The course listing represents a sampling of courses taught by the faculty in this department in the 2009-10 academic year. To select courses for Fall 2009, see the catalog listing; similarly, for Spring 2010 refer to the relevant catalog.
CMPL-200 - Introduction to Comparative Literature
Offered: First Semester, Second SemesterCredit Hours: 4 hours
What kinds of theoretical models are valid for grounding literary comparisons across history, place, language, nation, culture, genre and medium? Texts from several literary traditions will be used to answer that question and explore topics in theory, translation, East-West comparison, and literature and the other arts. Enrollment limit: 25.
Note: Comparative Literature majors should take this course by the junior year.
CMPL-315 - Critical Theory and Classical Literature
Offered: Second SemesterCredit Hours: 3 Hours
This course will consider the questions both of what role critical theory has played in the reception of the Classics, and what role the Classics have played in critical theory. We will conclude by asking to what degree critical theory is desirable, necessary, or appropriate to any sufficient scholarly apparatus of reading ancient texts. Primary authors will include Plato, Euripides, and Apuleius; theorists will be Lacan, Derrida and Nietzsche; Classical scholars will include Willamowitz, Rohde, Winkler, and Gildersleeve.
Work at the 200 Level in Classics or other Literature Courses
CMPL-338 - Tango: A Cultural History
Offered: First Semester, 2010-2011Credit Hours: 3 hours
This course examines the social, political, and aesthetic dimensions of tango. By looking at dance, music, lyrics and other tango manifestations, students will explore how communities encode their traditional values in expressive forms, how these forms operate subversively in popular culture, and how they officially represent the nation. Films, recordings, and printed documents complement the readings in this course, as will guest speakers. Includes the option of a dance or music practicum. Taught in Spanish.
HISP 304 or equivalent.
CMPL-350 - Translation Workshop
Offered: Second SemesterCredit Hours: 4 hours
Work by modern and contemporary world poets–and some classical examples–will be studied in the original languages and translated into American English. The first half of the course will focus on translation exercises and readings in translation theory which will help students to design the projects on which they will be working during the second half.
This course has no prerequisites, but some knowledge of a foreign language and some experience in writing poetry are required. Admission is based on a completed application form and writing sample (due in Program office by 5:00 p.m. the last day of semester classes).
CMPL-351 - Traduttore, Traditore: Theory and Practice of Translation
Offered: First SemesterCredit Hours: 4 Hours
How do we translate? What skills are involved in interlingual translation? Drawing on a variety of theoretical and practical approaches (Bassnett, Venuti, Spivak), this course examines the challenges and pleasures of translating between languages, whether our own workshop translations, historically important translations such as The Diary of Anne Frank, or an author’s self-translation such as Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictée.
A working knowledge of a foreign language is required.
CMPL-370 - Itineraries of Postmodernism
Offered: First Semester, 2010-2011Credit Hours: 4 hours
This course explores the roots of postmodernism in European literature and philosophy. Theorists include Derrida on poststructuralism, Nancy on myth, Barthes and Foucault on authorial agency, Vattimo on the transparent society, and Spivak on the subaltern. Literary texts have been chosen for their importance in the modernist-postmodernist trajectory and their complex responsiveness, both formal and thematic, to defining issues of postmodernism. Authors may include Kafka, Duras, O'Brien, Bataille.
Prerequisite: A literature course in any language.
CMPL-372 - Contemporary Literary Theory: Post-Modernity and Imagination
Offered: First SemesterCredit Hours: 4 hours
This course is about developments in literary theory in the context of the last 35 years of American intellectual and artistic culture. Our concern will be understanding literary theories in their historical and institutional contexts as well as considering their value as ways of thinking about literature and art. We'll pay particular attention to the impact of post-structuralism on American critics, the relation of literary criticism to cultural criticism, and various elaborations of the idea of post-modernity. Enrollment Limit: 25. Prequisites and Notes Prerequisite: Two 200-level courses, including at least one Gateway course; or three 200-level courses.
CMPL-375 - Representations of the Holocaust in Comparative Contexts
Offered: First SemesterCredit Hours: 3 Hours
Although it has been taken largely out of context, Adorno’s famous dictum that "to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric" has set the terms of various debates about representations of the Holocaust. What cultural, political, and historical factors inform memorialization and storytelling? This course looks at literature, films, and memorials in the U.S., Israel, Poland, and Germany to examine how the Holocaust has been represented in different countries, languages, and cultures.
CINE-400 - The Senior Project I
Offered: First SemesterCredit Hours: 1-4 Hours
Required of all Cinema Studies majors and exclusively for Cinema Studies majors, this year-long team-taught course combines student interests in production and critical studies. The first module is spent planning and preparing for an independent project; modules two and three are devoted to executing the project; module four is devoted to public exhibition or performance of the project.
CMPL-440 - Music, Orality, and Literature in Hispanic Traditions
Offered: Second SemesterCredit Hours: 3 Hours
The long-standing relationship between verbal art and music will be explored through examples taken from so-called high art, popular traditions, and folklore. Among the topics addressed are: how certain musical paradigms shaped literary aesthetics, the phenomenon of improvisation in music and verbal art, the conventions of Romanticism and the dissonance of Modernity in literature and music, the relationship between popular song and poetry, tradition and innovation in oraliture, practices of performance in literature and music. Taught in Spanish.
CMPL-457 - Caribbean Cultures and Literatures
Offered: First Semester, 2010-2011Credit Hours: 3 hours
This course examines the relationship between literature and folklore in the Francophone, Anglophone, Spanish-speaking and Dutch Caribbean. Central issues include: the creolization of cultures and presence of a creole aesthetic in literature and the traditional arts (music, dance, theater, painting, etc.), the relationship of colonialism and tourism to cultural productions, the re-writing of 'master texts' from the Western canon, the dialogue between oral and written literatures, and the literary re-writings of history. Taught in English.
CMPL-474 - China and Japan in the French Imaginary
Offered: First SemesterCredit Hours: 3 hours
In this course students will examine French representations of East Asia from the late 19th century to the present. Through close readings of films, paintings, comic books, and literary texts, students will expand their sense of the visual/verbal literacy with which one 'reads culture' through these different literary and artistic media. Topics addressed will include 'chinoiseries' and 'japonisme,' literary exoticism, French Maoism, travel literature, war documentaries, and the challenges of cross-cultural exchange. Taught in French.
Prequisites and Notes Two courses at the 300-level beyond 301
CMPL-501 - Honors Project
Offered: First SemesterCredit Hours: 3 hours
Consent of Program Director required.
CMPL-502 - Honors Project
Offered: Second SemesterCredit Hours: 3 hours
Consent of Program Director required.
CMPL-995 - Private Reading
Offered: First Semester, Second SemesterCredit Hours: 1-3 hours
Independent study of a subject beyond the range of catalog course offerings. Signed permission of the instructor is required.
To register for a private reading, the student must obtain the signatures of the instructor and department chair on a private reading card and turn the card in to the Office of the Registrar.
