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Fall 2023

CL 9504 New Fundamentals of Comparative Literature

This course is about the gloriously elusive discipline called Comparative Literature, a discipline that has famously been described as “a yearning rather than an object” (Claudio Guillèn, The Challenge of Comparative Literature, 1993) and as an “indiscipline” “that eschews definition of itself as a discipline” (David Ferris, “Indiscipline”, in Haun Saussy, ed., Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization, 2006).

The course sets itself two objectives: 1) to identify what doing Comparative Literature means by reflecting on how its scope and objectives have been defined, redefined, and challenged over time; 2) to become familiar with academic writing standards in general, and with the research questions and methods that apply specifically to Comparative Literature, making its (alleged) elusiveness and indiscipline a ‘disciplined’ elusiveness and a ‘disciplined’ indiscipline.

CL 9617B The Bible and Literature

This course is intended to introduce the student to the way certain parts of the Old and New Testament have been retold and re-interpreted through literary fiction. We will analyze texts where authors have sought to preserve the sacred dimension of their biblical sources, undermine it or both. We will consider what is lost and gained during this transfer as antiquity meets modernity. We will attempt to determine if the two ages speak to each other or past each other. Questions of politics, pertaining to both the biblical texts and their modern counterparts, will be of paramount importance. We will see to what extent the cultural environment and background of each modern author in question influenced the transformation of the biblical material. The background theoretical basis for this course will be G. Genette's Palimpsests where the modalities of textual retellings are explored in a taxonomic framework. Additionally, the psychology of religious belief as outlined in P. Boyer’s Religion Explained is helpful in connection to the literary corpus of the course and other findings from sociobiology.

Winter 2024

CL 9622A Intermediality: Book to Film

What happens to a story as it moves from the medium of narrative to that of film? What are the differences, commonalities and problems associated with the (mis)matching of two ways of representing reality? We will explore ways of “seeing" with words and “telling" with images... or vice versa. We will consider what is lost and/or gained through this intermedial process and to what extent filmmakers "respect" their literary sources or displace them. Discussion will be contextualized in the exploration of human psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, philosophy and the history of ideas

Fall 2022
CL 9502A Fundamentals of Comparative Literature Part 2: Modes of Engagement
James Miller
Mondays 1:30-4:30pm, UC 3320

The set of assigned readings for Fundamentals II begins in the intellectual turbulence of the 1960s, the
period in which the set of assigned readings for Fundamentals I left off. Critical questions raised by the
key notion of “comparison”-- What literatures are worth comparing? Who determines the grounds of
comparison? Why should national literatures be compared? How interdisciplinary should comparative
literature be? Where does the unifying ideal of “World Literature” (as originally generated by the
comparative project) lead in an increasingly fragmented world?-- will be dialectically addressed in
relation to the key notion of “engagement” by critics and theorists who have directed the attention of
Comparatists towards the great divides in postwar culture.

CL9616A The Uncanny and the Fantastic
Vlad Tumanov
Tuesdays 9:30-12:30pm, UC 3320

Fantastic fictional worlds are often based on the violation of physical laws while the uncanny involves the combination of the familiar with the deeply disturbing. With the uncanny and the fantastic, story-telling becomes a tool for exploring the hidden recesses of the human mind and for facing our greatest fears. In the modern age, authors have delved into such realms in order to work out and model challenges of life in the ordinary world by pushing the human imagination and emotions to the limit. This course will consider a number of works in different languages representing various approaches to the fantastic and the uncanny.

CL 9692A Global Medievalism
Jane Toswell, UC 4401
Tuesdays 12:30-3:30pm

This course will introduce the principal concepts of medievalism, using the oft-cited Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott as a starting point before turning to several more recent texts such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, and Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red.  The course will then turn to recent scholarship on global medievalism with consideration of Jorge Luis Borges and then of recent worldwide engagements with medievalism as a political tool.  We will finish with more broad-based considerations of the medieval at work in the modern day.

CL9729A Apocalypse and Pastoral: Genres of Environmental Fantasy
James Miller, UC 3320
Wednesdays 9:30-12:30pm

Environmental fantasies in the West have traditionally been expressed in two literary genres: Pastoral, which harks back to the origins of Nature and Culture; and Apocalypse, which looks forward to the long-overdue destruction of the Fallen World in preparation for the sudden creation of "New Heaven and New Earth." While Pastoral emerged in the literature of pagan antiquity, Apocalypse developed out of biblical sources.  Originally unrelated to each other, the two genres of environmental hope and anxiety collided in the culture of Augustan Rome and momentously converged in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages to produce a holistic view of time, space, divine order, and human potential.  In this course we shall study the literary consequences of that convergence, which may still be discerned in the environmental fantasies generated by the authors of ecological doomsday reports, green radical manifestoes, and contemporary speculative fiction.

