Spring 2010

Lower Division Courses

COM 1: Great Books of Western Civilization - The Ancient World (4 Units)

Patricia MacKinnon, Lecturer (Sec. 1, TR 10:00-11:50, 207 Wellman) CRN 57437
STAFF (Sec. 2, MW 12:10-2:00, 207 Wellman) CRN 57438

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. GE Credit: ArtHum and Wrt (cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

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

Course Format: Lecture/Discussion - 4 hours. 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 frequent short papers and take a final examination.

Textbooks (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.


COM 2: Great Books of Western Civilization - From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment (4 Units)

STAFF (Sec. 1, MW 12:10-2:00, 205 Wellman) CRN 57440
STAFF (Sec. 2, MW 2:10-4:00, 105 Wellman) CRN 57441

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. GE Credit: ArtHum and Wrt (cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

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

Course Format: Lecture/Discussion - 4 hours. 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 frequent short papers and take a final examination.

Textbooks (vary from section to section):
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote; Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method; William Shakespeare, OthelloDante, The Inferno of Dante;
Beowulf; Salvatore Alloso, A Short Handbook for Writing Essays about Literature.


COM 3: Great Books of Western Civilization - The Modern Crisis (4 Units)

STAFF (Sec. 1, TR 10:00-11:50, 107 Wellman) CRN 57443
STAFF (Sec. 2, TR 12:10-2:00, 207 Wellman) CRN 57444
STAFF (Sec. 3, MW 10:00-11:50, 125 Wellman) CRN 57445

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. This course may be counted toward satisfaction of the English Composition Requirement in all three undergraduate colleges. GE Credit: ArtHum and Wrt (cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

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

Course Format: Lecture/Discussion - 4 hours. 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 frequent short papers and take a final examination.

Textbooks (vary from section to section):
J.W. von Goethe, Faust (Part 1); Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents; Franz Kafka, The Trial; Mary Shelley, Frankenstein;
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground; Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own; Salvatore Alloso, A Short Handbook for Writing Essays about Literature.


COM 4: Major Books of the Contemporary World (4 Units)

STAFF (Sec. 1, MW 2:10-4:00, 103 Wellman) CRN 57446
STAFF (Sec. 2, MW 4:10-6:00, 217 Olson) CRN 57447
STAFF (Sec. 3, TR 12:10-2:00, 205 Wellman) CRN 57448
STAFF (Sec. 4, TR 2:10-4:00, 129 Wellman) CRN 83177

Course Description: Comparative study of selected major Western and non-Western texts composed in the period from 1945 to the present. May be counted towards satisfaction of the English Composition requirement in all three undergraduate colleges. GE Credit: ArtHum, Div, and Wrt (cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

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

Course Format: Lecture/Discussion - 4 hours. 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 frequent short papers and take a final examination.

Textbooks (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.


COM 5: Fairy Tales, Fables, and Parables (4 Units)
Jocelyn Sharlet, Assistant Professor

Lecture: TR 10:30-11:50, 100 Hunt

Discussion Sections:
Sec. 1 (M 4:10-5:00, 105 Olson) CRN 57449
Sec. 2 (M 5:10-6:00, 105 Olson) CRN 57450
Sec. 3 (T 5:10-6:00, 24 Wellman) CRN 57451
Sec. 4 (T 6:10-7:00, 24 Wellman) CRN 57452
Sec. 5 (R 3:10-4:00, 115 Wellman) CRN 57453
Sec. 6 (R 4:10-5:00, 101 Wellman) CRN 57454

Course Description: This course investigates the genres of fables, fairy tales, and parables from the ancient to the modern world. We begin with tales from a range of world cultures and explore the way each type of story communicates ideas about coexistence and conflict in the family, political authority and resistance, or spiritual transformation. The course continues with major works of pre-modern literature that expand on our three types of tales in new ways. Finally, we conclude with modern literature that reinterprets our three genres and uses them to investigate topics such as colonialism, gender, and globalization.

Readings will include (but not limited to): Asian and European fairy tales; Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Taoist Parables; African and European fables; Sindbad and Other Stories from the Arabian Nights, translated by Husain Haddawy; Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's DreamThe Pancatantra, translated Patrick Olivelle; Brethren of Purity, Island of Animals, translated Johnson-Davies and Khemir; The Dybbuk and the Yiddish Imagination, translated by Joachim Neugroschel; Shahrnush Parsipur, Women Without Men, translated by Talattof and Sharlet; Martel, Life of Pi; Selected stories by Borges. GE Credit: ArtHum, Div, Wrt.

