Spring 2018

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 12:10-2:00P

 108 Hoagland Hall

 56718

 002

 Deborah Young

 TR 2:10-4:00P

 251 Olson Hall

 56719

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 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

 Nicholas Talbott

 TR 12:10-2:00P

 102 Hutchison Hall

 56721

 002

 James Straub  MW 2:10-4:00P  207 Wellman Hall  56722

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 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

 Dorothee Xiaolong Hou

 MW 4:10-6:00P

 110 Hunt Hall

 56723

 002

 Magnus Snaebjoernsson

 MW 2:10-4:00P

 205 Wellman Hall

 56724

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, Social-Cultural Diversity 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)

  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

 103 Wellman Hall

 66515

 002

 Linda Matheson

MW 4:10-6:00P

 146 Robbins Hall

 66516

 003

 Brian Young TR 12:10-2:00P  1007 Giedt Hall  66517

 004

 Megan Ammirati TR 10:00-11:50A  1038 Wickson Hall  81808

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, Social-Cultural 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 005. Fairy Tales, Fables and Parables (4 units)
Jocelyn Sharlet

Lecture:
TR 4:40-6:00P
2 Wellman Hall

Discussion Sections:

Disc. Section

Discussion Leader

Day / Time

Room

CRN

 001

 Visnja Milojicic

 M 5:10-6:00P

 1020 Wickson Hall

 81809

 002

 Visnja Milojicic

 M 6:10-7:00P

 1020 Wickson Hall

 81810

 003

 Tianya Wang

 W 5:10-6:00P

 201 Wellman Hall

 81811

 004

 Tianya Wang

 W 6:10-7:00P  201 Wellman Hall

 81812

 005

 Manasvin Rajagopalan

 F 10:00-10:50A  163 Olson Hall

 81813

 006

 Manasvin Rajagopalan

 F 11:00-11:50A  163 Olson Hall

 81814

Course Description: This course investigates fables, fairy tales, and parables that have circulated widely in world culture from ancient to modern times. We will explore the dynamics of each type of story using examples from a range of cultures. We will examine how fairy tales portray individual development in the context of the family, fables depict social hierarchy and resistance to it, and parables convey spiritual transformation.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Social-Cultural Diversity, and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.

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

Textbooks:

Selections from the following texts:  

  • Selected fairy tales
  • Apuleius, "Cupid and Psyche" (Greco-Roman)
  • Hearne, Beauties and Beasts (three tales from Asia)
  • Arabian Nights, ed. Muhsin Mahdi and tr. Hussain Haddawy
  • Giambattista Basile, Pentamerone (West European fairy tales)
  • Fables
  • Aesop
  • Lopez, Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with his Daughter (Coyote tales of North America)
  • Berry, West African Folktales
  • "The Firebird" (Russia)
  • Ibn al-Muqaffa', Kalilah and Dimnah tr. Jallad (fables based on the Sanskrit Panchatantra)
  • Parables
  • Plato, "The Cave"
  • Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, and Taoist parables
  • Nakhshabi, Tutinama (Tales of a Parrot, based on the Sanskrit Shukasaptati)
  • Nizami, Haft Paykar, tr. Meisami (mystical tales)

Comparative Literature 006. Myths and Legends (4 units)
Cheri Ross

Lecture:
TR 9:00-10:20A

1002 Geidt Hall

Discussion Sections:

Disc. Section

Discussion Leader

Day / Time

Room

CRN

 001

 Xuesong Shao

 W 5:10-6:00P

 261 Olson Hall

 56729

 002

 Xuesong Shao

 W 6:10-7:00P

 261 Olson Hall

 56730

 003

 Nicholas Talbott

 R 5:10-6:00P

 163 Olson Hall

 56731

 004

 Young Hui

 R 6:10-7:00P  163 Olson Hall

 56732

 005

 Kyle Proehl

 F 10:00-10:50A  105 Olson Hall

 56733

 006

 Kyle Proehl

 F 11:00-11:50A  105 Olson Hall

 56734

Course Description: Myths and legends are the most ancient and yet most influential stories worldwide. In different ways, myths and legends express ideas about being human in relationship to phenomena and experiences higher and greater than the mundane: connecting everyday experience both to metaphysical realms and to the natural world.  Myths and legends also express deep thought about the complexities of human experience: moral values and obligations (often conflicting ones), insiders and outsiders, individual and community. These stories have inspired countless adaptations of literature and visual arts (and, more recently, film). In this course we will investigate a selection of myths and legends along with some later reworkings of these stories. We will also explore some major analytic approaches to such texts and practice our own interpretive and argumentative skills on these compelling, foundational works.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Social-Cultural Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.

