Courses

All courses carry 3 credits unless otherwise specified.

551 Translation, Technology, and Globalization
Covers a range of technologies necessary for every practicing translator and several theories of globalization. Each class includes discussion of a reading assignment and presentation of short translation assignments, all of which include experimentation with some new technology, including multilingual word-processing, desktop publishing, web design, subtitling, and translation memory tools.

592A Medieval Women Writers and Literary Theory
Selected medieval women writers, viewed historically and in terms of literary theory, focussing primarily on the 12th and fourteenth centuries: Hildegarde, Heloise, Marie de France, Angela da Foligno, Julian of Norwich, Christine de Pizan, comparing Christian models with Arabic (Rab'iah) and Bengali saints. Themes of love, desire, and agency in women’s writings and structures of community.

691A Literature and Music
Relations between literature and music from Plato to Samuel Beckett. Music as a social phenomenon, a pattern of feeling or understanding, and a mode of interpretation. Topics include portraits of musicians and composers in literature and film, themes of inferiority in musical settings of drama and poetry, and the literary emulation of musical structure and style (“musicality”). Some background in music history or music theory and knowledge of one modern European language helpful.

691D The Discipline and Its Discontents
Professional seminar considering both practical matters and theoretical concerns for new and current graduate students in Comparative Literature. Faculty members are invited to speak on the course they teach, their fields of research, and their assessment of the present and future of the discipline.

691G History of Translation
Review of texts on translation by translators, philosophers, and men and women of letters from the ancient world to the nineteenth century. Topics addressed include the changing role of translation in culture; the relationship between translation and other areas of inquiry such as language theory, aesthetics, or theology; the rise of the notion of individual authorship; the significance of gender and the place of women translators in the literary marketplace.  While the main focus will be on the history of translation in the West, students will be encouraged to develop projects that explore other traditions.

691GS Reading the Global South
This course explores topics in Comparative Literature and the cultural politics of the Global South, taking as a point of departure the history of decolonization and theoretical writings on the postcolonial condition. We will begin by considering the relationship between anticolonial nationalisms and literary culture, the impact of print-colonialism on the grounds of comparison, and debates on the "third world" and the "postcolonial" as both political and literary designations. Interdisciplinary approaches to the question of uneven "development" and cultural "progress" will be further explored through readings on globalization and world systems analysis, theories of cosmopolitanism and literary transnationalism, and comparative writings on the terms of "modernity" and the stakes of lit erary "modernism." The final segment of the course emerges as an outgrowth of critiques of "modernity" and global theories of uneven development: the assertion of (temporal) alterity, literary incomparability, and cultural exceptionalism within the Global South will be explored through readings on linguistic difference, secularism, and the sacred - investigating the question of literary circulation through the prism of translation and the prospects of linguistic untranslatability.

691N Early Irish Literature in Its Medieval Contexts: Parodies, Translations, Rewritings
Reading of early Irish heroic and comic texts in the comparative context of medieval European literature, including humorous and parodic poetry by Guillaume IX of Aquitaine, Aucassin and Nicolette, fabliaux, and stories by Boccaccio and Chaucer.  The centerpiece of the course will be translation of the greatest medieval parody in any European language, the Middle Irish Aislinge Meic Conglinne.  An Irish version of the Odyssey and a version of the story of Sohrab and Rustem will also be examined in light of the renaissance of the twelfth century and the trajectory leading to the European Renaissance that opened the period of early modern culture. Texts: Aislinge Meic Conglinne, Merugud Uilix Meic Leirtis, and Aided Oenfir Aife.

691NS Literature and the Formation of the Nation-State in the 19th Century
This course examines the formative role literature played in the process of nation-building in the Americas during the 19th century with particular emphasis on Argentina, Peru and the United States. Authors include-- but are not limited to-- James Fenimore Cooper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ricardo Palma, Clorinda Matto de Turner, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Esteban Echeverria. After a brief introduction to methodology and theory and a careful historical contextualization of each writer we will analyze the texts focusing on topics such as gender and romance, race and miscegenation, the past, and space/nature/frontier.

