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2009-10 Course Descriptions
Fall Term |
COLT 101 |
Introduction to Comparative Literature |
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This course will concentrate on the practice of description--the production of a verbal or graphic likeness of an object or action—in literature, the visual arts and film. While the primary focus will be the Western tradition, examples from East Asia will be used to offset the essentially Western practice of effacing all traces of the artist’s hand. The technique of trompe l’oeil, prominent in both the Ancient world and Early Modernity, exemplifies a “realist” bias that favors “nature” over “work.” One of the foundational critical texts in the field of comparative literature, Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis, shares in this bias, charting a development that culminates in the 19 th-century French novel. Selections from Auerbach’s monumental book will help guide discussions beginning with Homer, Theocritus and Virgil and extending through Early Modernity (Shakespeare, Holbein). We will continue with a Realist novel and conclude with Kurosawa’s film Dreams. [Fall] [4 credits] |
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COLT 211 |
Comparative World Literature:
“Poetry and Philosophy” |
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Michael McCann
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A poet makes music with words, crafting lyrics and verse to enrapture his readers; a philosopher builds concepts with logic, erecting word walls to support his ideas. Can one really be both a philosopher and a poet? This course examines the work of philosophers who wrote poetry, poets who wrote philosophy, and a philosopher-poet whose works on both poetry and philosophy are among the best written. We will compare and contrast the works of three philosopher-poets from three national traditions and three time periods: William Blake, an eighteenth-century Englishman; Friedrich Nietzsche, a nineteenth-century German, and Andre Breton, a twentieth-century Frenchman. We will also read essays on language and poetry by the German philosopher/poet Martin Heidegger. [Fall] [4 credits] |
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COLT 211 |
Comparative World Literature:
“Rewording Africa” |
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Max Rayneard (with Emily McGinn)
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In Western minds Africa is often associated with backwardness, pestilence, starvation, and civil war. This “ Africa” of the West fails to grasp the continent’s national, cultural, racial, class, and gender diversity. At the same time, this idea of “ Africa” says a lot about the West’s understanding of itself. Indeed, it suggests that the West often constructs counter-examples by which to define itself as “advanced” or “civilized”. The purpose of this course is not to deny that many spaces in Africa are undergoing crises. Rather, we will be challenged to “not look away” from such crises while, with reference to a broad range of literary texts, asking how ethically to understand dynamics from which we are geographically and contextually distant. The course is divided into three distinct phases. First, we will historicize Western notions of Africa by examining the colonial writings of, amongst others, Joseph Conrad. Second, we will look at various texts by African writers that assert particular identities in response to overly-broad Western representations. In so doing, we will encounter works by Frantz Fanon ( Algeria), Ngugi wa Thiong’o ( Tanzania), Chinua Achebe ( Nigeria), Ken Saro Wiwa ( Nigeria), Tsitsi Dangarembga ( Zimbabwe) and Steve Biko ( South Africa). Third, with reference to texts by white writers in South Africa – J.M. Coetzee and Antjie Krog – we will ask whether it is possible ethically to reconstitute an understanding of Africa and its people from a position of historical privilege. [Fall] [4 credits] |
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COLT 211
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Comparative World Literature:
Scenarios of Encounter |
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In 1611 William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the story of Prospero’s shipwreck on Caliban’s island, was first performed. In 1719 Daniel Defoe published the story of Robinson Crusoe’s shipwreck and his encounter with the savage Friday. These early modern imaginings have offered an influential script for Europe’s imperial project, and the repeatedly enacted scenario of encounter between civilized Europe and the savage native has played an important role in Europe’s understanding of itself and its colonies. This course will begin with Defoe’s novel and Shakespeare’s play, reading them along with several anti-colonial and post-colonial revisions of the encounter scenario. Throughout the course, we will look at a variety of ways that authors have rewritten the colonial encounter, considering the continuing power of inherited cultural scripts and imagining the possibility for new forms of encounter in cultural situations which have been so thoroughly scripted. Primary texts will include Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, J.M. Coetzee’s Foe, Derek Walcott’s Pantomime, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Elizabeth Nunez’s Prospero’s Daughter, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North, and Marlene Nourbese Philip’s Looking for Livingstone. [4 credits][Fall] |
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COLT 212 |
Comparative World Cinema: Zombies |
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Jeong Chang
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This course will focus on representations of zombies in cinema. Starting with the question, "Why do we find zombies so scary?" we will analyze these representations and focus on issues of race, gender, disability, and the anxiety over large global migrations depicted through the fear of infection and the spread of disease. With the more contemporary films, we will focus on representations of the body and how it reflects anxieties about huge global migrations and the ability of diseases (such as the panic over SARS and fears of a bird flu pandemic) to make national boundaries seem permeable and vulnerable. Over the course of the term, we will also analyze zombies occurring in other national cinemas and study the consistencies and differences of these mindless undead. [Fall] [4 credits]
