Course Description: Introduction, through class discussion and frequent written assignments, to some of the major works of the ancient world (up to 5th century CE) such as The Odyssey, the Bible, Augustine's Confessions, and works by Plato and Confucius. Examined genres include religious texts, the epic, philosophy, drama, poetry.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Introduction, through class discussion and frequent written assignments, to some of the major works of the medieval and early modern worlds (6th century to the mid-17th century) such as Dante’s Comedy, 1001 Nights, The Tale of Genji, and Elizabethan/Jacobean plays. Examined genres include framed narratives, courtly literature, and early modern drama.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Introduction, through class discussion and frequent written assignments, to some of the major works of the modern world (mid-17th to the mid-20th centuries) such as those by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Woolf, Lu Xun, Borges and Yeats. Examined genres include realist fiction, modernist fiction, and modernist poetry.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Comparative study of selected major Western and non-Western texts composed in the period from 1945 to the present. Intensive focus on writing about these texts, with frequent papers written about these works.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Introduction to fairy tales, fables, and parables as recurrent forms in literature, with such readings as tales from Aesop & Grimm, Chaucer & Shakespeare, Kafka & Borges, Buddhist & Taoist parables, the Arabian Nights, and African American folklore.

Course Description: Introduction to the comparative study of myths and legends, with readings selected from Near Eastern, Teutonic, Celtic, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, African and Native American literary sources.

Course Description: Role of fantasy and the supernatural in literature: tales of magic, hallucination, ghosts, and metamorphosis, including diverse authors such as Shakespeare, P'u Sung-Ling, Kafka, Kawabata, Fuentes, and Morrison.

Course Description: Consideration, in literary works from different ages, of visionary and rational perceptions of a lost paradise, Golden Age, or Atlantis-and of the inhuman nightmares that can result from perversions of the utopian dream of perfection.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Introduction to shorter forms of prose fiction by major authors of different countries, with special emphasis on the modern period.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Gilgamesh, Ramayana, Beowulf, Nibelungenlied.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Metamorphoses, Decameron, Arabian Nights, Canterbury Tales.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Chanson de Roland, El Cid, Igor’s Campaign, Morte D’Arthur.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Sakuntala, Tristan and Isolde, Aucassin and Nicolette, Gawain and the Green Knight.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Swift, Rabelais, La Celestina, Simplicissimus.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Cervantes, Saikaku, Fielding, Voltaire.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega/Calderón, Molière/Racine, Lessing/Schiller.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Goethe, Byron, Stendhal, Pushkin, Lermontov.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Hoffmann, Gogol, Poe, Hawthorne, Maupassant, Chekhov, Melville.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Flaubert, Twain, Turgenev, Galdós, Ibsen.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Balzac, Dostoevski/Tolstoi, Hardy, Shaw, Strindberg.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Unamuno, Svevo, Conrad, Gide, Kafka, Faulkner.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Rilke/Yeats, Joyce/Woolf, Mann/Céline, Bulgakov/Tanizaki, O’Neill/Brecht, Lorca/Pirandello.

Course Description: Designed primarily to acquaint the non-literature major with a cross-section of writings by the world’s most important authors; readings in English translation. Content alternates among the following segments: Camus/Sartre, García Márquez/Grass, Borges/Sarraute, Bellow/Nabokov, Beckett/Pinter, Genet/Dürrenmatt.

Course Description: Examination of travel as a quintessential human activity and experience of global modernity and cross-cultural encounters from the 18th to the 21st century with an emphasis on German-speaking culture. Travelogues, literature, art, memoirs, and films in English translation.

Course Description: Survey of fiction, drama, and poetry by women writers from all continents. Concerns of women compared in light of their varied social and cultural traditions. Literary analysis of voice, imagery, narrative strategies and diction.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Introduction, through careful reading of selected plays, to some of the major forms of Western drama, from the earliest tragedies of ancient Greece to the contemporary American theater.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Comparative study of poetry in a variety of lyric and other poetic forms from different historical periods and different linguistic, national, and cultural traditions.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Changing relationship between humans and the natural environment in ancient and modern authors as Virgil, Li Po, Basho, Darwin, and Thoreau.

Course Description: Representations of the human psyche in literature and other media (film, visual arts, music) spanning cultures and historical contexts. Depictions of abnormal psychological states, including madness, obsession, and self-fragmentation. Textual interpretation informed by psychological theories. Rhetorical persuasion and nuanced argumentation.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Study of literary texts from various periods and cultures whose theme is the representation of animals.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Consideration of a broad range of writers who speak from an ethnic perspective different from the nominally or politically dominant culture of their respective countries and who explore the challenges faced by characters significantly affected by their ethnic minority status.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Introduction to representative masterpieces of East Asia with readings from such works as The Story of the Stone, The Peach Blossom Fan, T'ang and Sung poetry, classical Japanese poetry, drama, and travel diaries, and The Tale of Genji.

