Comparative Literature (Bi-Co)
Department Website:
https://www.haverford.edu/comparative-literature
Comparative Literature is a joint Bryn Mawr and Haverford program that draws on the diverse teaching and research interests of the faculty at the two colleges, especially but not exclusively those in our many departments of language and literature.
The study of Comparative Literature situates literature in an international perspective; examines transnational cultural connections through literary history, literary criticism, critical theory, and poetics; and works toward a nuanced understanding of the socio-cultural functions of literature. The close reading of literary texts and other works from different cultures and periods is fundamental to our enterprise.
Interpretive methods from other disciplines that interrogate cultural discourses also play a role in the comparative study of literature; among these are anthropology, philosophy, religion, history, music, the history of art, visual studies, film studies, gender studies, and area studies (including Africana studies, Latin American and Iberian studies, and East Asian studies).
Our students have gone on to do graduate work in comparative literature and related fields; pursued advanced degrees in business, law, medicine, and journalism; and undertaken careers in translation, publishing, international business, diplomacy, and non-governmental organizations.
Learning Goals
- Students should attain advanced skills in a language other than English and show the capacity to analyze and interpret literary and cultural texts in the original language.
- Students should attain advanced skills in the interpretation or translation of the literary texts of two distinct national cultures, in the comparative analysis of these texts across national and/or linguistic boundaries, and in addressing, considering, evaluating, and applying specific methodological or theoretical paradigms.
- Students should make use of these skills in the senior thesis and oral exam, which should also demonstrate the capacity to:
- evaluate and discuss the merits of a critical or methodological approach.
- complete an independent scholarly project.
- bring together and analyze critically, in light of certain central issues and themes, a selection of works of literature and criticism read over the four years.
Haverford’s Institutional Learning Goals are available on the President’s website, at http://hav.to/learninggoals.
Curriculum
The resources at Bryn Mawr and Haverford permit the Comparative Literature program to offer an extensive variety of courses, including:
- literature courses in English and the other languages offered at the two Colleges (Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Latin, ancient Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic and Hebrew).
- crosslisted comparative electives taught in English.
- courses in criticism and theory.
Major
We require comparative literature students to have a reading knowledge of at least one language other than English, adequate to the advanced study of literature in that language. Some comparative literature courses may require reading knowledge in the language as a prerequisite for admission.
Students interested in pursuing a comparative literature major should discuss their preparation and program of courses with the comparative literature chair early in their first or second year at the College.
We recommend (but do not require) that:
- majors study abroad during one or two semesters of the junior year.
- students with a possible interest in graduate school begin a second foreign language before they graduate.
Major Requirements
- COML H200 or COML B200 (Introduction to Comparative Literature), normally taken by the spring of the sophomore year.
- Six advanced literature courses in the original languages (normally at the 200 level or above), balanced between two literature departments (of which English may be one): at least two (one in each literature) must be at the 300 level or above, or its equivalent, as approved in advance by the advisor.
- One course in critical theory, approved by advisor.
- COML H398 or COML B398 (Theories and Methods in Comparative Literature).
- COML H399 or COML B399 (Senior Seminar in Comparative Literature).
- Two additional courses identified as Comparative Literature (COML); these will be courses that move between two languages/literary traditions and/or two cultures.
Senior Project
Each senior major in comparative literature defines their thesis topic in consultation with the faculty members who teach the capstone seminars, COML 398 and COML 399. In the fall semester, as they near completion of COML 398, students produce a viable prospectus in the form of an essay with bibliography. During the spring semester, students enrolled in the Senior Seminar (COMLL 399) complete a senior thesis of 35-40 pages, under the joint guidance of one of the instructors in COML 399 and a faculty member with expertise in the topic of the thesis.
The thesis should build on languages, literary and cultural interests, and competencies cultivated in coursework at Bryn Mawr and Haverford or abroad, should be broadly comparative in nature, and should normally deal with works in both of the student’s major languages. Possible models include: a study of a critical issue as exemplified in authors or works from two different literary or linguistic traditions; an exploration of transnational issues in different media; a critical examination of a problem in literary or cultural theory or literary history; a critical examination of different translations of a literary work.
