Comparative Literature

This course is an examination of Shakespeare's work and the cultural and literary background of the two plays HAMLET and AS YOU LIKE IT, studied in the accompanying tutorial course, SHAKESPEARE TUTORIAL. The course explores particularly the various genres of the plays, the theatrical conditions in Shakespeare's times, as well as more general cultural issues such as the Elizabethan world picture and the religious reformation.

This course is specialized for international students. It studies basic texts of French and francophone literature, with a particular focus on the different styles used and topics approached. The course also discusses French history and how it is reflected in an authors' writing.

This course reads and analyzes Francophone literature written by those of Black descent in order to understand terms like Afrofuturism and Afroprophetism to connect history with the present. The course examines the literary and narrative histories and structure of African and African-related works and considers how the narratives renew the view of Africa in a philosophical sense through literary works. Works studied include Leonara Miano's ROUGE IMPERATRICE, Abdourrahman Waberi's AUX ETATS UNIS D'AFRIQUE, and an anthology collected through a collective project.

This course serves as an introduction into the francophone literature of Sub-Saharan Africa. It discusses a history of francophone literature through the study of two genres: poetry and novel. The first half of the course focuses on the poetry of the négritude movement, reading works from Senghor and Césaire. The second half of the course focuses on novels such as Cheikh Hamidou Kane's L'AVENTURE AMBIGUE, Yambo Ouologuem's LE DEVOIR DE VIOLENCE, and Henri Lopes's LE CHERCHEUR D'AFRIQUES. This course discusses topics such as identity through the lens of francophone literature and explores the question of the connection between literature and socio-historical context. 

This course explores some of the main trends of French and Francophone life writing since the beginning of the 21st century, and evaluates in what ways these trends (and the authorial strategies associated with them) offer new perspectives on the traditional concerns of the literary genre of autobiography, reflecting the increasing gender and ethnic diversity apparent amongst contemporary authors of French and Francophone literature. Questions of personal identity are at the center of this course, with a particular focus on (ethnically) hybrid identities. The course centers on the role of images in contemporary French and Francophone life-writing in order to interrogate the tendency in such works to use images in diverse ways to explore the complexities of identity. Visiting students should have the equivalent of at least two years of study at University level of French.

While this course is based around primary Victorian comic texts, it allows students to understand and apply key concepts in the wider study of comedy: these include forms such as irony, satire, farce, comedy of manners, parody, and black comedy; and theoretical concepts in comedy, such as superiority, incongruity, and relief theories. Students also have the opportunity to study the work of key comedy theorists such as Freud, Bakhtin, and Bergson.
 

This course explores how literature shapes our perspective on the past and identity. By studying Patrick Chamoiseau's LE DIMANCHE AU CACHOT and Josephy Boyden's DANS LE GRAND CERCLE DU MONDE, this course considers how authors can use fiction to reconquer a painful past to better reconstruct an identity and a perspective that has been hidden.

This course examines anticolonial and decolonial thought. It will study and analyze primary texts by key anticolonial thinkers from South Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

This course provides an introduction to Ibsen’s dramatic production, emphasizing its historical context. It analyzes the plays as part of and influenced by social, political, and cultural forces, and as part of changing aesthetic and artistic norms. The course examines selected works against the background of changing literary, theatrical, and cultural paradigms in Ibsen’s own time and pays special attention to Ibsen’s renewal of the dramatic tradition. It investigates his plays not only as dramatic texts but also through historical performances from Ibsen’s time.

This course provides an introduction to the literature of the English Renaissance, studied in a variety of historical contexts—poetic, intellectual, religious, and political. It offers a broad understanding of the most important literary trends in Renaissance England, analyzes the trends as connected with the ideas and socio-political development of the period, and develops critical reading and writing skills in English.