Course Description: Introduction to representative masterpieces of South Asia with readings from such works as the Mahabharata and Ramayana, The Cloud Messenger, Shakuntala, The Little Clay Cart, and the stories and poems of both ancient and modern India and Southeast Asia.

Course Description: Introduction to classical Islamic culture through translations of literature primarily from Arabic and Persian, as well as other languages. Topics include the concept of the self, society and power, spirituality, the natural world, the cosmos, and the supernatural.

Course Description: Examination of a special topic in a small group setting.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Directed group study.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Student facilitated course intended primarily for lower division students.

Prerequisite(s): UWP 001 or UWP 001V or UWP 001Y; consent of instructor.

Course Description: Special study for undergraduates.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Comparative, cross-cultural study of a topic, theme, or movement in world cinema beyond the boundary of a single national tradition. Topics may include "postsocialist cinemas in East Europe and Asia," "cinema and globalization," and "popular Asian cinemas."

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR), upper division standing, or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Hong Kong cinema, its history, industry, styles, genres, directors, and stars. Special attention to its polyglot, multicultural, transnational, colonial, and postcolonial environment.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR), upper division standing, or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Introduction to Japanese cinema from early silent films to the present. Explores important directors, genres, stars, themes and techniques in relation to specific historical and cultural contexts. Lectures and readings in English. Films in Japanese with English subtitles.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor, or upper-division standing.

Course Description: Study of representations, descriptions, and discussions of humankind's problematical relationship with the non-human world in texts written in a variety of European and American traditions between 1750 and the present.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Exploration of women's differing views of self and society as revealed in major works by female authors of various times and cultures. Readings, principally of fiction, will include such writers as Lady Murasaki, Mme de Lafayette, and Charlotte Bronte.

Course Description: Critical analysis of Renaissance texts with primary focus on issues such as human dignity, education and gender politics; "high" and "low" culture and its relation to literary practices.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Shakespeare's representations of the classical world in the light of selected ancient texts and Renaissance conceptions of Antiquity, with special attention to the depiction of politics and history.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Interpretation of selected works illustrating the historical evolution of themes, as well as of formal and structural elements.

Course Description: Introduction to critical theory and its use for interpreting literary texts, film, and media forms in global culture.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Close reading of selected texts; scrutiny of very limited amount of material, with attention to the problems of texts in translation.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Study of the "grotesque" in selected texts from the Renaissance to the 20th century, with attention to the "grotesque" as a means of social, cultural, and political commentary, as well as of aesthetic innovation.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Exploration of the representation of the city in major translated literary texts from a variety of literary traditions and periods. Emphasis on the diversity of urban experience in literature. Topics include public and private space, memory, and gender.

Course Description: Comparative study of different versions of one or more central myths, with attention to their cultural settings, artistic and literary forms of representation, as well as to their psychological dimensions.

Prerequisite(s): COM 006 recommended.

Course Description: Problems of the modern Jewish experience from the perspective of the writer's construction of the self in relation to the future and to the non-Jew. Draws upon Russian, German, Yiddish, and American traditions.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Exploration of the comparative mystical literatures of major religious traditions, with a focus on those produced in South Asia and the Middle East, although including other traditions.

Course Description: Literary introduction to the cultural issues of colonialism and postcolonialism through reading, discussing and writing on narratives which articulate diverse points of view.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Study of the various stylistic, historical, social and cultural factors that contribute to a hemispheric vision of American literature, encompassing works by Canadian, United States, Caribbean, Brazilian, and Spanish-American writers.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Various stylistic, historical, social, and cultural factors that contribute to a hemispheric vision of American literature, encompassing works by Canadian, United States, Caribbean, Brazilian, and Spanish-American writers. May be taught abroad.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Introduction to distinctive Asian literary forms, such as haiku, noh, the Chinese novel and tale, through reading of major works. Comparison with Western genres and study of native and Western critical traditions.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Colonial and post-colonial sub-Saharan African literature and the African oral traditions from which it emerged. Genres and themes of African literature from the 19th century to the present.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Major texts from Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Urdu literature with attention to historical and cross-cultural context. Includes epic, romance, various genres of lyric poetry, fairy tales, historical and religious stories, mystical and philosophical narratives, and essays.

