Junior Seminar: Introduction to Comparative Literature

This course provides an introduction to some of the questions and methodologies central to the discipline of Comparative Literature, while also addressing practical questions related to the major (how to prepare a prospectus, ways to approach comparative projects, and so on). What, we will ask, are the stakes of comparison, what is literature, who makes and mediates it, how do we gain access to it? How do we approach texts that were originally written in languages other than the ones we speak? How do we go about a close reading of a text?