Comparative Literature

This course discovers various representations of India through the cross-study of literary and cinematographic works of the twentieth century. Students read works including A BARBARIAN IN ASIA by Henri Michaux and A CERTAIN IDEA OF ​​INDIA by Alberto Moravia; and view works including ABOARD THE DARJEELING LIMITED by Wes Anderson and the documentary by Louis Malle, GHOST INDIA.

The 19th century saw the reinvention of the subterranean. From the sewers in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables to the striking miners of Émile Zola’s Germinal, novelists began exploring the space beneath their feet. By the turn of the century, the opening of the Paris catacombs to the public and the construction of the metro system fueled the collective imagination, while the hidden strata of history and consciousness were being charted by the developing fields of archaeology and psychoanalysis. In the early to mid-20th century, the subterranean was as much a metaphor as it was a reality, with artists and philosophers drawing inspiration from newly discovered prehistoric cave paintings and the French Resistance returning once again to Hugo’s sewers. This class follows modernity as it goes underground. This course discusses topics including French and Parisian history and culture, urban text and its expressions in literature and film, and historical events and reinterpreting them in the context of their reliance on hidden historical and cultural undercurrents.

This course provides an introduction to the field of postcolonial theory by way of literature produced in former colonies of the British Empire, with particular focus on Australia and New Zealand. It covers their histories as a nation, information about the indigenous communities that live there, and applications of postcolonial theory onto these two countries. Understanding is mainly based through two novels, THE SECRET RIVER by Kate Grenville and THE WHALE RIDER by Witi Imaheara. The novels are examined through various aspects, including but not limited to gender, nature, and "The Other."

This course examines contemporary literary works, phenomena, and 'events'. Topics include Why do we read Literacy?, How to read Poetry, How to read a Novel?, what is poetic, Korean Literature as World Literature, Adventure and Survival Epic, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Literature in the Age of Climate Change, Disaster, Apocalypse, Dystopia, and Inside and Outside literature. 

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by permission of the instructor. Students selecting the Italian subject area must select the course readings in Italian. The course examines gender studies (theories and methodologies) in diverse cultural contexts with specific reference to the analyses of the notions of identity and otherness, difference, and diversity. The course favors the capability to deconstruct these notions in diverse texts (theoretical, literary, and visual). The course presents case studies in which texts (literary and visual) are in dialogue with theories and methodologies of gender and postcolonial studies. The texts elaborate on the issue of gender, identity, difference, race, and politics of the body in the representations, transmissions, and elaborations of traumatic events in literary and visual texts (with specific reference to utopian and dystopian fictions). Lessons make reference to memory and trauma studies, dystopia, and science fiction within a gender and postgender perspective. The course elaborates on debates on the intersectionality of gender(s) and race in theories, and visual and literary texts, and to analyze issues related to utopia/dystopia/science fiction within a postcolonial and posthuman perspective. The main theoretical issues discussed by the course include critical theories and methodologies of gender and women's studies and queer studies; re-reading of the notion of identity, difference, and diversity; gender as a social construction; women’s and postcolonial re-visions of the symbolic and social order; the construction of sexual difference as a deconstructive strategy; re-writings of the body; French Feminism(s) and African American and Postcolonial responses; postcolonial and African American critical debates on the representation and deconstruction of the notion of gender and race. New politics of identity and difference; intersectionality of race and gender(s); and the interconnection of gender, ethnicity, and race in trauma and memory studies.