Winter 2023
CL 9723B The Future
Felipe Quintanilla
Wednesday 5:30-8:30pm, UC 3325

A deep dive into the rich panorama of future-minded philosophy and world literature, film and culture. How have we imagined "time” itself, as well as our place within the cosmos. Are we mere tinkerers, voyagers,exiles, builders of utopia, or destroyers of worlds? On our journey we will consider Icarus, Frankenstein, the cyborg, AI, the Anthropocene and the Trans and Post-human beyond and even, yes, “aliens”.

CL 9652B Latin American Popular Culture: Globalization, Migration and Ethnic Relations
Victoria Wolff
Tuesdays 10:30-1:30pm, UC 3325

In this seminar, we will study how Latin-American popular culture is shaped by global flows that impact the modes by which these unique and diverse forms of cultural production are created, reproduced, negotiated, and consumed. We will develop some background and context in the field through the study of some foundational texts and begin to understand important issues related to cultural products and their points of contact (identity, migration, intersectional struggles, etc.). Then, we will analyze certain areas of popular cultural influence with relevant case studies, divided by genre. This categorization will serve to highlight key popular cultural expressions and their processes, as well as their relation back to the conceptual framework of the course.

CL 9503B Propaedeutics for Comparatists
James Miller
Wednesdays 9:30-12:30pm, UC 3320

The course is divided into four units. The first unit covers Research
Methods appropriate for the discipline of Comparative Literature. You will learn how Comparatists
have historically distinguished their discipline from other kinds of literary studies; why Comparatists
are careful to formulate specific research questions within a broad topic and a broader field of inquiry;
and what dialectical strategies contribute to the strength of a Comparative Literary argument. The
second unit will consider the complex overlapping histories of the three main cultural institutions – the
Library, the Archive, and the Internet – to which Comparatists routinely turn for sources in the search
for answers to their research questions. The third unit focuses on the various academic genres which
serve to shape the critical expectations of the educated readers for which Comparatists commonly write
their works. And the fourth unit concentrates on the prospective form and organization of the first
important work – the MA thesis – that a student of Comparative Literature is expected to produce after
an intensive period of language training, background research, and methodological inquiry.
ii.

Fall 2020

CL 9502A Fundamentals of Comparative Literature Part ll:Modes of Engagement
James Miller
Mondays 1:30pm-4:30pm

CL 9502B may be considered the sequel to CL 9501A in two senses--chronologically and dialectically.
The set of assigned readings for Fundamentals II begins in the intellectual turbulence of the 1960s, the
period in which the set of assigned readings for Fundamentals I left off. Critical questions raised by the
key notion of “comparison”-- What literatures are worth comparing? Who determines the grounds of
comparison? Why should national literatures be compared? How interdisciplinary should comparative
literature be? Where does the unifying ideal of “World Literature” (as originally generated by the
comparative project) lead in an increasingly fragmented world?-- will be dialectically addressed in
relation to the key notion of “engagement” by critics and theorists who have directed the attention of
Comparatists towards the great divides in postwar culture.

CL 9511A Erotomachia: The Battle of the Sexes from Aristophanes to Spike Lee
James Miller
Wedensdays 9:30am-12:30pm

In Botticelli’s famous painting of Venus and Mars, the Goddess of Love casts a serenely
victorious glance at the disarmed and dismounted God of War while mischievous satyrs mock
his amorous might by donning his mighty armour, capturing his phallic lance, and blowing a
conch in his ear. Will he heed their alarming wake-up call? Despite his commanding physique
Mars seems blissfully unaware of his defeat on the battlefield of love. Venus has clearly won this
round in the Battle of the Sexes.
Behind Botticelli’s ironically peaceful scene of sexual triumph lies a provocative tradition of
imagining the erotic life as a conflict, a problematic “conceit” originating in the ancient allegory
of the Erotomachia (“Sex War”). In this graduate course for the Comparative Literature program,
we shall trace this ÉîÒ¹¸£ÀûÕ¾ cultural tradition back to its narrative origins in classical literature
and then follow its cultural elaborations through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the
Enlightenment and the Modern period.

