Using as its point of departure Italo Calvino’s essay Cybernetics and Ghosts, the course explores combinatorial and computational approaches to creative practice in the context of Surrealism, Oulipo, and the Programmed Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
The central focus will be on Calvino’s own experiments from The Castle of Crossed Destinies (1969) to Invisible Cities (1972), but readings will also include selections from the Italian Structuralist canon like Umberto Eco’s The Absent Structure (1968) and from proximate authors such as Gianni Rodari and Bruno Munari.
Founded as a graduate program in 1904 and joining with the undergraduate Literature Concentration in 2007, Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature operates at the crossroads of multilingualism, literary study, and media history.
© 2023 President and Fellows of Harvard College
Sign up to receive news and information about upcoming events, exhibitions, and more
