Fall 2014

Fall 2014 Schedule

Celtic Studies R1B, Section 1 (4 units)
Dara Hellman, dhellman@berkeley.edu
TT 3:30-5

Reading and Composition Course

Watch this Space! A Detailed Description is Forthcoming!

This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement for the Bachelor’s Degree. Courses taken to fulfill this requirement must be taken for a letter grade.

Texts: TBA

Prerequisite: Successful completion of an “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll or attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

Celtic Studies R1B, Section 2 (4 units)
Thomas Walsh, trwalsh@berkeley.edu
MWF 3-4

Reading & Composition Course
“Irish Drama and Poetry in a Comparative Context”

The primary focus of this course is the improvement of your writing. Since R1B is an intensive college writing course, issues of development and style are presented at an advanced level. Further, students are to receive attention to their writing through detailed comments on their essays and through discussion in class and during office hours.

Your writing for this course will analyze and interpret significant dramatic texts from modern Ireland, primarily in the tragic mode. To that end we will read Irish dramatic texts alongside some Greek tragedies. Of importance to our reading are: 1.) the development of Irish drama in its historical context; 2.) the place of Irish drama as a response to Greek drama; and 3.) the dramatic artistry of the plays themselves. The course will examine the form and nature of drama and performance.

Required Texts:
Diane Hacker and Nancy Sommers. A Pocket Style Manual. 6th ed. Bedford/St. Martins. ISBN-10: 0-312-542542.
John P. Harrington, ed. Modern Irish Drama (Norton Critical Editions). 2nd ed. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. ISBN-978-0-393-93243-0.
Seamus Heaney. The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles’ Antigone. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2004. ISBN-10: 0-374-11721-7.
—–. The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1991. ISBN 0-374-52289-8.
Sophocles. Antigone. Trans. J. E. Thomas. Clayton, DE: Prestwick House, 2005. ISBN 978-1-58049-388-8.
Martin McDonagh. The Cripple of Inishmaan. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1998. ISBN-13: 978-0-082221-6636.
Euripides. Medea. Trans. Rex Warner. Mineola, NY: Dover Thrift Editions, 1993.ISBN-13: 978-0486275482.
COURSE-READER: Prepared by the instructor, this text will be available during the first week of classes.
NOTE: Only the above editions and translations will be used in this course. Other editions and translations are not acceptable.

Prerequisites: Successful completion of an “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll or attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

Celtic Studies 16 (4 units)
Kathryn Klar, kkestrel@berkeley.edu
MW 4-5:30

Beginning Modern Welsh

This is an entry level class in colloquial, spoken Modern Welsh. We will be learning the dialect of South Welsh (Cymraeg y De), but the instructor will include information about the differences (not huge) between North and South Welsh.

Welsh is a wonderful and interesting language, and it is something of a “linguistic miracle.” It is now fluorishing in Wales, but at the end of the 20th century, many people expected it would completely die out by the year 2000. Instead, a dedicated political movement in Wales brought it back as a language of everyday life. Welsh authors, poets, musicians, journalists, filmmakers, and artists continue (and extend) traditions stretching back more than 1500 years. In addition to the lively main text, the course will be supplemented with materials from the contemporary Welsh arts and literature scene.

Main (required) text:
Cwrs Mynediad (Fersiwn y De by Elin Meek, and accompanying workbook. Published by the Welsh Joint Education Committee.

Students who know they intend to take the course should order their books immediately from gwales.com. Be sure to order the South Wales (De) version of the texts.

http://www.gwales.com/bibliographic/?isbn=9781860856105&tsid=4 (text)
http://www.gwales.com/bibliographic/?isbn=9781860856129&tsid=5 (workbook)

Students can also wait until the beginning of the semester if they are not sure they want to take the class, but may have to pay higher shipping costs from Wales.

Note that Cwrs Mynediad will be the text for entire first year (two semesters) of Welsh. Students will not have to buy another text until the second year. The cost of books for this class is, therefore, minimal.