At the end of the spring semester, during the senior exams period, all seniors are required to participate in senior oral exams before a panel of three faculty examiners—the two thesis co-advisors plus a member of the Comparative Literature Steering Committee or other relevant faculty member. Students respond to questions about the senior thesis during the first half of the exam (approximately 20 minutes); during the second half (another 25 minutes or so) they answer questions about a list of texts and topics they have submitted in advance. (These texts, which may include films and works of art, are chosen by each student from primary and secondary sources that they have studied in courses that count toward the major, with no more than two texts from a single class.)
To get a sense of the kinds of projects our majors elect to pursue, please visit the Senior Thesis archive linked on our homepage.
Senior Project Learning Goals
In the process of writing the senior thesis and preparing for the oral exam, students should develop and demonstrate the capacity to:
- Complete an independent scholarly project in the form of a senior thesis (35-40 pages) that has a logical and clear overall structure and that expresses complex ideas and argues these convincingly, with clarity and precision.
- Familiarize themselves with their chosen texts in the original languages and offer interpretations grounded in close reading of these texts.
- Evaluate and discuss the merits of a critical or methodological approach, identify relevant and generative theoretical frameworks, understand the tradition from which they derive, and competently incorporate them in the service of a critical question.
- Critique and evaluate scholarship relevant to their own scholarly project.
- Comment on or critique the research projects of fellow senior seminar participants.
- Bring together and analyze critically, in light of certain central issues and themes, a selection of works of literature and criticism read over the past four years.
- Make responsible use of both primary and secondary sources.
- Make effective use of library resources, including subject-specific databases and indices online and in print
Senior Project Assessment
Faculty in the Comparative Literature Steering Committee (CLSC) evaluate the viability of the thesis prospectus, submitted in COML 398. Student performance evaluations in all the assessment categories mentioned below inform the final grades awarded in COML 399 as well as the awarding of honors in the major and of the departmental prize for the most accomplished senior essay. The examiners are drawn from faculty members teaching COML 399, members of the CLSC, and other colleagues in other relevant disciplines. Examiners (three per student) participate in the required senior oral examination and make the final evaluations of the second semester senior capstone experience. Separate grades are given for the senior essay, seminar performance, and oral exam; the final grade in COML 399 reflects the totality of the senior experience in all categories stated, with the most important element being the senior thesis.
The thesis is evaluated on the following criteria:
- Conceptualization of an original research question
- Familiarity with and well-grounded interpretation of primary texts in the original languages.
- Engagement with chosen theoretical framework or frameworks and with relevant secondary literature.
- Successful revision in response to criticism.
- Crafting of a clearly structured and clearly expressed argument.
Requirements for Honors
Students who, in the judgment of the Comparative Literature Steering Committee, have done distinguished work in their comparative literature courses and in the Senior Seminar will be considered for departmental honors.
Minor Requirements
Requirements for the minor are COML 200 and COML 398, plus four additional courses—two each in the literature of two languages. At least one of these four courses must be at the 300 level. Students who minor in comparative literature are encouraged to choose their national literature courses from those with a comparative component.
NOTE: Both majors and minors should work closely with the co-chairs of the program and with members of the steering committee in shaping their programs.
Faculty
Two co-chairs, one at each college, and a Bi-College steering committee administer the program. The committee generally includes those faculty members most often involved in teaching the introductory course and the senior seminar.
Many other faculty at both institutions contribute courses to the program; see the Courses section for more information.
Steering Committee Members at Haverford
Imke Brust
Associate Professor and Chair of German
Israel Burshatin
Professor Emeritus of Spanish and Comparative Literature
Roberto Castillo Sandoval
Professor of Spanish
Maud McInerney
The Laurie Ann Levin Professor of Comparative Literature; Professor of English; Chair of Comparative Literature
J. Reid Miller
Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy
Deborah Roberts
Professor Emerita of Classics and Comparative Literature
Luis Rodriguez-Rincon
Assistant Professor of Spanish
Ulrich Schönherr
Professor Emeritus of German and German Studies
David Sedley
Professor of French and Francophone Studies
Steering Committee Members at Bryn Mawr
Edwige Crucifix
Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies
Radcliffe Edmonds
Paul Shorey Professor of Greek and Professor of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies
Martín Gaspar
Associate Professor and Chair of Spanish and Co-Director of Latin American, Iberian, and Latina/o Studies
Shiamin Kwa
Co-Chair and Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Co-Director of Comparative Literature
Rudy Le Menthéour
Associate Professor and Chair of French and Francophone Studies and Co-Director of Health Studies
María Cristina Quintero
Fairbank Professor in the Humanities
Roberta Ricci
Professor and Chair of Italian on the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Chair in the Humanities
Quinna Shen
Associate Professor and Chair of German
Jamie K. Taylor
Mary E. Garret Alumnae Professor and Chair of Literatures in English
José Vergara
Assistant Professor of Russian on the Myra T. Cooley Lectureship in Russian Studies
Courses at Haverford
COML H111 INTRODUCTION TO POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE (1.0 Credit)
Rajeswari Mohan
Division: Humanities
An introductory survey of English literature from regions that used to be part of the British Empire, focusing on topics such as the representation of first contact, the influence of western education and the English language, the effects of colonial violence, displacement, migration, and exile. Also considered will be the specific aesthetic strategies that have come to be associated with this body of literature.
