Prisms of Modernity
G29.1341  4 points.

Seminar in Literature: Research Methods and Techniques—Politics and Theory
G29.1400  4 points.
Required of incoming students to the department. Explores current theoretical debates in the field and seeks to build an intellectual community among new students. Emphasis is also on pragmatic questions of orientation in the discipline.

European Renaissance Literature I
G29.1500  Javitch. 4 points.
Studies in Renaissance genres.

European Renaissance Literature II
G29.1550  Javitch. 4 points.
See G29.1500 above.

Contemporary Critical Theories
G29.1560  4 points.
Major trends of 20th-century theory, especially implications for literary theory. Language and linguistics; self and subject; ideology and social formations; hermeneutics; skepticism and truth.

Comparative Literature and the Arabic Context
G29.1732  4 points.
Issues in the comparative study of modern Arabic literatures and culture. Development of literary language, explorations of society, questions of gender relations.

The Bible and Literary Criticism
G29.2115  Identical to G78.2115. Feldman. 4 points.
Selected problems in current literary criticism are examined and applied to biblical narrative. Various “modernist” approaches to Scripture are emphasized: structuralism and poststructuralism; feminism and psychoanalysis; translation theory; phenomenology of reading; and historical poetics.

Studies in Modern Drama
G29.2140  Chioles. 4 points.
Close discussion of works by dramatists such as Yeats, Pirandello, Synge, O’Neill, Artaud, Lorca, Piscator, Brecht, Williams, Weiss, Beckett, Pinter, Genet, and Albee.

Literature, History, and Politics
G29.2150  4 points.
Studies in the relationship between literary texts, political theory, and historical event.

Topics in Early Modern Written Culture
G29.2155  4 points.
Studies the relation of written texts of the early modern period to their political and historical contexts and their cultural role.

Studies in Prose Genres
G29.2300  4 points.
Topics include autobiography, literature of the fantastic, the gothic novel, travel literature, etc.

Literature, Politics, and the Cultural Status of Women in France and England, 1500-1800
G29.2310  4 points.
Querelles des femmes from 1500 to 1620 in context of social and economic crises and political struggles. Debates of the 17th and 18th centuries to the Revolution. Poetry, novels, and plays by women.

History of Literary Theory and Criticism: To 1700
G29.2500  Identical to G41.2965. Javitch. 4 points.
From Aristotle, Cicero, Horace, Quintilian, Plutarch, and Longinus through the Middle Ages, to the Italian and English Renaissance and French and English neoclassicism.

History of Literary Theory and Criticism: From 1800
G29.2501  Identical to G41.2966. Lockridge. 4 points.
From German neoclassicism to romanticism in Germany, England, and France, through American transcendentalism, to late 19th- and 20th-century literary critical discussion.

Special Topics in Theory
G29.2610  4 points.

Topics in Caribbean Literature
G29.2650  Brathwaite. 4 points.
Colonialism and the development of national and Pan-Caribbean literary cultures; finding an independent voice; the novel, poetry, theatre.

The Realist Novel in Europe
G29.2690  4 points.
Style of approach varies according to instructor, but concentration is on the 19th-century novel in the European and American traditions.

European Epic
G29.2811  Javitch. 4 points.
Homer, Virgil, Tasso, and Milton.

The Nature of Tragedy
G29.2821  Chioles. 4 points.
Studies in theory and practice of tragedy from the Greeks to the 20th century.

Theories of Literary Genres
G29.2870  4 points.

Topics in Translation
G29.2875  Halim. 4 points.
Variable selected topics in the theory and practice of translation aiming at elucidating its centrality to comparative literature and interdisciplinarity. Framed by the cultural turn in translation studies, this series explores the poetics and politics of translation in conjunction with a range of phenomena (such as globalization and new media), concepts (for example, cosmopolitanism and world literature), and theoretical issues (reception theory and postcolonial theory). Topics include but are not limited to translation in relation to imperialism and/or postcoloniality; translation, theory, and practice: a vexed relationship?; reception theory and translation; translation in adaptation; translators’ testimonies.

Seminar on Translation
G29.2880  Sieburth. 4 points.
Contemporary discussions on the nature and implications of translation as applied specifically to literary issues and generally to modes of interpretation. Analysis of theory and practice from the 17th century to the present.

Translation Workshop
G29.2880  Sieburth. 4 points.
Functions as a writing workshop, involving comparative analysis of various translations and production and critique of student translations.

Special Topics in Spanish American Literature
G29.2968  Identical to G95.2968. Molloy. 4 points.

Guided Individual Research in Comparative Literature
G29.2991  Prerequisite: permission of the chair of the department. 1-8 points.

North American Literature in Comparative Context
G29.3000  Ruttenburg. 4 points.
Examines North American literature in a comparative (international) context in order to explore new paradigms for understanding literal and cultural development. Topics vary by semester and instructor.

Comparative Poetics
G29.3399  Beaujour. 4 points.
Examination of Western ideas on poetics from the viewpoint of other cultures, literate and nonliterate. Consideration of Greek, Chinese, Kaluli (New Guinea), and West African poetics.

Literary Theory
G29.3610  4 points.
Examination and analysis of specific literary theories. Variable topics: hermeneutics, deconstruction, formalism, Marxism.

Topics in African Literature
G29.3630  4 points.
Examines various topics in African literature, with special focus on postcolonialism and the African narrative.

Seminar on Postsymbolist Poetry
G29.3885  Sieburth. 2-4 points.
Studies in 20th-century European and American poetry: Valéry, Cernuda, Lorca, Eliot, Breton, Neruda, Borges, Paz, Parra.

Discourse and Society
G29.3921  4 points.
Exploration of the concept of “discourse” and the theme of discursive transformation as a means to understand societies and their creation, especially as manifest through “aesthetic” writings and practices.

Thesis Research
G29.3991  Prerequisite: permission of the chair of the department. 1-4 points.

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