Lower Division Courses
Comparative Literature 001. Major Books of Western Culture: The Ancient World (4 units)
Section |
Instructor |
Day / Time |
Room |
CRN |
001 |
Deborah Young |
MW 2:10-4:00P |
27 Wellman Hall |
27349 |
002 |
Linda Matheson |
TR 10:00-11:50A |
90 Social Sciences Building |
27350 |
003 |
Anna Einarsdottir | MW 10:00-11:50A | 244 Olson Hall | 27351 |
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 (Old): Arts & Humanities and Writing Experience.
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)
Section |
Instructor |
Day / Time |
Room |
CRN |
001 |
Jeffrey Weiner |
MW 12:10-2:00P |
27 Wellman Hall |
27352 |
002 |
Amanda Batarseh | TR 2:10-4:00P | 267 Olson Hall | 27353 |
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 (Old): Arts & Humanities and Writing Experience.
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)
Section |
Instructor |
Day / Time |
Room |
CRN |
001 |
Magnus Snaebjoernson |
MW 10:00-11:50A |
267 Olson Hall |
27354 |
002 |
Noha Radwan |
TR 12:10-2:00P |
267 Olson Hall |
27355 |
003 | Jeremy Konick-Seese | TR 2:10-4:00P | 108 Hoagland Hall |
27356 |
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 (Old): Arts & Humanities and Writing Experience.
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)
Section |
Instructor |
Day / Time |
Room |
CRN |
001 |
Amy Riddle |
MW 2:10-4:00P |
229 Wellman Hall |
27357 |
002 |
Elisabeth Lore |
MW 4:10-6:00P |
107 Wellman Hall |
27358 |
003 |
Sean Sell | TR 2:10-4:00P | 141 Olson Hall | 27359 |
004 |
Celine Piser | TR 10:00-11:50A | 146 Robbins Hall | 27360 |
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 (Old): Arts & Humanities, Social-Cultural Diversity and Writing Experience.
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)
Cheryl Ross
Lecture:
TR 10:30-11:50A
180 MedSci C
Discussion Sections:
Disc. Section |
Discussion Leader |
Day / Time |
Room |
CRN |
01 |
M. Elizabeth Matthews |
W 4:10-5:00P |
207 Olson Hall |
53331 |
02 |
M. Elizabeth Matthews |
W 5:10-6:00P |
207 Olson Hall |
27362 |
03 |
Carmine Morrow |
R 4:10-5:00P |
176 Chemistry Building |
27363 |
04 |
Carmine Morrow |
R 5:10-6:00P | 176 Chemistry Building |
27364 |
05 |
X. Dorothee Hou |
F 10:00-10:50A | 129 Wellman Hall |
27365 |
06 |
X. Dorothee Hou |
F 11:00-11:50A | 129 Wellman Hall |
27366 |
Course Description: This course is an introduction to fairy tales, fables, and parables as recurrent forms in literature, emphasizing the origin of these popular or “folk” genres, and following their development into modern forms. The class surveys social, political, psychological, and literary elements of these genres in their various incarnations throughout time and space.
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Social-Cultural Diversity, and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Discussion - 1 hour.
Textbooks:
- TBA
Comparative Literature 007. Literature of Fantasy and the Supernatural (4 units)
Stefan Uhlig
Lecture:
TR 3:10-4:30P
1322 Storer Hall
Discussion Sections:
Disc. Section |
Discussion Leader |
Day / Time |
Room |
CRN |
001 |
Tianya Wang |
W 4:10-5:00P |
1128 Hart Hall |
53341 |
002 |
Tianya Wang |
W 5:10-6:00P |
1128 Hart Hall |
53343 |
003 |
Young Hui |
R 5:10-6:00P |
110 Hunt Hall |
53344 |
004 |
Young Hui |
R 6:10-7:00P |
110 Hunt Hall |
53346 |
005 |
Nick Talbott |
F 10:00-10:50A |
167 Olson Hall |
53347 |
006 |
Nick Talbott |
F 11:00-11:50A |
167 Olson Hall |
53348 |
Course Description: This course explores how literary and other artworks get us to engage with subjects or experiences too strange to fit into conventional storylines. We focus on a few exceptionally imaginative texts alongside works in other media they have inspired (movies, opera, or dance). These works don’t reassure us with their sense of what is real, or even plausible – instead, they ask us to rethink our ways of mapping and experiencing the world. Excerpts from works in other media will include: Max Reinhardt, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) / John Neumeier, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1977) / Peter Gorski, Faust (1960) / Dieter Dorn, Faust (1988) / Jacques Offenbach, The Tales of Hoffmann (1881) / Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo (1958) / Walt Disney, Alice in Wonderland(1951) / Richard Wagner, Tannhäuser (1845) / F. W. Murnau, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) / Peter Capaldi, Franz Kafka’s “It’s A Wonderful Life” (1993).
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Social-Cultural Diversity, and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Discussion - 1 hour.
