CO120: Literature, Power, and Identities:

An examination of literature as a venue of explorations of power and identities, particularly of how identities are constructed as well as of how literary texts (re)present and can work to deconstruct identities. Emphasis on close reading of texts as well as on critical analysis and writing. 1 unit.

Block 2: The Margins of Europe

This course focuses on issues of cultural and individual identity that arise in literary texts that engage notions of Europe and its margins, or that center on tensions between the European North/South and East/West divides. We will examine texts that span a wide time range, from ancient to contemporary. Topics of interest include: “Orientalism” (idealized, distorted, and stereotyping representations of the “East” by Western writers); slavery in the Mediterranean world; imperialist struggles between West and East with reference to the Persian and Ottoman Empires; national identity and the question of Greece; religion, cultural identity, and Turkish guest workers in modern Germany; the European refugee crisis of the 21st century. We will work within an antiracist framework: analyzing, critiquing, and demystifying stereotypes, religious prejudice, and East-West cultural binaries. AIM, EPG

Block 8: Poetry's Others and Others' Poetry

This course will attempt to change the image of poetry and poets that comes to the mind of individuals trained in a traditional Western education system the moment they think of poetry. Depending on the students’ collective experiences/inexperiences with poetry, we will start the course with a discussion of how the tradition of “lyric poetry” is a modern construct of the U.S. classroom. Then we will move on to exploring poetry of color/nontraditional poetry within the U.S.A. and poetry in englishes (written in/translated to English) from around the world. The course’s emphasis will be on anti-oppressive, decolonial and postcolonial ways of engaging with poetry and poetics. From Audre Lorde to Claudia Rankine, Joy Harjo to Gabriela Mistral, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim to Bhanu Kapil, Rabindranath Tagore to Jalal-Ad-Din Rumi, we will take an enamoring tour of the world of poetry and poetics through this course. AIM, EPG

Habib

An examination of the literature as a venue for understanding the rich diversity of global humanity and perspectives, with special attention to how "place" informs literary settings as well as sites of composition and sites of consumption. Emphasis on close reading of texts as well as on critical analysis and writing. 1 unit.

Block 4: Short Stories of the World

Short fiction has often been identified as the genre that tells the tale of the multitude of lives and people in the United States of America. Washington Irving, one of the first practitioners of this genre in the U.S.A. claimed that short stories capture “a constant activity of thought and a nicety of execution” and that its successful execution to narrate or present complicated plots and issues requires more skills than longer genres of fiction (i.e. novellas or novels). This course attempts to capture the essence of diversity and perspectives of comparative world literature through an engagement with short fiction from around the world. We will also analyze and interact with different aspects of literary criticism through theories of the genre, feminist, gender and queer theory, postcolonial theory, affect theory, translation, etc. through our engagement with short stories using anti-oppressive and equity-based learning practices. We will read authors like: Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Kate Chopin, Mary Austin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Gabriel García Márquez, Matsuda Aoko, and so on. AIM, HP

Habib

Are we entering a posthuman era? This course will focus on recent science fiction literature, along with a few films, that draw on current questions and concerns regarding what it means to be human. We will also examine key theoretical texts regarding technology and the posthuman. In the wake of the digital revolution we encounter both hopes that humans can achieve great things that would never before have seemed possible, along with fears that much of our understanding of what it means to be human is being eroded, even that “the human” may becoming superfluous. At the same time, humans are questioning the status of homo sapiens as the pinnacle of the living world, wondering if we are really such a special category of living organisms. Literary science fiction is a form of cultural representation in which many of these questions and ideas of the status of the human find expression. Representative science fiction authors include: H.P. Lovecraft, Ted Chiang, Jeff Vandermeer, Kathe Koja, Michael Marrak, China Miéville, Neil Gaiman. Representative theorists include: Timothy Morton, Jane Bennett, Donna Haraway, N. Katherine Hayles. AIM, SHB

Davis

An examination of the intersections between literary texts and other forms of media and textuality, in an international context. Emphasis on close reading of texts as well as on critical analysis and writing. 1 unit.