691Q Translation Workshop
In this workshop, we will focus on the practical challenges and creative activity of literary translation. We will discuss students' translations along with essays on the craft of translation by leading translators. As students become familiar with the varying views on and descriptions of translation, they will develop their ability to talk and write about translators' strategies and choices. In addition, students will investigate the translation history of a specific text, carry out a short collaborative translation project, and write a critical review of a recently published literary translation.

691R Rearticulating Society
This course will explore the history and politics of immigration, past and present. It will consider the notion of "unity in diversity" through communitarian and universalist perspectives and reflect on the current status of terms such as assimilation, integration, transnationalism, migrant, refugee, and citizen given the patterns and possibilities available for groups of individuals in an increasingly mobile world. The class will critically examine concepts such as identity, belonging and multiculturalism along with ideas that have emerged since 9/11 of "a clash of civilizations" or the "enemy within". All of these issues will be explored through a range of texts, including novels and plays, autobiographies, ethnographies and audio-visual materials. Students will be required to interview an individual, pair or family group with a recent or past personal experience of permanent or temporary immigration (either to the U.S. or elsewhere). The interview data will be incorporated into a final paper which further explores themes and readings discussed in class. The other requirements of the course will be an in-class midterm exam, as well as short in-class presentations and active participation in class discussions.

691RT Immigrant Tales and Trials of Migration
In this course students will reflect on migrants' experience of translating and being translated in a newly occupied space, the momentary or sustained shifts in identity, the glimpses of belonging or not belonging, and the sense of the contingency of place that can be triggered by these experiences. Though the main focus will be on migration to the United States, the readings and class discussions will also cover other areas of the globe. The main objective of the course is to examine the similarities and differences of migrants'  experiences across time and to capture these experiences through migrants' own accounts. The readings combine historical, autobiographical, fictional and ethnographic materials. We will also examine the migration of people within nations or regions, and consider the motives of and unique challenges for internal migrants.  Finally, we will consider the role of technology and the implications for the relative "ease" of mobility in the late 20th and early 21st centuries compared to earlier decades. The seminars will combine lectures, audio and visual materials and active student participation. Grades are based on class presentations and participation (20%), 4 five page response papers (40%) and a final paper (40%).

692E Exploring New Media and the Digital Humanities
The seminar will set several parallel goals: to explore the new media arts and digital culture in general to familiarize students with the major artists and artworks emerging in this area of artistic and intellectual activity; to study and discuss some of the critical and theoretical issues raised by the digital medium in literature and the visual and performing arts (the digital humanities); to learn to use "hands on" some of the new digital tools (both software and hardware) for scholarship (databases for research, production of electronic mss. for conference presentation and publication, "how to write a hyperpaper? and why?")  and for teaching (preparation of electronic, multimedia class materials, lectures, etc., on the web or for Moodle, "how to present and teach information in the digital age?"); to collectively prepare to TA in, and work on, an existing undergraduate course on Digital Culture: students will be invited to comment on, alter, expand parts of this existing course, and focus on their special interests that they will have an opportunity to include and teach in this class (or in a future class of their own). Additional areas to be included depending on student interest and experience.

693A Word, Image and Book
We examine the contested and potentially sublime relationship between words and graphic images as they come together, or are evoked in or by the book in the West.  Although we will begin, of necessity, with an exploration of the political dimensions of image-making, we will not stop there.

693D Truth in Representation
This seminar will sample the recent critical debate on truth, representation and relativism; we will look at a selection of scientists, critics, writers, and artists as well, in order to describe a variety of dances on the head of this pin. Ours will be a cross-disciplinary investigation of the claims on truth - or the will to truth - across a variety of narrative representations, e.g. in scientific (Oliver Sacks) or psychoanalytic case studies (Freud), in war reporting (Mathew Brady, Paul Fussell, Semezdin Mehmedinovic), in stand-up comedy (Richard Pryor), in film (Haneke) and theater (Beckett), in the graphic novel (Joe Sacco), as well as in more traditional literary texts (Kafka, Woolf, Ondaatje, Saer, Danticat).

695A International Film Noir
Often referred to as the only indigenous American film style, "film noir" in its very appellation reveals that its major effects (for certain modern conceptions of cinema) lay elsewhere.  We will examine film noir in its American heyday (1945-1957) and how it came to be a major propelling force in the new European cinema of the 1960's (Godard, and the Cahiers du cinema).

695C Fassbinder/Godard/Melodrama
What were Godard's early films for Fassbinder? Instead of rejecting the most influential avant-garde film maker of the sixties, Fassbinder adopted Godard as father. Yet this fathering was a highly selective progeneration. What does the juxtaposition of these film makers reveal and conceal - and not only about Fassbinder's films, since we cannot now see those of Godard without having our past viewings of Fassbinder films in our heads.  Fassbinder sets us on track with two remarks: "Godard believes that film is the truth 24 frames per second, while I believe film is the lie 25 frames per second," and "Both Godard and I despise our characters." The course will raise theoretical issues of spectatorship, tone (irony, distanciation, citation) gender, genre, while being firmly grounded in the formal analysis of filmic text; the construction of the filmic text and its "meaning," and the destruction of subject by means of abyssal structures (mises-en-abyme, structural or metaphoric infinite regresses); Fassbinder's ideological fatigue and complex sexual politics, Godard's political innocence (which is not the same as naivete), his cinematic energy amidst his films' increasing cultural despair. Pre-requisites: familiarity with film theory and discourse, preferably by at least two courses in film analysis.  Course meets as intensive seminar, once a week for 4 hours.  Films selected from: Why Does Herr R. Run Amok and Breathless; American Soldier and Les Carabiniers; The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant and Une Femme Mariée; Effie Briest and Vivre sa Vie; Beware of the Holy Whore and Contempt.

697CC Cannibalism in Colonial Latin America
The question we will address in this course is not so much whether cannibalism as a practice really existed (or still exists), but the fascination this topic has exerted on the European mind and the responses it has provoked. The purpose of the course is twofold: first, to introduce the student to the study of the textual and iconographic representations of American “cannibalism” from the sixteenth until approximately the eighteenth century: chronicles, literature, legal discourses on the one hand, and map sheets, single drawings, book illustrations, on the other. Authors discussed include Columbus, Vespucci, Las Casas, Staden, de Léry, Montaigne, the Inca Garcilaso and Defoe. The second objective will be to examine the research produced by literary critics, anthropologists and within colonial/postcolonial studies during the last decades on cannibalism as a trope and as a discursive practice within colonialist discourse. The class will be taught in English. Graduate students from the Spanish and Portuguese Division will do their written assignments in Spanish.

699 Master’s Thesis
Credit, 6.

751 Theory and Practice of Translation
Theoretical issues and practical problems raised by translation, in light of recent research. The role of translation and translated literature in cultural systems and in the history of literary development. Genre and form (classics of linguistic and functionalist theories, systems approaches, and contemporary cultural studies and internationalist approaches), language register and tone, metaphor and imagery, word play. Readings in theory (Nida, Even-Zohar, Lefevere, Quine, Catford) combined with workshop practice.

752 Theory and Practice of Comparative Literature
Comparative Literature as literary theory and as academic practice. Nineteenth-century background and the rise of “literary studies”; traditional concepts of influence, periods, themes, genres, “extraliterary” relations, translation studies, and their development in modern theory. Questions of textuality, canonicity, cultural identity, the politics of cross-cultural literary images, metatheory, and institutional setting as they affect current practice.

791C International Shakespeare
The purpose of this course is to explore the translation and reception of various Shakespeare plays in different countries. The most widely translated texts in the world are books of the Bible and the plays of William Shakespeare. While much scholarship exists on Bible translations, surprisingly little exists on Shakespeare translations. Students will read several Shakespeare plays in English, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest and review the translation of the plays in different parts of the world, including Germany, France, Canada, the USA, and Latin America. In many instances, the translation of Shakespeare serves as a major event, legitimizing a national language and contributing to the formation of a national identity. Students learn how translators, directors, and critics  “use” translation to participate not just in the development in literary culture, but also in the construction of a nation.  Reading, critical engagement, and discussion of the texts will play an important part of the course. Each student will present a short assignment on one Shakespeare translation or production, a translation history paper, and a translation comparison, comparing a translation to the original, two translations, or a translation to a production. Finally, each student will also submit a research paper, either a comparative analysis of one translation/production or a series of translations/productions in one culture over a period of time. The class is intended to be interdisciplinary, open to students from Comparative Literature, English, and the various language and literature departments.

791K Translation, Ethics, and Ideology
Building upon basic questions related to translation theory and practice, this seminar will investigate in depth the ethics of translation as it has been explored in relation to language, culture, literary form, and ideology. How is the translator's position to be conceptualized in terms of ethics and ideology? What is meant by the metaphor "between" in translation studies? What is the intersection of translation and power? What are the ethical implications of translating difference? How can translation impact on and shift culture and values? How can translators be visible and resist oppressive dominant values? How does postcolonial translation illuminate these questions? These are all current topics in translation studies that are provoking some of the most contemporary writing on translation. Readings will consist primarily of articles selected from contemporary theorists. Requirements: seminar participation, seminar presentation, final 20-page paper. Prerequisite: Comparative Literature 751

791R Reconsidering Post Colonial Translation
The word "translation," which meant a linguistic substitution from a source language (SL) into a target language (TL), has taken on a broader meaning in recent times. John Sturrock and Talal Asad see ethnography as an act of translation; Tejaswini Niranjana and Eric Cheyfitz employ it as a metaphor for empire; Homi Bhabha and Salman Rushdie view it as an hybrid intercultural space. The present course intends to discuss these issues in light of nineteenth century discourses in Calcutta and contemporary work in postcolonial studies. We will cover areas like print and translation, genre and translation, gender and translation, and caste and translation that help widen the field of study.

791S Russia in America
The seminar will explore the cultural/artistic contribution of the Russian emigration to contemporary American (and by extension, to modern Western, primarily European) culture from the early twentieth century to our own days. Although the greatest names (Nabokov, Brodsky, Solzhenitsyn, Stravinsky, Balanchine, Kandinsky, Chagall, and others) will be highlighted, an effort will be made to discover many lesser known Russian artists who lived in the West and made significant contributions in various areas (such as music, dance, design). We will also look at the impact of modern Russian culture (émigré or not) on the arts in the West (in fiction, in the theater, in cinema, in dance, etc.). We will discuss problems of national identity, migration / emigration, exile, cultural dislocation / hybridization, and Russian responses and solutions to them. Additional specific topics and themes to be discussed will largely be determined by student interest. Of interest to students in Comparative Literature, English, American Studies, cultural studies, art, dance, cinema, music, anthropology, social studies, history. No knowledge of Russian is required, all reading can be done in English. Open to advanced undergraduates with the instructor's permission.

791T Translational Fiction
Many fiction writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Mario Vargas Llosa, Nicole Brossard, John Crowley, Maxine Hong Kingston, or Chang-rae Lee, foreground the theme of translation in their work. In addition, many immigrant authors, including Teju Cole, Kiren Desai, Juno Diaz, Ewidge Dandicat, or Khaled Hosseini, write in one language about events that occurred in another language and culture that they know well. Finally many fiction and travel writers, such as Dave Eggers, Elizabeth Gilbert, Lisa Napoli, or Paul Theroux, discuss cultures on which they are reporting as if they were native speakers, but actually rely on translators, guides, and interpreters for insights. In this course students read and respond to literary texts by such authors, focusing on the means and languages of representation, the depiction of non-English cultures in fiction, and the connection of translation to fiction. They also read and respond to elected texts on translational and transnational fiction, including works by Sherry Simon, Lisa Lowe, Benedict Anderson, Michael Cronin, Mary Louise Pratt, Arjun Appadurai, Wai-chee Dimock, David Damrosh, and David Cowart. Students become aware of how translation is used both as a means of cross-cultural communication and as a mode of understanding increasingly multilingual cultures and their growing international connections.

895A Dissertation Research Seminar
A writing seminar/workshop for advanced graduate students in Comparative Literature and a forum for individual and collaborative writing and research, including the drafting of the dissertation prospectus and chapters; preparation of abstracts and proposals for publication of journal articles and academic conference presentations; refinement of job letters and resumes; and submission of proposals for fellowships, grants, and doctoral research funding. Students share information on professional academic opportunities and funding sources, present their own work, and critique drafts and presentations in a mutually supportive environment.

899 Doctoral Dissertation
Credit, 10.