Comparative Literature

This course examines the grotesque style, a recurrent feature of American literature, by focusing on fiction works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It begins by covering the definition of the “grotesque” from several scholars, each of whom present the concept differently. The grotesque, therefore, requires special deciphering that is examined in the seminar. An analysis of a selection of grotesque American fiction also allows a study of the reasons for the use of the grotesque and the role it plays.

This course explores how forbidden romance —amorous engagement in fiction and reality—became the most volatile form of cultural expression in the modern world of revolution and enlightenment. Drawing on literary masterpieces across China and the West, the course examines how the modern lure of free will and emancipated subjectivity drove Chinese intellectuals, Sinophone writers, and their Western contemporaries to redefine terms of affect, such as love, desire, passion, loyalty, and sacrifice. The course also explores how the moral and political consequences of affect were evoked in such a way as to traverse or fortify consensual boundaries and their literary manifestations.

This course discusses literature from different parts of the world from 1789 (the beginning of the French Revolution) to 1914 (the beginning of the First World War). Three different angles are used to study changes and developments in literature and society in this period: (1) a material perspective considers how literature changes as a medium for communication, including developments in the production and distribution of books; (2) a formal perspective which looks at new forms and genres of writing, including the continuing development of the novel as a dominant cultural form; (3) a thematic perspective analyzing how literary expression is influenced by social changes. Examples include industrialization, the relationship between rural and urban environments, and the colonial ambitions of European states and Japan.

This course reads and analyzes contemporary theater that focuses on going outside the box that is the standard form of poetry and theater. It focuses on playwrights such as Sarah Kayne and Debbie Tucker Green; and on "in your ear" theater, written in Britain, that highlights the discrepancy between what is heard and seen. 

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by permission of the instructor. This course will help students to develop a general vision of the relationships between Italian Literature and other Arts, from the nineteenth century to present, with a focus on painting. The course discusses the most relevant works of literature which interact with images and analyzes critical, theoretical, and literary texts regarding visual arts. In addition to the interactions between literature and the arts, the module introduces students to the following themes and areas for in-depth study: 1) the interaction between literature and the visual arts; 2) the issue of the gaze in literature; 3) iconology, the "visual turn" and the “pictorial turn;” and 4) literature and visual arts facing the crisis of modernity and postmodernity. In particular, the course delves into the intermedial influence of the visual arts (painting, illustration, and photography) and the reflection on the gaze in some works by Italo Calvino and Gianni Celati in the last decades of the 20th century.

This course focuses on the literary and cultural production that has emerged under colonial rule and its aftermath in different locations including the Caribbean, Middle East, and Latin America, as well as texts written by diasporic and repressed minorities. It discusses a theoretical approach to development studies and comparative ethno-racial studies for current considerations about the contemporary global order. 

This course studies works (mainly literary) from prehistory to try to better understand the power of attraction that this still so enigmatic period in the history of man exerts on the imagination and to explore, particularly from the daydreams and fantasized representations that unfold there, what that they say about us more than about our distant ancestors. The course also provides an opportunity to address, from the texts studied, specifically literary questions, through for example those of genres and registers, the construction of the story or writing resources. Part of this course is devoted to the study of works of youth literature to discover the vision of prehistory that they offer.

This course studies French-Spanish filmmaker of Luis Buñuel, in particular his final and probably most productive period which was mainly French. Accompanied by screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, his faithful sidekick, the father of Spanish cinema drew his inspiration from several of the great French novels of the preceding decade. This course explores one of them, LE JOURNAL D’UNE FEMME DE CHAMBRE, to reflect on the specific work of adaptation characterized by varying degrees of difference from the original.

This course introduces the different schools of theories that enables one to understand any kind of narrative. Using a selection of prose extracts and poetry, the course teaches methods of reading and analyzing texts in class. By the end of the course, students are expected to reach a general conclusion about possible interpretations of the text, supported by concrete evidence.

This course focuses on the analysis of 19th century American poetry from poets such as Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, and Walt Whitman.