Course Description: Exploration of the Indian epic, Ramayana, through the lens of literature, performance, and visual art. Emphasis on the text's diversity and its contemporary global relevance. Topics include Ramayanas in Southeast Asia, and in various South Asian diaspora communities.

Course Description: Through study of a few major works from Western and non-Western literature, illuminates the way in which literature from antiquity to the present has dealt with the antinomy peace/war through the ages.

Prerequisite(s): COM 001 or COM 002 or COM 003; or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Study of the origins, literary and social background, development and implications of the literature of detection in a comparative context.

Course Description: Portrayals of women in literature, comparing selected heroines who represent a particular theme, period, or genre. Texts range around the globe and from ancient to modern works, such as Lysistrata, Emma, Hedda Gabler, The Makioka Sisters, and Top Girls.

Prerequisite(s): COM 001, COM 002, COM 003, or COM 004 or the equivalent recommended.

Course Description: The changing image of man and his world as seen in novels by such writers as Joyce, Proust, and Mann.

Course Description: Readings in representative authors such as Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Pirandello and Brecht.

Course Description: Persistent and changing aspects of the tragic vision in literature from ancient times to the present.

Course Description: Comic attitudes towards life in literary works of different ages.

Course Description: Comparative study of the themes and motifs of love and war in the literature of South Asia. Includes a discussion of Sanskrit epics, classical erotic court poetry, medieval heroic poetry, mystical compositions and colonial and post-colonial fiction.

Course Description: Portrayals of a human life in biographies and/or autobiographies of different countries and ages.

Course Description: Medieval literary genres as the foundation for modern literary forms. Topics and themes as love, God, vision, nature, history and politics, and sign theory.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Literature, new science, gender, politics, and exploration in European Renaissance. Readings in Petrarch, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Tasso, Ariosto, Stampa, Shakespeare, Labé and Aphra Behn.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Readings in major authors such as Calderón, Corneille, Pascal, Racine, Milton, and Grimmelshausen, with consideration of the tension between the expansive energies of the "baroque" and the restraints of dogma and reason.

Course Description: Enlightenment writers such as Swift, Voltaire, Sterne, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, and Kant. Emphasis on the revolutionary impact of 18th-century philosophical ideas and literary forms on modern political, social, and aesthetic culture.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Comparative approach to the multi-lingual, multi-cultural literatures of the Caribbean. Works from English, French, and Spanish speaking regions with special attention to problems of identity, diaspora and resistance, class, gender, race.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Comparative approach to the multi-lingual, multi-cultural literatures of the Caribbean. Works from English, French, and Spanish speaking regions with special attention to problems of identity, diaspora and resistance, class, gender, race. May be taught abroad at the University of Havana, Cuba.

Course Description: Major translated works in modern Middle Eastern and North African Literature, including Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish. Social and historical formation, with topics such as conflict and coexistence, journeys, and displaced people, gender and family.

Course Description: Study of various forms of epic poetry in both the oral and literary traditions.

Course Description: The novel as global genre: picaresque, epistolary, Bildungsroman, historical novel, contemporary forms.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Pivotal works of artists in the Western mainstream, such as Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe, Tolstoi, Proust, and Joyce.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Introduction to the Romantic movement with emphasis upon Romantic concepts of the self, irony, love, the imagination and artistic creativity, and the relationship of the individual to nature and society.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR).

Course Description: Novels and plays by Dickens, Zola, Flaubert, Dreiser, Ibsen, and Strindberg investigate marriage & adultery, the city & its perils, the hardships of industrialization, the war between the sexes, the New Woman, and other 19th-century themes.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Studies in movements such as surrealism, expressionism and the absurd.

Course Description: Study of important novels from different parts of the world, including Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the United States, in the period from the Second World War to the present.

Course Description: An exploration of novels, short stories, plays, and films in translation and in English, produced about the Partition of India in 1947.

Course Description: In-depth exploration of The Arabian Nights, the best-known work of pre-modern Arabic literature and a major work of world literature. Analysis of the work in its historical context and in comparison to other frame tales in world literature.

Course Description: A comparative examination of the Indian story of Sakuntala in multiple genres, languages, and media from the c. 400 BCE to the contemporary century.

Course Description: In-depth analysis of the Persian Book of Kings (Shahnameh) by Abu al-Qasim Ferdowsi (d. 1020 CE) in its historical context with a comparative perspective on the role of this work in Persian and world literature.

