Comparative Literature
451 College, Rm 202, 432.2760
www.yale.edu/complit/
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Chair
David Quint
Directors of Graduate Studies
Haun Saussy (Acting [F])
Pericles Lewis [Sp]
Professors Dudley Andrew, Peter Brooks, Katerina Clark, Roberto González Echevarría, Benjamin Harshav, Carol Jacobs, Pericles Lewis, Rainer Nägele, David Quint, Haun Saussy, Katie Trumpener
Associate Professor Ala Alryyes
Assistant Professors Alexander Beecroft, Moira Fradinger, Barry McCrea
Senior Lecturer Richard Maxwell
Lecturers Eric Bulson, Catherine Labio
Fields of Study
The Department of Comparative Literature introduces students to the study and understanding of literature beyond linguistic or national boundaries; the theory, interpretation, and criticism of literature; and its interactions with adjacent fields like visual and material culture, linguistics, film, psychology, law, and philosophy. The comparative perspective invites the exploration of such transnational phenomena as literary or cultural periods and trends (Renaissance, Romanticism, Modernism, postcolonialism) or genres and modes of discourse. Students may specialize in any cultures or languages, to the extent that they are sufficiently covered at Yale. The Ph.D. degree qualifies the candidate to teach Comparative Literature as well as the national literature(s) of her or his specialization.
Special Admissions Requirements
Applicants must hold a B.A. or equivalent degree and should normally have majored in comparative literature, English, a classical or foreign literature, or in an interdepartmental major that includes literature. They must be ready to take advanced courses in two foreign literatures in addition to English upon admission. The GRE General Test is required. A ten- to twenty-page writing sample, written in English, should be submitted with the application.
Special Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree
Students must successfully complete fourteen term courses, including at least seven listed under the departmental heading. The student’s overall schedule must fulfill the following requirements: (1) at least one course in medieval or classical European literature, philology, or linguistics (or their equivalents in other cultures); one course in the Renaissance or Baroque (or equivalents); and one course in the modern period; (2) three courses in literary theory or methodology; (3) course work dealing with texts from three literatures, one of which may be English or American. Any course may be counted for several requirements simultaneously.
Languages: Literary proficiency in four languages (including English, at least one other modern language, and one classical or ancient language, such as Latin, Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Classical Arabic, Classical Chinese, Provençal). The fulfillment of this requirement will be demonstrated by a written exam consisting of a translation of a literary or critical text, to be held by the end of the sixth term; or by an equivalent level in the student’s course work.
Orals: An oral examination to be taken in the third year of studies, demonstrating both the breadth and specialization as well as the comparative scope of the student’s acquired knowledge. The examination consists of seven topics that include texts from at least three national literatures and several historical periods (at least one modern and one before the Renaissance). The texts discussed should also include representatives of the three traditional literary genres (poetry, drama, narrative fiction).
The Ph.D. dissertation, supervised by a dissertation director (or directors) and approved by the departmental faculty, completes the degree. Its initial step is a dissertation prospectus, to be submitted and approved by the dissertation director and a standing faculty committee no later than halfway through the seventh term of study. Admission to candidacy for the Ph.D. is granted after six terms of residence and the completion of all requirements (courses, languages, orals, prospectus) except the dissertation.
Teaching: Training in teaching, through teaching fellowships, is an important part of every student’s program. Normally students will teach in their third and fourth years.
Combined Ph.D. Programs
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND CLASSICS
The Department of Comparative Literature also offers, in conjunction with the Department of Classical Languages and Literatures, a combined Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Classics. For further details, see Classics.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND FILM STUDIES
The Department of Comparative Literature also offers, in conjunction with the Program in Film Studies, a joint Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Film Studies. For further details Film Studies. Applicants to the joint program must indicate on their application that they are applying both to Film Studies and to Comparative Literature. All documentation within the application should include this information.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES
The Department of Comparative Literature also offers, in conjunction with the Renaissance Studies program, a combined Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Renaissance Studies. For further details, see Renaissance Studies.
Master’s Degrees
M.Phil. See Degree Requirements. Additionally, students in Comparative Literature are eligible to pursue a supplemental M.Phil. degree in Medieval Studies. For further details, see Medieval Studies.
M.A. (en route to the Ph.D.) Students enrolled in the Ph.D. program may receive the M.A. upon completion of ten courses with at least two grades of Honors and a maximum of three grades of Pass, and the demonstration of proficiency in two of the languages, ancient or modern, through course work or departmental examinations.
