Curriculum Overview

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
(see LSA Course Guide for more detailed descriptions of courses offered each semester)

COMPLIT 100. Global X (HU) This course explores elements of contemporary US American popular culture within a global framework. Richly contextualized, "Sports Culture," "Apocalypse," "Fairy Tales," or "Vampires" emerge in their complex historical and transnational dimensions. Through a careful selection of guest lectures, "Global X" serves as an introduction to Comparative Literature.

COMPLIT 122. Writing World Literatures (4). (FYWR). May not be repeated for credit. An intensive writing course designed to increase cultural literacies and to fulfill the first-year writing requirement. It requires intense work on composition, argumentation, and contextualization of the creative texts from a comparative perspective. Topics and readings vary by instructor.

COMPLIT 140. First-Year Literary Seminar Enrollment is restricted to first-year students, including those with sophomore standing. (3). (HU). May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credits. A course in the LS&A First-Year Seminar Program. Led by a faculty member, this course is a study of selected topics in literature through classroom discussion and the writing of essays.

COMPLIT 141. Great Performances (4). (FYWR). May not be repeated for credit. What makes a "great" performance? This course considers the relation between tradition and innovation in performing "great" works in music, theatre, dance. Students attend live performances and explore the concept of performance from various historical, critical, and creative perspectives; they also develop their skills in writing about performance.

COMPLIT 200. Translation Across Disciplines. May not be repeated for credit. (HU) This course introduces translation as a movement across languages, media, cultures, discourses, and disciplines. We will explore the following questions: Why and how should we think about translation? What is translation? Who translates? When and where do we encounter translation in our daily lives, in our communities, and in the world at large?

COMPLIT 222 / GTBOOKS 212. Great Books in World Literatures (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. Students will read great books of world literature across temporal and geographic boundaries, to explore a central theme (for example, “Youth” or “Revolution” or “The City”).  The course encourages students to appreciate the complexity of texts in diverse cultural contexts, and to reflect on the idea of “World Literature.”  

COMPLIT 240. Literature Across Borders (3; 2 in the half-term). (HU). May not be repeated for credit.  Emphasizing international and interdisciplinary approaches to literary studies, this course introduces students to current topics in comparative literature. Readings come from Western and non-Western cultures and are considered within a variety of contexts.

COMPLIT 241. Topics in Comparative Literature (3; 2 in the half-term). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. An introduction to the range of comparative literature through topics representative of the discipline. Subjects vary but might include literary periods or movements (e.g., symbolism), genres (e.g., comedy), themes (e.g., the Don Juan theme), influence across national boundaries, relations between literature and other disciplines.

COMPLIT 260. Europe and Its Others (3). (HU). May be elected twice for credit. This course is designed to introduce students to the pan-European origins of literary study and alternatives to them and to increase their cultural fluency.

COMPLIT 300. Global Humanities (1 - 4; 1 - 2 in the half-term). (HU). May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits. May be elected more than once in the same term. Explores topics in world cultures with a global perspective and a humanities point of view: how different human societies respond imaginatively to pressing issues like "Human Rights," "Revolutions," or "Religious Conflict" and manifest their understandings in specific cultural productions and practices across media, including film, literature, and visual cultures.

COMPLIT 322. Translating World Literatures (3)(HU)(ULWR). May not be repeated for credit. This course provides an opportunity for students to use their skills in a foreign language to think about the history, theory, and practice of translating literary texts, and to work on a translation project of their own choosing.  To meet the Upper-Level Writing Requirement, the course is structured around a series of critical and creative writing assignments. The course also includes a range of readings in translation studies, with an emphasis on the cultural function of translation and the role of the translator in cross-cultural communication.

COMPLIT 323. Adapting World Literatures (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. This course introduces students to the circulation of world literatures through various forms of adaptation across space and time, genres and media. Students consider how literature is adapted to produce new meanings, explore approaches to multi-modal writing, and create their own adaptation of a literary work as a final project.

