Inspired by power of words to unite and divide, as well as to conquer and liberate, exploration of interrelationship of language, identity, and power in post-Communist European countries. Students discuss assigned readings and multimedia materials that include graphic essay and Nobel lecture. Team-taught by instructors of languages offered by the Department of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages and Cultures.

Vadim Shneyder is associate professor of Russian in the Department of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages and Cultures at UCLA. He received his Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Yale University. His research interests include nineteenth-century Russian literature and intellectual history, realism, the theory of the novel, and the history of capitalism. He is the author of Russia's Capitalist Realism: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov (Northwestern, 2021).

Reading of several Kafka short stories to see their common elements. Investigation of what Kafkaesque means, and how it relates to modern world. Stories read and discussed include An Old Manuscript, Hunger Artist, In the Penal Colony, Report to an Academy, The Imperial Messenger, The Judgement, and The Metamorphosis. Students write their own final Kafkaesque story to be shared in class.

Kathleen Komar is a distinguished professor of Comparative Literature who has written on 20th century novels and poetry. She teaches seminars in comparative literature as well as lower-division courses.

Representations of desire in poetry take many forms; objects of desire range from individuals to the ideal that haunts Stéphane Mallarmé, Wallace Stevens, and William Butler Yeats. Additional poets read include Charles Baudelaire, Catullus, C.P. Cavafy, Gunnar Ekelöf, T.S. Eliot, Sappho, and Paul Valéry. More contemporary poets include Alice Fulton, Louise Glück, Adrienne Rich, and Muriel Rukeyser. Some of these poets write subtle but explicit sexual poems. Students complete three short papers.

Ross Shideler, Research Professor and Associate Dean of Humanities. Shideler h as published some poems, translations, and books on Gunnar Ekelof, Per Olov Enquist, and a larger book titled Questioning the Father: From Darwin to Zola, Ibsen, Strindberg and Hardy

Study links environmental, literary, and cultural studies through common book The Intersectional Environmentalist by Leah Thomas. Book argues that environmentalist studies has hitherto neglected Black, indigenous, and persons of color population. Yet paradoxically, many marginalized peoples by default have practiced sustainability for generations. In California, for instance, examples of cultivation of traditional food, housing, medical, and cultural sustainability are found among native, Latino, Asian, Black, White, and (im)migrant populations as they struggle for place under sun. Learning and practice both zero in on one such overlooked practice--tai chi--to delve into intersections of mental, physical, societal, informational, and environmental sustainability. Tai chi, which originates from Taoist and Buddhist traditions, addresses need for broad inclusion: to practice care for people of all colors, genders, classes, nationalities, ages, sexual orientations, and (dis)abilities.

King-Kok Cheung is UCLA Professor Emeritus of English, author of Articulate Silences (1993) and Chinese American Literature without Borders (2017); editor of Words Matter, Seventeen Syllables, An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature, and Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography; co-editor of The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Cheung spearheaded the interdisciplinary GE cluster "Interracial Dynamics in American History, Literature, and Law"; she was also one of four English faculty members who designed English 100 Ways of Reading Race.

Beloved by millions, bestselling fiction The Handmaid's Tale is widely regarded as one of great 20th-century novels. Published in 1985, Margaret Atwood's book is set in dystopian and totalitarian society in throes of fertility crisis. Discussion of novel as piece of art that is rich with metaphor, simile, sarcasm, and irony. Close reading of vivid and poignant first-person narrative pays attention to themes such as power, sexuality, feminism, modernity, and violence. Like all novels, Atwood's is also product of her time. Accordingly, analysis of ways in which The Handmaid's Tale is inflected with midcentury debates about abortion, oral contraceptives, pollution, and Cold War. Supplemental reading also contextualizes historical era by exploring how and why social anxieties about reproduction have become so politically relevant in recent U.S. history.

Elizabeth O'Brien is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History. Her first book is entitled "Surgery and Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770-1940" (University of North Carolina Press, 2023). She has also published articles in The Lancet, Endeavour, The Washington Post, The Journal of Women's History, Women's History Review, and Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, and is co-editing a forthcoming edited volume on the Cultural History of Childbirth, which is under contract with Bloomsbury Press.