No student is admitted to a terminal M.A.
Program materials are available upon request to the Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Comparative Literature, Yale University, PO Box 208299, New Haven CT 06520-8299.
Courses
CPLT 511b, Introduction to Theory of Literature Paul Fry
An examination of concepts and assumptions active in contemporary views of literature, with their history. Shifting definitions of “literary theory”; accounts of meaning, interpretation, and representation; examinations of historicist, formalist, psychoanalytic, Marxist, structuralist, post-structuralist, feminist, and media-centered approaches to theory and literature. TTh 11:35–12:25, 1 htba
CPLT 515a, Proseminar in Comparative Literature Haun Saussy
Introductory proseminar for all first-year graduate students in Comparative Literature (and other interested persons). Critical readings of formative texts in the theory and practice of the discipline, from the late eighteenth century to the present. Topics to be covered include the nature of literature; translation; national identities and identities beyond the nation; interpretation and evaluation; the humanities and the human; media. The course is taken for a grade of Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory. T 9:25–11:15
CPLT 517b/GMAN 605bu, Interpretation and Authority Carol Jacobs
Close reading of works on problems of authority and interpretation by Sigmund Freud, Roland Barthes, Paul de Man, and Walter Benjamin. Exploration of their writing as a performance that questions simplistic notions of truth. Consideration of the problem of how to interpret texts that unsettle the very nature of representation. M 1:30–3:20
CPLT 541a/PHIL 708a, Poetics I: Theory of the Work of Literature Benjamin Harshav
The course presents a comprehensive theory of works of literature as the highest sign-complexes in human culture. From rhythm and sound patterns through metaphor and fictional worlds to genre and representation, a work of literature combines elements of structure with a network of necessary and possible or contradictory constructs. The seminar develops a conceptual network for the descriptive analysis of individual works of poetry and fiction. The theory focuses on questions of fictionality and art in language, yet goes beyond linguistics and philosophy of language, on the one hand, and narratology, on the other. It is grounded in close readings of poems and narrative texts by Kafka, Joyce, Eliot, Dostoevsky, and others. M 1:30–3:20
CPLT 543a, Sanskrit Classics in Translation Stanley Insler
A close reading and discussion of secular works in Sanskrit set against the cultural history of Old India. Texts included are novellas from the Maha¯bha¯rata Epic, fable literature, lyrical narratives, plays, lyric and didactic poetry, the first Indian novels. The course is designed as a seminar with student participation. T 9:25–11:15
CPLT 579b/ENGL 983b/WGSS 772b, Literature in the Age of Globalization Shameem Black
A study of interdisciplinary theories of globalization and how these phenomena affect the production, circulation, and interpretation of literature. Topics include the recent retheorization of “world literature,” the question of translation and the status of English, the role of the global marketplace, the status of transnational and postcolonial literary studies, and the emergence of new literary experiments at the turn of the millennium. M 1:30–3:20
CPLT 585a/GMAN 585au, Introduction to Middle High German William Whobrey
A survey of the major works of German vernacular literature from 1150 to 1250, including courtly love poetry, heroic epic, Arthurian romance, crusader songs, and religious narratives. Examination of the history of the German language, the development of vernacular literature, the broader context of Latin culture, and the problems of manuscript transmission. Readings in the original Middle High German. Hartmann von Aue’s Der arme Heinrich is read in its entirety. TTh 11:35–12:50
CPLT 632b, World War II Narratives: Homefronts Katie Trumpener
Taking a pan-European perspective, this course examines quotidian, civilian experiences of war during a conflict of unusual scope and duration. Considering key works of wartime and postwar fiction alongside diaries, memoirs, and films, we explore the kinds of literary reflection war occasioned, how civilians experienced the relationship between history and everyday life (both during and after the war), children’s experience of war, and the ways that home front, occupation, and concentration camp memories shaped postwar avant-garde aesthetics. Novels and autobiographical fiction by Elio Vittorini, Anna Seghers, Irène Némirovsky, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Bowen, Tadeusz Borowski, Georges Simenon, Harry Mulisch, Jiri Weill, Jorge Semprun, Miron Bialoszewki, Christa Wolf. Diaries and memoirs by Victor Klemperer, Anne Frank, and Sarah Kofman. Films by Humphrey Jennings, Andrzej Munk, Theo Angelopoulos, Peter Forgacs. M 9:25–11:15