CL9651/SP 9025A The Nineteenth Century Novel: From Literature to Adaptation
Victoria Wolff
Thursdays 9:00am-12:00pm

This seminar will focus on selected novels from Spain and Spanish America and their adaptations into other genres, such as musical theater adn film.  Our primary sources will be Pepita Jiménez (1874) and  Cecilia Valdés (1882). These works selected from the nineteenth century are an important part of what has been traditionally considered the literary canon. This course provides the occasion to develop foundational understandings of these works, as well as the opportunity to move beyond the literary canon into new directions. 

Winter 2021

CL 9503B Propaedeutics
James Miller
Wednesdays 9:30am-12:30pm

Having passed through the Gate of Hell, Dante abruptly recoils at the confused sound of “diverse
tongues, horrible speeches, painful words, cries of rage, voices loud and faint” [diverse lingue, orribili
favelle, / parole di dolore, accenti d’ira, / voci alte e fioche: Inf. 3.25-27]. Replace Dante with yourself
at the start of your Comparative Literature MA program, and you’ll soon find serious grounds for
empathizing with his state of polyglot panic. Having crossed over the threshold of graduate studies, you
are bound to face an intimidating confusion of course requirements, research instructions, multilingual
bibliographies, thesis statements, scholarship applications, theoretical jargons, clashing arguments,
illogical conclusions, and voices loud and faint telling you what you need to accomplish en route to
your degree. Where is Virgil when you need him? Fortunately a trustworthy guide is at hand,
marching beside you in the form of this required course on research methodology, thesis writing, and
academic professionalization. The course is divided into four units. The first unit covers Research
Methods appropriate for the discipline of Comparative Literature. You will learn how Comparatists
have historically distinguished their discipline from other kinds of literary studies; why Comparatists
are careful to formulate specific research questions within a broad topic and a broader field of inquiry;
and what dialectical strategies contribute to the strength of a Comparative Literary argument. The
second unit will consider the complex overlapping histories of the three main cultural institutions – the
Library, the Archive, and the Internet – to which Comparatists routinely turn for sources in the search
for answers to their research questions. The third unit focuses on the various academic genres which
serve to shape the critical expectations of the educated readers for which Comparatists commonly write
their works. And the fourth unit concentrates on the prospective form and organization of the first
important work – the Major Research Paper – that an MA student of Comparative Literature is
expected to produce in the third term of study.

CL 9601B From Language to Writing to Writing Systems
Laurence de Looze
Wednesdays 1:00pm-4:00pm

Philosophers and others have consistently asserted that the development of language and the invention of writing signaled huge cognitive shifts in the evolution of (or towards) humanity. Was the advent of speech the stage at which humanity began? Did true civilization arise only with the invention of writing? Are there different cognitive implications as a result of different descendant writing systems?
This seminar will move through these three stages, investigating the theories and the debates that have arisen (usually with no firm conclusion). Did a nascent ability to conceptualize lead to speech (Logan, Hockett, etc.) or did speech cause conceptualization (Pinker, Donald, Deacon, etc.)? What caused writing to come about, why was it needed, what did it entail, and what were its implications both for the first people to have it and for subsequent ages? Finally, what has led to the creation of very different writing systems – pictogrammic, ideogrammic, alphabetic, iconic – and how have they been viewed by scholars? Regarding this last stage we will engage specifically with contacts between alphabetic and non-alphabetic writing systems and with Eurocentric assumptions about the superiority of alphabetic writing as well as recent criticisms of such a view.

CL 9616B The Uncanny and the Fantastic
Vlad Tumanov
Tuesdays 9:30am-12:30pm

Fantastic fictional worlds are often based on the violation of physical laws while the uncanny involves the combination of the familiar with the deeply disturbing. When the uncanny and the fantastic are combined, story-telling becomes a tool for exploring the hidden recesses of the human mind and for facing our greatest fears. From antiquity to the modern age, authors have delved into such realms in order to work out and model challenges of life in the ordinary world by pushing the human imagination and emotions to the limit.   This course will consider a number of works in different languages representing various approaches to the fantastic and the uncanny.

