Spring 2023

Comparative and World Literature 202 explores the relation between literature and ideas in the modern Western heritage.  All semester long, we read the texts of five seminal thinkers, theorists whose ideas and methodologies have greatly influenced both the practitioners and the interpreters of literature – especially comparative literary approaches.  The critics and philosophers whose writings we will examine and discuss this semester are:  Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Roland Barthes, Simone de Beauvoir, and Michel Foucault. 

In addition to writing one short paper and an in-class essay on an individual thinker and taking a midterm exam, each student will choose a major author from the modern literary tradition (Western or non-Western), working on them independently throughout the semester, reading their works and about the works, and consulting with me as needed (by email is fine).  The course project is to read this particular author in relation to one or more of the five thinkers studied in class.  This independent work will culminate in a 12-15 page term research paper, due at the end of classes.  There is no final examination.