CPLT 651b/GMAN 645bu, Systems and Their Theory Henry Sussman
Examination of conceptual systems that have, since the outset of modernity, furnished a format and platform for rigorous thinking at the same time that they have imposed on language the attributes of self-reflexivity, consistency, repetition, purity, and dependability. Readings include texts by Kant, Hegel, Bergson, Kafka, Proust, and Borges. M 3:30–5:20
CPLT 693b/ENGL 599b, Non-Shakespearean Drama David Quint
A survey of major authors of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, Shakespeare’s contemporaries and successors: Marlowe, Jonson, Chapman, Kyd, Webster, Middleton, Dekker, Marston, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford, Massinger, Brome. Attention is paid to the development of a theatrical tradition and to the history of the public and private theaters themselves, to the multiple-plot play and metatheatrical structures, as well as to various genres: revenge tragedy, city comedy, Roman plays, satire, domestic tragedy. The usual reading load is two plays a week. One term paper. Th 9:25–11:15
CPLT 699b/GMAN 666b/PHIL 706b, Heidegger: Being and Time Karsten Harries
W 1:30–3:20
CPLT 701a/GMAN 628a/PHIL 705a, Kant, The Critique of Judgment Karsten Harries
M 1:30–3:20
CPLT 706b/ITAL 700b, The New Map of the World: Vico’s Poetic Philosophy Giuseppe Mazzotta
Examination of Vico’s thought globally and in the historical context of the late Renaissance and the Baroque. Starting with Vico’s Autobiography, working to his University Inaugural Orations, On the Study Methods of Our Time, the seminar delves into his juridical-political texts and submits the second New Science (1744) to a detailed analysis. Some attention is given to Vico’s poetic production and the encomia he wrote. The overarching idea of the seminar is the definition of Vico’s new discourse for the modern age. To this end, discussion deals prominently with issues such as Baroque encyclopedic representations, the heroic imagination, the senses of “discovery,” the redefinition of “science,” the reversal of neo-Aristotelian and neo-Platonic poetics, the crisis of the Renaissance, and the role of the myth. T 3:30–5:20
CPLT 721a/SPAN 657a, The Picaresque and the Spanish Origins of Realism and the Novel Roberto González Echevarría
The course traces, from Celestina to Cervantes, the irruption of criminals and low-life types into the center of narrative fiction, with the description of their mores, things proper to their world, and the settings of their activities: roads, inns, whorehouses, jails, and hospitals. The relations between the law and the origins of realism and the novel is discussed, as well as theories of realism such as those of Erich Auerbach and Alexander Parker. The reception of the picaresque in England, France, and Germany is considered, as well as its more modern manifestations. Texts: Tragicomedia de Calixto y Melibea (Celestina), 1499; La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, y de sus fortunas y adversidades, 1554; Mateo Alemán, Primera parte del pícaro Guzmán de Alfarache, 1599; and Miguel de Cervantes, Novelas ejemplares, 1613. W 3:30–5:20
CPLT 727a/ENGL 935a/WGSS 714a, Postcolonialism and Its Discontents Sara Suleri Goodyear
A reading of theoretical and fictional texts from the Indian subcontinent, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, to raise questions of cultural, religious, and racial identities. This course fulfills the theory requirement for the Graduate Qualification in WGSS. m 1:30–3:20
CPLT 757a, The Enlightenment Today: Literature and Secularization Ala Alryyes
Major texts of the European Enlightenment and their nuanced views of secularization. Themes include the relationship of the individual to family and society, the Encyclopédie, the political function of knowledge and pornography, the theatricality of the self and education, colonialism, the limitations of language, the rights of women, the value of history, and the limits of reason. Works by Laclos, Beaumarchais, Rousseau, Diderot, Olympe de Gouges, Locke, Hume, Bentham, Swift, Gay, Johnson, Vico, Burke, Wollstonecraft, Kant, al-Jabarti, al-Tahtawi, as well as theoretical readings. W 7–8:50 p.m.
