Most often seen in opposition, Greco-Roman Classical culture and Christianity have a long history of reciprocal reliance. Neither would look as it does today without the other. Through readings and discussion of both Classical and Christian texts, as well as art and architecture, this course will inquire into the Classical roots of much Christian theology, ethics, cosmology, and values more broadly, while also considering the effect on Classics as a cultural cornerstone of societies beholden to these twin traditions.

This seminar is designed for those who have experience or interest in teaching literature in carceral contexts. The class plan is decided collectively, but includes a mix of readings (theoretical and practical), personal writing and reflection, and workshopping syllabi and class plans. As a final project, each student designs a syllabus for a course that could be taught in a prison.

This class introduces the historic diversity of socialisms through readings in classic socialist philosophy, literature and political writings. We are guided by these questions: How does socialism relate to communism and capitalism? How does it define democracy, equality, freedom, individuality, and collectivity? How does socialism relate to struggles for racial, gender and ecological justice? Are socialist ethics connected to religious traditions such as Christianity and Islam that teach human equality? What is the "social" in socialism? How may we understand injustices committed in socialism's name alongside its striving for social justice?

A course on works of dramatic literature whose comparative dimension is theatrical performance. We will consider four Shakespeare plays covering a range of theatrical genres; the emphasis will be on the ways in which Shakespearean meaning can be elucidated when the reader becomes a performer. Students will move from the reading/performing of individual speeches to the staging of scenes to the question of how an overall theatrical conception for a play might be a key to the fullest understanding of the text. Students will write papers about their readings and performances; grades will be based on both the writing and the performing.

Exploring literary texts and films that foreground the benefits, but also the ordeals of transnational migration and the traffic in peoples, goods, and ideas throughout the Mediterranean region, with particular stress on contemporary works and issues. Particular attention will be paid to women's experience of the Mediterranean as a realm of adventure as well as the subjection imposed by patriarchal customs, war, and colonization.

Poetry can be seen as a mode of reflection on history and, very often, as an act of resistance to it. This course will examine works written in Europe, Latin America and the US during the 20th and 21st centuries in different languages and historical contexts. We will explore their oppositional and also their liberatory effects: their ability to evoke their times, to disrupt our usual understandings while offering new political, artistic and ethical perspectives. The course will pay special attention to the work of René Char and Paul Celan, as ideal points of focus for questions of language and resistance.

This seminar will explore the perennial fascination with forms of narrative that purport to tell true stories about actual individual lives: biography and autobiography, memoir, diary, hagiography, and more. What is at stake, what can be gained by writers and readers from life writing in its various genres? Readings will be primarily though not exclusively European. We will read and discuss some theoretical works alongside the life writings themselves.

This course explores the role of American Christianity in canonical and popular Korean and Korean-American novels and films. While the references to Christianity in these novels and films serve to indicate the active presence of American Christian missionaries in 20th century Korea, we will pay attention to the ways in which the figures of American Christianity function in these narratives.

This course follows the development of modern Hebrew prose in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. How was Hebrew refashioned from a liturgical to a modern literary language capable of narrating novels and conveying contemporary dialogue? Who were the revolutionary writers who accomplished this feat and what ideological struggles accompanied it? We will begin with the haskala (Jewish enlightenment), continue with the tehiya (revival) and early writing in the yishuv (Jewish community in pre-State Palestine), and conclude with dor ha-medina (the "independence generation") and maturation of modern Hebrew. Reading knowledge of Hebrew required.

This course explores questions and practices of liberation in writings by women philosophers and poets whose work helped to create cultural and political movements in the U.S. and Latin America. Starting in the 60s, we will study a poetics and politics of liberation, paying special attention to the role played by language and imagination when ideas translate onto social movements related to social justice, structural violence, education, care, and the commons. Readings include Gloria Anzaldúa, Angela Davis, Silvia Federici, Diamela Eltit, Audre Lorde, Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Gayatri Spivak, Zapatistas, among others.

An introduction to the theory of narrative, with an emphasis on theories of the novel.

The Writing and Dissertation Colloquium is a biweekly forum for graduate students in Comparative Literature to share works in progress with other graduate students. The seminar welcomes drafts of your prospectus, article, dissertation chapter, conference paper, exam statement and grant or fellowship proposal. The 90-minute sessions, done in conjunction with a rotating COM faculty member, are designed to offer written and oral feedback. The goal is to provide a space for students to share their work-in-progress and improve the writing and research skills. The reading materials are pre-circulated before each session.

