Lower Division Courses
Comparative Literature 001. Major Books of Western Culture: The Ancient World (4 units)
Section |
Instructor |
Day / Time |
Room |
CRN |
001 |
Linda Matheson |
MW 12:10-2:00P |
261 Olson Hall |
66507 |
002 |
Deborah Young |
TR 10:00-11:50A |
141 Olson Hall |
66508 |
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 Requirement (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 |
Amanda Batarseh |
TR 12:10-2:00P |
217 Olson Hall |
66510 |
002 |
Sara Petrosillo | MW 10:00-11:50A | 125 Olson Hall | 66511 |
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 Requirement (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 Snaebjoernsson |
MW 4:10-6:00P |
129 Wellman Hall |
66512 |
002 |
Jeremy Konick-Seese |
MW 2:10-4:00P |
163 Olson Hall |
66513 |
003 | Jeffrey Weiner | TR 12:10-2:00P | 207 Olson Hall |
66514 |
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 Requirement (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 |
Anna Einarsdottir |
MW 2:10-4:00P |
129 Wellman Hall |
66515 |
002 |
Sean Sell |
MW 4:10-6:00P |
27 Wellman Hall |
66516 |
003 |
Amy Riddle | TR 12:10-2:00P | 1038 Wickson Hall | 66517 |
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 Requirement (formerly Subject A Requirement).
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Domestic 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 006. Myths and Legends (4 units)
Archana Venkatesan
Lecture:
TR 9:00-10:20A
1322 Storer Hall
Discussion Sections:
Disc. Section |
Discussion Leader |
Day / Time |
Room |
CRN |
001 |
Nicholas Talbott |
R 5:10-6:00P |
113 Hoagland Hall |
66518 |
002 |
Nicholas Talbott |
R 6:10-7:00P |
113 Hoagland Hall |
66519 |
003 |
Nicholas Talbott |
W 5:10-6:00P |
217 Olson Hall |
66520 |
004 |
Carmine Morrow |
W 6:10-7:00P | 217 Olson Hall |
66521 |
005 |
Carmine Morrow |
F 10:00-10:50A | 1116 Hart Hall |
66522 |
006 |
Carmine Morrow |
F 11:00-11:50A | 1116 Hart Hall |
66523 |
Course Description: Introduction to the comparative study of myths and legends, excluding those of Greece and Rome, with readings from Near Eastern, Teutonic, Celtic, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, African and Central American literary sources.
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Diversity, and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Discussion - 1 hour.
Textbooks:
- Anonymous, The Tale of an Anklet: An Epic of South India: The Cilappatikaram of Ilanko Atikal, translated by R. Parthasarathy (Columbia University Press, 1992)
- Anonymous, Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, translated by Seamus Heaney (W.W. Norton & Company, 2001)
Comparative Literature 007. Literature of Fantasy and the Supernatural (4 units)
Neil Larsen & Linda Matheson
Lecture:
TR 1:40-3:00P
1003 Geidt Hall
Discussion Sections:
Disc. Section |
Discussion Leader |
Day / Time |
Room |
CRN |
001 |
Young Hui |
W 5:10-6:00P |
2016 Haring Hall |
66524 |
002 |
Tianya Wang |
W 6:10-7:00P |
2016 Haring Hall |
66525 |
003 |
Young Hui |
R 5:10-6:00P |
217 Olson Hall |
66526 |
004 |
Young Hui |
R 6:10-7:00P | 217 Olson Hall |
66527 |
005 |
Jeremy Konick-Seese |
F 10:00-10:50A | 151 Olson Hall |
66528 |
006 |
Tianya Wang |
F 11:00-11:50A | 267 Olson Hall |
66529 |
Course Description: This course will rely heavily on films depicting fantasy and the supernatural as it explores the role of fantasy and the supernatural in literature: tales of magic, hallucination, ghosts, and metamorphosis, including diverse authors such as Shakespeare, P'u Sung-Ling, Kafka, Kawabata, Fuentes, and Morrison.
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Diversity, and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Discussion - 1 hour.
Textbooks:
- Either available on Canvas or to be purchased online.
Comparative Literature 010M. Master Authors: The Position of the Child in Modern Literature and Society (2 units)
Pat Cabell
Section |
Day / Time |
Room |
CRN |
001 |
M 10:00-11:50A |
1038 Wickson Hall |
91941 |
002 |
W 10:00-11:50A |
1038 Wickson Hall |
91942 |
Course Description: Queer Theory and Disability Studies, among others, return our attention to the insights and subversive power afforded by those deemed abject, damaged, or superfluous under capitalist modernity. Children have not always been included in these discourses, yet some strands of critical theory have seen in the child an extra-sensory and emotionally authentic subject either outside of or prior to corruption by the instrumentalism and compulsory productivity of the adult public-sphere.
This class will listen to the wonders that are said to be stored in the world of children, reflecting on who children are and the function they are assigned by society. We will read and discuss several major novels and the affinal form, short-stories, from across genre and nationality, including authors such as Anaïs Nin, James Joyce, Toni Morrison, and Alejo Carpentier. Reading will also include critical essays, such as by the Marxist 'mystic' Walter Benjamin, which extrapolate how the position of the child (in literature) informs the critique and transformation of capitalism. These questions will bring us into contact with several aspects of the childhood experience: liberation from adults, child abuse, childishness, solipsism, heightened sensitivity, love, and maybe growing up.
