Fall 2018: Expanded Course Descriptions

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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

Section Instructor Day / Time Room CRN
001 Linda Matheson MW 2:10-4:00P 129 Wellman Hall 16643
002 Nicholas Talbott TR 12:10-2:00P 233 Wellman Hall 16644
003 Kyle Proehl MW 10:00-11:50A 1060 Bainer Hall 16645

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 SymposiumThe 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

Section Instructor Day / Time Room CRN
001 Linda Matheson MW 12:10-2:00P 192 Young Hall 16646

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 InfernoBeowulf ; 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

Section Instructor Day / Time Room CRN
001 Ted Geier MW 10:00-11:50A 229 Wellman Hall 16648
002 Jeremy Konick-Seese TR 12:10-2:00P 267 Olson Hall 16649

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

Section Instructor Day / Time Room CRN
001 Magnus Snaebjoernsson MW 2:10-4:00P 140 Physics Bldg 16652
002 Xuesong Shao MW 4:10-6:00P 1134 Bainer Hall 16653
003 James Straub TR 2:10-4:00P 116 Viehmyer Hall 16654
004 Pat Cabell TR 3:10-5:00P 125 Olson Hall 16655

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)

Noha Radwan

Lecture:
TR 9:00-10:20A
180 Med Sci Bldg

Discussion Sections:

Section Disc. Leader Day / Time Room CRN
001 Colin Rankin W 4:10-5:00P 141 Olson Hall 42548
002 Colin Rankin W 5:10-6:00P 141 Olson Hall 42459
003 Timothy Cannon R 5:10-6:00P 7 Wellman Hall 42550
004 Timothy Cannon R 6:10-7:00P 7 Wellman Hall 42551
005 Nia Shy F 10:00-10:50A 1007 Giedt Hall 42552
006 Nia Shy F 11:00-11:50A 1007 Giedt Hall 42553

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 (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)

Gail Finney

Lecture:
TR 10:30-11:50A
6 Wellman Hall

Discussion Sections:

Section Disc. Leader Day / Time Room CRN
001 Poonam Vaya R 5:10-6:00P 1060 Bainer Hall 16662
002 Poonam Vaya R 6:10-7:00P 1060 Bainer Hall 16663
003 Ross Hernandez M 4:10-5:00P 1060 Bainer Hall 16664
004 Ross Hernandez M 5:10-6:00P 1060 Bainer Hall 16665
005 Manasvin Rajagopalan F 10:00-10:50A 1006 Giedt Hall 16666
006 Manasvin Rajagopalan F 11:00-11:50A 1006 Giedt Hall 16667

Course Description: Although the fantastic tale flourishes in the nineteenth century, fantasy and the supernatural are found throughout literature.  Flights of fancy, free-floating psyches, horror and morbidity, otherworldliness, fragmented bodies (disembodied hearts, teeth, or hair, possessing a life of their own)--all these phenomena have been associated with the fantastic and the supernatural. Yet the fantastic has no meaning without reference to realism, and the fantastic shares with realism a fascination with settings and objects, with the material realm. Indeed, the fantastic mode has been viewed as the “left hand” of realism.

This course will investigate these and other features of fantasy and the supernatural, as well as their relationship to realism, in literature and film from Shakespeare to Gabriel García Márquez. Readings and films will include the following:

  • William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1610-11)
  • E.T.A. Hoffmann, “The Sand-Man” (1816)
  • Sigmund Freud, “The Uncanny” (1919)
  • Edgar Allan Poe, “Berenice,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Black Cat," “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1835-1843)
  • Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
  • Guy de Maupassant, “The Head of Hair” (1884), “Who Knows?” (1890)
  • Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898)
  • Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis” (1915), “A Country Doctor” (1919)
  • The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (film) (1920)
  • Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel” (1941), “The Garden of Forking Paths” (1941)
  • Beauty and the Beast (film) (1946)
  • Gabriel García Márquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (1968), “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” (1968)

Prerequisite: None.

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

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

Textbooks:

  • William Shakespeare, The Tempest, edited by Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine  (Simon & Schuster, 2004)
  • Literature of Fantasy and the Supernatural [Revised Edition], edited by Gail Finney  (Cognella Academic Publishing, 2013)*
    *This title will be available at the UC Davis Book Store and also online (online ordering instructions to come)

Comparative Literature 010I. Master Authors - Surrealism, Magical Realism, Technophobia, the Uncanny (2 units)

Young Hui

Section Day / Time Room CRN
001 R 10:00-11:50A 90 SS&H Bldg 43450
002 T 10:00-11:50A 90 SS&H Bldg 43450

Course Description: The literature of horror and thriller is often transporting the reader into another world that either you will understand or reject the society as a whole. The appeal of horror and thriller assumes the cultural and narrative dominance of realism, and the taste for the suspense and tension rests on the widespread, secular disbelief in its existence. In this course, we will explore some of the horror and thriller written by master authors from around the world, including Lovecraft and films from our modern society. We will examine the particular structure and patterns that are shared by these works around the world and the impact on its audience.

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

Comparative Literature 053A. Literatures of East Asia (4 units)

Kevin Smith

MWF 10:00-10:50A
217 Olson Hall
CRN 43100

Course Description: At the height of Japanese colonial rule in the late 1930s, Korean poet Im Hwa wrote that “in the skies over Asia, even the starlight is darkening.” This course will introduce students to some of the masterworks of East Asian literature in the early 20th century under empire across the Japanese archipelago, colonial Korea, and Republican China. Special attention will be payed to questions of modernization, industrialization, and urbanization as they were experienced differently between men and women, rich and poor, city and country, colonizer and colonized. Readings will consist primarily of novels by significant writers whom have been marginalized from more canonical surveys of East Asian literature, and together explore the antagonism between literary modernism and realism as conflicting modes of understanding and representing the vast changes occurring with the onset of capitalist modernity in East Asia.  Readings will be supplemented by occasional film assignments and visual materials drawn from art history, popular music, manga, fashion, and propaganda. Assignments will be limited to short reading and film response papers and a final term paper. No previous knowledge of East Asia or Asian languages required. All readings will be in English.

Prerequisite: None.

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

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

  • Mu Shiying and Andrew David Field, Mu Shiying: China's Lost Modernist  (Hong Kong University Press, 2014)
  • Ding Ling and Lu Hsun, The Power of Weakness: Four Stories of the Chinese Revolution  (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2007)

Upper Division Courses


Comparative Literature 112. Japanese Cinema (4 units)

Michiko Suzuki

Lecture:
TR 3:10-4:30P
1130 Hart Hall

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

CRN 43322

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

Comparative Literature 139. Shakespeare in the Classical World (4 units)

Cheri Ross

TR 10:30-11:50A
1116 Hart Hall
CRN 42554

Course Description:

Shakespeare’s fascination with the classical world is evident throughout his career.  In this course we will study selected plays through this lens, learning how Shakespeare responds to and reworks both ancient texts and renaissance conceptions of antiquity, and how his work matures within this conceptual framework. Through this lens we will practice our own interpretive and argumentative skills on these compelling dramatic works.  Works to be read: the narrative poem Venus and Adonis, Romeo and Juliet, Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus.

Prerequisite: At least one course in literature.

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

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Written assignments (including final paper).

Textbooks:

  • Selected Signet editions of several Shakespeare plays and poems

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

Michael Subialka

TR 9:00-10:20A
1342 Storer Hall
CRN 16675

Course Description: Introduction to critical theory and its use for interpreting literary texts, film, and media forms in global culture.

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

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

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

Textbooks:

  • TBA

Comparative Literature 145. Representations of the City (4 units)

Jocelyn Sharlet

TR 12:10-1:30P
1128 Bainer Hall
CRN 42555

Course Description: This course explores the city as a site of co-existence and conflict between diverse communities, memory, desire, socioeconomic hierarchy and mobility, and political resistance. We will consider how the literary representation of urban life articulates ideas about the self and the other, gender and the family, and public space.

Texts for purchase:
Naguib Mahfouz, Midaq Alley  (Egypt)
Elias Khoury, The Journey of Little Gandhi  (Lebanon)
Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book  (Turkey)
Tahir Wattar, The Earthquake  (Algeria)
Goli Taraghi, A Mansion in the Sky: And Other Short Stories  (Iran)
 

Texts that will be included in a reader:
Yehudit Katzir, “Closing the Sea”  (Israel)
Selections, The Book of Gaza, ed. Atef Abu Saif  (Palestine)

Prerequisite: None.

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

Format: Lecture - 2 hours; Discussion - 1 hour; Writing.

Textbooks:

  • Naguib Mahfouz, Midaq Alley, translated by Trevor Le Gassick  (Anchor Books, 1992)
  • Elias Khoury, The Journey of Little Gandhi, translated by Paula Haydar  (Picador Press, 2009)
  • Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book, translated by Maureen Freely  (Vintage Books, 2006)
  • Tahir Wattar, The Earthquake, translated by William Granara  (Saqi Books, 2000)
  • Goli Taraghi, A Mansion in the Sky: And Other Short Stories, translated by Faridoun Farrokh  (University of Texas Press, 2003)

Comparative Literature 146. Myth in Literature (4 units)

Cheri Ross

TR 1:40-3:00P
192 Young Hall
CRN 42556

Course Description: This course will investigate a selection of classical myths whose characters, plots, and/or themes are re-envisioned and reworked by later writers, visual artists, and filmmakers. The emphasis will be on close reading/viewing, analysis, and interpretation through sustained, guided discussion, supplemented by short lectures to provide historical, cultural and literary formal contexts.

Prerequisite: Comparative Literature 006 recommended.

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

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; lecture/discussion; Written assignments (including final paper).

Textbooks:

  • James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man  (Penguin Classics, 2016)
  • Sophocles, The Oedipus Cycle, translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald  (Mariner Books, 2002)
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet  (Signet Classics, 1998)
  • William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night  (Signet Classics, 1998)
  • William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale  (Signet Classics, 1998)

Comparative Literature 166B. The Novel (4 units)

Timothy Parrish

TR 4:40-6:00P
105 Olson Hall
CRN 42557

Course Description: The novelist Milan Kundera tells us that Alonzo Quijano, “a poor village gentleman” more famously known as Don Quixote, began “the history of the art of the novel with three questions about existence: What is a person's identity? What is truth? What is love?" We too will ask these questions, and may more besides, as we follow Quixote on the road through some of the world's greatest novels. Remember that before he was hero, Quixote was a reader—like you or me. Ordinarily, we may think of reading as a form of escape but Quixote tells us that reading is a way of engaging with—and transforming—the world we know. In our class, that engagement will take the form of class discussion, two short essays, and one longish one.  Our basic premise will be that reading is an act of transformation . . . and fun. Likely novels include works by Cervantes (selections), Flaubert, Proust, Lispector, Kundera, García Márquez, Dostoevsky, and Nabokov.

May be repeated for credit up to one time.

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

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

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

Textbooks:

  • Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, translated by Edith Grossman  (Ecco Press, 2005)
  • Denis Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist, translated by Michael Henry  (Penguin Classics, 1986)
  • Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, translated by Geoffrey Wall  (Penguin Classics, 2002)
  • Natalia Ginzburg, Family Lexicon, translated by Jenny McPhee  (New York Review Books Classics, 2017)
  • Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way, Vol. 1, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin  (Modern Library Classics, 2003)
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, translated by Gregory Rabassa  (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006)

Graduate Courses


Comparative Literature 210, Section 002. Realism (4 units)

Neil Larsen

T 2:10-5:00P
123 Wellman Hall
CRN 16711

Course Description: Comparative, interpretive study of the treatment of specific topics and themes in literary works from various periods, societies, and cultures, in light of these works' historical and sociocultural contexts. May be repeated for credit.

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

Format: Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

  • TBA 

Professional Courses


Comparative Literature 390. Teaching Comparative Literature in College (4 units)

Noha Radwan

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 (nmradwan@ucdavis.edu). Restricted to graduate students.

Format: Lecture - 2 hours; Discussion - 2 hours.

Textbooks:

  • TBA 

Comparative Literature 392. Teaching Internship in Comparative Literature (2 units)

Noha Radwan

Enrollees will be informed of schedule, meeting location and CRN.

Course Description: Regular consultations between the student instructor teaching Comparative Literature courses and a supervisor. Specifically designed for first-time Teaching Assistants in COM 005, 006, 007, and 010. Instruction in the teaching of writing in a literature course, grading of papers, leading discussions. (S/U grading only)

Prerequisite: Restricted to graduate students.

Format: Discussion - 2 hours.

Textbooks:

  • TBA