Winter Quarter 2025
- For day, time, room, and TA information, see ourPDF 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
Amy Motlagh
COM 006—Myths and Legends
Cheryl Ross
COM 011—Travel & The Modern World
Chunjie Zhang
Upper-Division
COM 110—Hong Kong Cinema
Sheldon Lu
Lecture: 12:10 – 1:30 pm, Tuesday & Thursday
Evening screening: 5:10 – 8 pm, Wednesday
This course is a study of the cinema of Hong Kong, a cultural crossroads between East and West. Students examine the history, genres, styles, stars, and major directors of Hong Kong cinema in reference to the city's multi-linguistic, colonial, and postcolonial environment. The course pays special attention to Hong Kong cinema’s interactions with and influences on other filmic traditions such as Hollywood and Asian cinema. Topics include: characteristics of Hong Kong cinema as a local, regional, and global cinema; historical evolution of film genres and styles; major directors and stars; film adaption of literary works about Hong Kong; Hong Kong cinema’s international influence. The class will watch and discuss films involving directors, actors, and actresses such as Wong Kar-wai, John Woo, Stephen Chow, Ann Hui, Peter Chan, Fruit Chan, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung, and many others.
Upper-division standing. The class is conducted in English, and all films are subtitled in English.
The course fulfills the following General Education requirements: Arts & Humanities, Visual Literacy, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.
COM 153—Asian Literature
Instructor Sheldon Lu
3:10-4:30 pm, Tuesday and Thursday
For this quarter, the course focuses on modern Chinese literature from the beginning of the 20th century to the present time. Students will read short stories, excerpts of novels and novellas, poems, and essays written by leading Chinese writers. Relevant films will be selected to be shown and discussed in conjunction with literary texts. The class analyzes recurrent themes and topics such as love, death, revolution, war, tradition, city life, modernization, westernization, and globalization. Literary developments in modern China will be examined in broad international contexts. Students are expected to gain a better understanding of the cultural and literary tradition of China as well as important social issues that confront Chinese people in modern times as reflected in literature.
The course fulfills the requirements of Arts and Humanities, World Cultures, and Writing.
Mandatory class attendance, weekly reading assignments, participation in class discussion, book report, midterm paper, and final paper.
Textbooks:
Joseph S. M. Lau and Howard Goldblatt, eds. The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature. Columbia University Press, 2007. Available in Canvas course site.
Yunte Huang, ed. The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature: Writings from the Mainland in the Long Twentieth Century. Norton, 2016. Paperback. Equitable access.
Students will also read selected journal essays that can be accessed online in the UC Library System. pdf files or handouts of relevant writings will be provided as well.
COM 158—Detective Fiction
Timotht Parrish
COM 166—Literature of the Modern Middle East
Noha Radwan
In this course, we will read, discuss,analyze and write about a selection of important and well known 20th century poems and novels from the Arab world, Iran and Turkey. All the primary and secondary reading material is in English. Students will be required to write short responses commenting on the literature discussed in class_ 1-2 pages on every other Thursday, participate in class discussion, give one brief presentation 10-15 minutes on a pre-assigned topic and write a midterm and a final paper. There will be no quizzes or exams.
COM 172—A Story for a Life: The Arabian Nights (cross-listed with MSA 121C and ARB 140)
Jocelyn Sharlet
Tuesday and Thursday 1:40-3
This course investigates storytelling, fiction, and fantasy in the Thousand and One Nights, also known as The Arabian Nights, an important storytelling tradition in Arabic and world literature. Students will investigate how stories within this frame tale create and explore ideas about trauma, ambition, justice, desire, comedy, and wisdom. We will consider how the legendary narrator Shahrazad, a minister’s daughter who marries King Shahrayar to save the women of her kingdom from the king’s murderous obsession by telling stories to him and her sister, offers imaginative perspectives on the adventures of her characters—such as sisters who own businesses, a fisherman who catches a jinn, a king of China who serves as a judge, a caliph and his minister who tour their city in disguise, a princess from a kingdom under the sea, a world-travelling merchant who encounters strange new cultures, and a barber who brings a man back to life.
Books: The Arabian Nights and Sindbad and Other Stories from the Arabian Nights, ed. Muhsin Mahdi and tr. Husain Haddawy (in book order and Reading lists in Canvas)
GEs: AH, WC, WE
Graduate Courses
COM 210—Topics/Themes in Comparative Literature - Racial Thinking in Persian Literature and Culture
Amy Motlagh
Is “Persian” a race?
What is the connection between Iran’s history of enslavement and racial thinking?
How do Iranian authors, intellectuals, and filmmakers engage the idea of race in their productions?
What role does the post-1979 diaspora play in how Iranians think about race?