This course does not fulfill the university writing requirement; therefore, no essays will be assigned.
Grading: PASS/NO PASS (P/NP) ONLY.
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (Old): None.
GE credit (New): None.
Format: Lecture/Discussion - 2 hours.
Textbooks:
- TBA
Comparative Literature 011. Travel and the Modern World (4 units) [Cross-listed with German 011]
Chunjie Zhang
TR 9:00-10:20A
217 Olson Hall
CRN 66532
Course Description: Examination of travel as a quintessential human activity and experience of global modernity and cross-cultural encounters from the 18th to the 21st century with an emphasis on German-speaking culture. Travelogues, literature, art, memoirs, and films in English translation.
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, Visual Literacy, World Cultures and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Writing.
Textbooks:
- TBA
Comparative Literature 014. Introduction to Poetry (3 units)
Leonardo Giorgetti
MWF 11:00-11:50A
141 Olson Hall
CRN 91138
Course Description: The Italian poets Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Francis Petrarch (1304-1374), and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) left a literary and intellectual legacy that contributed to shaping the cultural developments of early modern Europe. Within the process of formation of the literary canons of the main European nations, these three authors, whether writing in prose or in verse, in Latin or in the Italian vernacular, have played in different times and ways such an exemplary role that their literary excellence has been consecrated by the epithet “Italian Three Crowns.” In this course, we will read selections from the most influential texts of these three authors, as well as of several other late medieval and early modern European authors who dealt in their work with the reception and the reappropriation of the Italian Three Crowns. For each of the nations considered (England, France, and Spain), we will analyze how these texts reformulate topics such as gender, love, political and moral laws, social relationships, and religion, according to specific socio-political and cultural conditions. Moreover, we will examine how the main literary genres employed by the Italian Three Crowns (lyric poetry, mystical-theological poetry, romance, short story/novella, drama) had been transformed according to the emerging national literary traditions of England, France, and Spain; by comparing and contrasting the different cultural contexts of these nations, we will ultimately consider how the literary legacy of the Italian Three Crowns has influenced other writers in early modern Europe. We are going to read excerpts from texts by Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Christine de Pizan, Marguerite de Navarre, Du Bellay, Ronsard, Garcilaso de la Vega, and Cervantes. All the readings will be in early modern English or in modern English translation, occasionally paired with their original languages; readable knowledge of Italian, French, and Spanish is a plus. Students with interests in Italian, English, French, or Spanish literary traditions are especially welcome!
Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing Requirement (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.
Textbooks:
- All texts will be available on course Canvas website.
Upper Division Courses
Comparative Literature 135. Women Writers (4 units)
Gail Finney
TR 10:30-11:50A
1128 Hart Hall
CRN 91125
Course Description: The course will study prose fiction, poetry, and essays by women writers from a spectrum of ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and eras, ranging from the seventeenth-century French court to twentieth-century Germany. Authors treated include Madame de Lafayette, Emily Brontë, Virginia Woolf, Zora Neale Hurston, Christa Wolf, and Marguerite Duras.
We will pursue questions such as the following: are certain themes especially prominent among women writers; is it possible to speak of a “feminine aesthetic,” or to what extent do factors like race, class, education, and nationality complicate the role of gender in shaping women’s writing; how do the images women create of themselves compare with long-standing cultural stereotypes of the feminine as generated by male artists; how do women writers transform (or not) stylistic modes made current by their male predecessors or contemporaries.
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbooks:
- TBA
Comparative Literature 148. Mystical Literatures of South Asia and the Middle East (4 units)
Jocelyn Sharlet
TR 12:10-1:30P
107 Wellman Hall
CRN 91126
Course Description: This course offers a comparative approach to selected works of mystical literature from Islamic and Hindu traditions as well as Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Daoism, using texts in translation from Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Chinese, Ottoman Turkish and Urdu. We will consider literary expression of spiritual experiences that entail altered states, and investigate mysticism as it relates to ethics, philosophy and politics; desire and emotion; the perception of the natural world; asceticism, the body, and literal or figurative intoxication; and the modern reception of mystical literature. Selections will include ‘Attar, Rumi, Jami, Ibn ‘Arabi, and Ibn Tufayl; Kalidasa, Mirabai, Kabir, Jamali-ye Dehlavi and Ghalib; the Song of Solomon, the Zohar and Rabbi Nahman; Buddhist and Daoist parables and The Journey to the West.
