Fall 2019: Expanded Course Descriptions

Please click here to see the schedule as a PDF

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Lower Division Courses

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Comparative Literature 001. Major Books of Western Culture: The Ancient World (4 units)

  Click on each instructor's name to learn more about the course section the instructor is teaching

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 The Confessions. This course may be counted toward satisfaction of the English Composition Requirement in all three undergraduate colleges. Limited to 25 students per section; pre-enrollment is strongly advised. Emphasis is on classroom discussion of the readings, supplemented by occasional lectures. Students write papers and take a final examination.

Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing (formerly Subject A) Requirement.

GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.
(Note: This course cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 4 hours.

Sample Readings (vary from section to section):
The New Oxford Annotated Bible; Homer, The Odyssey; Virgil, The Aeneid; Plato, The Symposium; The Epic of Gilgamesh; St. Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions; Sophocles, Antigone; Salvatore Alloso, A Short Handbook for Writing Essays about Literature.

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Comparative Literature 002. Major Books of Western Culture: From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment (4 units)

  Click on each instructor's name to learn more about the course section the instructor is teaching

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. Limited to 25 students per section; pre-enrollment is strongly advised. Emphasis is on classroom discussion of the readings, supplemented by occasional lectures. Students write short papers and take a final examination.

Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing (formerly Subject A) Requirement.

GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.
(Note: This course cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 4 hours.

Sample Readings (vary from section to section):
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote; Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method; William Shakespeare, Othello; Dante, The Inferno; Beowulf ; Salvatore Alloso, A Short Handbook for Writing Essays about Literature.

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Comparative Literature 003. Major Books of Western Culture: The Modern Crisis (4 units)

  Click on each instructor's name to learn more about the course section the instructor is teaching

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. Limited to 25 students per section; pre-enrollment is strongly advised. Emphasis is on classroom discussion of the readings, supplemented by occasional lectures. Students write short papers and take a final examination.

Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing (formerly Subject A) Requirement.

GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.
(Note: This course cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 4 hours.

Sample Readings (vary from section to section):
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust (Part One); Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents; Franz Kafka, The Trial; Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot; Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment ; Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own; Salvatore Alloso, A Short Handbook for Writing Essays about Literature.

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Comparative Literature 004. Major Books of the Contemporary World (4 units)

  Click on each instructor's name to learn more about the course section the instructor is teaching

Course Description: Comparative study of selected major Western and non-Western texts composed in the period from 1945 to the present. Limited to 25 students per section; pre-enrollment is strongly advised. Emphasis is on classroom discussion of the readings, supplemented by occasional lectures. Students write short papers and take a final examination.

Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing (formerly Subject A) Requirement.

GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, Visual Literacy, World Cultures and Writing Experience.
(Note: This course cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 4 hours.

Sample Readings (vary from section to section):
Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Jhumpa Lahari, The Namesake; J.M. Coetzee, Foe: A Novel; Elfriede Jelinek, Women As Lovers; Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North; Jose Saramago, The Cave; Alice Notley, Descent of Alette.

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Comparative Literature 005. Fairy Tales, Fables and Parables (4 units)

Jocelyn Sharlet

Lecture:
TR 10:30-11:50A
1003 Giedt Hall

Discussion Sections:

Course Description: This course investigates fables, fairy tales, and parables that have circulated widely in world culture from ancient to modern times. We will explore the dynamics of each type of story using examples from a range of cultures. We will examine how fairy tales portray individual development in the context of the family, fables depict social hierarchy and resistance to it, and parables convey spiritual transformation.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Discussion - 1 hour.

