Master 2020/2021

Comparative Literature Studies and World Literature

Category 'Best Course for Broadening Horizons and Diversity of Knowledge and Skills'

Category 'Best Course for New Knowledge and Skills'

Type: Compulsory course (Russian Literature in Cross-cultural and Intermedial Perspective)

Area of studies: Philology

Delivered by: Department of Philology

Where: School of Arts and Humanities

When: 1 year, 2, 3 module

Mode of studies: offline

Instructors: Ivan Delazari, Daniil Zelenin

Master’s programme: Russian Literature in Cross-cultural and Intermedial Perspective

Language: English

ECTS credits: 6

Contact hours: 56

Course Syllabus

Abstract

Comparative Literature Studies and World Literature is a survey course that promotes graduate students’ critical reflection about major theoretical fundamentals and analytic tools in the comparative study of literature. In the range between ancient notions of strangers and barbarians and late postmodern challenges of globalization, cultural differences are pivotal supplies for literary plots and comparative taxonomies. Leaning on example texts from Homer to Ishiguro, the lectures and tutorials cover a selection of topics in the aesthetics of literature, historical poetics, cultural studies, translation theory, transmedial narratology, and adaptation studies cumulatively working towards a comprehensive definition of world literature today.

Learning Objectives

• The principal objective of the course is to formulate a general concept of the academic field of Comparative Literature Studies and World Literature and reflect critically upon its assumptions and methods, while
• encouraging students to test those assumptions and methods upon specific literary works from several eras and cultures.
• Students will widen their professional horizons through envisioning major historical and contemporary trends in global humanities.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Students reflect on and articulate the role of comparative analysis in the history and epistemology of literature and culture.
• Students obtain, master, and demonstrate the skill of reading and comparing literary works from Antiquity to the 21st century.
• Students define core concepts in the history and theory of comparative literature studies.
• Students delineate major trends and methods in the comparative study of literature.
• Students construct and deconstruct the notion and cultural narrative about World Literature in a pluralist and historically informed manner.
• Students evaluate literature in translation, compare translations, and outline their losses and benefits in several cultural contexts.
• Students demonstrate awareness of intermedial approaches to literature and other arts and provide examples of intermedial phenomena.

Course Contents

• Literature and Comparison
  The Act of Comparison: Reading, Interpreting, (Re)defining (An Introduction to the Comparative Study of Literature and Literariness). The Grecian and Barbarian, the French and the Persian: Familiarity and Strangeness in Culture and Aesthetics—Defamiliarization and Relativity in Comparative Literature Studies.
• Comp Lit Histories and Methodologies
  Classical Philology to Historical Poetics: Homer, Folklore, Topoi, Orality, and Memory in Comparative Analysis. Structural Anthropology, Psychoanalysis, Archetypal Criticism: Deductive and Inductive Approaches to Stable Features of Literature. National Literature, National Language, National Genius: Influences, Typological Analogies, Translatability, and Orientalism in Comparative Literature Studies.
• Institutionalization of World Literature
  World Literature, Orientalism, and Comparative Binarism. World Literature and Interlingual Transfer: What Is Gained in Translation, by Distant Reading, and through Book Marketing Strategies. Crossing Borders in Intermediality and Adaptation Studies: Musico-Literary Ekphrasis and Literature on Screen. Transatlantic/Transpacific: Multiculturalism, Postcolonialism, and Globalism as Network of Contemporary Culture.Comparative and World Literature as a Discipline, as an Indiscipline, and as No Discipline.

Assessment Elements

• Participation
  At seminars, students discuss texts, ask and answer questions, listen to each other’s presentations and generate ideas.
• Presentation
  After the first lecture, students sign up to make one seminar presentation each within the course duration. In 15-min talks, student introduce a theoretical text to class and lead in a 10-min follow-up discussion.
• Online Forum
  Throughout the semester, students and course instructor(s) interact on the LMS Forum as an online platform for course-related exchange of opinions and extra tasks. Topics for others to post on may be initiated either by instructor(s) or by students. Language may be informal, and insights are valued over wording, but politeness and mutual respect must be maintained.
• Exam (Test)
  The exam is conducted in the form of the LMS test. Students write the exam simultaneously in class under the course instructor’s supervision. It lasts 55 minutes. The test contains 50 multiple-choice questions on the course content.

Interim Assessment

• Interim assessment (3 module)
  0.3 * Exam (Test) + 0.2 * Online Forum + 0.29 * Participation + 0.21 * Presentation

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Behdad, A., & Thomas, D. R. D. (2011). A Companion to Comparative Literature (Vol. 1st ed). Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=391356
• David Damrosch. (2014). World Literature in Theory. Wiley-Blackwell.

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Damrosch, D. (2017). How to Read World Literature (Vol. Second edition). Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1553409
• Küpper, J. (2013). Approaches to World Literature. De Gruyter Akademie Forschung.
• Mads Rosendahl Thomsen. (2008). Mapping World Literature : International Canonization and Transnational Literatures. Continuum.
• Moretti, F. (2013). Distant Reading. London: Verso. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=nlebk&AN=1694921