Comparative History

See History

Comparative Literature

S = Objectives

Comparative literature offerings divide into two categories: period courses, which examine the spirit and intellectual continuity of an age reflected in the works of its major authors; and thematic courses, which emphasize a literary theme, motif, genre (e.g., novel, lyric, drama, epic, picaresque), or mode (e.g., satire, allegory, symbolism). The common text in all courses is in English.

S = How to Become a Concentrator

All students are welcome to enroll in any course in the program, unless prerequisites are stipulated. Students interested in learning more about the comparative literature concentration are encouraged to speak with the undergraduate advising head in comparative literature.

S = Committee

Richard Lansing, Chair and Undergraduate Advising Head

(Romance and Comparative Literature)

Mary Campbell

(English and American Literature)

Stephen Dowden

(Germanic and Slavic Languages)

Stephen Gendzier

(Romance and Comparative Literature)

Patricia Johnston

(Classical Studies)

Erica Harth

(Romance and Comparative Literature)

Edward Kaplan

(Romance and Comparative Literature)

James Mandrell

(Romance and Comparative Literature)

Alan Mintz

(Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)

Luis Yglesias

(Romance and Comparative Literature)

S = Requirements for Concentration

T = Comparative Literature Track I

The minimum requirement for concentration in Comparative Literature Track I consists of 10 semester courses: The Proseminar in European Cultural Studies, five courses in comparative literature, three courses in any one foreign literature, and either the Senior Essay or the Senior Thesis.

Unless otherwise specified, courses in a foreign literature are taught in the original foreign language.

A. ECS 100a (European Cultural Studies: The Proseminar) to be completed no later than the junior year.

B. Five semester courses in comparative literature from the COML and cross-listed courses below, at least one of the five courses must relate to literature prior to the 19th century. The following courses satisfy this requirement: COML 102a, 103b, 104a, 105b, 199b.

C. Three upper-level semester courses in any one of the following foreign literatures: French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Russian, Spanish.

D. Concentrators are required to enroll in and complete one of the following options in the senior year: COML 97a or b (Senior Essay), or COML 99d (Senior Thesis), a full-year course. Students who wish to be considered for departmental honors must elect the thesis option. Honors will be awarded on the basis of cumulative excellence in all courses taken in the concentration, including the Senior Thesis.

E. It is strongly recommended that concentrators (especially those who plan a graduate career in comparative literature) begin a second foreign language. In addition to the courses listed below, students should consult offerings in all foreign literatures, English, philosophy, history of ideas, and theater arts.

F. Junior and senior concentrators may apply for admission into Interdisciplinary Program in Literary Studies (LS) graduate seminars by permission of the instructor and the Undergraduate advising head.

T = Comparative Literature Track II

The minimum requirement for concentration in Track II consists of 10 semester courses: the Proseminar in European Cultural Studies, four in comparative literature, two in English literature, two in any one foreign literature, and either the Senior Essay or the Senior Thesis option.

A. ECS 100a (European Cultural Studies: The Proseminar) to be completed no later than the junior year.

B. Four semester courses in comparative literature from the COML and cross-listed courses below, at least one of which must relate to literature prior to the 19th century (COML 102a, 103b, 104a, 105b, 199b).

C. Two upper-level semester courses in any one of the following foreign literatures: French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Russian, Spanish.

D. Two upper-level semester courses in English literature (consult offerings in the Department of English and American Literature).

E. All concentrators are required to enroll in and complete one of the following options in the senior year: COML 97a or b (Senior Essay), or COML 99d (Senior Thesis), a full-year course. Students who wish to be considered for departmental honors must elect the thesis option. Honors will be awarded on the basis of cumulative excellence in all courses taken in the concentration, including the Senior Thesis. Departmental honors will be awarded on the basis described above. All courses in comparative literature are conducted in English.

S = Courses of Instruction

S = (1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students

COML 97a Senior Essay

Signature of the instructor and the advising head of comparative literature required.

Usually offered every year.

Staff

COML 97b Senior Essay

Signature of the instructor and the advising head of comparative literature required.

Usually offered every year.

Staff

COML 98a Independent Study

May be taken only by concentrators with the written permission of the advising head and the chair of the department. Signatures of the chair of the department and the instructor required.

Readings and reports under faculty supervision. Usually offered every year.

Staff

COML 98b Independent Study

May be taken only by concentrators with the written permission of the advising head and the chair of the department. Signatures of the chair of the department and the instructor required.

Reading and reports under faculty supervision. Usually offered every year.

Staff

COML 99d Senior Thesis

May be taken only with the permission of the advising head. Signatures of the instructor and advising head required.

This is a full-year course that must be taken by all senior concentrators in comparative literature who wish to undertake honors work. Usually offered every year.

Staff

G = (100-199) For Both Undergraduate and Graduate Students

COML 102a Love in the Middle Ages

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A study of the conventions of courtly love and other forms of love, sacred and erotic, in medieval literature. Readings include Dante's Vita Nuova, Boccacio's Decameron, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Chrétien's Yvain. Usually offered in even years.

