Spring 2019: Expanded Course Descriptions

Please click here to see the schedule as a PDF

---

Lower Division Courses

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

Amy Motlagh

Lecture:
TR 10:30-11:50A
1002 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:

• TBA

---

Comparative Literature 006. Myths and Legends (4 units)

Cheri Ross

Lecture:
TR 9:00-10:20A
1002 Geidt Hall

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)

---

Comparative Literature 010A. Master Authors: Heroes and Heroism in World Literature (2 units)

Young Hui

Course Description: The literature of epic tales and folklores often transmits images of heroes to its readers and audience. In this course, we will explore the themes of heroes and heroism in selected readings from around the world. Materials will be drawn from popular literature, historical records, and films. We will examine the particular structure and patterns that are shared by these works around the world and the impact on its audience. All the readings will be in modern 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:

• Gilgamesh: A New English Version, translated by Stephen Mitchell  (Atria Books, 2006)
• Yoshiki Tanaka, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Vol. 1: Dawn, translated by Daniel Huddleston  (Haikasoru Books, 2016)

---

Upper Division Courses

---

Comparative Literature 110. Hong Kong Cinema (4 units)

Sheldon Lu

Lecture:
TR 6:10-7:30P
126 Wellman Hall

Film Viewing:
W 5:10-8:00P
126 Wellman Hall

CRN 91975

Course Description: This course is a study of the cinema of Hong Kong, a cultural crossroads between East and West. Students examine the history, genres, styles, stars, and major directors of Hong Kong cinema in reference to the city's multi-linguistic, colonial, and postcolonial environment. The course pays special attention to Hong Kong cinema's interactions with and influences on other filmic traditions such as Hollywood and Asian cinema. Topics will include: characteristics of Hong Kong cinema as a local, regional, and global cinema; historical evolution of film genres and styles; major directors and stars; film adaption of literary works about Hong Kong; Hong Kong cinema's international influence.

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

There are two required reading materials, each of which has their method of access listed beneath them:

  1. David Bordwell, Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment [2nd Edition]  (Irvington Way Institute Press, 2011)
            The Bordwell text is available only as an Adobe PDF file at http://www.davidbordwell.net/books/planethongkong.php.

  2. Blackwell Companion to Hong Kong Cinema, edited by Esther Cheung, Gina Marchetti and Esther Yau  (Wiley Blackwell Books, 2015)
            The Blackwell Companion is available as an e-book in the UC Davis library system.

---

Comparative Literature 148. Mystical Literatures of South Asia and the Middle East (4 units)

Jocelyn Sharlet

TR 10:30-11:50A
101 Olson Hall
CRN 91886

Course Description: This course offers a comparative approach to mystical literature from Islamic and Hindu traditions as well as Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Daoism, using texts in translation from Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Chinese, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu. We will consider literary expression of spiritual experiences that entail altered states, and investigate mysticism as it relates to ethics, philosophy and politics; desire and emotion; the perception of the natural world; asceticism, the body, and literal or figurative intoxication. Selections will include Nezami, Rumi, Ibn ‘Arabi, Ibn Tufayl; Kalidasa, Mirabai, Ghalib; the Song of Solomon, and Buddhist and Daoist parables.

Prerequisite: None.

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

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

Textbooks:

• TBA

---

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

Neil Larsen

TR 12:10-1:30P
1116 Hart Hall
CRN 66764

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

---

Comparative Literature 154. African Literature (4 units)     [Cross-listed with AAS 153]

Moradewun Adejunmobi

TR 4:40-6:00P
129 Wellman Hall
CRN 92037

Course Description: This course provides an introduction to African literature from the late colonial period to the early twenty-first century. It focuses on creative texts by notable African authors responding to questions affecting the lives of Africans during this period. Some of the questions to be considered include the following: what is the role of art in a time of social and political transition? What kinds of movements are effective or ineffective for creating lasting change in any society? Is cultural alienation a useful strategy for responding to powerful forces? To what extent are victims of subordination responsible for their own subordination? How do we make sense of the experience attached to identities that are not our own identity? Novels by Chinua Achebe, Ousmane Sembene, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Zakes Mda, Patrice Nganang and Igoni Barrett will be discussed in the class. We will seek to examine the selected works in light of debates about literature, art, politics and society among African intellectuals and activists over several decades.