Students may also order the CDs or cassettes that accompany the course, for an additional charge. You will need these for the course, but the Language Lab at UC Berkeley will have them available for listening and borrowing.

http://www.gwales.com/bibliographic/?isbn=9781860856143&tsid=5 (CDs)
http://www.gwales.com/bibliographic/?isbn=9781860856167&tsid=5 (cassettes)

Prerequisites: None.

Celtic Studies 70 (4 units)
Daniel Melia, dmelia@berkeley.edu
TT 9:30-11, 123 Wheeler Hall

The World of the Celts

L&S Breadth: Historical Studies OR Social & Behavioral Sciences

Did the Druids really burn people in giant wicker statues? Did they worship a mother-goddess? Did they worship trees? Did the Celts build Stonehenge? Was Britian Rome’s Vietnam? Who are the Celts anyway (or were they Kelts?). Who was King Arthur (was there really a King Arthur?).

Celtic Studies 70 is designed to allow you to be able to answer these and other questions about the Celtic world of the past and the present. The course will present an overview of the history of the Celtic-speaking peoples from Indo European times to the present concentrating particularly on questions of assessing evidence. How are we to interpret Roman or Greek views of the Celts? How do we know about languages of which there are no written records? We will discuss the extent to which Celtic culture can be seen as a unitary phenomenon at various periods. The course will cover what we know and what we may be able to reconstruct of Celtic belief systems and social structure. For the later historical period we will discuss Celtic tribal migration, cultural absorption, and linguistic fragmentation.

Course requirements:
1.) 3 short quizzes in class
2.) 1 group report in class
3.) 1 final 3 hour examination.
Texts:
James, Simon, Exploring the World of the Celts
Cunliffe, Barry, The Celts: A Very Short Introduction
Caesar, Julius, Seven Commentaries on The Gallic War With an Eighth Commentary by Aulus Hirtius, Translated with Introduction and Notes by Carolyn Hammond
Koch, John, The Celtic Heroic Age
Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain

Prerequisites: None.

Celtic Studies 119A (4 units)
A. Rejhon, cymraeg@berkeley.edu
TT 11-12:30

Welsh and Arthurian Literature of the Middle Ages

L&S Breadth: Arts & Literature

Europe’s earliest and most extensively recorded vernacular language! Epics, Ancient Laws, Archaic Poetry! Infixed Object Pronoddd A selective study of major works of Welsh prose and poetry of the Middle Ages, with special attention to traditional and innovative views on the genesis and development of the legendary history of King Arthur in Europe. The works read will include the Four Branches of the Mabinogi; Culhwch and Olwen and The Dream of Rhonabwy, two native Welsh tales of King Arthur; the early Arthurian poems, “What Man the Gatekeeper” and “The Spoils of Annwn”; a selection of the poetry of Taliesin, Myrddin (=Merlin), Llywarch Hen, and Aneirin, as well as from the Poets of the Princes; Armes Prydein [the Prophecy of Britain]; the Arthurian section of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain; and finally, the Welsh romances of Owein and Gereint and their French counterparts, Yvain or the Knight of the Lion and Erec and Enide.

All texts will be available in English translation.

Course requirements include a midterm and final examination.

Texts:
1) Pennar, Meirion, tr. Taliesin: poems. Llanerch Enterprises, 1988.
2) Williams, Ifor & R. Bromwich, eds. & tr. Armes Prydein: The Prophecy of Britain. Medieval & Modern Welsh Series, 6. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1972.
3) Davies, Sioned, The Mabinogion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
4) Thorpe, Lewis, tr. Geoffrey of Monmouth: History of the Kings of Britain. Penguin Classics, 1986.
5) Raffel, Burton, tr. Chrétien de Troyes: Yvain, The Knight of the Lion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
6) Raffel, Burton, tr. Chrétien de Troyes: Erec and Enide. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
7) Patrick K. Ford, tr. The Celtic Poets: Songs and Tales from Early Ireland and Wales. Belmont, Mass.: Ford & Bailie, Publ., 1999.
8) Goodrich Peter, ed. The Romance of Merlin: An Anthology. New York & London: Garland Publ., Inc.

