Courses

• CAS XL 281: Holocaust Literature and Film (in English translation)
  Questions of representation in literature and film about the Holocaust, including testimonial and fictive works by Wiesel and Levi, Ozick, and others; films include documentaries and feature films. Discussions of the Holocaust as historical reality, metaphor, and generative force in literature. Also offered as CAS RN 385.
• CAS XL 315: Film and Identity in the Islamic World
  Introduction to film history in the Islamic world, correlated with literary history. Films made in Egypt, the Levant, the Maghrib, and Iran from the beginnings to the present. Emphasis on stories about self-discovery in urban and country life.
• CAS XL 381: Topics in Gender and Literature (in English translation)
  Topic for Fall 2010: Love in Indian Literature and Film. Gendered roles of lovers in Indian literature and their representation in contemporary Bollywood films. Study of social and historical contexts for the evolution of character types such as the pining heroine, mystic, madman, and star-crossed lovers.
• CAS XL 382: Topics in Gender and Film (in English translation)
  Topic for 2009/2010: TBA.
• CAS XL 383: Dante's Hell (in English translation)
  A close reading of one text, Dante Alighieri's Inferno, with attention to its medieval contexts: philosophical, theological, and historical. Analysis of the poetic means by which Dante represents both human evil and human hope. Bilingual text. Lectures and discussions in English. Also offered as CAS LI 555 and CAS RN 555.
• CAS XL 401: Sr Indep Work
  
• CAS XL 430: Topics in Literary Influence
  Topic(s) for 2007/2008: TBA.
• CAS XL 441: 1001 Nights in the World Literary Imagination
  What is The Thousand and One Nights? How has this ever-expanding collection appealed to its diverse audiences? Focus on Nights structure and themes, notable translations and offshoots in western literature and art, and later appropriations by Arab and Muslim writers.
• CAS XL 459: Primo Levi Within Holocaust Literature
  A study of Primo Levi's writings and scientific, literary, theological, and philosophical approaches to the Holocaust. Other theorists (Arendt, Wiesel, and Muller-Hill) and other survivors' testimonies (Delbo, Borowski, Fink) are read in conjunction with Levi's works. Also offered as CAS LI 459 and RN 459.
• CAS XL 470: Topics in Comparative Literature
  Three topics are offered 2010/2011. Students may take one, two, or three for credit. Topics for Fall 2010: Section A1: Queer Theory and the Literary. Major texts of queer theory read alongside literary texts from various traditions. Discussion of how sexuality is expressed, shaped, and imagined in literature. Authors include Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, Eileen Chang, Roland Barthes, and Matsuura Rieko. Section B1: Greek Tragedy and Film. Explores Greek tragic myth's afterlife, both directly and obliquely, in cinema and in modern literature spawning cinema: how certain Greek tragic myths have come to life as film and how "non-mythic" stories have acquired a mythic power in literary and cinematic form. Topic for Spring 2011: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This sixteenth century romanticized novel tells the story of the separation of the Han Dynasty into three kingdom and draws on history, legend, poetry, and drama, with unforgettable scenes of love, loyalty, bravery, and heroism. Also offered as CAS LC 470 and CAS RN 526.
• CAS XL 491: Ds Comp Lit
  
• CAS XL 492: Ds Comp Lit
  
• CAS XL 520: Theory of the Novel
  Introduction to the theory of the novel in a comparative context. Readings may include Watt, Lukács, Bakhtin, Barthes and others on topics such as narrative voice, narrative closure, characterization, description, and desire in narrative. Novels by Austen, Flaubert, and Melville.
• CAS XL 540: Theory and Practice of Literary Translation
  Weekly series of presentations by translators from Boston and elsewhere, open to registered students and to the public. Registered students complete special projects and attend workshops.
• CAS XL 556: Topics in Literature and Culture
  Topic for Fall 2010: Literature of the Migrant. Eleven novels that all bear on human migrations. Besides examining major issues, focuses on how these books were made. Some texts are translations, but most are written by American authors.
• CAS XL 560: Topics in Religion and Literature
  Topic for Spring 2011: Apocalypse and Literature. Literary response to the biblical book of Revelation from ancient to modern times. Readings from the Bible, Dante, Langland, Rabelais, Blake, Wordsworth, Dostoevsky, Lawrence, Lorca, Beckett, and others. Reference to artistic and musical representations of apocalypse. Also offered as CAS RN 524 A1.

Note that this information may change at any time.

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