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

Textbooks:

  • Mary Shelley, Frankenstein  (Penguin Classics, 2003)
  • Gilgamesh: A New English Version, translated by Stephen Mitchell  (Atria Books, 2006)

Comparative Literature 010L. Master Authors: Modern Crisis in Multimedia Literature (2 units)
Young Hui

Section

Day / Time

Room

CRN

 001

 T 10:00-11:50A     

 107 Cruess Hall

 82615

 002

 R 10:00-11:50A

 107 Cruess Hall

 82616

Course Description: Our society progressed and transformed. It filled with Consumerism, Solipsism, and Hatred. People are interested in the feud between Mayweather Jr. and McGregor or Taylor Swift’s newest Music Video, rather than worrying about those that were under the threat of Hurricane Harvey or "Lucifer" romped through the Middle East. We neglect the things that happen next to us but concentrate on things on which the mainstream media wants us to focus. In this course, we will explore the catastrophes within our society that the mainstream media wants us to neglect by examining some films, videos, poems, comics, and books. (Yes, we will watch and analyze Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do," too!)  We will discuss the particular themes and images that are shared by these medias and analyze what is going on in our social environment. All the readings will be in English.

Grading: PASS/NO PASS (P/NP) ONLY.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credit (Old): None.
GE credit (New): None.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 2 hours.

Textbooks:

  • George Orwell, 1984  (Signet Classics, 1950)
  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto: Illustrated  (Red Quill Press, 2016)

Comparative Literature 053B. Literature of South Asia (4 units)
Archana Venkatesan

TR 10:30-11:50A
1020 Wickson Hall
CRN 81815

Course Description: Introduction to representative masterpieces of South Asia with readings from such works as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, The Cloud Messenger, Shakuntala, The Little Clay Cart, and the stories and poems of both ancient and modern India and Southeast Asia.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Social-Cultural Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, Oral Literacy, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

  • Bankimcandra Chatterji, Anandamath or Sacred Brotherhood, translated by Julius J. Lipner  (Oxford University Press, 2005)
  • Grow Long, Blessed Night: Love Poems from Classical India, translated by Martha Ann Selby  (Oxford University Press, 2001)
  • Nammalvar, A Hundred Measures of Time, translated by Archana Venkatesan  (Penguin India, 2014)
  • Kalidasa, The Recognition of Sakuntala, translated by W.J. Johnson  (Oxford University Press, 2008)
  • Mirza Muhammad Hadi Rusva, Umrao Jan Ada, translated by David Matthews  (Rupa and Company, 1996)
  • When God is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Ksetrayya and Others, edited and translated by A.K. Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman  (University of California Press, 1994)

Upper Division Courses

Comparative Literature 100. World Cinema (4 units)

Section 001. French New Wave Cinema
Joshua Clover

Lecture:
MWF 1:10-2:00P
205 Olson Hall

Film Viewing:
W 5:10-8:00P
2016 Haring Hall

CRN 81816

Course Description: Gangsters! Youth! Time travel! This course studies the cinema of the French New Wave, the stylish and dynamic renovation of the filmic tradition mostly in the 1960s. Directors will include Godard, Truffaut, Varda, Marker, and others. While paying attention to cinematic history, the course will unfold against two dramatic events that shaped France and the world around it during this period: the successful decolonial war of Algerian independence, and the near civil war of 1968, with its general strike and mass student rebellions. We’ll watch a movie every week, do a little reading, and talk about things. No berets.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Social-Cultural Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, Visual Literacy, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Film Viewing - 3 hours.

Textbooks:

  • Jim Hillier, Cahiers du Cinéma: 1960–1968: New Wave, New Cinema, Reevaluating Hollywood  (Harvard University Press, 1992)
  • Kristin Ross, May '68 and Its Afterlives  (University of Chicago Press, 2004)

Section 002. Japanese Cinema
Michiko Suzuki

Lecture:
TR 3:10-4:30P
90 SS&H Building

Film Viewing:
T 6:10-9:00P
229 Wellman Hall

CRN 81817

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 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.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Social-Cultural Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, Visual Literacy, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Film Viewing - 3 hours.