A Reader will also be available.

Prerequisites: None.

Celtic Studies 125 (4 units)
Thomas Walsh, trwalsh@berkeley.edu
MWF12-1

Irish Literature in Translation

L&S Breadth: Arts & Literature

This course covers Irish literature with special reference to the practice of translation, especially as it relates to the poetics of Irish verbal and narrative artistry. The theory of translation will be reviewed through readings in Shulte and Biguenet as well as Bassnett Since the intersection of Irish with English and Latin has a complex history, the course will take account of the shifting social and political realities within which Irish texts flourish at different periods. Some of the topics to be addressed include: the development of early Irish prose and verse as represented in translation; Irish versions of Greco-Roman classical and post-classical legend, the reception of Irish literature by English cultures; the status of Irish literature in the modern period; interactions between Ireland and other cultures through its poetry and prose; and the place of Irish literature in a comparative literary canon. Special attention will be paid to the theoretical issues arising from the problems posed by the act of translation.

This course will ask students for two papers; there will be short quizzes and a final.

Texts:
Maureen O’Rourke Murphy and James MacKillop, eds. An Irish Literature Reader: Poetry, Prose, Drama. 2nd edition. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2006. ISBN: 0-8156-3046-8
Susan Bassnett. Translation Studies. NY: Routledge, 2013. ISBN: 78-0415506731
Thomas Kinsella. The Táin. Oxford. ISBN: 0-19-280373-5.
Rainer Shulte and John Biguenet. 1992. Theories of Translation: An Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida. The University of Chicago Press, 1992. ISBN-13: 978-0226048710
Peig Sayers. The Autobiography of Peig Sayers. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1974. ISBN-0-8156-0258-8
Flann O’Brien. The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life. Dalkey Archive Press, 1973. ISBN-13: 978-1564780911
Course Reader. This text will be available in the first week of classes.

Prerequisites: None. All required readings will be in English.

Celtic Studies 145A (4 units)
Eddie Stack, eddiestack@berkeley.edu
TT 3:30-5

Modern Irish Level 3: Intermediate Irish Language

A continuation of Celtic Studies 85.

The third level course in modern spoken Irish designed for students who have completed two semesters of formal instruction. Continued stress on vocabulary building and reading of texts with intensive conversation drills to activate the learned vocabulary. Idiomatic usage will be reinforced in both oral and written exercises. Class activities will include conversation and discussion of assigned texts in Irish.

Texts: To be announced by the instructor.

Prerequisites: Celtic Studies 15 and 85 or consent of instructor.

Celtic Studies C168 (4 units)
Annalee Rejhon, cymraeg@berkeley.edu
TT 2-3:30

Celtic Mythology and Oral Tradition

This course is cross-listed with Religious Studies C109

L&S Breadth: Arts & Literature

The course will examine the mythology of the Celts—their gods, goddesses, festivals, and belief systems—as it is reflected in medieval Irish and Welsh texts. Following a short presentation of introductory material regarding the history and civilization of the early Celts, the course will begin with the early Irish tale known as The Second Battle of Maige Tuired, a core mythological tale that best exemplifies the pattern of mythological deities and belief systems that pertain to varying degrees in other Celtic tales. These tales will include in Irish, the Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel, the Tale of Macc Da Thó’s Pig, Bricriu’s Feast, the Wooing of Etaín, the Dream of Oengus, the Wasting Sickness of CúChulaind, the Cattle Raid of Fróech, and the Táin, and in Welsh, the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, Culhwch and Olwen, Lludd and Llefelys, the Tale of Gwion Bach and the Tale of Taliesin, and the poems, “What Man the Gatekeeper” and “The Spoils of the Otherworld.” All the readings are in English translation.

Course requirements include a midterm and final examination.

Prerequisites: None.