Discussion Sections:

Sec 1, F 1-2:00,  206 Dwinelle
Sec 2, F 1-2:00 109 Wheeler
Sec 3, F 2-3:00 2221 Wheeler

Course is also listed as Classics 161. Comp Lit Students can take this course to satisfy either the Historical Period Requirement or the Classical Literature for the major (but not both).  If possible Comp Lit Students should  enroll in discussion section 1, F 1-2:00 in 206 Dwinelle, but if this is not possible enroll in any discussion section for the course.

This course examines forms of Modern Greek writing (prose, poetry, drama) and the reading of literary texts as auxiliary to the acquisition of compositional skills.

Prerequisites: Comparative Literature 112A or consent of the instructor.

A reader for the course is prepared by the instructor.

What does it imply to ‘say I’ in a literary work? In this course we will study the construction of the self in Western literature (Ancient to Modern) across a variety of epochs, genres, and authors, ranging from the earliest texts in which protagonists tell about themselves (Homer, Odyssey) via foundational autobiographical texts as Augustine (Confessions), Rousseau (Confessions), or Nabokov (Speak Memory) to more complex constructions where author and character are identical, but situated in a clearly fictional realm.

In this course we will analytically and self-reflexively explore the genre of the academic or campus novel in its historical development and contemporary permutations. How have campus novels evolved and what can they tell us about our own anxieties and desires for academic experience? Although most of the texts we read will deal with the university campus, we will also look at some other settings, including the nursery school, boarding school and independent study.

In this course we will examine the development of “the West” as a historical and literary concept. We will investigate its role in the creation of American identities and as a space in which those identities may be contested and refigured. We will begin with Frederick Jackson Turner’s famous “frontier thesis.” The emptiness of the western frontier, argued Turner, was responsible for fostering the sense of individual responsibility that is at the core of American democracy.

Course Description: From Columbus’ ‘discovery’ of the Americas to ongoing debates about immigration and labor, travel has played a significant role in Latin America’s story.  But what does it mean to travel? How does the experience of ‘taking a trip’ being ‘out of place,’ or encountering a ‘visitor’ have an impact on individuals, identities, and cultures?  How has Latin America been a site of travels in pursuit of personal roots and unchartered routes, but also a region touched by the unexpected ruptures that can emerge out of experiences of travel?

“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”

-Proverb (Unknown Origin)

What are the different binary oppositions that terms like representation and fiction tend to set up and how do different texts, and the novel in particular attempt to free our analytical thinking from oppositions like fiction vs. non-fiction and art vs. reality? How might we begin to understand the relationship between language and the world without seeing these respective spaces as being easily juxtaposed or spaces that are easily set apart?

Death, by murder, illness or suicide is the end result in many of literature’s most compelling stories of romantic love. From the topos of the fallen woman that permeates the 19th century novel, to the performances of awesome vengeance in Hedda Gabler and Medea, women heroines often take the brunt of society’s censure of “inappropriate” passion. The protagonists (both male and female) are always marked by their difference, which is often based on their willingness to confront society.

Given the violent and tragic history of the Caribbean it is hardly surprising that many of the region’s greatest writers have sought to challenge historical injustice, and its legacy into the present, through literature. Some of the questions we shall consider in this course include: How does literature function as counter-history? How does writing resist historical erasure and oblivion? How do certain literary texts attempt to recover or re-imagine lost or suppressed histories?