Textbooks:

  • Joachim Neugroschel, The Dybbuk and the Yiddish Imagination
  • Shahnush Parsipur, Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran
  • Husain Haddaw, Sindbad and Other Stories from the Arabian Nights
  • William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • Patrick Olivelle, The Pancatantra
  • Yann Martel, Life of Pi

COM 6: Myth and Legends (4 Units)
Archana Venkatesan, Assistant Professor

Lecture: TR 3:10-4:30, 1002 Giedt

Discussion Sections:
Sec. 1 (F 10:00-10:50, 251 Olson) CRN 83178
Sec. 2 (F 12:10-1:00, 207 Olson) CRN 83179
Sec. 3 (R 6:10-7:00, 125 Olson) CRN 83180 NEW TIME AND LOCATION
Sec. 4 (R 5:10-6:00, 261 Olson) CRN 83181
Sec. 5 (M 5:10-6:00, 141 Olson) CRN 83182
Sec. 6 (M 6:10-7:00, 141 Olson) CRN 83183

Course Description: An expanded description of this course is currently not available. Please contact the instructor directly at &#97venkatesan

@ucdavis.edu.

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

Textbooks:

  • Heinrich Zimmer, The King and the Corpse: Tales of the Soul's Conquest of Evil
  • A Course Reader

COM 10M: Master Authors in World Literature (2 Units)
Fei Shi, Instructor

Lecture/Discussion Sections:
Sec. 1 (M 2:10-4:00, 290 Hickey Gym) CRN 57461
Sec. 2 (T 10:00-11:50, 290 Hickey Gym) CRN 57462

Course Description: This course is designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Authors that will be studied, but not limited to: Rilke/Yeats, Joyce/Woolf, Mann/Céline, Bulgakov/Tanizaki, O’Neill/Brecht, Lorca/Pirandello.

Textbooks:

  • A.S. Byatt, Little Black Book of Stories
  • Marguerite Duras, The Lover
  • Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate
  • Isabel Allende, Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses
  • Jamaica Kincaid, At the Bottom of the River

COM 20: Humans and the Natural World (4 Units)
W. Scott McLean, Lecturer
(TR 3:10-4:30, 211 Wellman) CRN 57463

Course Description: You will read some of the foundational books in the Environmental movement - including Henry David Thoreau's Walden, in its entirety. But we will also read books that often are not seen as part of this history, including Colin Turnbull's Forest People and the Cuban novel, The Lost Steps, as well as, a range of poetry, from Virgil to Whitman. GE Credit: ArtHum and Wrt.

Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

  • Kroeber, Ishi in Two Worlds
  • Carpenter, Lost Steps
  • Thoreau, Week, Walden, Maine Woods, Cape Cod
  • Muir, John Muir: Nature Writings
  • Turnbull, Forest People
  • Torrance, Encompassing Nature

 


Upper Division Courses

COM 139: Shakespeare and the Classical World (4 Units)
Seth Schein, Professor
(TR 1:40-3:00, 261 Olson) CRN 83185

Course Description: In this course we will study Shakespeare's Roman plays - Julius CaesarAntony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus - and his narrative poem "The Rape of Lucrece" in light of writings by Plutarch, Livy, and Machiavelli that represent, describe, or analyze ancient Rome or narrate the lives of ancient Romans. Our focus will be on representations and interpretations in these works of social and political institutions and values, gender roles and gender hierarchy, conceptions of heroism, and the dynamics of historical change.

Prerequisite: At least one course in literature.

Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

  • Livy and Luce (tr.), The Rise of Rome: Books 1-5
  • Macchiavelli and Bondanella and Bondanella (trs.), Discourses on Livy
  • Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
  • Shakespeare, Coriolanus
  • Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
  • Shakespeare, The Complete Sonnets and Poems

COM 141: Introduction to Critical Theoretical Approaches to Literature and Culture (4 Units)
Neil Larsen, Professor
(TR 3:10-4:30, 163 Olson) CRN 57470

Course Description: This course introduces students to the basic concepts and methods of critical and literary theory. Drawing on Eagleton's Literary Theory: an Introduction, selections from primary works by theorists from Marx and Freud to Benjamin and Foucault, and taking up the contributions of areas such as feminist and film theory, the class will explore the theoretical ramifications of a small group of literary and cultural texts, including Shakespeare’s King Lear; Morrison’s Beloved; and a classic film, Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Students will be asked to write a series of guided essays, culminating in a final project of theoretical analysis centered on pre-determined text. GE Credit: ArtHum and Wrt.

Prerequisite: One upper-division literature course or Consent of Instructor.

Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

  • Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory
  • William Shakespeare, King Lear
  • Toni Morrison, Beloved

COM 156: The Ramayana (4 Units)
Archana Venkatesan, Assistant Professor
(TR 10:30-11:50, 192 Young) CRN 83673

Course Description: This course explores the diversity of the Ramayana tradition through the lens of literature, visual culture, and performance. Students will read substantial portions of three versions of the epic (Sanskrit, Tamil and Hindi) in translation. Students will be exposed to the rendering of the narrative in visual form, with a focus on sculptural representations from South and Southeast Asia. Students will study the contemporary relevance of the epic, especially in diaspora communities, by examining the performance traditions associated with the Ramayana. These include T.V serialization of the epic, alternate Ramayanas, and modern-day stage adaptations of the epic. GE Credit: ArtHum, Div, and Wrt.

