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2009-10 Course Descriptions
Spring Term |
COLT 103 |
Introduction to Comparative Literature III: "Thinking Through Cinema" |
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Michael Allan
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May be taken independently from Comparative Literature 101 & 102
Writing in 1931, the French critic, George Duhamel described cinema as “a spectacle that demands no effort, that does not imply any sequence of ideas, that raises no questions, that evokes no deep feeling, that lights no light in the depths of any heart, that excites no hope, if not the ridiculous one of some day becoming a ‘star’ at Los Angeles.” Responding to Duhamel’s remarks, over seventy-five years later, we might wonder how cinema has moved us to think differently. What relation does cinema set forth between seeing, feeling and understanding? In what ways is film instructive in helping us to see anew?
This course explores both how different critics have thought about cinema and how cinema, in turn, alters thinking. The quarter will be divided into four parts, each of which touches upon a specific aspect of cinematic thinking. The first section will address the spectacle of attraction in early and avant-garde cinema; the second will focus on affect in narrative film and melodrama; the third will address the film essay and documentary film; and the fourth will question aesthetic form in global cinema. Students will be required to attend a weekly screening outside of the ordinary class hours, in addition to preparing the various readings for each session. Readings and films by Walter Benjamin, Guy Maddin, Rey Chow, Antonioni, Andy Warhol, Carol Clover, Linda Williams, Christian Metz, André Bazin, Abbas Kiarostami, Alfred Hitchcock, Todd Haynes, Tom Gunning and MaryAnn Doane. [Spring] [4 credits] |
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COLT 211 |
Comparative World Literature: "Modern Occult Literature" |
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Michael McCann
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The practice of occult magic—Wicca, tarot, alchemy, Kabbalah, astrology, and myriad other “dark arts”—has inspired countless novelists, playwrights, and poets. Yet, a banishing spell seems to have been cast over the study of these forbidden disciplines at universities. That spell has been broken . . . In keeping with Comparative Literature's wide-ranging penchant for inclusive open-mindedness, this course plunges fearlessly into the shadowy realms of the occult. Through a variety of international texts including essays, poems, short stories, and novels, we critically examine the literary influence of some infamous magicians of nineteenth- and twentieth-century occult magicians, including Eliphas Levi, Aleister Crowley, and Dion Fortune. [Spring] [4 credits] |
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COLT 211 |
Comparative World Literature: "Seeing" |
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Moshe Rachmuth
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In this course, we will see how writers use the motif of a secret to develop plot, create mood, and reveal character. Do we really get what we see? Can we see if somebody is lying by looking at the person’s eyes? Can we get to the truth?
In all the stories discussed in the course we will have heroes who lie and hide. Some have a secret from the past, some have a double life and some lie about their plans for the future. At times, we, the spectators or readers, have the perspective of the liar, in other times we learn about the truth only later, if we learn of it at all. In the course, we will analyze the effects of a story, using tools of formalism, narratology and gap-theory.
