Comparative Literature and Culture 1020 - From Homer to Picasso: Western Culture Across the Ages

A multi-media overview of the major writers, artists, thinkers, and composers that have shaped Western culture from ancient times to the twenty-first century. Figures studied include Homer, Dante, Michelangelo, Cervantes, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Picasso, Kafka, Borges.

Comparative Literature and Culture 1023 - Sex and Culture

Drawing on literature, philosophy, art, and cinema, this introductory course will explore fundamental questions about human sexuality (e.g. What is the origin of sex?). Major works of the erotic imagination will be studied in relation to the cultures represented in them.

Comparative Literature and Culture 1040 - Ideas and Apps that Changed the World

Explore the great ideas that have revolutionized our culture. Discover their origin and application in our public and private lives. Refine your understanding of words such as literature, academia, encyclopedia, unconscious, reconciliation, platonic love, beautiful, parchment, paradox, utopia, progress, alienation, social networks, redemption through textual and visual material.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2100 - The Capitals of Italian Culture

An overview of Italian culture from antiquity to the present day; designed as a tour through Rome, Florence, Urbino, Siena, Trieste, Venice, etc. Each cultural capital will be explored with reference to architecture and city planning, finance and technology, cuisine, literature, music, opera, film, and visual arts. Taught in English.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2101 - The Hispanic Experience

An interdisciplinary survey of Spanish and Latin-American societies, oriented toward trans-Atlantic contacts and conflicts. Topics covered include history, religion, politics, philosophy, literature, visual arts, and popular culture. Taught in English.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2102A/B - Utopias and Visions of the Future

Journey across cultures in search of various attempts to imagine ideal societies and perfect places. Exploring the political, social and cultural basis of the utopian impulse from antiquity to the 21st century, we will consider how utopia morphs into its polar opposite: the nightmare of dystopia.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2103A/B - The Grotesque

The course focuses on the grotesque imagination in literature and the arts from antiquity up to the twenty-first century. The grotesque – whose limits are humor and horror, as well as the fantastic and the realistic – will be illustrated with works by Apuleius, Rabelais, da Vinci, Baudelaire, Tanizaki, Kafka, Borges, etc.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2104A/B - International Children's Literature

This comparative survey of works from different countries will consider novels, as well as films, for children of different ages in an international cultural context, dealing with such questions as adult-child relationships, growing up, the role of the imagination, gender identity and adventure.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2105A/B-2109A/B - Special Topics in Comparative Literature and Culture

Please consult the Department for current offerings.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2111A/B - Storytelling - East and West

Explore the ancient art of storytelling, focusing on three classics of world literature: the Asian Pancatantra, Thousand and One Nights and the European Decameron. Study how literary devices, themes, and styles travel across time and space boundaries bringing different cultures into contact.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2112A/B - The Graphic Novel in Print and Online Around the World

As a rebel genre on the border between word and image, the graphic novel has recently increased its international popularity through digital media. Tracing its history from illuminated manuscripts to webcomics, this course will study the clash between visual and verbal cultures in works by Botticelli, Buzzelli, Hergé, Hernández, Tegame.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2115F/G - The Irrational in 20th-Century Literature and Art

An interdisciplinary study of surrealism in European literature and art, and of magic realism in Latin American fiction. Special emphasis will be placed on their relationship with contemporary psychological and anthropological thought. Readings will include Freud, Jung, Breton and García Márquez. Examples of surrealism in art will be shown.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2117A/B - Funny Money: Commerce and Comedy

Comic authors have long been intrigued by the “marriage market” or the “war racket,” and other satiric signs of how money makes the world go round. This course will unfold the ironies of commercial life as represented in a series of comic masterpieces from antiquity to modernity.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2125A/B - Battle of the Sexes

If “Love is a Battlefield,” as pop music declares, who are the victors and what are the spoils? Older than Troy, the Erotomachia (“Sex War”) is an enduring meme by which gender troubles are confronted and sexual hierarchies overturned. Its history will be traced through literature, painting, opera, drama, film.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2131A/B - Rome: The Eternal City

Discover Rome and its unique contribution to Western arts and culture. Understand its prominent role in the global political and religious environments. Identify and map traces of the past in the city’s contemporary urban landscape and daily life.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2132A/B - Italian Journeys

Discover Florence, Naples, Venice, Milan and more. Join illustrious travelers like Goethe, Dickens and Stendhal to explore fundamentals of Italian culture from the Middle-Ages to modernity with reference to architecture, literature, politics, film, and visual arts.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2134A/B - Bombay to Mumbai: Hinduism and Literature

Under the British Raj, Bombay was imagined as a gateway city connecting the industrial West to the mystical East. This course examines its tumultuous transformation into modern Mumbai: a paradoxical mega-city where orientalist fantasies of a “pure” Hindu past are both vigorously sustained and vehemently countered in literature and film.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2150F/G - The Languages of Europe

