Introduction to Comparative LIterature: Theory Survey 2003

 COML 500B Introduction to Comparative Literature: Theory Survey (3 credits)

Daniel Scarfo (French, Hispanic & Italian)

Time and Place: W 14:00-16:00 TBA 

The goal of this seminar is to introduce students to some of the more influential theories and approaches practised in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. The course is primarily designed for those with little or no background in theory who need an initial survey to focus their interests. While it can neither offer a complete survey of literary study from antiquity onward nor hope to cover all the theories currently in use, students are encouraged to go beyond the material covered in class in individual assignments. A selection of literary texts will be part of the course.

SCHEDULE

Week Topic

Introduction to the course

Classical texts in literary criticism

Mikhail  Bakhtin. From Discourse in the Novel

           From Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics

Existentialism

Martin Heidegger. Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry

Jean-Paul Sartre. Why write?

Formalisms: Russian formalism, New Criticism (texts to be selected)

Structuralism and Deconstruction

Jacques Derrida. Text to be selected 

Paul de Man. Criticism and Crisis

Michel Foucault. What Is an Author? 

Roland Barthes. From Work to Text

Reader-Response Criticism. 

Middle Term multiple choice exam

Psychoanalytic Theory 

Felman, Shoshana. Writing and Madness, or Why this book?

Marxist Criticism

Walter Benjamin. Text to be selected

Theodor Adorno. Text to be selected

Feminist literary criticism, Gender Studies and Queer theory 

Multiple choice examination on selected terms from 

Cuddon, Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory

New Historicism and Cultural Studies

Edward W. Said. From the Introduction to Orientalism

Coetzee. The poets and the animals

Paper and selection of authors due (whichever option is selected) 

Marking Scheme

Paper: 50

Middle term multiple choice exam: 15

Second multiple choice exam: 15

Examination on literary terms: 10

Presentations: 10

Optional activity

The students will be invited to an optional peripatetic discussion on their written papers (if the weather helps). 

Reference Books

Cuddon, J. A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory

Richter, David. The Critical Tradition.

Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory. A Very Short Introduction.