Comparative Literature

This first year course explores the evolution of literature and the concepts of canon, tradition, and classic(s) through a broad textual analysis of representative and influential texts. It examines major texts and authors considered to have shaped intellectual history and literary criticism from their origins to the nineteenth century. Topics covered include: foundations of Western literary tradition (Homer and the Bible); tragedy; the epic and the evolution of the narrative genre (the novel and the short story); lyric poetry.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by permission of the instructor. The student acquires historical and literary knowledge of women's popular culture with specific reference to travel literature and critical utopias, within a gender perspective. The course analyzes the strategies of representation of female identity, women's social role and agency in women's travel accounts such as letters, diaries and novels, from the 18th century to the present. It also investigates the double diversity of women travelers as different both from male travelers and from more socially conformist women. The course also explores to what extent these texts subvert or reinforce the position of women within the patriarchal social order and in the domestic sphere. For this reason, the texts chosen for the course are examined within their original cultural and social contexts, and in their interconnection with class, race, and gender discrimination.

This course interrogates the historical, social, cultural, material, and economic parameters that have come to shape the canon. Beginning with a theoretical overview of the constructions of the canon, the course follows a broadly historical chronology, and considers established definitions of the canon, as well as key debates and excerpts from key texts which counter these definitions.

A topic-based survey class of American Literature, this course focuses on understanding and analyzing the main changes and important aspects of American culture, society, politics, and history by exposing students to the works of various kinds of American literature authors. Class readings include not only prose writings but also letters, diaries and several official documents written by American influential writers from the 15th century to the 19th century. From time to time, the course will also analyze rare photographs, musical CDs, and films. Students are expected to be interested in basics of modern literary theory which are widely associated in American literary studies. As we challenge the process of creating the notions such as “America,” “American History/Literature,” “race,” “class,” and “borders,” our readings will sometimes go beyond narrowly-defined “American” texts. Through these readings and analyses, students will learn various cultural aspects to approach social issues seen in American society, past and present. This course is conducted in a mixed style of lecture/seminar, and research works at the main library; therefore, participants will be assigned to make presentations, discussion, research and other activities. In the library survey sessions, students are expected to write and submit 2-3 page long paper each time during the class hours. 

This course explores representations of adolescence from the early 20th through to the early 21st century in literature, film, and popular culture. Students read texts that range across history, psychology, and writings about juvenile delinquency, but the focus is on reading novels, short stories, films, and graphic novels that represent the paradoxes of adolescence from the turn of the 20th century. This may include such works as: Back to the Future, Ghost World, Spring Breakers, The Hate U Give, and more. The course looks at the ways in which the adolescent morphs into the teenage consumer in the 1950s in novels such as Colin MacInnes’s Absolute Beginners. The course considers the adolescent as a site of cultural fantasy and cultural fears in relation to class, race, gender, and sexuality and the adolescent’s relationship to radical politics, subculture, suburbia, and nostalgia. On this experiential course, students explore how Brighton has been central for pushing boundaries and creating new waves in the medium of literature and film. Students also develop a deeper understanding of the construction of the categories of the adolescent and the teenagers in literature, film, and theory. This course may include a field trip to Brighton, following the trail of cult movie Quadrophenia.

This comparative literature course studies literatures of migration. It focuses on two books from different countries that have been translated into French and utilizes the French methodology for textual analysis.