This experimental, interdisciplinary course introduces students to the fields of art studio and comparative literature through close reading of literary and visual texts; practices of visual and literary analysis; planning and execution of two-dimensional design projects; and translation of ideas across media. Emphasis on identifying and creating corollary relationships between formal features of literary text and visual design elements (such as line, shape, texture, value, color, space). Focus on developing and strengthening skills in textual analysis and two-dimensional design thinking as well as strategies for creative problem-solving, interdisciplinary thinking, and hands-on making. Also listed as AS110. CP, AIM 

What is “literary and media activism”? And what does it mean to “call for change” through new forms of media? How does the relationship between “literature” and “social movements ” challenge our understanding of media as an agent of change in the global present? Beginning with readings from the Green Belt Movement in Africa, the Nation of Islam in Chicago, to the Civil Rights Movement and Hashtag Black Lives Matter in the US, and other reform movements in global South, this course explores the understudied relationship between literary activism and social media movements that expose multiple systems of oppression and discrimination. Using a comparative lens of analysis, the course investigates how literature and media illuminate the local incentives and underpinnings of contemporary social movements, and the reasons behind their global rise or regional demise. AIM

Naji

Consideration of literature in a comparative context. Comparisons may take place across languages, cultures, periods, genres, or disciplines. (May be taught as a January half-block.) .5 or 1 unit.

 What and how did medieval women write in Europe during the Middles Ages? How did they respond to their highly misogynic culture? What did their literary communities look like and how did those communities shape the work they produced? How do history, politics, culture, religion, medicine shape the concerns of the women who wrote? This course will introduce you to a broad range of works, from devotional to secular, Latin to vernacular. We will read from a variety of genres—drama, historical writing, riddles lyrics, hagiography, letters, lais and romances, visionary writing and mysticism—with an eye to how medieval women write about themselves and their culture. The sheer diversity of genres should suggest the creative vision of women in the European Middle Ages. In the course of our block, we’ll explore the social, theological, and cultural contexts in which (sometimes in spite of which) women's voices emerge between the tenth and the fifteenth centuries.

Evitt

Block 1: James Baldwin and Religion

Block 3: Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World

An introductory survey of issues relating to gender and sexuality in Greece and Rome. The focus will be on the role of women in ancient society and their characterization in literature. Though our sources are dominated by male perspectives, the class will attempt a balanced and accurate picture of ancient society. The course will also place these literary depictions in the broader context of art, political and societal structure, religious belief and family relations. Authors examined will include Hesiod, Homer, Aristophanes, Virgil, the female poets Sappho and Sulpicia, Ovid, and many more. Also listed as CL260. AIM, HP, EPG

Thakur

Block 3: Chekhov to Joyce: Invention of the Modern Short Story

Anton Chekhov defined the genre of the modern short story--minimal exposition, rejection of dogmatism, meticulous economy of detail, plot integrated with characterization, and open endings. Class time will be devoted to close readings of Chekhov's stories, as well as viewings of Russian film adaptations of his works. We will also learn about Chekhov's life in the context of the then current cultural and ideological trends. Also listed as EN280/RS200

Pavlenko, Garcia

Block 5: Discovering the Unconscious

Major psychoanalytic perspectives of the late 19th and 20th centuries on the concept of the unconscious in theory, case studies, and fiction. Emphasis on unconscious processes as they relate to the formation of identity. Readings from such authors as Freud, Jung, Klein, Winnicott, Kohut, and Yalom. Also listed as PH262

Dobson

Block 6: Borders, Migration, & Citizenship in the Contemporary World

Over the last decade, Europe, and Germany in particular, have received an unprecedented number of refugees. This course looks at recent and historical conditions of movement and displacement, from European colonialism, Nazi Germany, postwar labor migration, and European integration to the fall of the Berlin Wall, current EU policies, the rise of the far right, and larger global debates. Through the lens of social justice and using literature and film as the main frameworks for analysis, students will investigate the long-term social and cultural impacts of these developments and explore larger questions of identity, inclusion, exclusion, borders, migration, and citizenship.