COMPLIT 340 / MODGREEK 340. Travels to Greece (3). (HU). May not be repeated for credit. The course examines the literature of modern travel to Greece and the issues it raises about antiquity, modernity, ethnography, otherness, exoticism, orientalism, and Western identity. Readings include works by British, French, German, American, and Greek authors. Art, film, and the media are also used to provide different measures of comparison.

COMPLIT 350. The Text and Its Cultural Context (3). (HU). May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credits. A comparative study of literature and some expository writing from diverse cultures, focusing on the interdependence of text and context.

COMPLIT 364. Comparative Literary Movements and Periods (3). (HU). May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credits. May be elected more than once in the same term. This topics course proves an introduction to studies in literary movements and periods across national boundaries. Examples include the traditional literary periods such as Romanticism or Modernism as well as movements such as surrealism, dada, or futurism, to name only a few. In each case, a basic understanding of the issues concerning literary movement or period would supplement the close examination of literary works.

COMPLIT 372. Literature and Identity (3). (HU). May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credits. May be elected more than once in the same term. This course explores the emergence of literary works in relation to identity, tracing how literary and humankind relate and how this relation changes.

COMPLIT 374. Literature and the Body (3). (HU). May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credits.
This course interrogates the corporeal context of literary creation and meaning. It focuses not only on the influence of gender, sex, ability, disability, and race within the world of the text but questions the relation between literary and bodily form.

COMPLIT 376. Literature and Ideas (3). (HU). May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credits. May be elected more than once in the same term.  This course offers a general consideration of the ways in which particular ideas have affected the creation and history of literature, whether considered in terms of the history of ideas or as the content of individual work.

COMPLIT 382. Literature and the Other Arts (3). (HU). May be repeated for a maximum of 9 credits. May be elected more than once in the same term.  This course focuses on a comparative study of at least two art forms, such as literature and painting, poetry and music, or drama and film.

COMPLIT 422. Comparing World Literatures and Cultures Junior or upper-class standing. (3 - 4; 2 - 3 in the half-term). May be repeated for a maximum of 8 credits. May be elected more than once in the same term. An advanced seminar studying literature and cultures in a globalizing world. What does "literature" mean when considered in a comparative global context? The course is designed to encourage theoretical and interdisciplinary thought about pressing issues in the Humanities.

COMPLIT 434. Comparative Studies in Poetry.

Junior standing. (3). (Excl). May be repeated for credit for a maximum of 6 credits. Advanced introduction to the comparative study of poetry.

COMPLIT 438. Comparative Studies in Film.

Junior standing. (3). (Excl). May be repeated for credit for a maximum of 6 credits. An advanced introduction to the comparative study of film.

COMPLIT 490. Comparative Cultural Studies Junior standing. (3). May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credits. An advanced introduction to comparative studies in culture and cultural theory.

COMPLIT 492. Comparative Literary Theory Junior standing. (3). May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credits. An advanced introduction to comparative studies in literary theory.

COMPLIT 495. Senior Seminar in Comparative Literature Senior standing. (3). May not be repeated for credit. Offered Fall semester only. The culmination of undergraduate work in comparative literature. The course consists of an overview of current literary theory; readings; and student presentations of seminar papers developed in a tutorial situation with the instructor.

COMPLIT 496. Honors Thesis Requires COMPLIT 495 and Honors major in Comparative Literature. Permission of instructor. (3). (INDEPENDENT). May not be repeated for credit. F, W, Sp/Su, Sp, Su. Tutorial for writing the honors thesis, a paper usually begun in the Comparative Literature Senior Seminar taken in a previous term.

COMPLIT 498. Directed Reading Consent of instructor required. Permission of instructor.
(1 - 4). (INDEPENDENT). May not be repeated for credit. F, W, Sp/Su, Sp, Su. Intended for concentrators, this course is individually developed by a student in consultation with an instructor who may be any associated faculty member of the Program.