COMPARATIVE LITERARY STUDIES PROGRAM

Winter 2026 Course Schedule

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*The course schedule is subject to change. Please check CAESAR for all up to date course information, including day/times, course descriptions, and mode of instruction.

Winter 2026 course descriptions

Please check CAESAR for full course descriptions, including required texts and modes of instruction.

Winter 2026

Comp_Lit 108-2-20 First Year Writing Seminar: Islands in Translation: Rendering the Caribbean in Word and Image
We have all heard the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but could we also say that a word is worth a thousand pictures? Since the turn of the 20th century, many Caribbean artists and writers have investigated this complicated relationship between language and images, oftentimes even pushing so far as to ask how the circulation of slogans, newspaper photos, archival images, and artworks enters the realm of the political. For centuries, the Caribbean has been at the center of the movement of goods, people, and ideas in the Americas, and its cultural expression, in turn, has reflected this fluctuation. Thus, we might ask: what changes occurred in the 20th century that prompted writers and artists to start playing with/manipulating/redirecting images and text, and what can they teach us about our own moment today? By considering the work of artists and writers such as Aimé Césaire (Martinique), Severo Sarduy (Cuba), Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados), and Coco Fusco (U.S./Cuba) in relation to their historical context–revolutions! the “avant garde”! sovereignty! dreams!–we will investigate the similarities and differences that arise from “reading” pictures and words. You will then use your own words to articulate a position on some of these problems, incorporating research, formal analyses, and class discussions.

The course will be taught and all readings will be made available in English, but primary texts will also be provided in their respective English, French, and/or Spanish versions for anyone interested.

Comp_Lit 202-0-1 Interpreting Culture: Dr Zhivago Text and Context
Course description forthcoming.

Comp_Lit 207-0-20 Introduction to Critical Theory
Course description forthcoming.

Comp_Lit 301-0-20 Studies in World Literature: African Lit. And Cultures
Course description forthcoming.

Comp_Lit 312-0-20 Major Authors and Texts: Naples and Elena Ferrante
Course description forthcoming.

Comp_Lit 411-0-20 Critical Practices: Translation in Theory and Practice
This course seeks to bridge theoretical inquiry and methodological insight with practical problem-solving and collaborative workshopping. We will approach both the theoretical and practical materials of this course with a recognition of the ways in which translations – as products and processes – are central in our scholarly and creative lives. We read in translation, we teach translations, we translate. Many of you will navigate careers in an academy in which there are few established norms for the recognition and reward of translation as scholarly achievement; what kind of awareness and evaluative rigor can we cultivate to change these norms? How does the theory and practice of translation intersect with empire, nation, gender, sexuality, race, and caste in the production, circulation, and reception of literature? Throughout this seminar we will shuttle between big interpretive questions and small strategic ones and attempt to bring abstract thought to bear on pragmatic decisions. Throughout we will foreground our own positionalities vis-à-vis the materials and the authors with whom we enter into collaborative relationships as readers, teachers, and translators.

Comp_Lit 487-0-1 Studies in Literature and the Arts: Modernist Tragedy
Course description forthcoming.

Comp_Lit 487-0-20 Studies in Literature and the Arts: Holocaust Writing
Course description forthcoming.

Comp_Lit 487-0-30 Studies in Literature and the Arts: Palestinian Cinema
For over a century, Palestinian film and media have made significant contributions to visual history. Since the inception of cinema in the late nineteenth century, Palestine has always been on screen, in the periphery. Palestinians cannot be erased, ignored, or discredited in the history of cinema. How does centering Palestine in film and media studies reconfigure cinematic history? How have Palestinian film and media responded to the trauma of displacement across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries?

This course offers an historiographic account of Palestinian film and media in relation to Indigeneity, settler colonial occupation, right to return, genocide, diaspora, and survival and resilience. By contextualizing the cultural, political, and social conditions that have shaped Palestinian film and media for more than one hundred years, this course draws attention to production, circulation, and exhibition practices within the theatrical and nontheatrical realms.

In addition, the course interrogates the category of “national” cinema. This query includes studying film and media made in all parts of occupied Palestine; transnational productions; filmmakers of the diaspora; and films made in the Global South as a gesture of solidarity and support for the Palestinian cause. In addition, we will connect our study to race and ethnic studies in the U.S. (Latinx, Indigenous, Black, Asian, and Arab).

Prominent scholars and reputable human rights organizations explain that the ongoing genocide in Palestine is perhaps one of the most documented forms of violence. This is due in part to the proliferation of media technologies, such as cellphones. Ultimately, the course offers students the methods to chart Palestinian film and media history and its future.

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