Winter Quarter 2026

Winter Quarter 2026

• For day, time, room, and TA information, see our: 
  PDF Schedule or Schedule Builder
• For all courses not described here, see:
  Catalog Descriptions

Lower Division

• COM 001 - Major Works of the Ancient World

• Introduction, through class discussion and frequent written assignments, to some of the major works of the ancient world (up to 5th century CE) such as The Odyssey, the Bible, Augustine's Confessions, and works by Plato and Confucius. Examined genres include religious texts, the epic, philosophy, drama, poetry.
• COM 002 - Major Works of the Medieval & Early Modern World
• Introduction, through class discussion and frequent written assignments, to some of the major works of the medieval and early modern worlds (6th century to the mid-17th century) such as Dante’s Comedy, 1001 Nights, The Tale of Genji, and Elizabethan/Jacobean plays. Examined genres include framed narratives, courtly literature, and early modern drama.
• COM 003 - Major Works of the Modern World
• Introduction, through class discussion and frequent written assignments, to some of the major works of the modern world (mid-17th to the mid-20th centuries) such as those by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Woolf, Lu Xun, Borges and Yeats. Examined genres include realist fiction, modernist fiction, and modernist poetry.
• COM 004 - Major Works of the Contemporary World
• Comparative study of selected major Western and non-Western texts composed in the period from 1945 to the present. Intensive focus on writing about these texts, with frequent papers written about these works.
• COM 005 - Fairy Tales, Fables, & Parables

• This course explores three kinds of storytelling—fairy tales, fables, and parables—each of which demonstrates forms of stability and shows how one pursues change, innovation, and discovery.
  
  Fairy tales include magical features in which characters embark on journeys of transformation using helpers and avoiding adversaries. The success or failure of these characters depends on their luck and good decisions. In fairy tales, we explore how one navigates life in kin groups, circles of friends, and community settings in which one exchanges care that is physical, social, and emotional.
  
  Fables are stories with animal or stereotypical characters that compete with adversaries or confront adversity, and that seek to thrive in spite of their physical or material limitations. Their success or failure depends on their wisdom, cleverness, or deceit. In fables, we find an indirect perspective on how one competes in societies, institutions, or businesses to earn a living in professions, trades, arts, or in one’s own household.
  
  Parables are stories that challenge an existing belief with a new perspective. The success or failure of the characters and audience members depends on their ability to move from a conventional understanding to a new perspective. Parables display one’s capacity to discover values that may be philosophical or religious.
  
  We will investigate fairy tales from Italy, China, Japan, Indonesia, and the Arabian Nights. Our fables are stories attributed to or about Aesop, Coyote, Anansi the Spider, and Kalila and Dimna. Finally, we will analyze parables attributed to or by Plato, Confucius, Buddha, Laozi, Nizami Ganjavi, and Kafka. All readings will be in English translation and available on Canvas.  

  

  
   

• COM 011 - Travel and the Modern World
• 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.

Upper Division

• COM 110 - Hong Kong Cinema 
  Sheldon Lu
• Lecture: 12:10 – 1:30 pm, Tuesday & Thursday, Hunt 100
  Weekly evening screening: 5:10–8 pm, Wednesday, Giedt 1002
  
  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 may 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.
• COM 147 - Modern Jewish Writers
  Timothy Parish
• Problems of the modern Jewish experience from the perspective of the writer's construction of the self in relation to the future and to the non-Jew. Draws upon Russian, German, Yiddish, and American traditions.

Graduate

COM 210- Topics and Themes in Comparative Literature
Comparative, interpretive study of the treatment of specific topics and themes in literary works from various periods, societies, and cultures, in light of these works' historical and sociocultural contexts.

Section 001 - Noha Radwan

Section 002 - Sheldon Lu
Topic: East-West Literary Relations, Comparative Poetics, Cross-cultural Modernity

This seminar tackles a set of interrelated issues: East-West literary relations, comparative poetics, cross-cultural modernity, and inter-Asian cultural studies.  We examine the history, methodologies, important trends, and salient topics in East-West comparative literature as well as in inter-Asian literary studies (China, Japan, Korea, India).  We conduct a comparative study of discourses of modernity between East and West and from around the world. We look at how theoretical discourses and aesthetic practices in the East and the West appropriate and build upon each other’s traditions; how Asia and other cultures offer alternative narratives of modernity in a global framework.  Students will read relevant writings by scholars, comparatists, Sinologists, and critics such as Takeuchi Yoshimi, Fredric Jameson, David Damrosch, Franco Moretti, Zhang Longxi, Stephen Owen, Haun Saussy, Rey Chow, Lydia Liu, Shu-mei Shih, and many others.