Comparative Literature (2022 - 2024)

Introduction to Comparative Literature
COLIT-UA 116 Offered at least once a year. 4 points.
Required for all majors in comparative literature. Explores the theory of comparative literature from its inception as a discipline to the present. Readings vary by instructor.

Studies in Prose Genres
COLIT-UA 125 Offered every other year. 4 points.
Focuses on prose genres that have traditionally been relegated to a marginal position in the literary canon but whose status is now being reassessed: the travel account, autobiography, and fantastic fiction. Examines a different genre each time it is offered and provides students with the opportunity to question what constitutes literature or a literary genre.

Classical Literature and Philosophy
COLIT-UA 160 Offered every other year. 4 points.
Study of the co-emergence of philosophy and various literary genres (epic, lyric poetry, dialogue, tragedy, comedy) in ancient Greece and Rome, as well as the development of literary and rhetorical theory. Close readings of primary texts, including those of Homer, the Presocratic philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Sappho, Euripides, Aristophanes, Lucretius, Cicero, Horace, Longinus, and Quintilian, as well as various modern and contemporary commentators.

Topics in 18th-Century Literature
COLIT-UA 175 Offered every other year. 2 or 4 points.
Addresses topics (varying yearly) in 18th-century literature that are important for comparative study. Offers practical experience in close critical reading and introduces the generic, thematic, and literary historical approaches as methodological and theoretical problems in comparative literature.

Topics in 19th-Century Literature
COLIT-UA 180 Offered every other year. 2 or 4 points. 
Addresses topics in 19th-century literature that are important for comparative study. Topics vary yearly and may include the following: the double, the image of Napoleon, detective fiction as a 19th-century genre, and decadence.

Topics in 20th-Century Literature
COLIT-UA 190 Offered every year. 2 or 4 points.
Addresses topics in 20th-century literature that are important for comparative study. Topics vary yearly and may include modernism, comparative postcolonial literature, and contemporary culture.

Junior Theory Seminar
COLIT-UA 200 Offered every semester. 4 points.
Examines the most influential 20th-century contributions to theories of cultural analysis. Readings are organized into a series of prominent debates: cultural studies, postmodernism, the male gaze, Third World literature, national liberation. Readings from Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Frantz Fanon, Gail Rubin, Laura Mulvey, Fredric Jameson, Aijaz Ahmad, and Claude Levi-Strauss.

Topics in Film and Literature
COLIT-UA 300 Offered every other year. 4 points. 
Uses the tools of cultural studies to investigate cultural intersections of the modern period. Focus on the street in literature and film includes questions of cultural space, race, identity politics, gender, and territoriality in the metropolis. Represents cultural studies, film studies, black studies, and women's studies.

Senior Seminar in Comparative Literature (Honors Thesis)
COLIT-UA 400 Permission of the director of undergraduate studies required. Must be followed by Independent Study (COLIT-UA 997) to complete the honors thesis. Offered every year. 4 points.
The research and writing of the senior honors thesis for students with a 3.65 or better GPA, both overall and in the major. Examines several critical/theoretical approaches, as many (and more) as are necessary to meet the needs of each student. Student presentations of thesis proposals and the critical positions taken, followed by discussion and feedback.

Readings in Contemporary Literary Theory
COLIT-UA 843 Offered every year. 4 points.
Introduces students already familiar with the methods of practical criticism to the most important movements in contemporary literary theory. Readings are drawn from structuralism, poststructuralism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, and new historicism.

Colonialism and the Rise of Modern African Literature
COLIT-UA 850 Offered every other year. 4 points.
With the theme of colonialism as the unifying principle, explores and compares the work of a number of African writers of Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone traditions.

Independent Study: Honors Thesis
COLIT-UA 997 Must be approved by the director of undergraduate studies. 1 to 4 points.
For completion of the senior honors thesis by qualified majors.

Independent Study: Internship
COLIT-UA 998 Must be approved by the director of undergraduate studies. 1 to 4 points.
For special projects, including internships, contributing to the major.