CMPL 201 - Introduction to Comparative Literature

In forgoing the national framework as its organizing principle, comparative literature is becoming increasingly synonymous with world literature today. What is a world? Is it a spatial or temporal category, lived realities or literary constructs? And how does literature interact with the world in its many forms? What does it mean to study literature across the boundaries of histories, cultures, languages, and art forms? What are some of the pitfalls and payoffs of the comparative practice? In this course we will read theoretical reflections on some core concepts of the discipline, along with a selection of works organized largely around the theme of “action and its impediments.” Key topics to explore will include translation and transculturation; intertextuality and interdisciplinarity; realism and its discontents; colonialism and postcolonialism.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).