A linguistic survey of Western and Eastern Europe with emphasis on the principal structural features of the contemporary languages and the main lines of their historical and cultural development. Among the issues discussed: language vs dialect, language classification and typology, the development of writing systems. No previous training in linguistics required.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2200F/G - Exploring Comparative Literature and Cultures

What happens when written texts and cultural products cross chronological, cultural, linguistic, or geographic boundaries? Consider the consequences of translation between genres, media and periods. Hone your writing, research and critical thinking skills through studying how texts move between different cultural contexts.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2204F/G - Research Methods

Mandatory for students in CLC Honors Specialization, Major and Specialization modules. This course will consider how to do research and write academic papers in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2205F/G - Introduction to Literary Theory

Mandatory for students in CLC Honors Specialization, Major, and Specialization modules. Students will study different methods of literary interpretation with emphasis on 20th century critical theory and engage in literary analysis.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2206F/G - Exploring Hispanic Cultures I

Introduction to reading, writing and researching in the visual, performing and literary arts and in socio-lingustics. Students develop foundations in these fields through a series of case studies across generic, historical, geographical areas of the Hispanic world. Taught in Spanish by one core professor in conjunction with different specialists.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2207F/G - Exploring Hispanic Cultures II

Introduction to reading, writing and researching in literature, film, popular culture and digital Spanish. Students develop foundations in these fields through a series of case studies across generic, historical, geographical areas of the Hispanic world. Taught in Spanish by one core professor in conjunction with different specialists.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2208F/G - Exploring Italian Cultures

Introduction to reading, writing and researching about Italian culture and its contribution to the global context. Students will acquire foundations through case studies concerning arts, literature, language, history and identity. Taught in Italian by one core professor in conjunction with different specialists.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2209F/G - Exploring German Cultures

In this first encounter with German literary, visual and performing arts, students investigate key persons, places, times and issues, such as Goethe, Berlin, WWII, and Turkish-German relations. This course offers a practical introduction to research in German studies. Taught in German by one core professor in conjunction with different specialists.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2210E - Mediterranean Studies

An introduction to the interactions among the diverse cultural, religious, ethnic, linguistic, and political communities of the Mediterranean world. Topics covered will be drawn from textual and material culture (literature, thought, art, architecture, science, clothing, cuisine, etc.).

Comparative Literature and Culture 2211F/G - Mediterranean Cultures: Special Topics

A study of cultural, religious, ethnic, linguistic, and political communities in the Mediterranean Basin, and of the interactions brought about by contact, conflict, and geographic mobility.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2212F/G - Mediterranean Cultures: Special Topics

A study of cultural, religious, ethnic, linguistic, and political communities in the Mediterranean Basin, and of the interactions brought about by contact, conflict, and geographic mobility.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2218F/G - Spanish Civilization

An introduction to the historical evolution of Spain accompanied by selected political and philosophical texts, artistic products, and other materials.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2219F/G - Spanish American Civilization

An introduction to the cultural evolution of Spanish America accompanied by selected literary, political, and philosophical texts, artistic products, and other materials.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2236F/G - Literature and Culture of the Middle Ages

Medieval European literature from its heroic beginnings to its first great coming of age in the works of chivalry and romantic love is examined in its cultural context. All works are read in modern English translation.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2240F/G - Culture of the Renaissance in Europe

A survey of major works of literature and art by men and women in the social and political context of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2241F/G - Myths of Desire

A study of the philosophical, theological and poetic extensions of several great myths of desire, such as Semele, Narcissus, Flora, Mars and Venus, Orpheus, Cupid and Psyche and Ganymede. Each myth will be studied in several versions (e.g., classical, medieval, Renaissance and modern), along with theories of myth and theories of desire

Comparative Literature and Culture 2250F/G - Reality and Illusion: Baroque Culture in 17th Century Europe

The dynamics of a period of crisis are revealed in its literature, art and philosophy. Among the figures studied are Bernini, Calderon, Velazquez, Descartes and Galileo.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2260F/G - Culture of the Enlightenment

A survey of artistic and literary manifestations of 18th century European culture. Works by Goldoni, Voltaire and Lessing are among the texts studied.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2270F/G - The Romantic Period

A study of the literature, art, and music of the period 1770-1850 in Europe. Major themes include individualism, Romantic heroism, revolution, and the revival of interest in medievalism, folklore, childhood and nature.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2271F/G - Nineteenth-century Culture

The development of Western literature, philosophy, and aesthetics during the second half of the nineteenth century, in the context of music, painting, and social movements. Authors studied may include: Leopardi, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Marx, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Dostoevsky, Strindberg, Freud.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2272F/G - Modernism

