COM LIT Course Descriptions for 2026-2027

Fall 2026
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Fall Course Descriptions
CourseTitleInstructorDescription
COM LIT 210THE LONG COLONIALJOHNSON, A.The Long Colonial (Fall 2026)

Commenting her film Serpent Rain (co-produced with Arujuan Neimann) Denise Ferreira da Silva notes that ““The infrastructure of extraction in the present is part of an ongoing colonial infrastructure that has never changed.”  (1:21:31) This course aims first to return to some of the key texts of postcolonial studies (Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Dipesh Chakrabarty) which have seemingly fallen off the grid of contemporary discourse, to see if they still have something to tell us about what Ferreira da Silva calls ongoing colonial infrastructures. Second, we will explore the manifestation and logics of newer colonial formations, with a particular emphasis on thinkers from the Global South (including readings on settler colonialism, the cognitive plantation, necropolitics, extractivism and others). Following Ferreira da Silva’s clue and understanding such logics in terms of infrastructure takes us to an interrogation of what might have settled into impercipience, perceived simply as environment, the lineaments of an “engineered, configured, purposed world’ (The Invisible Committee): that is, what might no longer take on the explicit face of the colonial. What is gained (or lost) in articulating contemporary configurations of power with an older discourse grappling with previous formations of the colonial?
COM LIT 210ETHNIC STUDIESGAMBER, J.CL 210: Critical Race Studies

This course provides an investigation of central approaches and concepts animating the study of race, ethnicity, and Indigeneity, understanding these categories of difference as inseparable from other axes of social difference. We will apply interdisciplinary and intersectional frameworks to illuminate how these concepts have come to emerge and cohere within a number of familiar and less familiar socio-cultural and historical contexts. We will consider how racial and ethnic differentiation as processes have bolstered global labor regimes and imperial expansion projects; parsed, managed and regulated populations; governed sexed and gendered logics of subject and social formation and finally, opened and constrained axes of self-understanding, political organization and social belonging.
COM LIT 280APROFESSIONALIZATIONAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCEHARRIES, M.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCEGIANNOPOULOU, Z.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCETERADA, R.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCESCHWAB, G.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCERAHIMIEH, N.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCENEWMAN, J.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCEMOR, L.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCEJOHNSON, A.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCERADHAKRISHNAN, R.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCECARROLL, A.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCEAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGNEWMAN, J.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGRAHIMIEH, N.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGSCHWAB, G.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGTERADA, R.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGTHIONG'O, N.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGSTAFF
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGMOR, L.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGJOHNSON, A.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGGOLDBERG, D.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGGAMBER, J.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGFARBMAN, H.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGCARROLL, A.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGABBAS, A.
COM LIT 292TEACHING PRACTICUMJOHNSON, A.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHSTAFF
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHMALABOU, C.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHTHIONG'O, N.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHTERADA, R.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHSCHWAB, G.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHRAHIMIEH, N.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHNEWMAN, J.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHMOR, L.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHJOHNSON, A.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHABBAS, A.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHCARROLL, A.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHFARBMAN, H.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHGOLDBERG, D.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHJARRATT, S.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHRAHIMIEH, N.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHSCHWAB, G.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHTERADA, R.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHSTEINTRAGER, J.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHLONG, M.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHCOLMENARES GON, D.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHSTAFF
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHNEWMAN, J.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHMOR, L.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHJOHNSON, A.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHJARRATT, S.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHGOLDBERG, D.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHGAMBER, J.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHFARBMAN, H.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHCARROLL, A.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHABBAS, A.
COM LIT 399UNIVERSITY TEACHINGFARBMAN, H.