Prerequisite: None.

Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

  • Deepak Chopra, Ramayan 3392 AD Comic (Sept. 2006 Issue)
  • Venkatesananda, Concise of Ramayana of Valmiki

COM 158: The Detective Story as Literature (4 Units)
Joann Cannon, Professor of Italian (&#106ccannon

@ucdavis.edu)
(TR 9:00-10:20, 7 Wellman) CRN 83188

Course Description: An expanded description of this course is currently not available. Please contact the instructor directly at &#106ccannon

@ucdavis.edu. GE Credit: ArtHum and Wrt.

Prerequisite: None.

Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

  • Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
  • Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
  • Poe, 18 Best Stories by Edgar Alan Poe
  • Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

COM 168A: European Romanticism (4 Units)
W. Scott McLean, Lecturer
(TR 12:10-1:30, 101 Olson) CRN 57472

Course Description: Few words are as charged as is the word romantic. It is, together with freedom, one of the two words from the 18th century that most defines our own time. Or, rather, our understandings of romantic mis-define our own time. This course will include readings from primary Romantic texts, including Coleridge's poems, Keats' letters, and we will use as an anthology Jerome Rothenberg's and Jeffrey C. Robinson's Poems For The Millennium, The UC Book of Romantic and Post Romantic Poetry.

Course work will constitute a lot of reading; the writing of two papers; and a final exam. GE Credit: ArtHum and Wrt.

Prerequisite: Any introductory course in literature.

Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

  • Shelley, Shelley's Poetry and Prose
  • Clare, I Am
  • Wordsworth, Essential Wordsworth
  • Rousseau, Reveries of Solitary Walker
  • Coleridge, Selected Poems
  • Shelley, Frankenstein
  • Blake, Marriage of Heaven and Hell
  • Holderlin, Hyperion and Selected Poems
  • Keats, Essential Keats
  • Wordsworth, Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals
  • Rothenberg, Poems for the Millennium, Volume 3

 


Graduate Courses

COM 210: Topic - Cultural Boundaries and Cosmopolitanism (4 Units)
Jocelyn Sharlet, Assistant Professor
(T 2:10-5:00, 201 Wellman) CRN 57508

Course Description: What do pre-modern texts have to say about cultural boundaries and the crossing of those boundaries? How do the relations between pre-modern texts and their sister texts from other cultures complicate received ideas about national literature and heritage? This course will investigate examples of three major pre-modern narrative genres-epic, the framed tale, and romance. We will discuss the texts that we read in conjunction with related texts in other languages. We will also evaluate the usefulness of a range of theoretical perspectives for our topic.

Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh, tr. Dick Davis (Persian)
Arabian Nights, tr. Husain Haddawy (Arabic)
Sindbad and Other Stories from the Arabian Nights, tr. Husain Haddawy (Arabic)
Lakhnavi and Bilgrami, The Adventures of Amir Hamza, tr. Musharraf Ali Farooqi (Urdu)
Nizami, The Story of Layla and Majnun, tr. Colin Turner (Persian)
Sheykh Zada, History of the Forty Vezirs, tr. E. J. W. Gibb (Turkish)
The Adventures of Antar, tr. H. T. Norris (Arabic)
Galip, Beauty and Love, tr. Victoria Rowe Holbrook (Turkish)
Gorgani, Vis and Ramin, tr. Dick Davis (Persian)

Course Reader: Selections from Iser, Lefebvre, Rorty, Habermas, Eagleton, Althusser, Macherey, Laclau and Mouffe, Zizek, Arendt, Said, Ahmad, Appiah, de Lauretis, Douglas, Kristeva, de Certeau, Levinas, and Irigaray.

Course Format: Seminar - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

  • Ferdowsi and Dick Davis (tr.), The Shahnameh
  • Lakhnavi and Bilgrami and Musharraf Ali Farooqi (tr.), The Adventures of Amir Hamza
  • Husain Haddawy (tr.), Arabian Nights
  • Husain Haddawy (tr.), Sindbad and Other Stories from the Arabian Nights
  • Nizami and Colin Turner (tr.), The Story of Layla and Majnun
  • Gorgani and Dick Davis (tr.), Vis and Ramin
  • Galip and Victoria Rowe Holdbrook (tr.), Beauty and Love
  • H.T. Norris (tr.), The Adventures of 'Antar
  • Sheykh Zada and E.J.W. Gibb (tr.), History of the Forty Vezirs

COM 396: Teaching Internship in Comparative Literature

STAFF, Professor (Sec. 1, CRN TBA)
STAFF, Professor (Sec. 2, CRN TBA)
STAFF, Professor (Sec. 3, CRN TBA)

Course Description: This course is designed for graduate students who are seeking teaching internship-unit credit.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing or Consent of Instructor.

Textbooks: None