Steckenbiller

Block 6: Exploring Cajun and Creole Cultures in the US

This course, taught in English, explores the historical presence and significance of Cajun and Creole cultures in North America, in the US particularly. The course also studies the social and cultural significance of processes of Creolization of French, as well as French as a heritage language in the US. This investigation is carried through the reading and critical study of works by U.S. authors of Black, Cajun, and Creole origins as well as critical study of filmic representations of histories and cultures of Creoles, and Cajuns in Louisiana. Particularly, Ann Rice’s popular television series, Feast of All Saints, amongst others, will be studied. The course’s critical exploration of Cajun and Creole and heterogenous southern cultures culminates with a 4 to 5-day guided visits (field trip) in the historical city of New Orleans and vicinity in Louisiana. Also listed as FR317

Wade

Block 6: Shakespeare's Political Wisdom

This course will explore Shakespeare’s dramas as political philosophy. In his plays, Shakespeare often immerses the audience in richly detailed political situations that give rise to profound political and moral dilemmas which human beings continue to confront to this day. The class will pursue the moral and political education that thoughtful and prudent political men and women had for generations found in so many of Shakespeare’s dramas.

Grace

Block 7: Doctor Faustus

Thomas Mann’s 1947 novel, Doctor Faustus (originally published in German as, Doktor Faustus: Das Leben des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn, erzählt von einem Freunde), follows the life of fictional composer Adrian Leverkühn against the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. The rich interplay between different timelines and topics—the narrator’s perspective from within the Third Reich, Leverkühn’s descent into madness, and the Faust legend itself—invite a myriad of interpretations and interdisciplinary approaches. Through the lens of Doctor Faustus, this class will explore the socio-political, literary, and musical history of the German speaking lands during the 19th-20th centuries. Our study of the novel will also give students a broad overview of the history of Western European art music, particularly regarding changing aesthetic values, the ever-evolving role of the composer, and the concept of “genius”. Also listed as MU228/GR220

Chang

Introduction to the major twentieth-century theories of literature, including such approaches as formalism and structuralism, hermeneutics, reception theory, feminist theory, psychoanalytic approaches, post-structuralism and new historicism. Study of important theoretical texts as well as literary works from a variety of language traditions, exploring the ways in which theory informs possibilities of interpretation. Also listed as EN250

What is Comparative Literature? What is world Literature? Examination of the history, methods, conceptual frameworks, canonical thinkers, critics, current issues, and debates in these interrelated fields and how they shape our reading of literature. Emphasis on close ready of both theoretical and literary texts, critical analysis, and writing in a comparative context. AIM, EPG

Davis

Consideration of literature in a comparative context. Comparisons may take place across languages, cultures, periods, genres, or disciplines. No prerequisite. (May be taught as a January half-block) .5 or 1 unit.

Block 3: Chicanx/Latinx Literature

This course examines Chicanx/Latinx literature, including fiction, poetry, and critical essays through a comparative, regional, and interdisciplinary approach. Through our study of Chicanx/Latinx literature, we will underscore the relationship between place and identity for Chicanx/Latinx peoples of the Southwest, West, and Midwest; and we will consider how written texts reflect social, political, and historical contexts. We will read literature that crosses a wide temporal sequence to discuss how Chicanx/Latinx authors have, and continue to address, issues of colonialism, race, class, gender, and sexuality. Throughout the course, we will also examine how the increasing U.S. presence of Chicanx/Latinx peoples is radically reshaping the American literary canon. Also listed as SW337.

Roybal

Block 5: Global Chaucer: Telling Tales

The Qur'an in its historical and literary context. Students engage the text in translation but develop a technical vocabulary in transliterated Qur'anic Arabic; those who have prior experience with Arabic language are encouraged to develop their skills with the printed text of the Arabic Qur'an. Also listed as RE346. AIM

Wright

Block 8: Margaret Atwood

An examination of poet, novelist, story writer, essayist, and environmental activist Margaret Atwood’s fiction. Particular emphasis on the wide range of genres Atwood employs and how she engages in what she terms “genre-bending,” that is, how she exploits and transgresses the expectations and conventions of specific genres such as autobiographical fiction, historiographic metafiction, and speculative fiction. Additional focus on Atwood’s use of intertextuality, especially how, as Kristeva would describe it, she “absorbs and transforms” fairy tales and myths. Also listed as EN381. AIM, EPG

Scheiner

Thesis subject chosen by student and approved by Comparative Literature Program Director. Choice of subject, research, outline and writing completed in this course. Prerequisite: CO255 and CO430, required for majors. 1 unit.