecting point to explore 20th-century comic books and movies based on them, as lens through which to both connect to and distinguish from earlier visions of the heroic. Assignments range from written analysis to creative project inspired by film, comic books, or medieval art.

HIST C191B – Topics in History: Medieval: Medieval Los Angeles
Seminar: Sem 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Kreiner, J.
Course Description: Los Angeles is saturated with memories of Middle Ages. Evidence and clues–throughout city architecture, cinema, museums, and beyond–point to prominence of medieval history in this modern metropolis. Study tracks reception of medieval history across Los Angeles to better understand that interplay between past and present. Study asks how city’s sense of this period was shaped by contemporary interests and perspectives; and conversely, how medieval history has shaped city profile. Students become familiar with rich archives of UCLA Library Special Collections, and other archives and museum collections around city. Students develop original research project that contributes to young field of medievalism, by illuminating what Middle Ages has meant to Los Angeles.

HIST C191K – Topics in History: History of Religions: Sanctity in Early Modern Catholicism
Seminar: Sem 2
Units: 4
Instructor: Tutino, S.
Course Description: Saints were central to devotional, liturgical, theological, and cultural life of premodern Catholicism; and saints’ stories are still immensely fascinating. Historically speaking, studying saints and sanctity offers wonderful window into cultural, intellectual, and political history of early modern Europe and beyond. Study focused on saints and saint-making in Catholic tradition in period following the Reformation. Examination of crucial institutional changes that reorganized process of canonization. Analysis of implications of, and conflicts around, sanctity in several contexts within and outside of Europe.

HIST M127A – History of Russia, Origins to Rise of Muscovy
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Lenhoff, G.D.
Course Description: (Same as Russian M118.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Designed for juniors/seniors. Kievan Rus’ and its culture, Appanage principalities and towns; Mongol invasion; unification of Russian state by Muscovy, Autocracy and its Servitors; serfdom. P/NP or letter grading.

ITALIAN 140 – Italian Novella from Boccaccio to Basile in Translation
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Morosini, R.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours. Analysis of development of Italian novella in its structure, historical context, and folk material. Special emphasis on how Italian novella influenced other European literatures. P/NP or letter grading.

JAPAN 50 – Japanese Civilization
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Duthie, T.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Knowledge of Japanese not required. Survey of development of Japanese culture and its relationship to Asiatic mainland. P/NP or letter grading.

JAPAN 110A – Introduction to Classical Japanese: Basic Grammar
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Shimazaki, S.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisite: course 100C or 100S or Japanese placement test. Introduction to fundamentals of classical Japanese. Grammar and reading of selected premodern texts. P/NP or letter grading.

JEWISH M10 – Introduction to Judaism
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Bonesho, C.E.
Course Description: (Same as Religion M10.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Judaism’s basic beliefs, institutions, and practices. Topics include development of biblical and rabbinic Judaism; concepts of god, sin, repentance, prayer, and the messiah; history of Talmud and synagogue; evolution of folk beliefs and year-cycle and life-cycle practices. P/NP or letter grading.

KOREA 180B – History of Korea, 1260 through 1876
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Wang, S.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Knowledge of Korean not required. Examination of evolution of Korean culture and society within context of political and institutional industry. Consideration of both higher and popular culture. P/NP or letter grading.

LATIN 20 – Intermediate Latin I
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Spielberg, L.M.
Course Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Requisite: course 3 or 16. Formal review of Latin grammar and syntax and development of skills in reading original texts of Latin prose. Readings selected to introduce literature and culture of ancient Rome. P/NP or letter grading.

RELIGN M10 – Introduction to Judaism
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Bonesho, C.E.
Course Description: (Same as Jewish Studies M10.)Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Judaism’s basic beliefs, institutions, and practices. Topics include development of biblical and rabbinic Judaism; concepts of god, sin, repentance, prayer, and the messiah; history of Talmud and synagogue; evolution of folk beliefs and year-cycle and life-cycle practices. P/NP or letter grading.

RELIGN M60B – Introduction to Chinese Religions
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 5
Instructor: Balkwill, S.
Course Description: (Same as Chinese M60.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Not open for credit to students with credit for course M61W. Knowledge of Chinese not required. General survey of religious life in China, with emphasis on everyday religious practice over doctrine, and themes common to Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. P/NP or letter grading.

RELIGN 177 – Variable Topics in Religion: Oneness: Poetry of Mystical Experience
Seminar: Sem 6
Units: 4
Instructor: Dagenais, J.C.
Course Description: Study of efforts by poets from variety of times, places, cultures, and beliefs to describe transcendental experiences. Study includes Upanishads, medieval Christian mystics, Kabbalah, Sufi mystics, Rumi, and Zen poetry, among others. Focus on how poetic language is used to seek to talk about spiritual experiences beyond language, and how it may be shaped by particular religious and cultural contexts.

RELIGN 177 – Variable Topics in Religion: Sacred Places, Sacred Journeys: Pilgrimage around the Globe
Seminar: Sem 5
Units: 4
Instructor: Dagenais, J.C.
Course Description: Study asks how particular place comes to take on spiritual meaning. Study looks at what factors of belief, history, politics, and topography combine to motivate individuals to undertake long journeys to visit such places. Examination of multiple case studies from around the globe.

RUSSN M118 – History of Russia, Origins to Rise of Muscovy
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Lenhoff, G.D.
Course Description: (Same as History M127A.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Designed for juniors/seniors. Kievan Rus’ and its culture, Appanage principalities and towns; Mongol invasion; unification of Russian state by Muscovy, Autocracy and its Servitors; serfdom. P/NP or letter grading.

SPAN 11A – Catalan Language and Culture I
Lecture: Lec 1
Units: 4
Instructor: Dagenais, J.C., Reda Coll, F.
Course Description: Lecture, six hours. Part one of two-term accelerated language sequence equivalent to three terms of traditional instruction. Introduction to Catalan language and culture from wide range of activities focused on task-based and communicative approaches. Study involves variety of activities, which are designed to develop learners’ listening, reading, speaking, and writing skills. P/NP or letter grading.