Textbooks:

  • TBA

Comparative Literature 151. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature (4 units)
Neil Larsen

TR 10:30-11:50A
163 Olson Hall
CRN 81818

Course Description: A literary introduction to the cultural issues of colonialism and postcolonialism through reading, discussing and writing on narratives which articulate diverse points of view. 

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

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities, Social-Cultural Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

  • Mike Davis, Planet of Slums  (Verso Books, 2007)
  • Meja Mwangi, Going Down River Road [2nd Edition]  (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017)
  • Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance  (Vintage International, 1997)
  • Paulo Lins, City of God, translated by Alison Entrekin  (Grove Press, 2006)

Comparative Literature 195. Utopia and Dystopia in World Literature (4 units)
Noha Radwan

T 1:10-4:00P
263 Olson Hall
CRN 56765

Course Description: Between the fourth century BC, when Plato wrote the Socratic dialogue Republic to and the last few years when Hollywood has been inundating the moviegoers with one dystopic scenario after another from “Children of Men” to “Blade Runner” and “The Hunger Games,” lies a fascinating literary history. Writers from many walks of life have imagined both an ideal society yet to be attained, and its inversion, a ‘hell on earth’ that may be reached if we as humans do not alter our ways and change the course that our life on the planet has taken so far. The number of excellent and intriguing texts produced in this endeavor are way too many to read in this class, but the goal is to discuss the genre, its genealogy, socio-political as well as literary contexts, its accomplishments and its limitations through some of the best known and, to a certain extent, foundational texts.

Requirements:
Students will be assigned weekly readings/viewings, and required to contribute to the weekly “Discussion” blog on Canvas. Class meetings will be dedicated to discussing the week’s readings/viewings. Two short (500-750 words) writing assignments will be required during the course of the quarter. A final paper (10-12 pages) is due at the end of the seminar. No final exam.

Grade distribution:
Discussion blog: 30%
In-class discussion: 25%
One in-class presentation: 5%
Two short essays: 20%
Final Paper: 20%

Prerequisite: Senior standing as a Comparative Literature major or minor or consent of instructor (nmradwan@ucdavis.edu).

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities and Writing Experience.

Format: Seminar - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

  • TBA

Graduate Courses

Comparative Literature 210. Topics and Themes in Comparative Literature (4 units)

Section 001.  Comparative Modernisms
Michael Subialka

R 2:10-5:00P
201 Wellman Hall
CRN 56789

Course Description: The critical category of modernism has been an object of contention for nearly a century, but in the last decade a number of new approaches have developed that use comparative frameworks to understand modernism as transnational, multiple, and global. This course will examine those theoretical debates, beginning with the most recent interventions. We will couple those theoretical readings with modernist literary texts (and art) from multiple national traditions, examining them in a comparative light to question what it means to group them together as “modernist.” Issues to consider include: the role and limits of periodization (modernity/modernism and the question of postmodernism); the shift from Anglo-centric to Euro-centric models of modernism, and subsequent responses from a global comparative perspective; questions of form/style in relation to socio-historical and political contextualization (including the problems posed by fascist modernism and modernist nationalism); the role of genre and medium; the role of imperialism/colonialism and postcolonialism; the debate over cosmopolitanism and world literature in a global approach to comparative modernism; multiple modernities; and key modernist foci (subjectivity, modernity, crisis/rupture, capitalism, alienation, uncertainty/ambiguity, experimentation, decomposition, etc.).

Readings will include recent interventions from critics such as: Friedman, Hayot and Walkowitz, Ross and Lindgren, Vadde, etc. Likewise, we will examine key modernist texts; these will be drawn from students’ areas of interest/expertise in consultation with the instructor. The class will be a discussion-focused seminar with a final seminar paper, student presentations, and a critical book review. Our goal will be to better understand how looking at modernism through a comparative lens can sharpen our critical categories and improve our understanding of modernist production; at the same time, the course should prepare students to teach introductory or survey courses examining modernism.

