This course is reserved to Comp Lit Concentrators or Secondary Field Students.

If you’re taking this course, it means Comparative Literature is your concentration or your secondary field. Welcome to the discipline! But what does it mean to be a comparatist? This spring, we will wander together through the different paths Comparative Literature offers.

This is a course on history and methods. We will trace how the understanding of what it means to compare has changed through time and space. We will examine the sociopolitical roots of the discipline and think together with the intellectuals who shaped its different stages. To tell the stories of the discipline is, of course, also to inquire into its methods. We will experiment with different analytical modes, and see how they allow us to interact with literary texts. And we will explore theoretical and critical possibilities of both grounding and expanding our readings.