COM LIT Course Descriptions for 2025-2026

Fall 2025
Winter 2026
Spring 2026
Archive
Spring Course Descriptions
CourseTitleInstructorDescription
COM LIT 10THEATER/FILM/MEDIAHARRIES, M.
COM LIT 60CCULTURAL STUDIESCARROLL, A.
COM LIT 105NATIVE AM AUTOBIOCARROLL, A.CL 105: Native American Autobiographies

This course examines autobiographies by Native American people to learn about the histories of Indigenous individuals and communities from their own perspectives. Students will engage with historical and political contexts, including US attempts to abolish Indigenous Peoples’ sovereignty and treaty rights; Indian Removal and the reservation system; colonial migration and settlement; federal Indian assimilation policy; and Indigenous Peoples’ continuing presence and resistance to ongoing US settler colonialism. Students will gain an introduction to uniquely Native American autobiographical forms, including as-told-to narratives; mixed genre works; visual texts; and storytelling methods that blend oral traditions, mythography, and cosmology with personal experience. Course materials include autobiography, memoir, mixed genre works, and academic essays by artists and scholars from the Dakota, Kiowa, Kumeyaay, Laguna Pueblo, Osage, and Pequot nations.
COM LIT 132FASCISMFARBMAN, H.COM LIT 132: Fascism, A Comparative View

In each week of this team-taught seminar, a different professor from the Department of Comparative Literature will lead discussion of a text, film, image, or object that is instructive in some way about fascism, historical or contemporary. The course does not aim for a comprehensive history or theory of fascism. Nor does it begin with a definition and then proceed to test cases against that definition. Rather, it will explore how questions about what fascism was and is, where it came from, and what comes after are raised in a series of different cultural, historical, and theoretical contexts.
COM LIT 140POSTPUNKHARRIES, M.
COM LIT 143CONTEM KOREAN WOMENCHOI, C.
COM LIT 144THE STRANGERFITOUSSI, M.
COM LIT 150SEPHARDIC WORLDSBARON-BLOCH, R.
COM LIT 150WOMEN WRITE THECITYDIMENDBERG, E.
COM LIT 190WANTHROPOCENE TALESJOHNSON, A.CL 190W: Tales from the Anthropocene

What do I mean by Tales from the Anthropocene? The Anthropocene is one of the names used to describe our current geologic epoch as one marked by significant human impact on Earth’s ecosystems, climate and geology. We will take our cue from a book by Amitav Ghosh called The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) in which he raises the question about the role of literature and the arts in facing processes of climate change and environmental degradation and the increased perception of fragility of the world. How, he asks, do the forms and genres we have inherited limit our capacity to engage with phenomena that seem too improbable or unthinkable, too other-worldly or uncanny, or which simply belong to time-scales so vast that we don't have the means to handle them? Starting with Ghosh’s question, we will explore the representational and conceptual challenges presented by environmental and material processes that fall outside the scope and scale of our practices of representation and how artistic practices might help rework the perceptual and conceptual habits that have dominated our relationship to our environment. In the first half of the course we will read other theoretical essays, short stories, a novel and explore a few examples of visual culture (films, photographs and other artistic exhibits). The second half will involve more time dedicated to your own research on this topic. As a designated upper-division writing seminar, the course will also devote substantial time to improving student writing; we will use Joseph Williams & Joseph Bizup’s Lessons in Clarity and Grace as our main resource for this purpose. We will conclude with a mini-conference in which you present your work to the rest of the class.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITTHIONG'O, N.
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 LITJOHNSON, A.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITCOLMENARES GON, D.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITCARTER, J.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITCARROLL, A.
COM LIT 199INDPT STDY COMP LITAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 210SYLVIA WYNTERCARTER, J.The central focus of this seminar is reading Sylvia Wynter’s yet-unpublished and little known book manuscript, Black Metamorphosis. A copy of the manuscript will be provided.
COM LIT 210QUESTION REG TECHMALABOU, C.CL 210: The Question Regarding Technology

This seminar undertakes a complete reading of Heidegger’s The Question Concerning Technology. We will ask under what conditions it is still possible to philosophically interrogate technology today. At the same time, we will consider whether the discipline called “philosophy” has not itself been profoundly transformed by technology in general, and by AI in particular. Heidegger’s text will function both as a provocation and as a counterpoint for our own thinking.

What, if anything, can be retained from the notion of Gestell, now that the question of being has largely lost its centrality and that reading Heidegger has become almost prohibitive? What use can we make of Heideggerian thought today, at a time when concepts themselves are becoming artificial? And which new voices allow us to reopen the dialogue—Stiegler and Negarestani, in particular?
COM LIT 210PLAYING & REALITYFARBMAN, H.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCEAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCESTAFF
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCETHIONG'O, N.
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&CONFERENCEGOLDBERG, D.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCECARTER, J.
COM LIT 290READING&CONFERENCECARROLL, A.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGMOR, L.
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 READINGJOHNSON, A.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGJARRATT, S.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGCARROLL, A.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGCARTER, J.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGFARBMAN, H.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGGAMBER, J.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGGOLDBERG, D.
COM LIT 291GUIDED READINGABBAS, A.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHNEWMAN, J.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHRAHIMIEH, N.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHSCHWAB, G.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHTHIONG'O, N.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHMALABOU, C.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHTERADA, R.
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 RESEARCHCARTER, J.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHFARBMAN, H.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHGOLDBERG, D.
COM LIT 298PRE-DISS RESEARCHCOLMENARES GON, D.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHMOR, L.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHNEWMAN, J.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHRAHIMIEH, N.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHSCHWAB, G.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHTERADA, R.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHTHIONG'O, N.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHLONG, M.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHJOHNSON, A.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHGOLDBERG, D.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHGAMBER, J.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHFARBMAN, H.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHCARTER, J.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHCARROLL, A.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHAMIRAN, E.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHABBAS, A.
COM LIT 299DISSERTATN RESEARCHJARRATT, S.
COM LIT 399UNIVERSITY TEACHINGAMIRAN, E.