Course Description
Introduction to models of comparative analysis across a variety of national literature, historical traditions, genres, and media that uses primary and theoretical texts to document the emergence, evolution, and decolonization of Comparative Literature along with the interdisciplinary methodologies it has introduced to the humanities.
Athena Title
Comparative Humanities
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
1. To demonstrate a historical understanding of the distinct debates informing the discipline of comparative literature, its twentieth-century evolution, and its revision in the twenty-first century 2. To cultivate a complex, transdisciplinary understanding and appreciation of literary texts, cultural artifacts, and diverse media in their wide political and social contexts 3. To recognize and research the relations between literature and other modes of cultural production, critical theory, and globalization 4. To analyze literature and the arts as sites of intercultural collaboration and resistance
Topical Outline
Sample Critical Reading Topics 1. What Is Comparative Literature? A Disciplinary History 2. Goethe, Weltliteratur (1835) 3. Susan Basnett, Comparative Literature (1993) 4. Charles Bernheimer, Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism (1994) 5. David Damrosch, What Is World Literature? (2003) 6. Emily Apter, The Translation Zone (2005) 7. Gayatri Spivak, Death of a Discipline (2006) 8. Haun Saussy, Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization (2006) 9. Stephen Tötösy de Zepetnek, “The New Humanities: The Intercultural, the Comparative, and the Interdisciplinary” (2007) 10. Dominguez, Villanueva, Saussy: Introducing Comparative Literature: New Trends and Applications (2014) 11. Futures of Comparative Literature, State of the Discipline Report (2015) 12. Bernd Fischer, Transcultural Literary Studies (2017) 13. Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh, “Interculturality and Decoloniality” (2018)
Syllabus
Public CV