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Pre-Major Advising >  Courses and Courses of Study > 

Comparative Literature

Basic Structure of the Program

  • Comparative Literature is an honors major. Within the major there are three tracks:
    • The first track entails work in two foreign literatures.
    • The second track requires work in one foreign literature and a literature in English.
    • The third track involves work in a foreign literature and a non-literary discipline such as Film, Women and Gender Studies, History or other disciplines in the Social Sciences. In fact Comparative Literature offers courses on Literature and Science, Literature and Psychoanalysis, Literature and Politics, Literature and Music etc.

Fall courses for the interested first-year student

  • COLT 10: Ghostwriters and Artistic Haunts: The Aesthetics of Horror in Japanese and Western Fiction and Film (WRIT 5 or the equivalent is recommended)
  • COLT 33: Modern Drama (=THEA 18)
  • COLT 38: Struggle and Rebirth in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature (=HEBR 61, JWST 24.4)
  • COLT 49: From Hand to Mouth: Writing, Eating and the Construction of Gender (=WGST 53)
  • COLT 51: Masterpieces of Literature from Africa (=AAAS 51)
  • COLT 54: Middle Eastern Memoirs/Autobiographies and the Construction of Collective Memory: Arabs and Jews Narrate Life-Stories (=JWST 81)
  • COLT 64: The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Middle Eastern Literature and Film (=JWST 56)
  • COLT 66: What is Psychoanalysis?
  • COLT 67: Colonial and Postcolonial Masculinities (=AAAS 67, WGST 52.1)
  • COLT 72: What is Theory?

Winter courses for the interested first-year student

  • COLT 10: Latin America through Hollywood's Eyes (WRIT 5 or the equivalent is recommended)
  • COLT 21: Tristan and Isolt
  • COLT 39: Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall: Gendered Images in the Literary Fairy Tale (=WGST 51)
  • COLT 64: The Burden of the Nazi Past: World War, Genocide, Population Transfer, and Firebombing (=GERM 45, JWST 37.3)
  • COLT 67: Fictions of Sappho (=CLST 10, WGST 52.1)
  • COLT 73: A Tale of Two Cities: Cities as Narrative and the Narration of Objects

Spring courses for the interested first-year student

  • COLT 10: Narratives of Theft and Theft of Narratives (WRIT 5 or the equivalent is recommended)
  • COLT 18: Dance and Literature (no prerequisites, but students are encouraged to take a dance class at any level)
  • COLT 37: Gender and Islam in the North African Novel (=WGST 50.2)
  • COLT 39: The Global Detective
  • COLT 50: The Celtic Fringe
  • COLT 63: Shades of Noir: Film, Fiction, Politics
  • COLT 70(1): The Fashioning of Fashion: Theory and Practice
  • COLT 70(2): Midrash: How the Rabbis Interpreted the Bible (=HEBR 62, JWST 24.3)

Advice for the First-Year Student who plans on pursuing Comparative Literature

  • COLT 10: What is Comparative Literature? is the gateway and the prerequisite to the major. It is offered in fall, winter and spring terms. Topics vary by term.
  • It is recommended that a student complete or place out of WRIT 5 before enrolling in COLT 10.
  • Begin work on foreign language(s). Close reading and writing proficiency in at least one foreign language is essential for study in Comp Lit. major track A, and is recommended for those going on to graduate school.

Current Enrollments, Class Size, and Distributives

The ORC

The Comparative Literature Homepage

The Comparative Literature Undergraduate Major

Last Updated: 9/18/07