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COLT 211 - Comparative World Literature

CRN: 21875

Instructor: Tera Reid-Olds

Term: Winter 2020

Framed

What is a frame? Is it an echo, a structure, or a practice? How do we define the terms frame / framing / frameworks in the literature that we read? This course examines the figuration of the frame narrative through world literature, charting the thematic and stylistic iterations of the frame from 1001 Nights and Ovid’s Metamorphoses to twentieth-century postcolonial and postmodern literature published in Arabic, French and Italian. We will explore the linguistic, stylistic and theoretical modes of framing in these texts as well as the framing of borders. In this course, we will be paying particular attention to iterations of the frame narrative as it moves across national-linguistic traditions, destabilizing the traditional form of the novel and/or the archive, and is adapted or reinterpreted within diverse cultural and historical contexts. We will also analyze the relationship between storyteller(s), translator and recipient and engage with our works in translation as translations. This will allow us to integrate an introduction to translation theory into our discussion of these texts and the way in which they are framed for an English readership.

Satisfies General Education Requirements:

  • Group-Satisfying: Arts and Letters
  • Multicultural Courses: International Cultures (IC)
  • Core Education Multicultural: Global Perspectives (GP)