What does it mean for a pre-modern author to say "I"? That is, to write in the first person. How do we understand terms like "self" and "subjectivity" in the Renaissance? We begin with some classical and medieval precursors, then turn to the heart of the matter: Petrarch, Montaigne, Shakespeare, the first two being the great European masters of the first person, the last said to have buried the first person in the voices of his characters. In the final weeks we ask ourselves about our own first persons as readers: what do "I" have to do with the way I read literature?

This interdisciplinary course examines the ideas of the Arab, the Jew, and the Arab-Jew as represented in history, literature, and film. It revisits the interdisciplinary scholarship around "Jews and Arabs" since the 1990s in order to reassess past and current approaches and to assist students with their own research agendas. We consider the following analytical frames: memory studies and its politics; historiography, recovery and the archive; hybridity and cosmopolitanism; language politics; and "passing" and cross-identification. Qualified juniors and seniors are welcome.

Students will choose, early in the semester, one author to focus on in fiction, poetry, or drama, with the goal of arriving at a 20-25 page sample of the author's work. All work will be translated into English and discussed in a workshop format. Weekly readings will focus on the comparison of pre-existing translations as well as commentaries on the art and practice of literary translation.

Students will choose, early in the semester, one author to focus on in fiction, poetry, or drama, with the goal of arriving at a 20-25 page sample of the author's work. All work will be translated into English and discussed in a workshop format. Weekly readings will focus on the comparison of pre-existing translations as well as commentaries on the art and practice of literary translation.

This class expands the conceptual boundaries of fashion beyond designer labels and celebrity trends toward an address of the socio-technological function of fashion in East Asia. The central aim of the course is to engage thinking about fashion as a multilayered site where East Asia's media infrastructure, gender politics, labor systems, and non-human entities intersect. Scrutinizing the role of the state as well as the industry's racialized grammars, we will examine how fashion articulates with presumed binaries of class, ideology, gender, age and race in understanding East Asian national and diasporic formations.

This course examines "dangerous bodies" - bodies that transgress existing gender and racial norms in Chinese and Sinophone cultures. Situated at the intersection of literary, film, performance, gender and ethnic studies, this course provides an introduction to the shifting social meanings of the body in relation to historical masculinity, femininity, and Chineseness. We examine different cross-dressed figures, ranging from Mulan, cross-dressed male opera singer, WWII Japanese/Chinese spy, to experimental queer cinema, in a study that unpacks whether these transgressive bodies represent social change or a tool for restoring traditional norms.

Knowledge about the world transformed over history: civilization, empire, East-West encounter, and postcolonial homelessness are frames that link identity and space. Reading travelogues by Koreans and about Korea, we will pursue two goals. We will analyze the epistemic coordinates of travelogue that produces knowledge about self and other. And we will note the changing historical contexts around Korea, which defined the modes of mobility for shipwreck survivors, prisoners of war, Christian missionaries, Japanese colonial officials, and communist guerilla fighters. Korea will provide us with a concrete vantage point upon the larger world.

This course focuses on major issues raised by but also extending beyond Holocaust survivor testimony, including genres of witnessing, the communication of trauma, the ethical implications of artistic representation, conflicts between history and memory, the fate of individuality in collective upheaval, the condition of survival itself, and the crucial role played by reception in enabling and transmitting survivors' speech.

Feeling lost? This course links two key forms that shape the spaces we dwell in, cross through, and imagine: medieval maps and travel narratives. These strange artifacts also index familiar categories like difference, identity, and control. We'll query what these epistemes make happen, including cultural diffusion and definitionally transgressive tales of travel. Along with critical and cognate works, these texts will expose worlds in which space wavers and dislocates where we're mapped.

John Milton's writings reflect a lifelong effort to unite the aims of political, intellectual and literary experimentation. In doing so he became the most influential non-dramatic poet in the English language. This class explores Milton's major works, especially Paradise Lost. We'll consider Milton's highly original characters, especially Satan, with whom we are invited to sympathize, but also Adam, Eve and the Son. We'll encounter Milton's startling poetic innovations, his highly controversial ideas about sovereignty, marriage and God, and we will consider Milton's writings in relation to European precursors and 17th-century women's writing.