CL 9690B Writing the Medieval Body
Melitta Adamson
Tuesdays 2:30pm-5:30pm

The course will focus on sexuality and illness in the medical, religious, and literary discourses from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. Of particular interest will be the development of medieval technical literature (Fachliteratur) as it moved from the monastery to the university and with its preference for prose distanced itself from the "less truthful" texts (romances, poetry, fabliaux, etc.) which were written in verse. Works studied in the course will be examples in which two or more of the discourses converge or collide, starting with Hildegard von Bingen's medical text Cause et Cure from the twelfth century. Literary works from the classical Middle High German period will be studied in combination with their foreign, in particular French, forerunners or parodies (Cligès). They will include Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan, in which women healers, a love potion, and trial by ordeal figure prominently, Hartmann von Aue's Iwein whose protagonist suffers from madness, Der Arme Heinrich with a protagonist afflicted by leprosy, and Gregorius which features double incest. In the medical works of medieval and Renaissance school medicine the emphasis will be on sexuality and procreation, two areas from which the religious discourse is never completely absent as Maino de Maineri's Regimen sanitatis, and Jakob Rueff's gynecological work Hebammenbuch illustrate. The course will conclude with a look at the representations of the body in the fabliaux and Shrovetide plays of Hans Sachs.

CL 9722B/SP 9648B Testimony, Memory, Fiction
Felipe Quintanilla
Mondays 5:00pm-8:00pm

This course will be devoted to the study of memory and its connections to writing modalities such as the testimonial, the  memoire, auto-fiction and fiction, in Latin American and in US/Canadian Latinx contexts. The texts, films and artistic installations we will be exploring will range from those centered on the bitter fruits of the Cold War in Latin America, but also on more recent phenomena such as the various indigenous/ student/ feminist movements of self-determination, as well as on the complex migration flows across  las Am éricas from the early 1970s to the present day. Along the way, we will be thinking about the nature of testimonial literature and its emergence in Latin America, its understanding as a literary genre and its positionality vis à vis the literary cannon and vis à vis political action. The concepts that will inform our discussions will be subalternity, voice, social justice, human rights, transnational solidarity, reparations, and memory. We will be listening to the voices from various struggles, from women, youth, combatants, and the indigenous. We will end, finally, on a consideration of fiction as a potential tool for remembering and imaginative healing.

Fall
CL 9501A Fundamentals of Comparative Literature Part 1
James Miller
Mondays: 1:30-4:30pm, WL 107

CL 9729A Life-Support: Literature and Environmentalism
James Miller
Wednesdays: 9:30-12:30pm, WL 107

CL 9622A Intermediality: Book to Film
Vlad Tumanov
Tuesdays: 9:30-12:30pm, UC 3320

Winter
CL 9503B Propaedeutics for Comparatists
James Miller
Wednesdays: 9:30-12:30pm, WL 107

CL 9609B Why (and how) are things similar?: Analogy, Example, Metaphor, Taxonomy
Laurence de Looze
Tuesdays: 2:30-5:30pm, STVH 3165

CL 9100B Nineteenth-Century Cities: Berlin, London, Paris
David Darby
Mondays: 1:30-4:30pm, UC 3320

CL 9617B The Bible and Literature
Vlad Tumanov
Mondays: 9:30-12:30pm, UC 3325

CL 9650 Narratives of Imperialism, 1492-Today
Lauren Beck (Visiting Scholar, Mount Allison University)
Blended: half reading course and half in class
On-campus meetings: July 15-26, 2:00-5:00pm, UC 3325

Fall
CL 9501A Fundamentals of Comparative Literature 1
James Miller
Monday 1:30-4:30pm, UC 3320

CL 9612A Metamorphoses of the Letter
Laurence de Looze
Thursday 1:30-4:30pm, LwH 2205

CL 9733A/SP 9021A Literature, Music, and Migration: Jose Maria Arguedas
Victoria Wolff
Thursday 10:30-1:30pm, UC 3325

Winter

CL 9502B Fundamentals of Comparative Literature 2
James Miller
Monday 1:30-4:30pm, UC 3320

CL 9503B Propaedeutics for Comparatists
James Miller
Wednesday 9:30-12:30pm, UC 3320

CL 9623B/SP 9631B National (and others) Identities in Film
Constanza Burucua
Monday 9:30-12:30pm,

CL 9723 The Future
Felipe Quintanilla
Tuesday 7:00-10:00pm, UC 3305

Fall Term
CL 9501A Fundamentals of Comparative Literature 1
James Miller
Mondays 1:30-4:30pm, Pride Library

CL 9622A Intermediality: Book to Film
Vlad Tumanov
Wednesdays 1:30-4:30pm, WL 259

CL 9709A Narrative and The Self
Luca Pocci
Thursdays 9:30am-12:30pm, LWH 2205

Winter Term

CL 9502B Fundamentals of Comparative Literature 2
James Miller
Mondays 1:30-4:30pm