Textbooks:
- Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis, translated by Stanley Corngold (Modern Library Classics, 2013)
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Dover Publications, 1993)
- Oxford University Press Bundle: (sold with discount at Book Store)
- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: Part One
- E.T.A. Hoffman, The Golden Pot and Other Tales
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
- Bram Stoker, Dracula
Comparative Literature 010N. Master Authors: Liberatory Sexuality (2 units)
Pat Cabell
Section |
Day / Time |
Room |
CRN |
001 |
M 2:10-4:00P |
129 Wellman Hall |
54512 |
002 |
W 2:10-4:00P |
139 Wellman Hall |
54513 |
Course Description: Modernity once appeared to be revolutionizing romantic and familial life, with heteronormative sexuality as one of its central tenets. Modernist narratives often posited challenges to heterosexuality as both a threat to and escape from the monolithic reproduction of passive worker-consumers. However, the present status of 'gay liberation' is inconclusive. Bourgeois-democracies now celebrate queer aesthetics and rhetoric as a key triumph of Liberal capitalism's inclusion and proliferation of identity-positions. On the other hand, capitalism has also incubated and fueled a brand of regressive traditionalism with a radically conservative set of sexual values.
This class will read several novels dealing with queer and non-conforming sexuality. We will also read critical writing and watch films that further interrogate how and why sexual norms are subverted. Authors will include Jean Genet, Audre Lorde, Robert Glück, Chris Chitty, Maya Gonzalez, LIES Collective, and Isaac Julien. In a discussion-based format, we will posit: what is the contemporary status of sexuality as a terrain of struggle? Under what conditions does Desire transcend the laws and confines of socialization? What does the restriction and liberalization of sexuality tell us about the historical arc, and possible terminus, of the capitalist system?
COM 10 is a 2-unit reading course without a writing requirement, taken for Pass/No Pass.
Grading: PASS/NO PASS (P/NP) ONLY.
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (Old): None.
GE credit (New): None.
Format: Lecture/Discussion - 2 hours.
Textbooks:
- Jean Genet, Our Lady of the Flowers, translated by Bernard Frechtman (Grove Press, 1994)
- Robert Glück, Jack the Modernist (Serpent's Tail, 1995)
- Kathy Acker, Pussy, King of the Pirates (Grove Press, 1996)
- Audre Lorde, The Black Unicorn (W.W. Norton & Company, 1995)
- Eva Illouz, Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation (Polity Press, 2013)
- Adrienne Rich, The Dream of a Common Language (W.W. Norton & Company, 2013)
Comparative Literature 053C has been cancelled.
Upper Division Courses
Comparative Literature 100. World Cinema: Chinese Cinema (4 units)
Sheldon Lu
Lecture:
TR 10:30-11:50A
166 Chemistry Building
Film Viewing:
R 5:10-8:00P
168 Hoagland Hall
CRN 53349
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.
In fall 2016, two local Chinese film festivals will be held in Davis. Students are encouraged to attend some of these events.
Prerequisite: Upper division standing or consent of instructor (shlu@ucdavis.edu).
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Social-Cultural Diversity and Writing Experience.
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)
Comparative Literature 120. Writing Nature (4 units)
Stefan Uhlig
TR 12:10-1:30P
107 Wellman Hall
CRN 53350
Course Description: Since the eighteenth-century, literary writing has imagined nature as a kind of sanctuary from man-made concerns, ambitions, and destructiveness. Writers like Rousseau, Wordsworth, Emerson, Muir, Nietzsche, or Whitman all appeal to natural conditions, practices, and landscapes as a way to get behind or, frequently, beyond a modern cultural dynamic that seems both deceitful and self-alienating. We will read selections from these writers as a way to think about Thoreau’s Walden – the most influential piece of nature writing in the American tradition to critique our modern world of leisure, work, commodities, and sociability. These nineteenth-century lessons help us read some landmarks of environmental writing from the 1960s to the present day. We will excerpts from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), John McPhee’s Encounters with the Archdruid (1971), Peter Mathiessen, The Tree Where Man Was Born (1972) Jonathan Schell’s The Fate of the Earth (New York: Knopf, 1982), Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature (1989), and Kevin Bales’s 2016 Blood and Earth.
Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing (formerly Subject A) Requirement.
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbook:
- Henry D. Thoreau, Walden, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer (Yale University Press, 2006)
Comparative Literature 153. Forms of Asian Literature (4 units)
Sheldon Lu
TR 3:10-4:30P
207 Wellman Hall
CRN 53351
Course Description: For this quarter, the course focuses mostly on modern Chinese literature from the beginning of the 20th century to the present time. Students will read stories, poems, and essays written by leading Chinese writers. The class will analyze recurrent themes and topics such as love, death, revolution, war, tradition, modernization, westernization, and globalization. Literary developments in modern China will be examined in broad international contexts. Students are expected to gain a better understanding of the cultural and literary tradition of China as well as important social issues that confront Chinese people in modern times as reflected in literature.
Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing (formerly Subject A) Requirement.
