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.

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.

An introductory course in the history of European literary theory. Readings include Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, Boccaccio, Dryden, Corneille, Schiller, Sartre, Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, Derrida. Theories will be related to selected literary texts in an effort to explore how theory illuminates literature while shedding light upon larger human questions. One lecture, one two-hour seminar.

This course is an introduction to the study of contemporary Latin American literature and visual arts with a transatlantic perspective. Placing special emphasis on the changing relationships between aesthetics and politics, the course will analyze different genres and artistic styles that emerge with new forms of imagining the political from the 1960s to the present. Readings will include critical texts on minor literatures, transatlantic connections, new social movements as well as literature dealing with situationism, romance reportagem, indigenous movements, testimonio, zapatism and contemporary global mobilizations.

African literature and films have been a vital (but often unacknowledged) stream in and stimulant to the global traffic in invention. Nigerian literature is one of the great literatures of the 20th century. Ethiopian literature is one of the oldest in the world. South Africans have won more Nobel Prizes for Literature in the past forty years than authors from any other country. Senegalese films include some of the finest films ever made. In this course, we will study the richness and diversity of foundational African texts (some in translation), while foregrounding questions of aesthetics, style, humor, and epistemology. AAS Subfield: GRE