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

Section 002. The Frankfurt School and the Origins of Critical Theory: A Selective Introduction to Major Works (1930-1969)
Neil Larsen

T 2:10-5:00P
201 Wellman Hall
CRN 81819

Course Description: This seminar will provide an intensive and focused introduction to the works of the Frankfurt School in its so-called ‘first generation’: from the appointment in 1930 of Max Horkheimer as director the University of Frankfurt-based Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research—hereafter ‘ISF’) until the death of Adorno in 1969. These were the years during which the names most associated with the Frankfurt School: Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Benjamin and numbers of others, were at the center of the ISF’s activities and publications. (In fact the ISF only came to be identified as the Frankfurt School much later than 1930, not until after WWII.  But it evidently pleased Adorno, and, anyway, it has stuck.) These were the years, also, when the ISF and most if not all of its inner circle—excepting, tragically, Walter Benjamin-- were forced into exile by Nazism in 1933, moving first, briefly, to England and then to New York and finally Los Angeles before returning to Frankfurt after WWII.  Thanks, originally, to a 1937  essay by Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory,” the ISF also gave rise to what it called ‘Critical Theory,’ a term that, although today often broader in scope than this, has referred to the work of the ISF ever since.

The course will proceed as seminars generally do, with the full participation of all students in well-informed and well-supported discussions of the readings and other course materials. Required, in addition to timely reading of the assigned literature, will be: 1) a series of three to four short essays in response to common prompts; and 2) completion of an extensive take-home essay exam, open book, totaling approximately 4,000 words; or 3) in lieu of the former, a seminar paper, but only if approved in consultation with the instructor.

Students who wish to read any or all of the readings in the original German may, and will be encouraged to do so. Questions?  Contact Prof. Neil Larsen at nalarsen@ucdavis.edu.

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:

  • Texts to be read in whole or in part include: Lukács, History and Class Consciousness; Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory,” (with Adorno) Dialectic of Enlightenment; Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility, “The Author as Producer”; Adorno, Prisms, Notes to Literature, Minima Moralia, Aesthetic Theory; Marcuse, “The Affirmative Character of Culture,” Eros and Civilization; Bloch, The Principle of Hope; Sohn-Rethel, Intellectual and Manual Labour; Postone, Time, Labor and Social Domination.

Comparative Literature 238. Gender and Interpretation (4 units)
Noah Guynn

R 2:10-5:00P
522 Sproul Hall
CRN
 82692

Course Description: Since 1975, when Natalie Zemon Davis published her landmark essay “Women on Top,” feminists have focused a great deal of attention on the many abrasive, defiant, self-assertive female characters to be found in outwardly sexist forms of literary, theatrical, visual, and ritual culture. There has been good reason for them to do so, as these Women on Top offer a privileged vantage point from which we may observe the contested, dynamic nature of patriarchy.  While aesthetic depictions of shrews, scolds, gossips, and fishwives were clearly used to legitimize the subjection of real women, they also alert us to the fact that patriarchy is not an absolute, inflexible, or unchanging system of hegemonic control but is instead a moving equilibrium structured around a variety of negotiated, oppositional relations. Unfortunately, in our rush to revalue these Women on Top and bring to light the cultural and political tensions surrounding them, we have tended to neglect their more obedient but equally provocative sisters: Bossy Bottoms who manage to unsettle patriarchal ideologies by deliberately and ostentatiously choosing to subordinate themselves to a masculinist agenda. This seminar will focus on both of these character types, perceiving them as manifestations of the transactional and unstable nature of medieval and early modern marriage.  Readings for the course will include a range of medieval and early modern works in French, English, and Italian, including short fiction, romances, saints’ lives, conduct books, and comedies. All materials will be available in translation, and seminar discussions will be conducted in English. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor when different topic is studied.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of instructor (ndguynn@ucdavis.edu).

Format: Seminar - 3 hours.

Readings will include:

  • Marie de France, Les lais
  • Henri d’Andeli, Le lai d’Aristote
  • Chrétien de Troyes, Erec et Enide and Le chevalier de la charrette
  • A selection of Old French saints’ lives
  • Le mesnagier de Paris
  • Chaucer, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale and The Clerk’s Prologue and Tale
  • A selection of French farces
  • Machiavelli, La mandragola
  • Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew