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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 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
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 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
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:
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