IRANIAN 55
Aesthetics of Gender, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Iranian Arts and Literature: from 11th-century Central Asian Palaces of Delight to Instagramming in Tehran
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Multifaceted introduction to Persian poetry, recognized as jewel of Persian culture, and to pictorial, architectural, performative, cinematographic, and photographic dimensions of artistic milieu spanning between Balkans, India, and Central Asia from 10th century CE to present. With consideration of centrality of discourses on identity, desire, and spirituality to core of Persian aesthetics, study of broad variety of socioanthropological, ethical, and historiographical issues stemming from both mainstream topics characterizing extensive field of Iranian studies and most controversial conversations on nature of sexuality, ethnicity, and religion. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR AN ENJOYABLE, INSIGHTFUL "EASY" GE, TAKE THIS COURSE. This class is by far my favorite course in the humanities I've taken at UCLA. I'm so happy I took it. The content was SO interesting and the course was really laid back which is what I needed during this stressful remote quarter. Professor Ingenito is a brilliant professor who really cares about his students and it shows. He's so nice and approachable and he's insanely knowledgeable about the topics in the course, but what mattered to me was that he was able to breakdown complex concepts and gave us the foundation to analyze the works in the class. The first few weeks were like a crash course into sex, gender, and sexuality and a great intro into gender studies if that interests you. Getting the basics down made understanding the context of the texts on Persian love poetry and mysticism so much easier to understand. I feel like this course just generally made me a more informed, well-read human being. Note: you definitely do NOT need to be Persian to take the class. Most people weren't Persian and didn't speak it, it's all in English. It was so cool seeing all types of people enjoy Persian literature. The class was a laid back seminar style where we could freely ask questions when needed, and read through poems that we would then further analyze and tie together with important lecture/reading topics. WORKLOAD: Really manageable and if you put in effort and show interest, you will get an A. This class consisted of weekly reports that were ~200 words where you analyzed the texts/made connections to lecture topics. Easy points and great way to master the topics without much stress. Midterm + Final were both essays with broad topics that allowed you to pick what you were interested in from the course materials covered and use the readings to write about pretty much whatever you were intrigued by. If you're interested in gender studies, human sexuality outside the Western context, poetry from Sufis like Rumi and Hafez, or even just into art and literature as a whole, TAKE THIS CLASS!
Fall 2020 - IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR AN ENJOYABLE, INSIGHTFUL "EASY" GE, TAKE THIS COURSE. This class is by far my favorite course in the humanities I've taken at UCLA. I'm so happy I took it. The content was SO interesting and the course was really laid back which is what I needed during this stressful remote quarter. Professor Ingenito is a brilliant professor who really cares about his students and it shows. He's so nice and approachable and he's insanely knowledgeable about the topics in the course, but what mattered to me was that he was able to breakdown complex concepts and gave us the foundation to analyze the works in the class. The first few weeks were like a crash course into sex, gender, and sexuality and a great intro into gender studies if that interests you. Getting the basics down made understanding the context of the texts on Persian love poetry and mysticism so much easier to understand. I feel like this course just generally made me a more informed, well-read human being. Note: you definitely do NOT need to be Persian to take the class. Most people weren't Persian and didn't speak it, it's all in English. It was so cool seeing all types of people enjoy Persian literature. The class was a laid back seminar style where we could freely ask questions when needed, and read through poems that we would then further analyze and tie together with important lecture/reading topics. WORKLOAD: Really manageable and if you put in effort and show interest, you will get an A. This class consisted of weekly reports that were ~200 words where you analyzed the texts/made connections to lecture topics. Easy points and great way to master the topics without much stress. Midterm + Final were both essays with broad topics that allowed you to pick what you were interested in from the course materials covered and use the readings to write about pretty much whatever you were intrigued by. If you're interested in gender studies, human sexuality outside the Western context, poetry from Sufis like Rumi and Hafez, or even just into art and literature as a whole, TAKE THIS CLASS!
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