COML H120 THE EPIC IN ENGLISH (1.0 Credit)
Maud McInerney
Division: Humanities
An exploration of the long, narrative poems that shape the epic tradition in Anglophone literature from Ancient Greece to Medieval England to Africa and the Caribbean. Crosslisted: English, Comparative Literature
(Offered: Spring 2024)
COML H142 INTRODUCTION TO VISUAL STUDIES (1.0 Credit)
John Muse
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An introduction to the trans-disciplinary field of Visual Studies, its methods of analysis and topical concerns. Traditional media and artifacts of art history and film theory, and also an examination of the ubiquity of images of all kinds, their systems of transmission, their points of consumption, and the very limits of visuality itself. Crosslisted: Visual Studies, Fine Arts, Comparative Literature
(Offered: Fall 2023)
COML H200 INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE LITERATURE (1.0 Credit)
Maud McInerney
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
A general introduction to the evolving field of comparative literature. Students read, discuss, and write about texts from across a wide range of national literatures and historical periods, with attention both to how these texts influence and relate to each other and to where and why they must differ. An additional focus on theoretical issues relevant to reading in general and, more particularly, reading between canons.
COML H203 WRITING THE JEWISH TRAJECTORIES IN LATIN AMERICA (1.0 Credit)
Ariana Huberman
Division: Humanities
The course proposes the study of Latin American Jewish literature focusing on narrative, essay, and poetry of the Twentieth and Twenty-First centuries. It pays close attention to themes, registers, and cultural contexts relevant to the Jewish experience in Latin America. What is Jewish about this literature? Where do these texts cross paths, or not, with other migratory and minority experiences? The texts studied question identity and Otherness, and explore constructions of memory while examining issues of gender, assimilation, transculturation, migration, and exile in relation to the Jewish Diaspora in the Americas. This course is conducted in Spanish. Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): SPAN 102, placement, or instructor consent
COML H205 LEGENDS OF ARTHUR (1.0 Credit)
Maud McInerney
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An exploration of the Arthurian legend, from its earliest versions to most recent retellings. The tradition of Arthurian tales is complex and various, combining Celtic and Christian mythologies. Sometimes called the "matter of Britain" the Arthurian narrative has been critical in establishing national and ethnic identities ever since the Middle Ages. Medival notions of chivalry and courtly love also raise fascinating questions about the conflict between personal and private morality, and about the construction of both identity and gender.
COML H210 SPANISH AND SPANISH AMERICAN FILM STUDIES (1.0 Credit)
Division: Humanities
Exploration of Latin American film. The course will discuss approximately one movie per week. The class will focus on the analysis of cinematic discourses as well as the films’ cultural and historic background. The course will also provide advanced language training with particular emphasis in refining oral and writing skills. This course is conducted in Spanish. Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 102, or placement, or instructor consent.
COML H212 REFASHIONING THE CLASSICS: VOICING MYTH (1.0 Credit)
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course interrogates the relationships between classical myths and their revoicings. We explore various strands of reception theory in order to discuss the dynamics between different versions of myths, placing emphasis on myths that take voice as a central theme. Crosslisted: Classical Studies, Comparative Literature
COML H214 WRITING THE NATION: 19TH-CENTURY LITERATURE IN LATIN AMERICA (1.0 Credit)
Ariana Huberman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An examination of seminal literary texts written in Latin America in the nineteenth century. Novels, essays, travelogues, short stories, miscellaneous texts, and poetry will be analyzed and placed in the context of the process of nation-building that took place after Independence from Spain. A goal of the course will be to establish and define the nexus between the textual and ideological formations of 19th-century writings in Latin America and their counterparts in the 20th-century. The course fulfills the “pre-1898” requirement. This course is conducted in Spanish. Cross-listed: Spanish, Comparative Literature. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 102, placement, or instructor consent.
