2023-2024 Catalog

Requirements

Major

A major requires a minimum of nine classes including the senior seminar. Students may pursue one focus from the following to complete the major: German, Ancient Greek, Latin, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, or Comparative.

All students are required to take courses that reflect the interrelated aspects of the major:

Methodology Requirement

 

All CSLC majors must complete either:

CSLC 200Literature, Culture, Self: Being in the Wor(l)d

4 units

CSLC 201Forms of Feeling, and a Feeling for Form: Literature and Its Lifeworlds

4 units

Primary Area of Study

Students must complete three courses as indicate below.

German Focus: GERM 202 and two 300-level GERM courses (or three 300-level GERM courses)

Ancient Greek Focus: GRK 201 and two 300-level GRK courses (or three 300-level GRK courses)

Latin Focus: LATN 201 and two 300-level LATN courses (or three 300-level LATN courses)

Russian Focus: RUSN 202 and two 300-level RUSN courses (or three 300-level RUSN courses)

Chinese Focus: three 300-level CHIN courses

Japanese Focus: three 300-level JAPN courses

Comparative Focus: Students must complete three courses selected from a primary area of study that must include both foreign language study, to the degree specified below, as well as courses taught in translation. Primary areas of study must be disciplines housed in CSLC. The options for foreign language study are therefore, at this time, German, Greek, Latin, Russian.

  • German: GERM 202 (or one 300-level GERM course) and any two courses from CSLC 100-122
  • Ancient Greek: GRK 201, (or one 300-level GRK course) and any two courses from CSLC 180-194 and CSLC 280-294
  • Latin: LATN 201, (or one 300-level LATN course) and any two courses from CSLC 140-159 and CSLC 240-250
  • Russian: RUSN 201 (or one 300-level RUSN course) and any two courses from CSLC 130-139 and CSLC 230-239

Literary and Cultural Studies

Students pursuing a German, Ancient Greek, Latin, Russian, Chinese, Japanese focus must complete two courses in CSLC at the 100- or 200-level.

Students pursuing the comparative focus must complete two CSLC courses in a secondary area of language and literature as indicated below. These courses must be from a different category than what was chosen for the primary area of study.

These courses are preferably chosen from outside the student's major language concentration. However, courses outside the department may be allowed by department chair approval and must be filed with the Registrar's Office by submitting a Transfer Credit & Course Substitution Form.

Interdisciplinary Requirement

Students pursuing a German, Ancient Greek, Latin, Russian, Chinese, Japanese focus must complete two additional courses which reflect a thematic or comparative language-based concentration. The two interdisciplinary courses should be chosen in consultation with the student’s adviser. All students must file these courses with the Registrar's Office by submitting a Transfer Credit & Course Substitution Form.

Students pursuing the comparative focus must take two courses in a tertiary area of study as noted below. These courses must be in a different category than what was selected from the primary and secondary area of study.

Senior Seminar

Please consult the departmental website for current information about courses which satisfy requirements.

Honors in the Major

Honors is awarded to students who have demonstrated excellence in their departmental work. In the Spring semester, CSLC faculty review each Seniors’ record of work in the department and make their determinations based on achievement in coursework, sophistication of the comprehensive project, and contribution to the intellectual community of the department.

Minor in Classical Studies

Classical Studies offers Occidental students the opportunity to study the languages, literature, art, philosophy, history, and cultures of Greece and Rome in a multicultural context. Taken together, the courses address the impact of ancient cultures on later civilizations and draw parallels with non-Western cultures.

Occidental offers a minor in classical studies consisting of five courses taken in at least three different departments, at least one of which must be an original language course in Greek or Latin (GRK 101, GRK 102, GRK 201, LATN 101, LATN 102, or LATN 201). Courses with classical emphasis suitable to the minor are listed below.

To share the resources of faculty and students interested in classical studies, the committee sponsors interdisciplinary colloquia. Students who are interested in creating an Independent Pattern of Study in a topic related to the ancient world should consult with the chair of the committee for advice in constructing a program tailored to their needs.

