COM LIT Course Descriptions for 2026-2027

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Fall Course Descriptions
CourseTitleInstructorDescription
COM LIT 9GLOBAL CALIFORNIACARROLL, A.
COM LIT 10COMICSSTAFF
COM LIT 60AWORLD LITERATURENEWMAN, J.CL60A: WORLD LITERATURES IN DIALOGUE (on-line course)

People call the Avatar movies “epic science fiction.” Do James Cameron’s post-modern movies like Avatar (2009) or Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) mimic the ancient Greek poet Homer’s pre-modern epic, the Odyssey, in some way to merit this designation? What can we learn about any nation’s interests and concerns today from its engagement with the masterpieces of either its own tradition or with other traditions from a different time and place? How do the world’s cultural and literary texts circulate around the globe and to what end? In Comparative Literature 60A, we read some of the greatest texts of World Literature – from the ancient Greek, Argentine, English, French-Caribbean, German, Irish, Nigerian, Persian, and U.S. traditions – in dialogue with one another as a way of answering these questions. Texts include the poems of the 14th century Persian poet and mystic Hafiz in various translations and as they were read by the 19th century German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; the Persian poet Firdowsi’s 10th century epic, the Shahnameh, and its afterlife in miniature illustrations, oral recitations in coffee houses, and re-significations as Iran’s national epic; the British medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th century Canterbury Tales as those tales have been taken up by the contemporary British-Nigerian rapper and performance artist Patience Agbabi (b. 1965); the ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles’ Antigone (442 b.c.e.) as it is retold in Argentine playwright Griselda Gambaro’s Antígona Furiosa play (1986); Sophocles’ Philoctetes (409 b.c.e.) as it dialogues with Irish playwright Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy (1990 /1991) and the U.S poet Adrienne Rich’s “Twenty One Love Poems” (1974-76);  Euripides’ Bacchae (405 b.c.e.) in conversation with Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka’s The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite (1973), and Shakespeare’s Tempest (1611) in dialogue with French Caribbean writer Aimé Césaire’s A Tempest (1969) and as it was performed by inmates at the Luther Luckett Correctional  Complex in La Grange, Kentucky, in 2005.  - These dialogues will help us understand the many ways that the traditions we study can have multiple afterlives across traditions and around the world.

Comparative Literature 60A is the first quarter of the “World Literature” track in the Comp. Lit. major, but the course is open to all students. It fulfills the GE IV and VIII campus-wide requirements.

Requirements for this course include: Doing the assigned readings, watching the lecture videos, watching two movies and short film clips, quizzes, Discussion Board posts on the readings, and Workshop Exercises on the readings. There is no midterm in this course. For the final work,  there is the possibility of doing a creative project or taking an oral exam on a text of your choice.
COM LIT 130RELATIONALITYCARROLL, A.
COM LIT 131FREUDAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 150THE STRANGERFITOUSSI, M.
COM LIT 160INDIGENOUS FILMGAMBER, J.CL 160: Global Indigenous Film

This class engages in central issues of Indigeneity and explores contemporary film, video games, and literature created by Indigenous people from nations including those currently called Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, and Sweden. Primary questions we will address this include: What does it mean to be Indigenous? How do contemporary Indigenous people represent themselves? What issues are important to specific Indigenous communities? What issues are important across Indigenous communities? We will further pay particular attention to representations of gender and sexuality and human relationships to the other-than-human across these works
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITSTAFF
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITTERADA, R.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITSCHWAB, G.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITRAHIMIEH, N.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITMOR, L.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITHARRIES, M.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITJOHNSON, A.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITCOLMENARES GON, D.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITCARROLL, A.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITAMIRAN, E.
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 210PSYCHOANALYSIS&MEMSCHWAB, G.CL 210 Psychoanalysis and Memory

Off. Hrs. 1:00 – 2:00 and by appointment.

In this course, we will discuss a selection of foundational texts on psychoanalysis and memory, addressing issues including repressed memory, internal objects and unconscious phantasy, unintegrated experiences, the “untought known,” the transgenerational transmission of memory, the crypt, hauntology and the relationship between memory and language.

Selection of Texts

1. Sigmund Freud, The Unconscious; Beyond the Pleasure Principle; Moses and Monotheism

2. Melanie Klein, Guilt, Shame and Reparation (Selections)

3. Donald D. Winnicott, Fear of Breakdown

4. Christopher Bollas, The Shadow of the Object (focus on the concept of the “unthought known”

5. Jacqueline Rose, States of Fantasy

6. Jacques Lacan, The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis

7. Abraham/Torok, The Shell and the Kernel: “The Phantom of the Dead”; “Mourning or Melancholia: Introjection versus Incorporation”; “The Illness of Mourning and the Fantasy of the Exquisite Corpse.”

8. Derrida, Specters of Marx (Selection)
COM LIT 280APROFESSIONALIZATIONAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCEAMIRAN, 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 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 READINGNEWMAN, J.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGMOR, L.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGJOHNSON, A.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGABBAS, A.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGCARROLL, A.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGFARBMAN, H.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGGAMBER, J.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGGOLDBERG, D.
COM LIT 292TEACHING PRACTICUMJOHNSON, A.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHRAHIMIEH, N.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHSCHWAB, G.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHTERADA, R.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHTHIONG'O, N.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHMALABOU, C.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHSTAFF
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHNEWMAN, J.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHMOR, L.
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 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHJOHNSON, A.
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 RESEARCHAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHCARROLL, A.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHFARBMAN, H.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHGAMBER, J.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHGOLDBERG, D.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHJARRATT, S.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHJOHNSON, A.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHABBAS, A.
COM LIT 399UNIVERSITY TEACHINGFARBMAN, H.