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COLT 301 |
Approaches to Comparative Literature |
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COLT 301 offers an introduction to literary theory, with an emphasis on comparative study. Students learn the fundamental theories and methods of Comparative Literature, reading selections from a wide variety of theoretical schools including psychoanalysis, linguistics, French feminism, poststructuralism and postcolonial studies. In addition, students investigate the relevance of such literary theory for the analysis of written and visual materials. Coursework typically culminates in a student project involving one artifact chosen by the student (text, painting, film, digital artwork, graphic novel, etc.) to be analyzed within the critical framework of the course. COLT 301 satisfies the University's Arts and Letters requirement. [Fall] [4 credits] |
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COLT 360 |
Gender and Identity in Literature: "Caribbean Sexualities" |
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Emily Taylor Meyers
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“To many, the Caribbean continues to be an unruly and promiscuous place. Territories that once served as sex havens for the colonial elite are today frequented by sex tourists, and several of the island economies now depend upon the region’s racialized, sexualized image.” --Kemala Kempadoo, Sexing the Caribbean: Gender, Race, and Sexual Labor
Representations of sexuality in the Caribbean (and of the Caribbean) have historically served the interests of those in power, whether it be a colonial power or a patriarchal power or both. Men and women are depicted as hypersexualized beings in order to “sell” the Caribbean in tourism discourse. In this course, we will examine an emergent body of Caribbean literature that responds to these representations and articulates Caribbean sexualities in relation to race, gender, class, national identity and colonialism. Through selected critical readings in postcolonial, feminist, and queer theory, we will consider what is at stake, politically and aesthetically, in these representations of sex and sexuality. [Fall] [4 credits] |
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COLT 415 |
Capstone Seminar |
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** Required for new Majors. Strongly urged for current majors. **
**COLT 415 is designed to give students advanced, one-on-one mentorship in literary analysis and research. In addition to the course professor, two advanced GTFs will be assigned to the course and will meet individually with each student on a weekly basis. Students considering graduate school will be given additional mentorship in the graduate application process; students writing senior theses will be tutored through the initial stages of thesis development, including the drafting of a thesis prospectus. Non-honors track students will receive mentorship as they draft a substantial (12-15 pp.) research paper. All students will have a chance to see their writing, research and analytical skills take quantum leaps forward. We have designed this course to offer educational opportunities available nowhere else on the UO campus. **To be taken in Fall of one's final year of college; may be taken earlier with Instructor approval. Available to non-Majors with Instructor approval.** [Fall] [4 credits] |
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COLT 462/562 |
Cultural Intersections: “Orientalism: Politics, Sexuality and Religion” |
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This course weaves together social theory, international politics, film and literature to analyze critically the imagination of civilizational difference between East and West. Beginning with Edward Said’s Orientalism, we will explore how civilizational rhetoric permeates discussions of political authority, sexuality and religion in the modern world. In texts ranging from Disney’s Aladdin to Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, the East has been figured as a land shrouded in mystery, the site of political despotism, heightened religiosity and unbridled sexuality. What animates these presumptions—and for whom? In what way do literary, filmic and philosophical texts affirm or contest these imaginings? Our goal is not necessarily to agree or disagree, but to examine the historical formation of Orientalism and to ask about possible worlds made thinkable outside the binarism of East and West. Readings include works by Edward Said, Wendy Brown, Montesquieu, Saba Mahmood, Tayeb Salih, Malek Alloula, Joseph Massad, Rifa’a al-Tahtawi, Ernst Renan, and Richard Burton. [Fall] [4 credits] |
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COLT 613 |
Translation Pedagogy |
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Courses designed with a broad-enough comparative focus inevitably encounter the problem of translation, because one can never assume that all students will share exactly the same foreign language expertise. And so, inevitably, one teaches texts in translation. But just what, precisely, is lost in translation? -- Such a question is inescapable within the pedagogy of Comparative Literature, but it is a question that is becoming increasingly important in other disciplines as well, since the drive to increase enrollments and improve accessibility has led to more and more literature-in-translation courses across campus. COLT 613 is designed to address this trend toward lit-in-translation. The seminar provides the training necessary to approach the pedagogy of lit.-in-translation responsibly. The course will deploy both practical and theoretical approaches. We will study theories of language, trope and translation, and will track the rise of a new discipline: "translation studies." We will also work collaboratively on issues arising in the classroom. We will learn how to devise and evaluate exercises designed to increase undergraduates' philological awareness. Finally, each member of the class will be responsible for constructing their own world lit syllabus, and will defend his/her choices to the rest of the class. In addition to the final syllabus project, students wishing to take the course for 5 credits will develop an individual research project and write a 12-15 pp final essay. [Fall] [4 credits] |
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