ARTH 170Introduction to the Arts of the Early Mediterranean World

4 units

ARTH 272Greek and Roman Art

4 units

CSLC 120Metamorphic Bodies: Fluid Forms from Ovid to Kafka

4 units

CSLC 181Violent Femmes: Drama in the Polis

4 units

CSLC 202The Wake of the Ancient

4 units

CSLC 204Between Desire and Despair: Roman Literature Survey

4 units

CSLC 205Comedy Philosophy Romance: Hellenistic Literature

4 units

CSLC 222Myth: the Greco-Roman gods

4 units

CSLC 241Spectacle and the Stage in Ancient Rome

4 units

CSLC 280Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger: Tragic Philosophy

4 units

CSLC 283Style and "Substance": Philosophy and the Arts

4 units

CSLC 286Ulysses: The No­Place That's Home

4 units

CSLC 292Love's Song - A History

4 units

HIST 121Antiquity to 1700: Europe and the Middle East

4 units

HIST 220Ancient Athens and Renaissance Florence

4 units

RELS 351"Good" Sex: History of Sexual Ethics

4 units

Minor in CSLC

A minor in CSLC consists of five courses: one course course in theory and methodology (either CSLC 200 or CSLC 201), and four additional CSLC courses (student who take both CSLC 200 and CSLC 201 need only complete three additional CSLC course). This minor exposes students to world literature and culture in translation.

Minor in German

A minor in German language consists of five courses at the 201 level or above. At least three of these courses must be taken at Occidental. One of the five courses can be completed in the form of a German-related course taken in English in CLSC, a different department, or while studying abroad.

Electives

CSLC 107Marx, Nietzsche, Freud

4 units

CSLC 108Art, Nature, Self: German Romanticism

4 units

CSLC 109From Kafka to Twitter: Small Forms of the Literary

4 units

CSLC 112The Sickness unto Death: Selfhood and Despair in Literature and Philosophy

4 units

CSLC 114Goethe and the Art of Living

4 units

CSLC 115Kleist, Kafka, and the Poetics of Madness

4 units

CSLC 116Heidegger and the Ecstasy of Being

4 units

CSLC 118What Was the Enlightenment?

4 units

CSLC 120Metamorphic Bodies: Fluid Forms from Ovid to Kafka

4 units

CSLC 122Rage, Rave, and Revolution: German Literature and Philosophy Post-45

4 units

CSLC 187Prometheus: Agonies of the Absolute

4 units

CSLC 280Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger: Tragic Philosophy

4 units

ARTH 288Paris and Berlin: Capitals and Crossroads of the 20th Century

4 units

ARTH 289Modern Art in the US and Europe, 1900-1950

4 units

DWA 101International Relations: The Changing Rules of the Game

4 units

DWA 102International Organizations

4 units

DWA 103Introduction to Global Political Economy

4 units

DWA 239European Politics

4 units

HIST 230European Intellectual History

4 units

HIST 233Fascism, Nazism, and the Crisis of Democracy

4 units

HIST 345The Holocaust: History, Testimony, and Memory

4 units

LING 301Introduction to Linguistics

4 units

LING 350/PSYC 351Psycholinguistics

4 units

LING 351Phonetics

4 units

MUSC 261Western Music and Culture: 1580-1829

4 units

MUSC 263Western Music and Culture: 1830 to the Present

4 units

MUSC 264The Total Artwork

4 units

PHIL 210Modern Philosophy

4 units

PHIL 212Existentialist Philosophy

4 units

PHIL 311Wittgenstein

4 units

PHIL 312Kierkegaard

4 units

POLS 130Introduction to International Relations

4 units

SOC 200Classical Sociological Theory: Marx, Weber, Durkheim

4 units

Minor in Russian

A minor in Russian language consists of five courses (20 units) numbered RUSN 202 and above. Three of the five courses must be completed as Occidental courses.