Fall Quarter 2025
- For day, time, room, and TA information, see our PDF Schedule or the class search tool https://registrar-apps.ucdavis.edu/courses/search/index.cfm.
- For all courses not described here, please refer to the General Catalog course descriptions: https://catalog.ucdavis.edu/courses-subject-code/com
Undergraduate Courses
Lower-Division
COM 001—Major Works of the Ancient World
COM 002—Major Works of the Medieval & Early Modern World
COM 003—Major Works of the Modern World
COM 004—Major Works of the Contemporary World
COM 005—Fairy Tales, Fables, and Parables
Noah Guynn
This course offers an introduction to three narrative genres in which seemingly anything can happen: fable (in which animals behave like human beings), parable (in which mundane realities reveals otherworldly truths), and fairy tale (in which both fantasies and nightmares become real). We will explore these genres in a variety of cultural and historical forms. Our primary sources will include folkloric sources, literary narratives, and animated and live action films. We will also discuss a number of secondary sources, including scholarship in literary, historical, cultural, and feminist/queer studies. Throughout the quarter, we will be interested in exploring both the formal properties of our three genres and the ways in which those properties are used to shape and reshape social identities, power relations, moral values, and metaphysical truths. Fables, parables, and fairy tales exist in many cultures and periods and remain popular, even ubiquitous, today. One major impetus for the course will be to ask why we return to these genres so consistently and what they reveal about the predicaments of human existence and our desire to overcome — or at least make sense of — those predicaments.
COM 007—Literature of Fantasy & the Supernatural
Timothy Parrish
Upper-Division
COM 100—World Cinema (Chinese Cinema)
Sheldon Lu
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 individual films as well as the evolution of entire film industries. Representative directors and internationally renowned filmmakers will be discussed, such as Wu Yonggang, Sun Yu, Xie Jin, Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Ang Lee, Feng Xiaogang, Jia Zhangke, and Xue Xiaolu. 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. Upper-division standing. The class is conducted in English, and all films are subtitled in English. The course fulfills General Education Requirements: Arts & Humanities, Visual Literacy, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.
Michiko Suzuki
This class is an introduction to Japanese film from the early silent films to contemporary cinema. While exploring the history of Japanese film and its social and cultural contexts, we examine works by important directors (such as Kurosawa and Ozu), genres (such as avant-garde film and samurai film), themes and techniques. We will also read secondary critical materials on Japanese film and history. Particular areas of focus include gender, war, memory, censorship, visuality and narrative. Lectures, readings and discussions will be in English. No previous knowledge of Japanese language or culture is required. GE: AH, WC, WE, VL
COM 153—Asian Literature
Sheldon Lu
Timothy Parrish
COM 166—Literature of the Modern Middle East
Noha Radwan
COM 170 - The Contemporary Novel
Noha Radwan
Graduate
COM 210—Special Topic
Archana Venkatesan
COM 255—Proseminar: Comparative Literature: Past, Present, Future
Amy Motlagh
COM 255—Teaching Internship in Comparative Literature
Cheryl Ross