Music psychology and education studies have shown that music has capacity to promote empathy and cultural understanding; and that learning music of foreign cultures can result in students developing more positive racial attitude towards people from those cultures. Both food and music are essential components of a given culture. Many cultures around world have their own special cuisines, and specific musical styles. Body of research literature investigates connections between food and music in cultures. It found that people associate different music styles with food types, and that ethnic congruence of music and food affects food selection. Exploration of relationship between food and music in culture, coupled with discussion of how it may enhance cultural understanding. Through research, and sharing music and food of each other's cultures, students discover taste and sound of diverse cultures, and increase their understanding of each other. Class meets April 5, 12, 19, 26, May 3.

Lily Chen-Hafteck is currently Professor and Chair of Music Education at UCLA. She holds Ph.D. in music education from University of Reading, U.K. and received postdoctoral research fellowship at University of Pretoria, South Africa and University of Surrey Roehampton, U.K. She published numerous journal articles and book chapters, including Oxford Handbook of Music Education and Oxford Handbook of Children's Musical Cultures. She has held leadership positions of International Society for Music Education (ISME) as Board Member and Chair of Music in Schools and Teacher Education Commission.

Music is important form of cultural expression. One can learn much about culture through its music. Research studies have shown that music has capacity to promote empathy and cultural understanding. Students discover relationship between music and culture. Students learn about research literature on effects of music on developing cultural understanding and positive racial attitude. Students also explore their own musical and cultural backgrounds through research and reflections and share them with class. Students become community that learns from each other, and develops understanding of each others' music and cultures. This fosters intercultural competence and dialogue across cultural differences. Class meets April 5, 12, 19, 26, May 3.

Lily Chen-Hafteck is currently Professor/ Chair of Music Education at UCLA. Originally from Hong Kong, she holds Ph.D. in music education from the University of Reading, U.K. and received postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Pretoria, South Africa and University of Surrey Roehampton, U.K. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters, including Oxford Handbook of Music Education and Oxford Handbook of Children's Musical Cultures. She has held leadership positions of International Society for Music Education (ISME) as Board member and Chair of two commissions.

In How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, author Jenny Odell offers field guide on how to resist attention demands of technology. She allows real world to catch her attention; and gets to know birds, trees, and other beauty she had earlier hurried past. Students read this book and explore how to pay attention to their surroundings and everyday life. Students make field trips to different parts of campus (botanical garden, sculpture garden, museums, etc.) and create their own do-nothing project. Class meet April 1, 8, 15, 22, 29.

Nina Sun Eidsheim (Professor of Musicology) researches voice, race, listening and materiality, including the books Sensing Sound: Singing and Listening as Vibrational Practice and The Race of Sound: Listening, Timbre, and Vocality in African American Music. She is Faculty in Residence, currently with Rieber Terrace. She is also a vocalist and the founder and director of the UCLA Practice-based Experimental Epistemology Research (PEER) Lab, an experimental research Lab dedicated to decolonializing data, methodology, and analysis, in and through multisensory creative practices.

In How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, author Jenny Odell offers field guide on how to resist attention demands of technology. She allows real world to catch her attention; and gets to know birds, trees, and other beauty she had earlier hurried past. Students read this book and explore how to pay attention to their surroundings and everyday life. Students make field trips to different parts of campus (botanical garden, sculpture garden, museums, etc.) and create their own do-nothing project.

Jessica Schwartz is an Associate Professor of Musicology at UCLA. She received her Ph.D. in Music from New York University. Her research interests are creative dissent and anti-imperial music, specifically with a focus on American postwar music, nuclear music/ Pacific indigenous resistance, and subcultural practices, such as punk and hip-hop. She is author of Radiation Sounds: Marshallese Music & Nuclear Silences (Duke, under contract) and has published articles in Women & Music, American Quarterly, and Punk & Post Punk.

Introduction to Japanese way of tea, traditional practice in which food and drink become medium not only of social interaction and hospitality but also aesthetic appreciation and spiritual self-discipline. Medium of tea gathering (chakai) used as lens through which to learn about transnational history of Japan-U.S. cultural exchange, and contemporary environmental concerns of Pacific Ocean that links Southern California with Japan. Study designed in conjunction with Tea Ceremony with Pacific Plastics performance project that will build tea house using salvaged ocean material, and art performance exploring Japanese American history in Los Angeles. Students have opportunities to participate in performance.

Michelle Liu Carriger, PhD, is an associate professor of Theater and Performance Studies, the chair of the Theater Dept, and a licensed teacher of Urasenke Tradition Tea. She is the faculty advisor and chief instructor of the UTeaLA club for tea study at UCLA.