[Spring] [4 credits] |
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COLT 211 |
Comparative World Literature: Leprosy and Colonialism in the Americas |
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“Revulsion and fear have been the most common responses to leprosy since biblical times, yet there is slight medical basis for the recurring stigmatization of a disease with such a very low level of infection. Leprosy, it seems, has had extraordinary potential for becoming more than itself.” --Rod Edmund, Leprosy and Empire: A Medical and Cultural History
In this course we will consider cultural texts from or about the Caribbean, Hawai’i and Latin America that are centrally concerned with the representation of leprosy. We will read these representations within the political and historical context of U.S. and European colonialism to consider how the disease functions in fictional texts to represent colonial control and regulation of human bodies, sexual relationships, the fear of difference and racial mixing, economic exploitation, and the relationship of the self to the Other. Our central focus for the course will be how representations of leprosy function metaphorically to represent historical and political problems in the Americas. [Spring] [4 credits] |
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COLT 211 |
Comparative World Literature: Mapping Postcolonial Spaces |
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Like narrative, maps offer an interpretive structure for understanding one’s world and a means of asserting control in that world. Maps have been central to narratives of empire, as the development of modern cartography has been closely linked to the rise of European colonialism. They have also been important to narratives of independence, as colonized societies have used maps to assert their cultural identity and autonomy. In a postcolonial context, writers are exploring the impact of these maps on the societies that have inherited them, and they are attempting to map cultural spaces in new ways. Written from a variety of postcolonial situations in Africa, India, Australia, and North America, the novels we will read for this course have in common a linking of narrative and cartography through which the authors explore the relations between cultural identity, political power, and the production of knowledge. Primary texts may include The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, Maps by Nuruddin Farah, The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh, Tropic of Orange by Karen Tei Yamashita, and Life & Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee. [Spring] [4 credits] |
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COLT 212 |
Comparative World Cinema: Gloabal Travels |
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This course will examine travel in world cinema. One of the prominent characteristics of contemporary life is the increased opportunity and/or necessity for travel. Whether for pleasure or to find work, global populations are increasingly on the move and trying to move faster and faster. This class will examine films where travel and migration play an important role in the film. In the course of the term, we will ask the following questions: how is movement represented in film? What are the formal characteristics of such movement in film? What kinds of movement are privileged? How do these representations reflect and construct our notions of movement in the era of globalization? [Spring] [4 credits] |
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COLT 305 |
Cultural Studies |
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COLT 305 introduces students to the interdisciplinary study of cultural discourses and practices known as "cultural studies." Cultural studies has increasingly become a central field within the discipline of comparative literature, thanks to its capacity to address a huge variety of cultural artifacts across an array of national contexts. In COLT 305, students are introduced to the defining concept of cultural studies: namely that culture can be understood as a meaningful system of signs, capable of analysis and interpretation. In addition, students learn to address the historical and socio-political contexts of culture, paying special attention to the ways in which cultural forms help delineate power relations, typically in terms of categories like gender, race and class. COLT 305 teaches students how to interpret and critique the many levels of cultural discourse that surround us, and further helps students position such discourse within a global context. [Spring] [4 credits] |
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COLT 360 |
Gender & Identity in Literature |
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Dawn Marlan
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As the literary form that marks the encounter between subjectivity and the world, the novel puts particular pressure on themes of gender and identity. For it is identity that marks the convolutions and collisions of external and internal, individual and collective, natural and cultural forces. In this course, we will read complex, compelling “contemporary” novels from around the world, examining the ways in which gender identity is always linked to questions of identity more broadly. We will be interested in the ways in which gender interacts with other markers of identity—religious, ethnic, national, and familial. We will explore the continuities and discontinuities across cultures in vastly different narratives that circle around the same questions. We will be interested in tracking whether their (more or less) simultaneous production belies their belonging to what seems to be, in effect, different historical periods that are now forced to coexist.
Novels may include:
Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex; Michael Cunningham, A Home at the End of the World, J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace; Orly Castel-Bloom, Dolly City; V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River, Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss; Amelie Nothomb, Fear and Trembling; Chimamanda Adichie, Purple Hibiscus; Tsitsi Dangaremba Nervous Conditions.
[Spring] [4 credits] |
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COLT 430/530 |
Literary Movements: "Modernism andthe Essay" |
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In this course we will examine modernism from about 1900 to 1950 through the lens of the essay. This genre sees a particularly vivid development in the first half of the 20th century, both as literary practice and as an object of theoretical reflection. In our investigation of both of these strands we will take Adorno’s reminder to heart that one of the primary features of the essay form is its resistance to orthodoxy. To that end, writing assignments in this course will aim for essayistic expression rather than standard academic prose. Readings will include key texts by Lukács, Simmel, Hofmannsthal, Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf, Adorno, and others. [Spring] [4 credits] |
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