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Social-Cultural Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbooks:
- The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature [2nd Edition], edited by Joseph S.M. Lau and Howard Goldblatt (Columbia University Press, 2007)
Comparative Literature 166A. The Epic (4 units)
Cheryl Ross
TR 1:40-3:00P
1116 Hart Hall
CRN 54085
Course Description: Epic as a literary genre encompasses some of the most impressive and influential works of ancient and early modern cultures. At the same time, the adjective “epic” is often used to describe contemporary works of grand scope, scale, and power. This course will concentrate on a few classic Western epics by tracing intricate lines of influence and response among them; at key points we will juxtapose contemporary films in an epic mode to show how the traditional can make sense of the new and vice versa. May be repeated for credit in different subject area.
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbooks:
- TBA
Comparative Literature 175. The Shahnameh: Book of Kings (4 units) [Cross-listed with MSA 121A]
Jocelyn Sharlet
TR 1:40-3:00P
227 Olson Hall
CRN 53411
Course Description: This course explores the depiction of government, ethics, reform, resistance and rebellion in Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings by Ferdowsi (d. 1020 CE), as translated by Dick Davis. Students will analyze the legend’s portrayal of rulers, rebels, women, warriors, advisers and religious officials in the quest for good government. We will explore this work in the development of ancient Persian legend and Islamic-era literature, including Ferdowsi’s depiction of the Iranian creation story and legendary kings, the rise and fall of the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE), Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Alexander the Great. We will examine the legend’s nuanced portrayal of interaction between the Persians and the Turks, Arabs, Armenians, Greeks, Slavs, Indians and Chinese peoples who lived among the Persians or in other states and empires of Eurasia and the Mediterranean region. Ferdowsi is a keen observer of the benefits and problems of empire in this early stage of globalization.
The prose translation of the entire work by Dick Davis and verse translations of episodes by Jerome Clinton, both scholars of Persian and English literature, make this major work of world literature accessible to readers of English.
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Social-Cultural Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbooks:
- Abolqasem Ferdowsi, Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings (Expanded Edition), translated by Dick Davis (Penguin Classics, 2016)
- Abolqasem Ferdowsi, In the Dragon's Claws: The Story of Rostam and Esfandiyar from the Persian Book of Kings, translated by Jerome W. Clinton (Mage Publishers, 1999)
- Abolqasem Ferdowsi, The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam (2nd Revised Edition), translated by Jerome W. Clinton (University of Washington Press, 1996)
Graduate Courses
Comparative Literature 210. China, Europe, and Representation II: Aestheticism, Modernization, and New-Confucian Cosmopolitanism (4 units) [Same class as GER 297]
Chunjie Zhang
T 2:10-5:00P
109 Olson Hall
CRN 27417
Course Description: “Whither China?” has become one of the central questions in global public consciousness. This question about the future of a significant civilization and political entity is deeply related to the past of the representations of China in European cultural and intellectual history. The theoretical concern about how to approach and understand the making and the reality of China is of utmost importance. How or does the “West” know China? How or does China know the “West”? How does such a strict division between China and the “West” come into being? Does it make sense at all? Exploring these questions from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, this graduate seminar consists of two parts offered in two consecutive academic years. In the first part, students and I have explored the representations of China in European cultural and intellectual history from the early eighteenth to the early twentieth century including the Enlightenment Sinophile of Confucianism, Hegel’s historicism, and Weber’s and Spengler’s pessimistic view of the decline of the West and the look for a salvation in the East, in particular in Daoism.
The second part of this seminar focuses on the Chinese representations of Europe in the early twentieth century while further exploring the aestheticization of China as visual images in the Western tradition until today. We will read the British royal architect William Chambers’ Dissertation on Oriental Gardening (1773) and contrast it to the French philosopher Voltaire’s adaptation of the Chinese drama The Orphan of China: a Tragedy (1759). While Voltaire’s moralist message got lost over the centuries, Chambers’s aestheticization remains with us until today. Then we will move to the Chinese representations of the West, especially Chinese intellectuals’ understandings of the Chinese tradition and their visions of the world. Two trends of thoughts competed with each other: the European-styled belief in a world marching toward modernization and the cosmopolitan belief in an integrated philosophy of east and west as the ethics of life. Readings include works by Zeng Pu, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Xiong Shili, Mou Zongsan, Rudolf Eucken and Zhang Junmai.
Prerequisite: Graduate standing in Comparative Literature, English, or a foreign-language literature, or consent of instructor (chjzhang@ucdavis.edu).
Format: Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbooks:
- TBA
Professional Courses
Comparative Literature 390. Teaching Comparative Literature in College (4 units)
Cheri Ross
Enrollees will be informed of schedule, meeting location and CRN.
Course Description: Discussion of the theory and practice of teaching composition at the college level in a department of comparative literature in relation to major cultural and social developments and with specific application to the introductory courses COM 001, 002, 003 and 004. (S/U grading only)
Prerequisite: Appointment as a Comparative Literature Associate Instructor or consent of instructor (cross@ucdavis.edu). Restricted to graduate students.
Format: Lecture - 2 hours; Discussion - 2 hours.
Textbooks:
- TBA