Textbooks:

Selections from the following texts:  

• Selected fairy tales
  • Apuleius, "Cupid and Psyche" (Greco-Roman)
  • Hearne, Beauties and Beasts (three tales from Asia)
  • Arabian Nights, ed. Muhsin Mahdi and tr. Hussain Haddawy
  • Giambattista Basile, Pentamerone (West European fairy tales)
• Fables
  • Aesop
  • Lopez, Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with his Daughter (Coyote tales of North America)
  • Berry, West African Folktales
  • "The Firebird" (Russia)
  • Ibn al-Muqaffa', Kalilah and Dimnah tr. Jallad (fables based on the Sanskrit Panchatantra)
• Parables
  • Plato, "The Cave"
  • Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, and Taoist parables
  • Nakhshabi, Tutinama (Tales of a Parrot, based on the Sanskrit Shukasaptati)
  • Nizami, Haft Paykar, tr. Meisami (mystical tales)

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Comparative Literature 006. Myths and Legends (4 units)

Cheri Ross

Lecture:
TR 1:40-3:00P
Room TBA

Discussion Sections:

Course Description: Myths and legends are the most ancient and yet most influential stories worldwide. In different ways, myths and legends express ideas about being human in relationship to phenomena and experiences higher and greater than the mundane: connecting everyday experience both to metaphysical realms and to the natural world.  Myths and legends also express deep thought about the complexities of human experience: moral values and obligations (often conflicting ones), insiders and outsiders, individual and community. These stories have inspired countless adaptations of literature and visual arts (and, more recently, film). In this course we will investigate a selection of myths and legends along with some later reworkings of these stories. We will also explore some major analytic approaches to such texts and practice our own interpretive and argumentative skills on these compelling, foundational works.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Discussion - 1 hour.

Textbooks:

• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein  (Penguin Classics, 2003)
• Gilgamesh: A New English Version, translated by Stephen Mitchell  (Atria Books, 2006)
• William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night  (Signet Classics, 1998)
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by W.S. Merwin  (Knopf Publishing, 2004)

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Comparative Literature 010I. Master Authors in World Literature (2 units)

Staff

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.

There will be no writing assignments in this course.

Grading: PASS/NO PASS (P/NP) ONLY.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credit (New): None.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 2 hours.

Textbooks:

• TBA

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Upper Division Courses

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Comparative Literature 100. World Cinema: "Chinese Cinema" (4 units)

Sheldon Lu

Lecture:
TR 4:40-6:00P
1 Wellman Hall

Film Viewing:
M 5:10-8:00P
1130 Hart Hall

CRN 62905

Course Description: This quarter we focus on the rich cinematic traditions of China. We begin with early Chinese cinema and move all the way to the twenty-first century. Students will explore the themes, styles, aesthetics, stars, and socio-political contexts of particular films as well as the evolution of entire film industries. Representative directors and internationally renowned filmmakers will be discussed, such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Ang Lee, Feng Xiaogang, Jia Zhangke, and Peter Chan (Chen Kexin).  We examine Chinese cinema as an outgrowth of indigenous, national roots as well as a necessary response to international film culture. We look at how films engage in social critique and cultural reflection, and how film artists react to the conditions and forces of socialist politics, capitalist economy, tradition, modernization, and globalization in Chinese-speaking regions.

Prerequisite: Upper division standing or consent of instructor (shlu@ucdavis.edu).

GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, Visual Literacy, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Film Viewing - 3 hours.

Textbooks:

• Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender  (University of Hawaii Press, 1997)

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Comparative Literature 112. Japanese Cinema (4 units)

Michiko Suzuki

Lecture:
TR 3:10-4:30P
1 Wellman Hall

Film Viewing:
W 5:10-8:00P
1150 Hart Hall

CRN 36775

Course Description: Introduction to Japanese cinema from early silent films to the present. Explores important directors, genres, stars, themes and techniques in relation to specific historical and cultural contexts. Lectures and readings in English. Films in Japanese with English subtitles.

Prerequisite: Upper-division standing or consent of instructor (micsuzuki@ucdavis.edu).

GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, Visual Literacy, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Film Viewing - 3 hours.

