Winter 2009 Courses
Lower Division Courses
COM 1: Great Books of Western Civilization: The Ancient World
4 units
Prerequisite: Completion of Subject A requirement.
Course Description: An introduction, through class discussion and frequent written assignments, to some of the great books of western civilization from the Epic of Gilgamesh
to St. Augustine's Confessions. This course may be counted toward satisfaction of the English Composition Requirement in all three undergraduate colleges.
Course Format: Lecture/discussion. Limited to 25 students per section: pre-enrollment strongly advised. Emphasis is on classroom discussion of the readings, supplemented by
occasional lectures. Students write frequent short papers and take a final examination.
Texts (vary from section to section): The Bible; The Odyssey, Homer; The Aeneid, Virgil; The Symposium, Plato; The Confessions, Augustine; OedipusRex, Sophocles; The
Bacchae, Euripides.
COM 2: Great Books of Western Civilization: From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment
4 units
Prerequisite: Completion of Subject A requirement.
Course Description: An introduction to some major works from the medieval period to the "Enlightenment"; close readings and discussion, supplemented with short lectures to
provide cultural and generic contexts. May be counted toward satisfaction of the English Composition requirement in all three undergraduate colleges.
Course Format: Limited to 25 students per section: pre-enrollment strongly advised. Emphasis is on classroom discussion of the readings, supplemented by occasional
lectures. Students write frequent short papers and take a final examination.
Texts (vary from section to section): Beowulf or Song of Roland; Inferno by Dante; Hamlet by Shakespeare; Don Quixote by Cervantes; Discourse on Method by Descartes;
Candide and Other Stories by Voltaire or Gulliver's Travels by Swift; El Cid trs. by Merwin; A Short Handbook for Writing about Literature by Allosso.
COM 3: The Modern Crisis
4 units
Prerequisite: Completion of Subject A requirement.
Course Description: An introduction, through class discussion and the writing of short papers, to some of the great books of the modern age, from Goethe's Faust to Beckett's
Waiting for Godot. This course may be counted toward satisfaction of the English Composition Requirement in all three undergraduate colleges. Recommended for General Education
(ArtHum, Wrt).
Course Format: Lecture/discussion. Limited to 15 students per section: pre-enrollment strongly advised. Emphasis is on classroom discussion of the readings, supplemented by
occasional lectures. Students write frequent short papers and take a final examination.
Texts (vary from section to section): Faust by Goethe (tr. by Kaufmann); Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Civilization and its Discontents by Freud (tr. Strachey); Mrs.
Dalloway by Woolf; Waiting for Godot by Beckett; A Short Handbook for Writing about Literature by Allosso; and, The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.
COM 4: Major Books of the Contemporary World
4 units
Prerequisite: Completion of Subject A requirement.
Course Description: Comparative study of selected major Western and non-Western texts composed in the period from 1945 to the present. May be counted towards satisfaction
of the English Composition requirement in all three undergraduate colleges.
Course Format: Lecture/discussion. Limited to 25 students per section: pre-enrollment strongly advised. Emphasis is on classroom discussion of the readings, supplemented by
occasional lectures. Students write frequent short papers and take a final examination.
Texts (vary from section to section): The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundera; Hardboiled Wonderland and the Edge of the World by Murakami; Maus I and Maus II by
Spiegelman; Cosmicomics by Calvino; M. Butterfly by Huang; The Woman Warrior by Kingston; The Crazy Isis by Kenzaburo; Love in the Time of Cholera by Márquez; Blues for Mister
Charlie by Baldwin; The Assault by Mulisch; A Sport of Nature by Gordimer; Things Fall Apart by Achebe; The Songlines by Chatwin.
COM 6: Myths and Legends
Seth Schein
4 units
Course Description: We'll read a wide variety of heroic narratives and creation mythology in crosscultural perspective, with particular attention to the historical, cultural,
and religious contexts of each work.
Texts:
Homer's, Iliad; Ramayana; Beowulf.
Hesiod's, Theogony; Enuma Elish; Genesis; Monkey (Journey to the West).