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbooks:
- TBA
Comparative Literature 154. African Literature (4 units) [Cross-listed with AAS 153]
Moradewun Adejunmobi
TR 4:40-6:00P
212 Wellman Hall
CRN 91872
Course Description: This course provides an introduction to African literature from the late colonial period to the early twenty-first century. It focuses on creative texts by notable African authors responding to questions affecting the lives of Africans during this period. Some of the questions to be considered include the following: what is the role of art in a time of social and political transition? What kinds of movements are effective or ineffective for creating lasting change in any society? Is cultural alienation a useful strategy for responding to powerful forces? To what extent are victims of subordination responsible for their own subordination? How do we make sense of the experience attached to identities that are not our own identity? Novels by Chinua Achebe, Ousmane Sembene, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Zakes Mda, Patrice Nganang and Igoni Barrett will be discussed in the class. We will seek to examine the selected works in light of debates about literature, art, politics and society among African intellectuals and activists over several decades.
Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing Requirement (formerly Subject A Requirement).
GE Credits (Old): Arts & Humanities, Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE Credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbooks:
- Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Anchor, 1994)
- Sembene Ousmane, God's Bits of Wood (Pearson, 2008)
- Zakes Mda, Ways of Dying (Picador, 2002)
- Patrice Nganang, Dog Days (An Animal Chronicle), translated by Amy Baram Reid (University of Virginia Press, 2006)
- Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions [2nd Edition] (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004)
- A. Igoni Barrett, Blackass (Graywolf Press, 2016)
Comparative Literature 156. The Ramayana (4 units) [Cross-listed with RST 158]
Archana Venkatesan
W 1:10-4:00P
1006 Giedt Hall
CRN 91127
Course Description: This course examines Ramayana story traditions with a primary focus on its many literary and oral variants.
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Diversity, and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.
Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbooks:
- Valmiki, The Ramayana, translated by Arshia Sattar (Penguin Global Press, 2010) ***
*** Students will need to purchase the above text online - Many Rāmāyaṇas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, edited by Paula Richman (Oxford University Press, 1991)
- The Rāmāyaṇa Revisited, edited by Mandakranta Bose (Oxford University Press, 2004)
Comparative Literature 180. Introduction to Japanese Film (4 units)
Michiko Suzuki
MWF 10:00-10:50A
27 Wellman Hall
CRN 91127
Course Description: This lecture/discussion 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 Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, and Ozu), genres (such as avant-garde film and samurai film), themes and techniques. We will also use secondary critical materials on Japanese film and history. Particular areas of focus include gender, war, memory, censorship, visuality and narrative.
There will be an optional film screening on Monday evening that will be scheduled once the quarter begins. Students must watch the assigned films either through this optional screening time or on their own (films will be on reserve at the library).
Students will be evaluated on attendance, participation, exams, and papers.
Class will combine lecture and discussion. Lectures, readings and discussions are in English. No previous knowledge of Japanese language or culture is required.
Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing Requirement (formerly Subject A Requirement) and at least one course in literature.
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 195. The European Bildungsroman (4 units)
Stefan Uhlig
TR 1:40-3:00P
1128 Hart Hall
CRN 66551
Course Description: Sometimes translated as the novel of development or education, Bildungsroman forms a central yet peculiar entry in our literary lexicon. The term was coined in early nineteenth-century German in response, especially, to Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, and the category of Bildung draws on a distinctive intellectual tradition. Yet the focus of important novels on young men (and mostly men) who work out who they can or want to be within their cultural environments is a phenomenon across the European map, and one that reaches from the early nineteenth- well into the twentieth-century. This course presents, in detail, four complex and rich examples of the genre paired with some incisive critical perspectives. In the process, we will come to think about how fiction speaks to who we are as readers, and the ways in which that process is made equally more difficult and promising by formal and historical specifics that are not readily accessible to modern readers.
Prerequisite: Senior standing as a Comparative Literature major or minor or consent of instructor (shuhlig@ucdavis.edu).
GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities and Writing Experience.
Format: Seminar - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbooks:
- Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics, 2006)
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, translated by Eric A. Blackall (Princeton University Press, 1995)
- Stendhal, The Red and the Black, translated by Catherine Slater (Oxford University Press, 2009)
- Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, translated by John E. Woods (Vintage Press, 1996)
Graduate Courses
Comparative Literature 210. Literature, Philosophy, and the Arts (4 units)
Michael Subialka
T 3:10-6:00P
822 Sproul Hall
CRN 66575
Course Description: This graduate seminar will focus on the rich intersection of literature, philosophy, and the arts, with attention to aesthetic forms including performance (theater and film) and the visual arts. Comparative literature as a field has long been a space where literary production and philosophical theory overlap in fruitful ways, and in recent years there has been growing attention to the specific intersection of (literary or artistic) form and (philosophical) argument coming from a number of disciplines. The seminar will focus on several theoretical approaches to this intersection, foregrounding work by contemporary scholars who ask what it means to think through (literary or artistic) form and how attention to that form changes our understanding of philosophical thought. In the second half of the seminar, participants will draw on their own field of expertise to present on and lead class discussions of specific (literary, philosophical, filmic, theatrical, visual, etc.) texts that relate to the conceptual problems addressed in the readings from the first half. These texts will be chosen by the seminar participants (in consultation with the instructor) based on their own areas of specialization and integrated into the course syllabus.
May be repeated for credit.
Prerequisite: Graduate standing in Comparative Literature, English, or a foreign-language literature, or consent of instructor (msubialka@ucdavis.edu).
Format: Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbooks:
- TBA