A study of the literary, artistic, cinematic, and intellectual dimensions of Western modernism, and of their importance as a response to radical changes in human experience occurring between ca.1890 and 1930. The poetry, cinema, prose, and painting of such figures as Pirandello, Joyce, Marinetti, Lang, Kafka, Pessoa, Rilke, Proust, Klee, and Woolf will be studied.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2273F/G - Postmodernism

An approach to the most significant developments in late modern and postmodern Western culture. Authors studied may include Cortázar, Butor, Foucault, Pynchon, Borges, García Márquez, Bacon, Vonnegut.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2275F/G - Dostoevsky

The course involves reading most of Dostoevsky's major fiction, and traces his intellectual and artistic development from his literary debut in 1846, through his Siberian imprisonment, to the publication of Brothers Karamazov in 1880.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2280F/G - The Great Age of the Novel

Masterpieces of European fiction during the period 1830-1900 and their context within the art and history of the times. Each year a specific topic will be examined in the light of selected readings. Past topics include: Love and Politics, the Adulterous Wife, the Pastoral, the Family, and the Historical Novel.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2285F/G - The Sagas of the Vikings

This early European literary tradition will be approached primarily through the Family Sagas (c. 1225-1325). Among the issues investigated are the heroic ethic, the role of women, the outlawed hero, pagan vs Christian elements.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2288F/G - The Comic in European Literature

A survey of the comic, satiric, grotesque, and carnivalesque in European literature. Emphasis will be placed on the sociopolitical context of literature and the use of the comic as a subversive device.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2290E - Alienation, Protest and Rebellion in Modern European Culture

A study of selected works by some major European writers and artists, expressing criticism of modern life and society, and often pointing to alternative values. Readings will include works by Dostoevsky, Camus, Sartre, and others.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2291F/G-2294F/G - Special Topic in Comparative Literature and Culture

Please consult Department for current offering.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2295F/G - The Modern Short Story

The course will concentrate on selected masterpieces of 19th- and 20th-century short fiction. The genre will be illustrated in such authors as Kleist, Chekhov, Conrad, Mansfield, Hemingway, Cortázar, and will be examined as a relatively stable genre within the framework of changing literary trends, including Romanticism, Realism, Modernism.

Comparative Literature and Culture 2296F/G-2297F/G - Special Topic in Comparative Literature and Culture

Please consult department for current offering.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3300F/G - Literary and Cultural Theory

Explore a broad range of theories from Plato to contemporary trends, in a global perspective. Discover how the vocabulary and concepts of literary interpretation travel across time and cultures, and learn how to use them to think with/through a variety of literary texts worldwide.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3301F/G - Special Topics in Comparative Literature and Culture

Please consult the department for current offerings.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3302F/G - Special Topics in Comparative Literature and Culture

Please consult the department for current offerings.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3333F/G - Dante's Inferno

A study of Dante's Inferno, along with background topics such as medieval theology, cosmology, poetics, and politics.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3334F/G - Dante's Purgatorio

A study of Dante's Purgatorio, along with background topics such as medieval theology, cosmology, poetics, and politics.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3335F/G - Dante's Paradiso

A study of Dante's Paradiso, along with background topics such as medieval theology, cosmology, poetics, and politics.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3336F/G - The Gay Literary Tradition

This course traces the tradition of gay literature from antiquity to the present day, focusing on the value of “gay” as a literary label, the shifting mythologies of gay identity, and the censoring impact of homophobia. Genres to be studied include pastoral love-lyric, elegy, allegory, verse drama, and coming-out fiction.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3337F/G - Drama and Its Masks

Explore the links between between and among Modernist drama, Greek Tragedy, Noh Theater and the Commedia dell’arte. Discuss the Dionysian properties of the mask and the implications of transposing this theatrical device into literary texts. Particular attention will be paid to the mask’s dual role as tool of concealment and revelation.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3340F/G - Medieval Literature and Culture

Study the renaissance of the 12th century which revitalized intellectual life in Europe, and the first great works of chivalry and romantic love in their cultural context. Gain knowledge of medieval castle architecture, fashion, food, travel, medicine, sexuality, courtly love, and the hunt in text and image.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3341F/G - Renaissance Literature and Culture

The Renaissance has had enormous repercussions for Western and world culture. What began as a program of educational reform ended as a reflection on the nature of humanity – and the production of some of the world’s finest artistic creations. This course investigates Renaissance art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and music.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3342F/G - Baroque Literature and Culture

Devastating political crises and religious conflicts characterize the Baroque, as do startling scientific discoveries, new philosophical concepts, and geographical expansion in the New World. Consider the dynamics of this period of crisis as revealed in its literature, art and philosophy. Among the figures studied are Calderón, Velázquez, Descartes and Galileo.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3343F/G - Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture

Explore the global perspectives of ideas and cultural practices in eighteenth-century Europe. Studying art, music and written texts, learn about the lively debate striving for Enlightenment progress, discover the range of material and popular culture, and consider topics such as universalism, cosmopolitanism, revolution, race, gender, media, and consumer culture.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3344F/G - Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture

Explore the ideas, cultural forms, and disciplinary discourses that characterize nineteenth-century literature, art, and music in Europe between the poles of romanticism and realism. Major themes can include individualism, nationalism, revolution, colonialism, orientalism, gothic, nature, urbanism, and the relationship between the arts and sciences.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3345F/G - Twentieth and Twenty-First-Century Literature and Culture

The course explores modernist, avant-garde and postmodernist literatures, arts and theories, and discusses topics such as high-brow culture, political aesthetics, kitsch, and pop, from Rilke, Woolf and García Lorca to Nabokov, Pynchon and Pelevin; Chaplin to Tarantino; Braque to de Kooning; and Tzara and Breton to Kristeva and Jameson.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3351F/G - Intermediality: Where Literature and Other Media Meet

What do graphic novels, digital story telling, opera, ekphrasis, and movie adaptations have in common? All are examples of intermediality, in that they reference, transpose, employ several modes, or are present in different media simultaneously. The course exemplifies the theory and practice of intermediality with two or more media.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3353F/G - Spectatorship up to the Digital Age

The course explores the evolving role of audiences when partaking in a variety of performing arts. Case studies of current and past practices of spectatorship will span from live on-line avant-garde experimentations to classical stage theatre, and will highlight the substantial role of spectatorship in shaping artistic and social trends.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3370F/G - Documents of German Intellectual History

Texts selected from the intellectual canon of the period from the Reformation to the twentieth century, by such authors as Luther, Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, and Arendt. The course examines the historical meanings and contexts of these texts.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3380F/G - Medieval Literature and Modern Cinema

The course studies medieval writings in tandem with films based on them, while also examining other cinematic attempts to recreate a 'real' Middle Ages. Included are the Story of the Grail, Death of King Arthur, Tristan, The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales; and films by Dreyer, Cocteau, Pasolini, Rohmer, and Bresson.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3391F/G-3394F/G - Special Topics in Comparative Literature and Culture

Please consult Department for current offering.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3395F/G-3397F/G - Special Topics in Sexuality Across Cultures

These courses will engage various expressions of human sexuality in different cultural contexts with respect to such artistic production as literary texts, works of visual art, music and other media.

Comparative Literature and Culture 3398F/G-3399F/G - Special Topic in Comparative Literature and Culture

Special credit for Comparative Literature and Culture studies at authorized universities or institutions in approved programs. Not taught on campus.

Comparative Literature and Culture 4400F/G-4409F/G - Research Seminar

This seminar offers the opportunity for focused, advanced study. Topics may include canonical creative figures and their masterpieces, intersections of the visual, cinematographic, performing, musical and literary arts, and interdisciplinary, intermedial and period specific questions.

Comparative Literature and Culture 4410E - Undergraduate Honors Thesis in Comparative Literatures and Culture

The thesis will be written in the fourth year and will be directed by a member of the Modern Languages and Literatures faculty. It will be based on an agreement between the student and faculty member on the topic, approach, and scope of the study.

Comparative Literature and Culture 4411F/G - Mediterranean Cultures: Advanced Topics

Advanced study of cultural, religious, ethnic, linguistic, and political communities in the Mediterranean Basin, and of the interactions brought about by contact, conflict, and geographic mobility.

Comparative Literature and Culture 4470F/G - Author, Authorship, Autobiography in the Middle Ages

Beginning with a study of St. Augustine's Confessions, this course explores the first-person textualization of the authorial self in writings up to 1300. Specific attention will be given to both medieval and modern theories of the author and autobiography.

Comparative Literature and Culture 4471F/G - Autobiography and Pseudo-autobiography of the Late Middle Ages

This course explores the autobiographical "literature of the self" by men and women writing in the late Middle Ages. Texts will be read in light of both medieval and modern theories of autobiography, authorship, pseudo-autobiography and 'autofiction'.

Comparative Literature and Culture 4491F/G-4492F/G - Advanced Topic in Comparative Literature and Culture

Special credit for Comparative Literature and Culture studies at authorized universities or institutions in approved programs. Not taught on campus.

Comparative Literature and Culture 4493F/G - Directed Studies in Comparative Literature and Culture

The subject will be selected by students in consultation with the instructor.

Comparative Literature and Culture 4494F/G-4495F/G - Advanced Topics in Comparative Literature and Culture

Seminar course: please consult Department for current offerings.
Limited enrolment.

Comparative Literature and Culture 4500F/G - Senior Research Project

In this advanced seminar, students develop their own research project with a specific historical or geographical perspective centred on a designated general theme. Students work in conjunction with peers and professors and choose their own medium of presentation ranging from the traditional to the experimental.