Global Arc

In this class for students considering majoring in Comparative Literature, we ask what happens when we read literature? How do we read? And what are the ethical questions and problems that we rehearse when we read? Is reading all about finding the reflection of myself in the text, or do we find something else? What does it mean to read a culturally different novel or poem? How might it teach us to imagine others not like ourselves? As well as workshop-style practice in reading literature closely, the class also raises the question of literary reading as a transferable skill: how does it help us to read the wider world?

This introductory course focuses on the cultural syncretism and the global diversity of Jewish experience. It provides a comparative understanding of Jewish culture from antiquity to the present, examining how Jewish culture has emerged through the interaction of Jews and non-Jews, engaging a wide spectrum of cultures throughout the Jewish world, and following representations of key issues such as sexuality or the existence of God in different eras. The course's interdisciplinary approach covers Bible and Talmud, Jewish mysticism, Zionism, Jewish cinema, music, food, modern literature, and graphic arts. All readings and films are in English.

Passion is a common word with a long, complicated history; the diverse meanings we associate with it engage our experience on the most ethereal and abstract as well as the most visceral and profane levels. In this course we will study range of films from the past eight decades with the aim of understanding how the films situate their subjects, how they narrate and illustrate passion, and how they engage personal, social, and political issues in particular aesthetic contexts.

An introduction to the methods and some major texts of comparative literary study. It will focus on the Greco-Roman tradition, asking what it means to call a work a "classic": it will consider the outstanding characteristics of this tradition, how it arose and gained influence and attempt to place it in a global context. Readings will be divided into three topics: Epic Heroes (centering on Homer's Odyssey), Tragic Women (in ancient and modern drama), and the "invention" of modernity (Aeneid). Selected additional readings in non-Western literatures and in influential critical essays. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course seeks to discover (or rediscover) a series of significant works in the European tradition, and also to ask once again what a tradition is. The focus will be firmly on the close reading of particular texts, but discussions will also range freely over large questions: What is a classic, what difference does language make, can we think both about world literature, in Goethe's phrase, and about the importance of national and local loyalties? No easy answers promised, but astonishing adventures in reading guaranteed.

While there is no single definition of socialism, the class introduces the historic diversity of socialist thinking. We ask: What is the "social" in socialism? How does socialism relate to communism and capitalism? How does it define democracy, equality, freedom, individuality, and collectivity? Are socialist ethics connected to religious traditions such as Christianity and Islam that teach human equality? How may we understand injustices committed in socialism's name alongside its striving for social justice? We read classic texts of socialist theory and practice to reveal its roots in literature and philosophy as well as social movements.

Although literature is composed in and of language, the relationship between language and literature is far from straightforward. Literature not only utilizes language but represents and reworks it in the process. This course examines this tricky relationship through a number of critical lenses including bilingualism, translation, heteroglossia, and power relations. What happens when multilingual authors create literature? What is the relationship of language and literature in translated texts? Particular attention will be devoted to the dynamics of language and literature in postcolonial and minority writing.

This is a course in a crucial aspect of Comparative Literature and Culture: the literature surrounding food. We will begin with a brief history of eating and drinking, mostly as they appear in literary texts from antiquity and early modernity. Topics will include Adam and Eve's apple, the Last Supper, and Proust's Madeleine. We will then proceed to food writing from modern times, focusing on taste, on the lure of particular foods, and on the social circumstances of dining. Particular emphasis on the reading and writing of culinary autobiography.

A course on works of dramatic literature whose comparative dimension is theatrical performance. We will consider four Shakespeare plays covering a range of theatrical genres; the emphasis will be on the ways in which Shakespearean meaning can be elucidated when the reader becomes a performer. Students will move from the reading/performing of individual speeches to the staging of scenes to the question of how an overall theatrical conception for a play might be a key to the fullest understanding of the text. Students will write papers about their readings and performances; grades will be based on both the writing and the performing.

What kind of social institution is literature? Through close study of literary and theoretical texts, we examine ways literature is understood as reflecting, conditioning, representing, subverting, performing, or constructing the ethics and values of societies and cultures. We focus on the death penalty and representations of violence and coexistence. Does literature depict the experiences of real people? How (and why) do we "identify"? How do these ethical aspects of literature relate to moments of social crisis or the maintenance of social stability? To social and cultural differences? We address such questions in a global literary frame.