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Comparative Literature Courses
CPLT 113/ENG 113 Studies in Fiction
Topic A: The World of Fiction
Ko (English)
A reading of some of the most deeply valued, highly unsettling, and scandalously entertaining works of English and world literature, such as: Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel, Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. This course is designed for both English and non-English majors; the writing component will thus not be intensive. Students may register for either CPLT 113 or ENG 113 and credit will be granted accordingly.
Prerequisite: None.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Fall Unit: 1.0
Topic B: Fantastic Fictions
Sides (English)
When fiction blurs or crosses the line between our “real” world and “other worlds,” the reader (as well as the narrator or main character) has entered the realm of “the fantastic,” a genre that (broadly interpreted) contains “the uncanny,” “the supernatural or ghost story,” and “science fiction.” We will read “fantastic” novels and short fiction by nineteenth-century, twentieth-century, and twenty-first century masters from Europe, Japan, North and South America. Taught primarily in lecture, this course will not be writing-intensive. Students may register for either CPLT 113 or ENG 113 and credit will be granted accordingly.
Prerequisite: None.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Spring Unit: 1.0
CLPT 220/ENG 220 Introduction to Comparative Literature
Topic for 2007-08: Languages of Lyric
Hickey (English)
A study of poems from diverse cultural, national, and linguistic traditions, to be read in translation and where possible in the original. The course features translation in the literal sense and as a metaphor. Is poetry "lost in translation"? Is "all poetry translation"? We'll examine various poetic translations and crossings: from one language to another; from inspiration to print; from poet to text to reader; from literal to figurative; from one time, place, culture, or realm to another; from one aesthetic form to another. We'll look at poetic responses to visual art, hear music and words crossing in song, and compare the languages of these sister arts. Choice of critical and creative writing options. Guest lectures by members of Wellesley's humanities faculty.
Students may register for either CPLT 220 or ENG 220 and credit will be granted accordingly.
Prerequisite: None.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Fall Unit: 1.0
CPLT 284 Magical Realism
Weiner (Russian)
This course examines fictions whose basic reality would be familiar if not for the introduction of a magical element that undermines commonplace notions about what constitutes reality in the first place. The magical element can be a demon, talisman, physical transformation, miraculous transition in space or time, appearance of a second plane of existence, revelation of the unreality of the primary plane of existence, etc. Students will read Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Queneau’s The Blue Flowers, Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Calvino's If on a Winter Night a Traveler, Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, Murakami’s Hardboiled Wonderland & The End of the World and Sokolov’s School for Fools, and short stories by Borges, Cortazar, and Nabokov.
Prerequisite: None.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Spring Unit: 1.0
CPLT 330 Seminar. Comparative Literature
Topic for 2007-08: Girls, in Theory
Zimmerman (East Asian Languages and Literatures)
Coming-of-age narratives commonly depict a series of challenges or obstacles faced by girls as they grow. At the same time, writers use the sharp gaze of the adolescent girl to dissect ethnicity, national identity, gender roles, sexual orientation, modernization, and globalization. With identities in flux, adolescent girls are even seen to represent the supernatural and worlds apart. As we delve into specific national literary traditions, we also read works that propose theories of girls’ development. We take our coming-of-age stories from around the world, including writers from Japan, India, China, North America, Mexico, Jamaica, and Europe.
Prerequisite: One 200-level course in literature or by permission of the instructor to other qualified students.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Spring Unit: 1.0
CPLT 334 Literature and Medicine
Respaut (French)
Drawing on texts from different countries, this course investigates literature’s obsession with medicine. Literary representations of doctors and patients, disability, insanity, AIDS, birth, death and grief, the search for healing and the redemptive power of art. Attention will be given to the links between the treatment of medical issues in fiction, in autobiography and in visual representations (film and photography). This course should be of interest to everyone drawn to health related fields as well as students in social sciences and the humanities.
Prerequisite: One 200-level course in literature or by permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature
NOT OFFERED IN 2008-09 Unit: 1.0
CPLT 350 Research or Individual Study
Prerequisite: By permission of the Director. See Academic Distinctions.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring Unit: 1.0
CPLT 360 Senior Thesis Research
Prerequisite: By permission of the Director. See Academic Distinctions.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring Unit: 1.0
CPLT 370 Senior Thesis
Prerequisite: 360 and permission of department.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring Unit: 1.0
