Course Catalog

Examines the legacy of the Golden Age in Spain: popular ballad, love lyric picaresque novel, mystic poetry, psychological tale, classical drama, and moral satire. Readings include La Celestina, Garcilaso de la Vega, Lazarillo de Tormes, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderon, and Quevedo, concentrating on their sources and influence across Europe. Written work accepted in English or Spanish.

Fulfills the Renaissance period requirement for the major in Comparative Literature. Original language option.

Traces modern continental and Latin American literature from the Molieresque comedy of Moratin to the magical realism of Garcia Marquez. Readings include Spanish authors (fiction by Galdos, Unamuno, Cela, Goytisolo), Spanish-American writers (poetry of Neruda, Paz and tales by Borges, Rulfo), and one Brazilian writer (Clarice Lispector). Conducted in English. Written work accepted in English or Spanish.

Presents a panorama of pre-modern Italian poetry, prose, and drama within their European context. Readings include: early religious and erotic lyrics (Sicilians, Tuscans, and Stilnovists), Inferno (Dante), Rime (Petrarch), Decameron (Boccaccio), the fiction and drama of Machiavelli, the love sonnets of Michelangelo, the Socratic dialogues of Tasso, and the Utopian fiction of Campanella.

Fulfills the Renaissance period requirement for the major in Comparative Literature. Original language option.

Offers a sampling of modern and contemporary Italian masters beginning with early modern drama, prose, and poetry. Concentrates on selections from 20th-century poetry and short fiction, with an emphasis on Italian authors who wrote partly in France or in French (Goldoni, Casanova, Leopardi, Ungaretti) or were influenced by America and its literature (Moravia, Pavese, Calvino).

Engages with the canonical texts and counter-texts of French literature across its long span, from the Middle Ages to the present. French literature was the first vernacular literature to emerge on the European scene and until relatively recently it remained the most influential.

This panoramic overview of French literature is anchored in bilingual editions, inviting participants to interact closely with the French originals and their facing English translations (including The Song of Roland, François Villon, Voltaire’s Candide, a Beckett play). Depending on the individual student’s needs, supporting readings will be recommended in French or English. Written work may be submitted in either language. French is not a requirement, but the better the student’s level, the more he or she will benefit from the course.

Fulfills the Medieval period requirement for the major in Comparative Literature. Original language option.

This course essentially happens in the theatres of Paris, exploring the city’s fabulous resources, exchanging with practitioners and scholars from other institutions. We see ways of integrating music, dance and “physical theatre,” innovative explorations of classics from European and non-European traditions, avant-garde masters and the brightest young experimental troupes. We have theatre that directly questions political dilemmas, collective theatre and director-driven theatre, machine theatre and theatre based around great individual actors. Papers done in French or English. Course fee atttached.

Topics vary every semester.
Pre-requisite: FR 1200

Topics vary every semester.

Ce cours introduira les étudiants aux techniques et aux problématiques de la traduction littéraire par le cas particulier des traductions en anglais de romans contemporains écrits en français. La traduction sera discutée comme un transfert culturel : en observant comment des écrivains représentatifs (Houellebecq, Djebar, Gavalda…) ont été reçus aux USA, et en GB, et en faisant le commentaire de trois traductions récentes. L’essentiel du cours sera consacré à l’expérience collective et individuelle de la traduction d’un livre non encore traduit.

Looks at relations between language and visual form in the development of European modernism. Readings include works by Baudelaire, Pound, Joyce, Mallarmé, Woolf, Apollinaire, Lewis, Benjamin. Studies creative innovation as expression of utopian imagination, on a historical spectrum from Romantic synaesthesia, the interchange of sensory and cognitive pathways as desired transcendence, to the productive, open dislocations of modern capitalist society. Examines a wider cultural history of the integration of verbal and visual signs, and parallels in music, painting and theatre.