Graduate Courses
The UCLA Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies offers a variety of graduate courses. Please see the Schedule of Classes on the Registrar’s Website for language courses. For a complete listing and description of department courses visit the UCLA General Catalog.
Below is a list of graduate courses taught under the ELTS banner. Students are encouraged to privilege these courses (200-level) as they make their course selections.
In certain cases, graduate students may enroll in upper-division undergraduate courses for graduate credit. Before you make a final decision about an undergraduate course (100-level), consult Professor Murat and the instructor of record.
Fall 2023
ELTS 202: Reading for Justice: Literature, Law, and the End(s) of Critique
Instructor:
Raphaëlle Burns
How does literature relate to law and, conversely, how does law relate to literature? Interactions between law and literature constitute a fertile field for interdisciplinary inquiry. Between the apparent freedom of poetic pursuits and the constraints of legal imperatives, there has in fact always been at least as much convergence as there has been confrontation. On the one hand, law is shot through with imaginative processes. On the other hand, literature’s focus on the particular often simultaneously gestures to the very sources of normative principles that structure human experience. In this course we will explore some of the ways in which European poets, writers, and philosophers—many of whom were trained in law—have historically reflected on legal procedures and principles of justice in their writings. The selection of assigned readings for this course will allow for the exploration of a wide range of themes, including: the relationship between law, ethics, and the pursuit of justice; definitions of crime and the legitimacy of punishment; the role that poets have played, or sought to play, in the reform of legal institutions. Answers to some of the most fundamental questions raised by law, such as the nature of justice and the means of achieving it, are often sought in great works of fiction. This yearning for answers should, however, also be subjected to analysis. Thus, our investigation of legal themes in literature will be accompanied by a self-reflexive exploration of our own scholarly drives to find in literature a vehicle for legal and moral critique. Taught in English.
French 218: Rousseau and Diderot in the Enlightenment and Today
Instructor:
Malina Stefanovska
Certain questions asked by 18th century thinkers still sound as pertinent today: what is natural versus societally formed in a human? How did society and the state take shape? What is the right education to create an Enlightened individual? How do we manage our relationships to the society around us? How do we explore and express our selfhood? All these questions have constituted the constant preoccupation of two major Eighteenth century authors, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot, who have provided serious, playful and controversial answers to each of them. We will take their writings as a guide for our own explorations.