(Offered: Spring 2024)
COML H220 MEDIEVAL MUSIC: WOMEN, AND PERFORMANCE (1.0 Credit)
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Course explores music and its cultural uses in Medieval Europe. We will study the main genres and forms of music in secular and sacred contexts, from monasteries, convents, and cathedrals, to courts and cities. We will trace the changing character of music itself, from plainsong to polyphonic and from troubadour tunes to art song of the 14th century, in works by figures like Hildegard, Leonin, Machaut, Landini, and Vitry. We will study transformations in musical notation, theoretical underpinnings of musical time and counterpoint, and the status of music itself in the divine cosmos. We will also pause to put all of this in the context of current scholarship and historical performance practice. Prerequisite(s): Any full-credit course in Music, or instructor consent.
COML H222 RETHINKING LATIN AMERICA IN CONTEMPORARY NARRATIVE (1.0 Credit)
Aurelia Gómez De Unamuno
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course explores literary texts and films produced after the 70s that address political issues related to marginal subjects that previously were not visible . The course is organized around different agendas such as “indigenismo”, ethnic politics and indigenous movements, post-coloniality, subalternity, sexual diversity, migration and the border, drug trafficking, and gender violence. This course is conducted in Spanish. Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 102, placement, or instructor consent
COML H231 CARIBE QUEER: SEXUALITIES AND NARRATIVES FROM THE HISPANIC CARIBBEAN (1.0 Credit)
Lina Martinez Hernandez
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
The course will look at different narrative and artistic productions regarding alternative sexualities in the Hispanic Caribbean. We will take as a point of departure the Cuban revolution and move to the present. Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): SPAN 102
COML H244 OUR AMERICAS: IMAGINING THE HEMISPHERE (1.0 Credit)
Dennis Hogan
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course focuses on theorists of culture and society across the Americas, as well as major genres of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature, considering interventions from Caribbean, Latin American, and North American figures. Reading novels, memoir, travel writing and poetry, we’ll theorize the structures of hemispheric life: how did race and the color line, slavery and the plantation, settler colonialism, labor and migration, travel and transit, and war and imperialism create a shared hemispheric history? Crosslisted: PEAC,COML Pre-requisite(s): One course involving literary analysis.
(Offered: Fall 2023)
COML H245 PERFORMANCE, LITERATURE AND THE ARCHIVE (1.0 Credit)
Lindsay Reckson
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
The ‘archive,’ as both an institutional and performance practice and a theoretical concept, has been one of the most studied sites in performance and literary studies. The hegemonic, patriarchal institution of the archive that constructs and perpetuates the canon and the master narratives of history while, marginalizing, silencing, and erasing the subaltern and the subcultural has been contested by the poststructuralist philosophers and critical theorists of the late 20 th and early 21 st century. A new concept of the archive transpired in the interdisciplinary fields of postcolonial, gender, cultural, and performance studies, one that is more utopian and more inclusive and is not limited by dominant repressive power structures and ideologies. This archive does not merely revisit the past to excavate the eradicated traces and silenced voices, but also, perhaps more importantly, opens the potential for a formerly unimaginable, and yet-to-be-imagined future.
(Offered: Fall 2023)
COML H250 WORDS AND MUSIC (1.0 Credit)
Richard Freedman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course will be devoted to the amazing vocal music of the European Renaissance, exploring the ways in which literary and musical modes of interpretation repeatedly informed each other during this period. How do literary readings of texts differ from musical ones? How did Renaissance musicians bring their own habits as readers to musical and verbal texts they sang and played? Our primary texts will be the works themselves: French chansons, Italian madrigals, Latin motets, and solo songs of the fifteenth through early seventeenth centuries. We will study poetry by Petrarch, Tasso, Christine de Pizan, Ronsard as interpreted by composers like Guillaume Dufay, Josquin Desprez, Cipriano de Rore, Orlandus Lassus, Luca Marenzio, Claudio Monteverdi (and plenty of others, too). Our discussions will be both historical (exploring the values and artistic ideals at work in the European Renaissance) and critical (investigating the ways of knowing or relating words and music).