COM 7: Literature of Fantasy
Neil Larsen
4 units
Course Description: The literature of fantasy and the supernatural, although often transporting the reader into a distant past, is a product of modern, urban society. In
its Western variations, it dates from not much earlier than the 19th century. The urge for fantasy assumes the existence of a dominant literary realism, and a taste for the
supernatural rests on the broad, secular disbelief in its existence. This course will explore this historical and cultural dynamic through a reading of works to include but not
limited to the following: the short fiction of Edgar Allen Poe; Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland; Henry James' classic ghost story, The Turn of the Screw; E.T.A.
Hoffmann's "The Sand Man," read in conjunction with Freud's essay "On the Uncanny"; and the "fantastic" short fiction of Jorge Luis Borges. We will also explore these subgenres
through film, viewing Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast and a more contemporary Japanese horror movie. Requirements: Two four-five page papers; midterm and final exams; class
attendance; and participation in discussion sections. Please click here to view the course flyer. GE credit: ArtHum, Div, Wrt.
Texts: Henry James, Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe; Carroll Lewis, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
& Through the Looking Glass; Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories.
COM 10L: Master Authors in World Literature
Natalie Strobach
2 units: One 2-hour session/week
Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world's most important authors; readings in English
translation.
Texts: William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury; Andre Gide, The Immoralist; Gertrude Stein, Three Lives and Tender Buttons; Franz Kafka, Nahum Norbert Glatzer, The
Complete Stories; Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Svevo, Zenos Conscience.
COM 25: Ethnic Minority Writers in World Literature
Marc Blanchard
4 units
CRN Days/Time Location
53281 TR 10:30-11:50 26 Wellman
Course Description: Consideration of a broad range of writers who speak from an ethnic perpective different from the nominally or politically dominant culture of ther
respective countries and who explore the challenges faced by characters significantly affected by their ethnic minority status. GE credit: ArtHum, Div, Wrt.
COM 53C: Literatures of the Islamic World
Jocelyn Sharlet
3 units
CRN Days/Time Location
53282 MWF 1:10-2:00pm 125 Olson
Course Description: This course will focus on the portrayal of relationships between individuals and their families or communities. It will explore how texts use these relationships, which
often involve conflict, to define the family or community and to articulate individual identity. Topics include the spiritual and the supernatural, gender and power, storytelling, and the ethical
significance of material wealth. Readings include epic, romance, fairy tales, and mystical narratives. GE credit: ArtHum, Div, Wrt.
Texts:
Husain Haddaw, Sindbad and Other Stories from the Arabian Nights; Ghalib Lakhnavi Abdullah Bilgrami; Translator: Musharraf Farooqi, The Adventures of Amir Hamza; Ferdowsi,The Shahnameh.
Selections from:
The Adventures of Amir Hamza
The Book of Dede Korkut
Attar, The Conference of the Birds
Rumi, Masnavi
COM 090X: Freshman Seminar
Marc Blanchard
2 units
CRN Days/Time Location
27491 T 1:10-2:00pm 422 Sproul
Course Description: Examination of a special topic in a small group setting.
Upper Division Courses
COM 135: Women Writers
Kari Lokke
4 units
Prerequisite: Comparative Literature 1, 2, 3 or 4 recommended.
CRN Days/Time Location
27496 MWF 10:00-10:50 163 Olson
Course Description: This course examines writings by outstanding women authors from a variety of cultures and historical periods. It explores the relationship between
gender and culture and deals with such controversial questions as the nature of desires and aspirations, the role of women authors in the traditional literary canon, the specificity
of "female" writing, and the relationships of gender, social class, nationality and ethnicity.
Course Format: This class will be conducted by lecture and discussion.
Requirements include a short midterm paper (3-4 pages), a long term paper (7-10 pages) and a final
exam. Class attendance and participation in discussion will also be important factors in determining the final grade.
Required texts:
The Princess of Clèves, Mme. de Lafayette
Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft
My Mother's House, Colette
Efuru, Flora Nwapa
Spring Essence, Ho Xuan Huong
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë
Seventeen Syllables, Hísaye Yamamoto
COM 145: Representations of the City
Jocelyn Sharlet
4 units
CRN Days/Time Location
53283 MWF 9:00-9:50am 1116 Hart
Course Description: This course will explore the way urban experience is used to define and transform individual identity and relationships. Specific topics will include urban experience in
conjunction with war, the porous boundary between public and private space in the city, the social dislocations of urban development for the middle class and the poor, nostalgia, and attitudes toward
Western culture and influence. GE credit: ArtHum, Div, Wrt.