Mr. Lansing

COML 103b Madness and Folly in Renaissance Literature

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A study of the theme of madness and folly as exemplified by the major writers of the Renaissance, including Erasmus, Rabelais, Montaigne, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Shakespeare, Jonson, and Cervantes. Usually offered in even years.

Mr. Lansing

COML 105b Sex and Sensibility in Pre-Revolutionary European Novels

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A study of the concept of human nature with specific attention to whether people can be educated to control or influence their erotic feelings and states of happiness. We shall trace the roles of family, money, personal identity, and social norms in structuring the 18th-century novel. The course will focus on the birth of the novel and romanticism. Usually offered in odd years.

Mr. Gendzier

COML 106a European Romanticism

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Works of major authors will be chosen by the instructor. Usually offered in odd years.

Staff

COML 135b Sexualities and Cinema

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Course may be repeated for credit.

Considers from a comparative perspective topics relating to sexuality and film. Topics will vary but may include: Representations of Homosexuality; Representations of Gays and Lesbians; Theoretical Approaches to Gay and Lesbian Films. Usually offered every third year. Will be offered in the spring of 1998.

Mr. Mandrell

COML 137a Dada and Surrealism

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Examines Dada and Surrealist manifestos, literature, art, politics, and films, which display a rebellious spirit extolling the liberated subconscious, the values of spontaneity and authenticity, and the joys of love and freedom. Usually offered in even years.

Mr. Gendzier

COML 144b The Outsider as Artist and Lover

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Baudelaire, Kierkegaard, and Kafka exemplify the struggle to achieve meaning through literature. But they believed that art or God required them to renounce love and marriage. Buber's analysis of "dialogue" will clarify the interrelation of creativity, faith, and human intimacy in their short stories, prose poems, parables, philosophical and autobiographical writings. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1993.

Mr. Kaplan

COML 160b Women, Literature, and Film

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Prerequisites: FILM 100a, WMNS 5a, or any FREN, SPAN, ENG, or COML 100-level course. Signature of the instructor required.

Examines the construction of narrative and meaning in literature and film. Class discussions of texts and film clips will focus on the interplay between visual and verbal images and imaginings in both media.

Ms. Harth

COML 178b Chinese Women Writers in the Twentieth Century

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Criticism and appreciation of modern Chinese women writers in English translation. Close reading of texts to reveal the attitudes and lives of Chinese women. Comparisons with womenís writing and womenís issues in the West.

Ms. Hong

COML 180a The Theater of the Absurd

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Enrollment limited to 20.

A study of the form and content of the theater of the absurd, in Europe and the United States, its antecedents, the theatrical tradition against which this new esthetic was born, and especially reading and presentations of the plays identified as ìabsurdistî drama. Class consists of lectures, discussions, in-class presentations of scenes, and frequent papers.

Ms. Hale

COML 185a Dickens and Dostoevsky

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Considers such issues as narrative, literary realism, and the manipulation of the grotesque and the sublime in representative works of Dickens and Dostoevsky. Because Dostoevsky was an avid reader of Dickens, we shall address questions of influence, particularly with regard to their shared thematic interests. Usually offered in even years.

Ms. Miller

COML 193a Topics in New World Studies: The Empire Writes Back

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This course focuses on texts that show the New World emerging from the collision and collusion of Native, African, and European imagining. Usually offered every third year.

Mr. Yglesias

COML 194b Topics in Myth, Literature, and Folklore

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Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of 1995.

Mr. Yglesias

COML 195a Feminism and Film

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Signature of the instructor required.

What feminist critics and theorists have to say about film from classic Hollywood to current feminist avant-garde and experimental cinema. Screenings of films about women, by women, and based on novels about feminism. Usually offered in even years.

Ms. Harth

COML 197b Narrating Adolescence

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This course, presenting the literature of adolescence as a post-Renaissance phenomenon, studies how adolescence has to be a problem before it becomes a story and goes on to consider various ways (moralistic, erotic, pedagogical) in which such stories have been used. Usually offered in odd years.

Mr. Yglesias

COML 198a Feminist Theory in Literary and Cultural Studies

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Signature of the instructor required.

An introduction to current feminist literary and cultural theory. Topics of discussion will include: debates within feminist thought, Anglo-American and French varieties of feminist theory, gender and genders, essentialism, postfeminism, postmodernism, and multiculturalism. Usually offered in even years.

Ms. Harth

COML 199b The Roots of Literature

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An inquiry into the origins of literature as revealed by ancient and modern myths and texts. Usually offered every fourth year. Last offered in the spring of 1995.

Mr. Yglesias

S = Cross-Listed Courses

CLAS 170a

Classical Mythology

ECS 100a

European Cultural Studies: The Proseminar

ENG 80a

Readings in the Short Novel

NEJS 169b

Responses to the Holocaust

THA 115b

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