CL 9503B Thesis Project and Writing
James Miller
Wednesdays 9:30-12:30pm

CL 9690B Writing the Medieval Body
Melitta Adamson
Tuesdays 1:30-4:30pm

CL 9691B Sinography, Corpography, and Beyond
Kevin Liu
Thursdays 9:30-12:30pm

Fall 2016
CL 9501A  Fundamentals of Comparative Literature
Luca Pocci
Mondays 5:30-8:30pm, STVH 1119

CL 9617A  The Bible and Literature
Vlad Tumanov
Wednesdays 1;#0-4:30pm, VAC 100

CL 9699A  Reading between the Lines: Hermeneutics and Historicism
James Miller
Tuesdays 9:30-12:30pm, WL 107

Winter 2017

CL 9503B Thesis Project and Writing
James Miller
Wednesdays 9:30-12:30pm, WL 107

CL 9686B Avant-Garde and the Museum
Cristina Caracchini
Thursdays 9:30-12:30pm, STVH 2166

CL 9696B Literature and Architecture
James Miller
Tuesdays 9:30-12:30pm, WL 107

Please note that Fundamentals of Comparative Literature 2 will be offered in 2017-18.

Full Year (alternate weeks)

CL 9503Y/FR 9018Y Thesis Project and Writing
Marilyn Randall
Tuesdays 4:30-7:30pm (alternating Tuesdays), LWH 2205

Fall Term

CL 9501A Fundamentals of Comparative Literature I
Luca Pocci
Mondays 5:30-8:30pm, LWH 2210

CL 9011A What Poetry Knows
Cristina Caracchini
Tuesdays 10:30-1:30pm, WL 259 *please note that this is a new day for this course*

CL 9614A   An Erosophy of Culture
Călin Mihăilescu
Wednesdays 2:30-5:30pm, LWH 2205

Winter Term

CL 9502B Fundamentals of Comparative Literature II
Călin Mihăilescu
Mondays 5:30-8:30pm, LWH 2205

CL 9729B  Circles of Sustainability: Literature and Environmentalism
James Miller
Wednesdays 9:30-12:30pm, WL 107

CL 9730B/FR 9111B  Violence et transgression dans la littérature de l’Ancien Régime
Daniel Vaillancourt
Tuesdays 9:00-12:00pm, AHB 2R09

CL 9731B Météorologiques
Tony Purdy
Mondays 12:30-3:30pm, AHB 2R09

Theocrit    "A Useless Exile":  The Promise of Aesthetics
Allan Pero
*four spaces available to Complit students.
Wednesdays, time tba

Full Year (alternate weeks)

CL 9503Y/SP9505Y  Thesis Project and Writing
Victoria Wolff
Mondays:  1:30-4:30 pm, SH 3350                                                     

Fall Term

CL 9501A  Fundamentals of Comp Lit I
Luca Pocci
Mondays:  6:30-9:30 pm, UC 205

CL 9613A/CTSC 9648A  Langue Out on Parole
Călin Mihăilescu
Tuesdays:  1:30-4:30 pm, UC 287

CL 9617A  The Bible and Literature
Vlad Tumanov
Thursdays: 10:30-1:30pm, SH 3305

CL 9620A/Film 9213A    Heteroglossia in Cinema
Janina Falkowska
Mondays: 10:30-12:30pm (lecture), UC 12
Thursdays: 11:30-2:30pm (screening), UC 12

Winter Term

CL 9502B  Fundamentals of Comp Lit II
Călin Mihăilescu                                
Mondays:  5:30-8:30 pm, UC 205

CL 9612B/CSTC 9658  Metamorphoses of the Letter
Laurence de Looze
Thursdays:  2:30-5:30 pm, SH 2348

CL 9690B   Writing the Medieval Body
Melitta Adamson
Tuesdays: 1:30-4:30pm,LwH 2210

CL 9727B/ENG 9119B  Futures—of Romanticism
Jan Plug                                                                      
Mondays:  9:30-12:30 pm, UC 377                                                                              

 

Full Year (meets every other week 0.5 credit; Pass/Fail)

Instructor: Professor Marilyn Randall
Tuesdays: 4:30-7:30 pm, UC 138A

FALL TERM 2013

Instructor: Luca Pocci
Mondays: 5:30-8:30 pm, UC 205

Instructor: Cristina Caracchini
Thursdays 9:30-12:30 pm, UC 205

Instructor: Nandi Bhatia
Wednesdays: 9:30-12:30 pm, UC 377

WINTER TERM 2014

Instructor: Calin Mihailescu
Mondays: 5:30-8:30 pm, UC 205

CL 9696b Literature and Architecture
Instructor: James Miller
Mondays: 12:30-3:30 pm, UC 288