Comparative Literature has been in the past few decades transformed by the development of World Literature, and of the connected discipline of Global (or World) History. This course will propose a reflection on these fields, on the promises they hold for an inclusive approach to forms and issues, and on the on-going controversies that surround them, usually in relation with the question of Eurocentrism and European exceptionalism. Through the close reading of key texts, and the choice of a few strategic sites, we will suggest some ways to approach these questions.

These will include the following:

We will look at how historically the fields of world literature and of world or global history have been conceived, and are evolving, before and after Goethe’s Weltliteratur, and will focus on recent debates. We will see how some of the main controversies have been encapsulated in the questions surrounding Orientalism, as it was first formulated by Edward Said, and reinterpreted by Aamir Mufti and others. We will consider, through the work of Sanjay Subrahmanyam and others, the connections between world or global history, and world literature, by analyzing key notions : encounter, circulation, spread, intermediaries, cultural brokers. We will explore the circulation of literary forms, such as storytelling, and, through the example of the One Thousand and One Nights, look at the issues of the cultural and linguistic translation of literary texts.

We will also examine a key grand narrative of history, the history of modern science, and its strategic role in the resilience of Eurocentrism, and look at how new approaches, under the rubric of Science and Technology Studies, are renewing our understanding of this history, and of cultural histories.

This course could fulfill the language requirement if the student wishes to work on original texts in French or Arabic.

LTCO 201

Ozu Yasujiro has been the object of critical attention by critics and scholars globally. In Japan, early celebrations of Ozu emphasized his realism in faithfully depicting the reality of modern life in the 1930s. Later, especially after World War II, the primary focus of realism in Ozu criticism shifted to life’s vicissitudes and to a broader idea of humanism. This postwar critical tendency appeared to influence early scholarship on Ozu outside of Japan from the late 1950s the early 1970s, which humanistically celebrated Ozu as an auteur. Then, it was Ozu’s unique film style that made him a central figure during the institutionalization of film studies in Euro-American academia in the late 1970s and 1980s. Ozu’s work served as a suitable example in demonstrating both the universal (“a humanist auteur”) and the particular (“a challenger to Hollywood”). Since then, scholars and critics have studied the films of Ozu from various theoretical and historical standpoints. This seminar examines both Ozu films and Ozu studies.

Please contact instructor for course description.

The seminar will consider the question of race as it developed at the time of the European empires’ early expansion during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Questions regarding race, identity, difference, essentialism, and cultural mixture will be theorized and discussed in relation to the interpretation of texts from the early modern archive. Thus the seminar will examine the prehistory of later and current forms of racism, anti-blackness, empire, racialized capitalism, and war capitalism.  Counter-voices from indigenous and anti-imperialist writers will be included in the required readings as we trace both the strategies of imperial hegemony (its political economy, ideology, systemic violence, cultural formations, tropes, etc.) and strategies of resistance (through syncretism and cultural improvisation, lower-class revolt, religious dissent, etc.).  Texts to be read and discussed will include epic poetry, drama, prose fiction, captivity narratives, and travel writing. 

LTEN 222

This seminar examines citizenship from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, with special attention to diverse U.S. Latinx experiences. Our discussions will address the US ethnoracialization of Latinidad that, in turn, informs Latinx notions of belonging (or unbelonging). Through analyses of Latinx theoretical and creative projects, we will question how varying forms of political, social, and cultural citizenships are constituted, performed, and embodied. Moreover, we will attend to the ways Latinx communities negotiate, contest, and reimagine their relationship to the US.  

Este seminario elabora una suerte de cartografía de los estudios culturales latinoamericanos, a partir de los debates centrales que se han dado en este campo inter/trans/post/disciplinario. En la primera parte del curso, se revisan tanto antecedentes históricos (por ejemplo, la “escuela de Birmingham”), como teorizaciones claves en su articulación (por ejemplo, marxismos y postmarxismos, estudios subalternos y poscoloniales, pensamiento anticolonial indianista/indigenista). Para después abordar, con más detenimiento, los itinerarios intelectuales y políticos recientes de este campo móvil y heterogéneo. En particular, se examinan las aproximaciones feministas, disidentes, decoloniales y antirracistas a los dilemas micro/macro políticos de una región cultural asediada por ciclos imperiales trasnacionales recurrentes y procesos de neo o recolonización bajo las dinámicas históricas propias del Estado-nación republicano. 

This seminar offers an introduction to literary theory for first-year students in the Department of Literature’s doctoral program. Given the limited time available, we can only survey a few of the many different theorists and approaches to literary and cultural studies. Then again, as Gerald Graff once argued, seeking refuge in the illusion that one can systematically cover an academic field in in an eight-week syllabus is misguided (“Taking Cover in Coverage,” 1988). Instead, he suggested, we should “teach the conflicts,” focusing on open-ended debates in literary and cultural theory.