Course Description: Study of a selected topic or topics appropriate to student and faculty interests and areas of specialization of the instructor.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR); at least one course in literature.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Study of selected topics appropriate to student and faculty interests and areas of specialization of the instructor. May be taught abroad.

Prerequisite(s): Completion of Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR); at least one course in literature or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Internships in fields where students can practice their skills.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor. Completion of 84 units.

Course Description: Guided research, under the direction of a faculty member approved by the Program Director, leading to a senior honors thesis on a comparative topic.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor. Open only to majors of senior standing who qualify for Honors Program.

Course Description: Advanced study of selected topics and texts in Comparative Literature, with explicit emphasis on the theoretical and interpretive approaches that define Comparative Literature as a discipline and distinguish it from other literary disciplines. Required for the major.

Prerequisite(s): Senior standing as a Comparative Literature major or minor or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Tutoring in undergraduate courses including leadership in small voluntary discussion groups affiliated with current courses offered by Comparative Literature.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor. Upper division standing with declared major in Comparative Literature.

This version has ended; see updated course, below.
Course Description: Directed group study. May be taught abroad.

Course Description: Student facilitated course intended primarily for upper division students.

Prerequisite(s): UWP 001 or UWP 001V or UWP 001Y; consent of instructor.

Course Description: Special study for advanced undergraduates.

Course Description: Under the supervision of a faculty member, an undergraduate student plans and develops the course they will offer under 098F/198F.

Prerequisite(s): UWP 001 or UWP 001V or UWP 001Y; consent of instructor.

Course Description: STU FAC. Under the supervision of a faculty member, an undergraduate student teaches a course under 098F/198F.

Prerequisite(s): COM 199FA; (UWP 001 or UWP 001V or UWP 001Y); consent of instructor.

Course Description: Comparative, interpretive study of the treatment of specific topics and themes in literary works from various periods, societies, and cultures, in light of these works' historical and sociocultural contexts.

Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing in Comparative Literature, English, or a foreign-language literature, or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Analysis and interpretation of poetic texts in different historical periods and national literatures, with consideration of major theoretical developments in the understanding of poetic discourse.

Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing or consent of instructor.

Course Description: An exploration, culminating in a research paper, of changing forms of the quest for transcendence in different cultures, mainly in major works of Western literature, but also in other traditions and from the perspectives of other disciplines.

Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing or consent of instructor; knowledge of at least one foreign language.

Course Description: Comparative literature of major works in a particular genre from various linguistic, national, and cultural traditions, with particular attention to historical developments within the genre and to genre theory.

Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing in Comparative Literature, English, or a foreign-language literature or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Study of how literary texts from different periods, societies, and cultures represent gender roles and gender hierarchy, building on recent work on gender in anthropology, literature, psychology, and women's studies.

Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Individually guided research in the primary literature of concentration, under the supervision of a faculty member culminating in a conference paper. Required of M.A. and Ph.D. candidates.

Course Description: Individually guided research in the secondary literature of concentration, under the supervision of a faculty member, culminating in a paper. Required of Ph.D. candidates.

Course Description: Individually guided research, under the supervision of a faculty member, in the third literature of concentration or on a special topic culminating in a paper. Required of Ph.D. candidates.

Course Description: Individually guided writing of the dissertation prospectus under supervision of a faculty member. Must be taken prior to completion of the qualifying exam. Required of Ph.D. candidates.

Course Description: History, theory, and methodology of comparative literature. Issues of national literature, world literature, and comparative literature. Relation of comparative literature to other disciplines and diverse expressions. Discussion of current problems in teaching and research in comparative literature. Required of M.A. and Ph.D. candidates.

Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing.

Course Description: Development in 19th-century history, culture, and society in relation to major trends in the 19th-century novel.

Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Directed Independent Study in Primary, Secondary, or Third Literature culminating in term paper. Only for languages with no graduate course offerings.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Course Description: Directed group study.

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor. Graduate standing.

Course Description: Individual study.

Course Description: Special study for the doctoral dissertation.

Course Description: Discussion of the theory and practice of teaching composition at the college level in a department of comparative literature in relation to the major cultural and social developments and with specific application to the introductory COM 001, COM 002, COM 003, COM 004.

Prerequisite(s): Appointment as a Comparative Literature Associate Instructor or consent of instructor.

Course Description: Regular consultations between the student instructor teaching Comparative Literature courses and a supervisor. Specifically designed for first-time TAs in COM 005, COM 006, COM 007, and COM 010. Instruction in the teaching of writing in a literature course, grading of papers, leading discussions.

Course Description: Teaching assistant training practicum.

Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing.