COML 2030

Introduction to Comparative Literature

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2015-2016.

What is Comparative Literature? In this course, we will look at the various answers that this question has elicited. We will learn about the evolution of the discipline by looking at an assortment of literary texts across national, linguistic and historical boundaries along with a wide array of theoretical works. Comparative Literature, however, is not just an academic field of study but first and foremost a practice. We will develop analytical tools to interpret and compare literary texts and artistic media that engage with sounds and images (photography, cinema, digital art). Mapping a wide-ranging set of trajectories, we will explore the far-reaching implications of our new globalized world through the prism of its literatures. Students will emerge from the seminar with an enhanced awareness of the global literary scene and with the ability to read critically and write with clarity. The course will acquaint students with the breadth and depth of the field, with authors including Plato, Jonathan Swift, Heinrich von Kleist, Edgar Allan Poe, Ferdinand de Saussure, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Jorge Luis Borges, Lu Xun, Marguerite Yourcenar, Roland Barthes, Aimé Césaire, Toni Morrison, Kazuo Ishiguro, Arundhati Roy.

When Offered Fall.

Permission Note Enrollment limited to: 18 first-semester freshmen.

Distribution Category (LA-AS)

Comments Students must apply in writing to chair, Department of Comparative Literature, 240 Goldwin Smith Hall.

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