Comparative Literature

This course provides an introduction to that most adaptable and global of literary forms: the short story. It explores stories from diverse cultures and traditions around the world, including Asia, Europe, and the Americas. By reading short stories from across the globe, students are also introduced to the idea of "world literature" and some of the debates surrounding this idea.

The course offers an introduction to the ideological debates of Romanticism, from both a social and aesthetic point of view, considering literary studies compared to other artistic forms and aspects such as the Gesamptkunstwerk (the complete work of art). 

This course provides the opportunity to analyze works representing different types of hero: classical, tragic, popular, traditional, comic, anti-heroes, and others; explore the notion of heroism, its absence in our lives and our longing for it as this finds expression in various historical contexts and cultures; deal with the notion of masculinity as a cultural and historical construct; apply the analytical skills students have gained to a wide range of problems which may confront them in different situations and contexts in later life; and allow students to explore the features of a number of literary/cultural forms, providing a framework of ideas and methodologies appropriate to specific genres, ideas which students apply to the comparative study of texts.

Human Rights has been an object of literary studies since the 1980s-2000s. Tapping into the knowledge produced in this new field, this course reframes the history of modern literature as part of a broader development: the invention and history of human rights. This course explores several 'classics' in the history of Human Rights literature as well as a broad range of literary texts that discuss human rights from various perspectives but are not considered part of the literary canon. This course studies these forms as they have evolved since the late eighteenth century and across the globe in oral and written modes (songs, poems, novels, (auto-)biographies, graphic novels/comics, and so forth). There will be two seminar-style classes per week with assigned reading in advance of each session. There is a particular focus on partner/small-group work and interactive discussions, presentations, and discussions on the literature for an assigned session. An introduction to literature course is required for entry. 

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.