In conjunction with University College London, this topic course addresses a range of topics, including the role of class, gender, ethnicity, race, and sexuality in the social dynamics of London life. Students will be considering works that represent the city in terms of the longing for kinds of relation that the city promises but may withhold. We will consider London as a city of neighborhoods, a national and imperial metropolis, a postcolonial and global city. By attending to our texts in their historical contexts and in relation to one another, we will be exploring writing about London that is as restless as the city itself.

Frantz Fanon is among the most important intellectuals of the twentieth century whose writings are critical in rethinking our world. In this course we read Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, plus essays in A Dying Colonialism and Toward the African Revolution. We read authors Fanon studied like Césaire, Capécia, Mannoni, Wright, Sartre, and Hegel, as well as recent scholars who interpret Fanon for our times like Ato Sekyi-Otu, Homi K. Bhabha, Achille Mbembe, Reiland Rabaka, Hamid Dabashi, Glen Coulthard, Anthony Alessandrini, and Gamal Abdel-Shehid and Zahir Kolia.

ENV 380, Cities, Sea Level Rise and Environmental Humanities focuses on sea level rise and its impacts on cities around the world, considering both the relevant environmental science and related literature and art. Given the global span of the texts engaging the issue of sea level rise, issues of culture and difference will be central to this course. It will consider how ideas, meanings, norms and habituations differ from one location to another and how these differences manifest in and are informed laws and social practices as well as arts and literature.

Sea Level Rise, Islands and the Environmental Humanities explores how islanders, predominantly but not exclusively in the Pacific and the Caribbean, are experiencing sea level rise and how they are engaging it in literature, art and film. Students in the seminar will also learn about the environmental science and policy related to sea level rise. They will consider solutions being put forward to address the impacts, such as managed retreat; hard engineering, such as building sea walls or artificial islands; or soft engineering, such as preserving and restoring natural buffers, be they coral or oyster reefs, mangrove marshes or wetlands.

This course interrogates the ways we read now and in the future, along the cultural, social, and cognitive ramifications of our habits of reading. The course is divided into three sections, past, present, and future of reading, investigated through questions such as: Why do we read? How do we read? What does reading do to/for the individual and the community? We approach reading not as a neutral process, but as a basic cognitive function and a life skill that is determined by many factors (material, cultural, social, and psychological), which can have considerable repercussions on the individual and the society at large.

A study of Marcel Proust's works and "imaginaire", some of his most remarkable readings, along with readings of/by some of his most remarkable readers (writers, philosophers, critics, artists, and film makers).

This course discusses Charles Baudelaire's poetry, prose, art and literary criticism, autobiographical texts, and translations, and their pivotal role for perceptions of modernity. Baudelaire's oeuvre is approached through different perspectives, ranging from poetics, aesthetics, literary history, the political and social context of his time, sexuality and gender, popular culture, reception history, trauma studies, etc. We take into consideration influential readings of Baudelaire's work, while particular emphasis is given to Baudelaire's relevance for the 21st century and specifically in contemporary literature and art.

Since its early designation as a "saturnine" temperament, melancholia has been regarded as a highly ambivalent phenomenon. Torn between madness and enlightenment, it is the temperament of intellectuals and artists. In this line, melancholy aligns itself with criticism through its distance from society's ideas of happiness, or its sense of the decay of all things - including man-made orders. In a different light, however, it appears less heroic: as neurotic auto-aggression, or as resigned apathy. The seminar explores the tension between the critique of melancholia and the melancholia of critique.

In the more than seventy years since India and Pakistan became independent countries, a vast amount of literature has been produced in Hindi/Urdu. We will read selected literary materials including fiction, poetry, and essays while also focusing on historical and literary contexts. Materials will represent a range of genres, topics, and trends. Literary texts will be supplemented with additional materials including film and documentary selections, music, and author interviews, etc. Literary sessions and workshops will be organized in connection with the course.

This course explores East Asia in the global context of imperialism, colonialism, the Cold War, and neoliberalism. We will traverse a wide range of materials (literature, film, photography, installation art) to understand how they are connected by historical forces. Open to anyone interested in a critical understanding of modern East Asian cultures, this course offers an interdisciplinary introduction that draws upon methods from film and media studies, art history, literary studies, and critical race studies.

The Arabian Nights (The 1001 Nights) is a masterpiece of world literature. However, its reception and popularity are fraught with challenges and problems. By tracing its journey from its Persian origins, through its Arabic adaptations, and finally its entry into Europe, this class will consider how the Nights were used to construct imaginings about the Self and the Other in these different contexts. We will cover topics such as orientalism, gender and sexuality, and narrative theory as they relate to the Nights' most famous story cycles and look at the influence of the Nights on modern authors and filmmakers. All readings will be in English.

It is due to wonder, Aristotle tells us, that man began to philosophize. In the premodern Islamic world, wonder was also an experience linked with the pursuit of knowledge and discovery. It defined a spiritual attitude, an aesthetic outlook, and the encounter with strange and unknown worlds. We will explore the manifestations of wonder in medieval Arabic culture through reading travel narratives, medieval Arabic texts on the marvels of the world, fables, fantastic tales, poetry, and the Quran. We will also study medieval Arabic theoretical discussions of wonder as a literary effect.

This course will introduce students to the richness and diversity of women's writing in India; it will open many windows into regional Indian societies, cultures, and subcultures; and it will allow students to examine social issues and cultural values from women's perspectives. By studying women's writings from at least ten major Indian languages (in English translation), students will be able to identify differences and disagreements among different canons as well as some common features among them that justify the category of Indian women's writing.

This course examines literature and film by South Asians in North America. Students will gain perspective on the experiences of immigration and diaspora through the themes of identity, memory, solidarity, and resistance. From early Sikh migration to the American West Coast, to Muslim identity in a post 9/11 world, how can South Asian American stories be read as symbolic of the American experience of gender, class, religion, and ethnicity more broadly? Students will hone their skills in reading primary materials, analyzing them within context, writing persuasively, and speaking clearly.

What unites the diverse movement of Existentialism is a focus on concrete human existence. While other schools of art and thought often distract one from personal existence, Existentialism forces one to grapple personally with life's big questions. Franz Kafka puts it well: 'A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us' Topics include desire, grief, deception, anxiety, despair, nihilism, authenticity, freedom, responsibility, guilt, the leap of faith, the absurd, the problem of evil, death, and the meaningful life. With focus on Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky, readings also include Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, and Kafka.

We start with Tolstoy's artistic stimuli and narrative strategies, explore the author's provocative visions of war, gender, sex, art, social institutions, death, and religion. The emphasis is placed here on the role of a written word in Tolstoy's search for truth and power. The main part is a close reading of his masterwork The War and Peace (1863-68) - a quintessence of both his artistic method and philosophical insights. Each student will be assigned to keep a "hero's diary" and speak on behalf of one or two major heroes of the epic (including the Spirit of History). The roles will be distributed in accordance with the will of fate.

Since 2018 the feminist movement has massively and transnationally re-emerged. Particularly in the Spanish-speaking world, the enormous momentum of its struggle has generated profound political, social, and cultural transformations. In this course we will study the so-called 4th Feminist Wave from a varied number of media (literature, film, social media, archives, etc.) created by artists, intellectuals, and activists from the Spanish-speaking world. The aim of the course is to promote a rigorous knowledge of the recent history of feminism in The Americas and Europe and to encourage reflection on the relevance of its claims and achievements

The ways in which individuals and societies define space and place is very revealing. The investigation of space and place-how cultures turn material, racial, and/or metaphysical settings into human landscapes defining home, neighborhood, and nation-is a deeply important optic that dramatizes social, racial, political, and religious factors. At the same time, it can be used to track the changes of these realities over time. Because of its unique mix of Jews, Christians, and Moors, medieval Iberia offers near laboratory conditions for the study of space and place in their racial, ethnic, literary, religious, and political identities.

A hands-on approach to this interdisciplinary field. We will apply key readings in performance theory to space and time-based events, at sites ranging from theatre, experimental art, and film, to community celebrations, sport events, and restaurant dining. We will observe people's behavior in everyday life as performance and discuss the "self" through the performativity of one's gender, race, class, ability, and more. We will also practice ethnographic methods to collect stories to adapt for performance and address the role of the participant-observer, thinking about ethics and the social responsibilities of this work.

Why do some BIPOC dramatists (from the US and Canada) choose to adapt/revise/re-envision canonical texts from the Western theatrical tradition? While their choices might be accused of recentering and reinforcing "white" narratives that marginalize and/or exoticize racial and ethnic others, we might also see this venture as a useful strategy to write oneself into a tradition that is itself constantly being revised and reevaluated and to claim that tradition as one's own. What are the artistic, cultural, and economic "rewards" for deploying this method of playmaking? What are the risks?