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:

• Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart  (Anchor, 1994)
• Zakes Mda, Ways of Dying  (Picador, 2002)
• Patrice Nganang, Dog Days (An Animal Chronicle), translated by Amy Baram Reid  (University of Virginia Press, 2006)
• Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions [2nd Edition]  (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004)
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun  (Anchor Press, 2007)
• Imbolo Mbue, Behold the Dreamers  (Random House Press, 2017)

---

Comparative Literature 169. The Avant-Garde (4 units)

Michael Subialka

TR 3:10-4:30P
101 Olson Hall
CRN 91887

Course Description: The avant-gardes use art to transform not only individual experience but also culture, society, and political life. In this course, we will examine key texts from multiple European and global avant-garde movements, focusing on the explosive moment of the early twentieth-century. Figures working alone and in groups across media and countries created shocking new forms of expression to reflect and respond to the conditions of the modern world. We will examine how they went about this, why, and with what consequences. We will also consider how the historical avant-gardes have continued to shape and reshape our contemporary literary-artistic practices as well as our modern social imagination. From immersion in mystical imagination to channeling bellicose violence, from radically reshaping the limits of representation to performing radical socio-political critique, the avant-gardes demand that we consider them as a powerful intervention into the modern world. Are they right?

Primary texts will include manifestoes, poetry, novels, films, and other artistic production from: Italian Futurism (FT Marinetti, Bruno Corra, and others); Dada (Tristan Tzara, Hannah Höch, Max Ernst, and others); Surrealism (André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel, and others); Vorticism (Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound); Estridentismo (Manuel Maples Arce, List Arzubide, and others)… and more!

This course is cross-listed with COM 210. Graduate students taking the course should refer to the description for COM 210.

Prerequisite: None.

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

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

Textbooks:

• TBA

---

Comparative Literature 195. Senior Seminar (4 units)

Michiko Suzuki

TR 3:10-4:30P
167 Olson Hall
CRN 66776

Course Description: Advanced study of selected topics and texts in Comparative Literature, with explicit emphasis on the theoretical and interpretive approaches that define Comparative Literature as a discipline and distinguish it from other literary disciplines. Required for the major.

Prerequisite: Senior standing as a Comparative Literature major or minor or consent of instructor (micsuzuki@ucdavis.edu).

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

Format: Seminar - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

• TBA

---

Graduate Courses

---

Comparative Literature 210, Section 001. The Avant-Garde (4 units)

Michael Subialka

TR 3:10-4:30P
101 Olson Hall
CRN 92202

Course Description: This course is cross-listed with COM 169. Undergraduate students taking the course should refer to the description for COM 169, as the readings and requirements are slightly different. Please see Nancy Masson in 207 Sproul for any questions.

The avant-gardes use art to transform not only individual experience but also culture, society, and political life. In this course, we will examine key texts from multiple European and global avant-garde movements, focusing on the explosive moment of the early twentieth-century. Figures working alone and in groups across media and countries created shocking new forms of expression to reflect and respond to the conditions of the modern world. In this course we will examine the historical avant-gardes and their legacies while also approaching the theoretical question of what constitutes an avant-garde and how avant-gardes relate to modernity and to aesthetics. From immersion in mystical imagination to channeling bellicose violence, from radically reshaping the limits of representation to performing radical socio-political critique, the avant-gardes demand that we consider them as a powerful intervention into the modern world. Are they right?

Readings for graduate students will encompass both literary-artistic texts and theoretical and critical readings. Primary literary texts will include manifestoes, poetry, novels, films, and other artistic production from: Italian Futurism (FT Marinetti, Bruno Corra, and others); Dada (Tristan Tzara, Hannah Höch, Max Ernst, and others); Surrealism (André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel, and others); Vorticism (Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound); Estridentismo (Manuel Maples Arce, List Arzubide, and others). Primary theoretical texts will include classical theories of the avant-garde by Peter Bürger and Renato Poggioli along with recent literature on the political and aesthetic dimensions of the avant-garde.

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

Format: Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

• TBA 

 

Comparative Literature 210, Section 002. Trauma: Its Representation in Theory, Literature, and Film (4 units)

Gail Finney

W 1:10-4:00P
109 Wellman Hall
CRN 66801

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.

Theorists such as Sigmund Freud, Cathy Caruth, Marianne Hirsch, Michael Rothberg, Shoshana Felman, Andrew Barnaby, Jeffrey Alexander, Dori Laub, E. Ann Kaplan, Dominick LaCapra, Anna Hunter, Judith Herman, Ruth Leys, Jennifer Griffiths, Gerd Bayer, and Joshua Pederson will be studied.
Text: Trauma and Literature, ed. J. Roger Kurtz (2018).

With the aid of these and other theorists, students will investigate the representation of traumatic experience and its aftermath in works by such authors as Sophocles, Erich Maria Remarque, Wolfgang Borchert, Elie Wiesel, W.G. Sebald, and Paula Vogel and films such as All Quiet on the Western Front, The Murderers Are Among Us, Night and Fog, Schindler’s List, and Monster’s Ball.

Consideration of these works will be complemented by contributions from students’ respective areas of specialization.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of the instructor, (gefinney@ucdavis.edu).

Format: Discussion – 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

• TBA