Textbooks:

• TBA

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Comparative Literature 141. Introduction to Comparative Critical Theory (4 units)     [Cross-listed with CRI 101]

Stefan Uhlig

TR 9:00-10:20A
233 Wellman Hall
CRN 36777

Course Description: This course provides an introduction to the history and recent situation of critical theory in comparative literary studies. We begin by exploring what led critics in the 60s and 70s to borrow methods from adjacent disciplines like linguistics, anthropology, or continental philosophy. We conclude by asking where theory stands now, and what has changed since the discovery of Paul de Man’s wartime writings seemingly confirmed popular suspicions about deconstruction. In between, we examine the basic questions addressed by structuralism, Foucault’s discursive histories, race theory, psychoanalytic readings, Derridean difference, Marxist criticism, gender theory, and de Manian deconstruction. I will, in each case, combine exemplary theoretical texts with primary texts or (moving) images that help us test our understanding of the arguments.

Prerequisite: One upper division literature course or consent of instructor (shuhlig@ucdavis.edu).

GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

• All readings will be posted on Canvas

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Comparative Literature 151. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature (4 units)

Neil Larsen

TR 12:10-1:30P
229 Wellman Hall
CRN 62906

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.

Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing (formerly Subject A) Requirement.

GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

• TBA

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Comparative Literature 158. The Detective Story as Literature (4 units)

Timothy Parrish

TR 10:30-11:50A
80 SS&H Bldg
CRN 62907

Course Description: We will be focusing on the literary and intellectual origins of the detective novel and reading from many different national traditions, including French, German, Italian, Russian, and American. Two exams, one paper.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture and discussion; Two exams and a paper.

Textbooks:

• Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley  (W.W. Norton & Company, 2008)
• Jean-Patrick Machette, Fatale, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith  (New York Review Books Classics, 2011)
• Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men  (Vintage Books, 2006)
• Leonardo Sciascia, The Day of the Owl, translated by Archibald Colquhoun and Anthony Oliver  (New York Review Books Classics, 2003)
• Georges Simenon, The Madman of Bergerac, translated by Ros Schwartz  (Penguin Books, 2015)
• Franz Kafka, The Trial, translated by Breon Mitchell  (Schocken Books, 1999)
• Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky  (Random House, 2008)

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Graduate Courses

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Comparative Literature 210, Section 001. Aristotle's Poetics and its Afterlives (4 units)

Stefan Uhlig and Carey Seal

R 2:10-5:00P
1106 Hart Hall
CRN 36813

Course Description: This course will address the extended history of thinking with, or against, Aristotle’s Poetics in Western literary studies. Focal points include representation, affect/emotion, performance, literary education, genre, the task of criticism, and the political function of drama. We will use Stephen Halliwell’s translation and edition of Aristotle’s Poetics. Other readings from a range of (pre)modern debates will be posted on Canvas.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing in Comparative Literature, English, or a foreign-language literature, or consent of instructor (shuhlig@ucdavis.edu).

Format: Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

• TBA 

 

Comparative Literature 210, Section 002. Topics in Comparative Literature (4 units)

Sven-Erik Rose

T 2:10-5:00P
201 Wellman Hall
CRN 36814

Course Description: TBA

Prerequisite: Graduate standing in Comparative Literature, English, or a foreign-language literature, or consent of instructor (shuhlig@ucdavis.edu).

Format: Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

• TBA 

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Comparative Literature 255. Proseminar: Comparative Literature: Past, Present, Future (4 units)

Stefan Uhlig

T 2:10-5:00P
3 Wellman Hall
CRN 62908

Course Description: This colloquium provides an introduction to the challenges and opportunities of comparative literary studies. We will review the origins and famously self-critical construction of the field, and look at arguments about the future of the discipline. Sessions on the history and theory of comparative literature will alternate with readings focused around basic media and literary forms (narrative, poetics, performance, photography and film). Along the way, we will discuss exemplary comparative scholarship whose questions range from Greece and Rome, via the Latin middle ages, to the literatures of South Asia, India, China, and Japan. The goal will be to think about what makes some research questions (perhaps necessarily) comparative, and how to find the methods that will best address them. Participants will write an eight- to ten-page paper on how what they have read/discussed helps them rethink their current dissertation plans.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing. Restricted to graduate students.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

• All readings will be posted on Canvas