COML H253 HISPANIC CARIBBEAN MIGRATION TALES (1.0 Credit)
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Students will learn about different Hispanic Caribbean migratory experiences through a selection of short stories, novels, memoirs, and essays, as well as in film, and performative production. The tales featured in this course will consider how gender and sexuality shape migration experiences. The texts that will be analyzed are mostly originally written in Spanish. Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): SPAN H102 or 200-300 level in the placement test
(Offered: Spring 2024)
COML H254 MATTERS OF TASTE: FRANCE AND ITS CULINARY CULTURE (1.0 Credit)
Kathryne Corbin
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
In 2010, “the gastronomic meal of the French” was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, with particular mention to “togetherness, the pleasure of taste, and the balance between human beings and the products of nature.” In addition, UNESCO noted the importance in choosing the right dish or recipe, how products are procured, which flavors marry well, the art of the table setting, and the specific structure of the meal. Why is “food” so central to French culture? Culinary culture is constructed from a rich fabric of narratives that sustain its very practice. What are those stories and how are they shared? In this course, we will explore the discourse, indeed the language, that led to the emergence of French cuisine and the rise of gastronomy in the nineteenth century. (We will even consider why the French don’t like doggie bags… anymore.) Materials for consideration include literature, cookbooks, menus, film, television, sociological and historical text, as well as topics of contemporary political and social debate. Crosslisted: COML. Pre-requisite(s): First-year writing course
(Offered: Fall 2023)
COML H262 EUROPEAN FILM (1.0 Credit)
Imke Brust
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course will explore what role film plays in the conceptualization of the European Union. After a brief historical overview, we will familiarize ourselves with a variety of important European film movements after 1945. Our class discussion will cover important European film movements such as German Expressionist Film, Italian Neorealism, French New Wave, Czech New Wave, New German Cinema, and Dogma 95. In addition, we will be watching films from Poland, the Netherlands, and the Balkans. Towards the end of the semester we will discuss how the accelerated integration of the European Union since the 1990s has affected film production within the European Union and what aesthetic, and political ideas shape contemporary European films. Furthermore, this class also aims to highlight transnational aspects of European film in particular in light of the recent European refugee crisis. This course is taught in English with an extra-session in German. (Taught in English with an extra session in German.) Crosslisted: Coparative Literature, German
(Offered: Fall 2023)
COML H267 GLOBAL SF SINCE 1945 (1.0 Credit)
Maud McInerney
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
SF—science fiction, speculative fiction—is the primary allegorical mode of the contemporary world and permits reflections upon and critiques of the world we inhabit today. This course explores the explosion of the genre in the decades since the WWII and the advent of atomic weapons. We will read classics of post-apocalyptic fiction from the ‘50s and ‘60s before turning to stories that engage queer identities, Afrofuturism and African Futurism, and the global threat of climate change. Crosslisted: ENGL. Pre-requisite(s): None Lottery Preference: Reserve 10 spaces for First Year Students
COML H274 THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: ANCIENT ANSWERS TO A DIFFICULT QUESTION (1.0 Credit)
Charles Kuper
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
What is evil, and where does it come from? The difficulty of answering these questions is only matched by their importance to our lived human experience. Together we will study a wide range of texts from Archaic Greece through the early Middle Ages, and throughout the course, students will be encouraged to consider and reconsider their own understanding of these urgent issues. No previous experience in Classics or the ancient world is required. Crosslisted: COML,RELG. Pre-requisite(s): None Lottery Preference: Ten slots reserved for first years, preference to Classics majors and minors
COML H301 TOPICS IN MIDDLE ENGLISH: RACING ROMANCE, BLACK KNIGHTS AND WHITE CANNIBALS (1.0 Credit)
Maud McInerney
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This seminar will explore the ways race is imagined in the Middle Ages via texts from the Song of Roland to the Travels of Ibn Battuta. Crosslisted: ENGL/COML. Crosslisted: English, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): Prereqs: 2 courses at the 200 level in English or Comparative Literature or instructor consent.