Course Format: Lecture - 2 hours; discussion - 1 hour.
Texts:
Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book
Hanan al-Shaykh, Beirut Blues
Alaa el-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building
Yusuf Idris, "City Dregs" and "The Siren"
Gholam-Hussein Sa'edi, "The Rubbish Heap"
Yehudit Katzir, "Closing the Sea"
Ghassan Kanafani, "Return to Haifa"
West Beirut, dir. Ziad Doueiri
The Tenants, dir. Dariush Mehrjui
The Peddler, dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
COM 146: Myth in Literature
Scott McLean
4 units
CRN Days/Time Location
27498 TR 1:40-3:00pm 116 Veimyr
Course Description: Comparative study of different versions of one or more central myths, with attention to their cultural settings, artistic and literary forms of representation, as well as to
their psychological dimensions.
Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; term paper.
Texts: Euripides, Euripides V; HeaneyBurial at Thebes; Holderlin, Hyperion; Soyinka, Bacchae of Euripides; Goethe , Faust I and II; Homer, The Iliad;
Sophocles, Three Theban Plays.
COM 151: Colonial and Postcolonial Experience in Literature
Brenda Schildgen
4 units
Prerequisite: completetion of Subject A requirement and at least one course in literature.
CRN Days/Time Location
53285 MWF 11:00-11:50 102 Hutch
Course Description: A literary introduction to the cultural issues of colonialism and postcolonialism through reading, discussing and writing on narratives which articulate
diverse points of view. GE credit: ArtHum, Wrt.
Course Format: Lecture/Discussion-3 hours; term paper.
Texts: Camara Laye, Dark Child; Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart; J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace; Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Alejo Carpentier, Kingdom of this World;
R. Tagore, The Home and the World.
Graduate Courses
COM 210/CRI 210B: Trauma: Its Representation in Theory, Literature, and Film
Gail Finney
4 units
CRN Days/Time Location
27537 W 4:10-7:00pm 123 Wellman
Prerequisite: Graduate standing in Comparative Literature, English, or a foreign language literature, or consent of the instructor.
Course Description: This seminar seeks to acquaint students with the complex domain of trauma studies by exploring theoretical, literary, and cinematic responses to three
major types of traumatic experience: world war, the Holocaust, and family trauma.
Theoretical works will be selected from the following:
Cathy Caruth, ed. Trauma: Explorations in Memory (1995).
---, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (1996).
Kirby Farrell, Post-traumatic Culture: Injury and Interpretation in the Nineties (1998).
E. Ann Kaplan, ed., Psychoanalysis and Cinema (1990).
---, Trauma Culture: The Politics of Terror and Loss in Media and Literature (2005).
Dominick LaCapra, Writing History, Writing Trauma (2001).
Ruth Leys, Trauma: A Genealogy (2000).
Janet Walker, Trauma Cinema: Documenting Incest and the Holocaust (2005).
Selected works by Sigmund Freud
With the aid of these theorists, students will investigate the representation of traumatic experience and its aftermath in primary texts such as the following:
WORLD WAR I and II.
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (novel and film, 1929, 1930)
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (novel and first film version, 1929, 1932)
Wolfgang Staudte (director), The Murderers are Among Us (1946)
Roberto Rossellini (dir.), Germania Anno Zero (1948)
Wolfgang Borchert, The Man Outside (1947)
THE HOLOCAUST
Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz (1947/1959)
Alain Resnais (dir.),Night and Fog (1955)
Elie Wiesel, Night (1958)
Steven Spielberg (dir.), Schindler's List (1993)
W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz (2001)
FAMILY TRAUMA
Sophocles, Oedipus the King (fifth century B.C.)
Sam Shepard, Buried Child (1978); Paula Vogel, How I Learned to Drive (1997)
Sam Mendes (dir.), American Beauty (1999)
Marc Forster (dir.), Monster's Ball (2001)
Clint Eastwood (dir.), Mystic River (2003)