(Offered: Spring 2024)
COML H312 ADV TOPICS FRENCH LITERATURE: L''AMÉRIQUE' VUE DU MONDE FRANCOPHONE: ENTRE ADMIRATION ET MÉPRIS (1.0 Credit)
Koffi Anyinefa
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Georges Duhamel, one of the authors on the program, called the United States of America “Outre-Occident”. Obviously, the term is semantically loaded and connotes above all a certain exoticism, a difference. In this course, we will study and interrogate representations of “America” by French-speaking authors: what are the dominant features of these depictions? What are the ideas that underpin them? The tradition of portraying “America” is an old and very rich one, at least since the publication of On Democracy in America, de Tocqueville's famous study. Consequently, we will limit ourselves mostly to authors of the 20th and 21st centuries: Baudrillard, Beauvoir, Dalembert, Duhamel, Godbout, Hergé, Labro and Sartre. Crosslisted: FREN and COML
(Offered: Fall 2023)
COML H312B ADV TOPICS FRENCH LIT: JUGEMENTS ET PRÉJUGÉS DES ESSAIS DE MONTAIGNE (1.0 Credit)
David Sedley
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course is about Michel de Montaigne, whose fame in French is comparable to Shakespeare's in English. In any language, Montaigne is the inventor of an intellectual exercise typically assigned to college students: the essay. Montaigne wrote the very first book of "essays" as experiments in judging. He did so in order to improve the quality of his own—and his readers'—judgments. In conducting these experiments, however, he discovered cognitive, emotional, and cultural reflexes—in other words, prejudices—that preceded judgment and skewed its outcomes. In this course, we will follow the struggle between judgment and prejudice staged in Montaigne's Essais. We will thereby gain perspective on the values of essay-writing in the context of an education charged with the task of decolonizing the mind. In French. Crosslisted: FREN and COML Prerequisite(s): At least one 200-level course
(Offered: Spring 2024)
COML H318 THE WESTERN DRAMATIC TRADITION (1.0 Credit)
Kimberly Benston
Division: Humanities
An investigation of Western drama through close study of major representative plays from Aeschylus and Sophocles to Beckett and Shange. Differing notions of the dramatic event, from classical to modern and "post-modern" theaters, will be examined in relation to evolving ideas of character, consciousness, destiny, social structure, linguistic power, and theatricality itself. Emphasis placed on both thematic and structural problems of "play" and on the relation of the text to consequences of performance (e.g., acting, stagecraft, and audience response). Prerequisite: 1 course in English, Comparative Literature, or Theater Studies..
(Offered: Fall 2023)
COML H321 TOPICS GERM LIT: 1919 - 2019 (1.0 Credit)
Imke Brust
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Crosslisted: German, Comparative Literature
(Offered: Spring 2024)
COML H322 POLITICS OF MEMORY IN LATIN AMERICA (1.0 Credit)
Aurelia Gómez De Unamuno
Division: Humanities
This course explores the issue of memory, the narration of political violence and the tension between truth and fiction. A selection of documents, visual archives and documentary films are compared with literary genres including testimonies memories, diaries, poetry, and fiction writing. This course also compares the coup and dictatorship of Pinochet with the repression of the student movement of ‘68 and the guerrilla warfare in Mexico. This course is conducted in Spanish. Cross-listed: Spanish, Comparative Literature, PJHR
(Offered: Spring 2024)
COML H327 TRAVEL NARRATIVES IN LATIN AMERICA (1.0 Credit)
Ariana Huberman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course examines the ideas and impact of European Travel writers in Latin America and the Caribbean. We will discuss the imprint travel writers have left on the literature of Latin America from the seventeenth century to the present. Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature
COML H336 HUMANIMALS IN SPANISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE FROM PREHISTORY TO THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD (1.0 Credit)
Luis Rodriguez-Rincon
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Humans are animals and yet most people consider animals to be something other than humans. This course sets out to understand from a specifically Iberian perspective how humans have come to define themselves in relation to animals and vice versa how animals have come to be defined in relation to humans. Readings in this course will approach animals as both living and literary figures with an emphasis on the medieval and early modern periods as well as key theories in Animal Studies. Crosslisted: COML. Pre-requisite(s): A 200 level-course; or permission of the instructor Lottery Preference: Spanish majors; Spanish minors; Comparative Literature majors; LAILS concentrators
COML H337 ANTHROPOLOGY OF WRITING AND THE POLITICS/POETICS OF INTERTEXTUALITY (1.0 Credit)
Zolani Ngwane
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
An interdisciplinary exploration of writing as a social institution, personal ritual, cultural artifact and a technology, this course theorizes the interface between tradition and innovation as a way to think about intertextuality using Jewish American fiction as a case study Crosslisted: COML
(Offered: Spring 2024)
COML H377 PROBLEMS IN POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE: VIOLENCE, TERROR, AND IDENTITY (1.0 Credit)
Rajeswari Mohan
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
An examination of the rhetorical and narrative strategies adopted by postcolonial texts as they negotiate the aesthetic challenges and political complexities of representing violence and terror. Working with fiction, nonfiction, and film, the course will measure the different effects of realism, magical realism, surrealism, and the grotesque as modes of representing the dialectic of violation and violence. Crosslisted: English, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): Two 200-level English courses or instructor consent
COML H389 INTERPRETING LYRIC POETRY: LOVE, LOSS, TRANSCENDENCE (1.0 Credit)
Kimberly Benston
Division: Humanities
An examination of theoretical issues and presentational strategies in verse structures from Ovid to Bishop. Through close readings of strategically grouped texts, we explore the interplay of convention and innovation, attending to themes of desire, loss, and transcendence, and to recurrent lyric figures (e.g., in Narcissus, Orphic, and Ulysses poems; in the dramatic monologue; in the sonnet and elegy; in the sublime; in vernacular traditions and their literary revisions). Issues for study include: allusion and intertextuality; convention and cliché; invention and revision; origination and self-presentation. Practical criticism will lead to theoretical analyses of interpretive modes and the interpreter’s stance. Crosslisted: English, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): Two 200-level English courses or instructor consent
COML H398 THEORIES AND METHODS IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE (1.0 Credit)
Imke Brust
Division: Humanities
This course is both a seminar on theory and method and a workshop on the deveopment of the senior thesis. It introduces students to a variety of critical approaches and their application, and assists them in developing conceptual frameworks for the senior thesis projects they are in the process of formulating. Prerequisite(s): Open to comparative literature senior majors and minors
COML H399 SENIOR SEMINAR (1.0 Credit)
Maud McInerney
Division: Humanities
Oral and written presentations of work in progress, culminating in a senior thesis and comprehensive oral examination. Prerequisite(s): students must be senior majors in Comparative Literature
(Offered: Spring 2024)
Courses at Bryn Mawr
COML B200 INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE LITERATURE (1.0 Credit)
Jose Vergara
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course explores a variety of approaches to the comparative or transnational study of literature through readings of several kinds: texts from different cultural traditions that raise questions about the nature and function of storytelling and literature; texts that comment on, respond to, and rewrite other texts from different historical periods and nations; translations; and readings in critical theory.
(Offered: Spring 2024)
FREN B312 ADVANCED TOPICS IN LITERATURE (1.0 Credit)
Edwige Crucifix
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisites: two 200-level courses.
FREN B326 ETUDES AVANCÉES (1.0 Credit)
Camille Leclère-Gregory
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An in-depth study of a particular topic, event or historical figure in French civilization. This is a topics course. Course content varies.
(Offered: Spring 2024)
HART B235 CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: IDENTIFICATION IN THE CINEMA (1.0 Credit)
Matthew Feliz
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course is writing intensive. An introduction to the analysis of film and other lensed, time-based media through particular attention to the role of the spectator. Why do moving images compel our fascination? How exactly do spectators relate to the people, objects, and places that appear on the screen? Wherein lies the power of images to move, attract, repel, persuade, or transform their viewers? Students will be introduced to film theory through the rich and complex topic of identification. We will explore how points of view are framed by the camera in still photography, film, television, video games, and other media. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art and Film Studies. Fulfills Film Studies Introductory or Theory course requirement. This course was formerly numbered HART B110; students who previously completed HART B110 may not repeat this course.
(Offered: Spring 2024)
ITAL B213 THEORY IN PRACTICE:CRITICAL DISCOURSES IN THE HUMANITIES (1.0 Credit)
Daria Bozzato
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
What is a postcolonial subject, a queer gaze, a feminist manifesto? And how can we use (as readers of texts, art, and films) contemporary studies on animals and cyborgs, object oriented ontology, zombies, storyworlds, neuroaesthetics? In this course we will read some pivotal theoretical texts from different fields, with a focus on raceðnicity and gender&sexuality. Each theory will be paired with a masterpiece from Italian culture (from Renaissance treatises and paintings to stories written under fascism and postwar movies). We will discuss how to apply theory to the practice of interpretation and of academic writing, and how theoretical ideas shaped what we are reading. Class conducted in English, with an additional hour in Italian for students seeking Italian credit.
(Offered: Fall 2023)