CPLT 762a/FREN 862a, The Enlightenment and Its Legacy Catherine Labio
An inquiry into the French Enlightenment, its global context, and its ongoing legacy. Particular attention is paid to the organization of knowledge; the classification of people, periods, and places; consumption, trade, and finance; the French Revolution; and the Counter-Enlightenment. We also study the intellectual and political controversies that still obtain with respect to the Enlightenment. Works by Marivaux, Watteau, Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, Vernet, the physiocrats, Laclos, Kant, Gouges, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Horkheimer, Foucault, Lyotard, and Jonathan Israel. W 1:30–3:20
CPLT 780a/GMAN 663au, Tragedies of Knowledge: Faust and Oedipus Rainer Nägele
Close reading of the Sophoclean Oedipus and Goethe’s Faust, Part I, with particular attention to the two heroes in relation to the desire for knowledge. Discussions in English. A reading knowledge of German is required. W 1:30–3:20
CPLT 781b/GMAN 646bu, Lacan: Rereading Freud Rainer Nägele
Close reading of the major essays of Lacan’s Écrits with some excerpts from his seminars. Th 1:30–3:20
CPLT 850a/ENGL 766a, The Remarkable Wordsworth and His Critics Geoffrey Hartman
Reading and analysis of selections from Lyrical Ballads (including Coleridge’s contributions), “Home at Grasmere,” The Prelude, and The Excursion. The seminar aims to clarify just how remarkable Wordsworth is, and why it is so hard to define his originality and the break that made him, arguably, the first modern English poet. T 3:30–5:20
CPLT 898a/FREN 898a, Fin-de-siècle France Maurice Samuels
This course examines major French literary and artistic movements of the last decades of the nineteenth century (Naturalism, Decadence, Symbolism) in their cultural context. Weekly reading assignments pair literary texts with contemporary theoretical/medical/political discourse on such topics as disease, crime, sex, poverty, colonialism, nationalism, and technology. Literary authors include Barbey, Mallarmé, Maupassant, Rachilde, Villiers, and Zola. Theorists include Bergson, Freud, Krafft-Ebing, Le Bon, Nordau, Renan, and Simmel. Some attention also paid to the visual arts. W 9:25–11:15
CPLT 900a, Directed Reading Faculty
CPLT 900b, Directed Reading Faculty
CPLT 901a, Individual Research Faculty
CPLT 901b, Individual Research Faculty
CPLT 909b/ENGL 909b, Joyce and Proust Barry McCrea
This course is devoted mostly to the close reading of Joyce’s Ulysses and parts of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. We read Proust in translation, but special guidance is given for students who can read French. W 9:25–11:15
CPLT 916a/FILM 830a/ITAL 590a, Literature into Film Millicent Marcus
This course undertakes a series of twelve case studies of films adapted from literary works, identifying the challenges that specific texts present to filmmakers in their attempts to transform verbal fictions into mass media spectacles. W 3:30–5:20, screening M 7–10 p.m.
CPLT 919a/FILM 822a/RUSS 747a, Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Vertov John MacKay
An examination of all the major cinematic and theoretical works of Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Dziga Vertov, centering on the period 1925–1945. We consider the films in light of the theories, the filmmakers in light of one another, and Soviet film and theory in light of contemporary developments worldwide. Attention is also paid to the international legacy of these filmmakers, and particularly their reception during the 1960s and 1970s (Godard, Marker, Barthes). No knowledge of Russian required. TH 7–8:50 p.m., screenings SU 7 p.m.
CPLT 933a/ENGL 928a/FILM 751au, British Cinema Katie Trumpener
Key films and topics in British cinema. Special attention to the overlaps between literary and visual modernism; attempts to build on the British literary and dramatic tradition; role of cinema (especially documentary) in the war effort and in redefining national identity; postwar auteur and experimental filmmaking; “heritage” films and alternative approaches to tradition. Accompanying readings in British film theorists, film sociology (including Mass Observation) and cultural studies’ accounts of film spectatorship and memories. Films by Maurice Elwey, Anthony Asquith, Len Lye, John Grierson, Alfred Hitchcock, Alberto Cavalcanti, Humphry Jennings, Michael Powell, Carol Reed, David Lean, Karel Reisz, Lindsay Anderson, Richard Lester, Peter Watkins, Stanley Kubrick, Laura Mulvey, Mike Leigh, Terence Davies, Terry Gilliam, Peter Greenaway, Michael Winterbottom, Patrick Keillor. M 1:30–3:20, screenings Su 7 p.m.
CPLT 936a/FILM 756aU/FREN 754a, Real French Film: Renoir, Bazin, Rohmer Dudley Andrew
Fifty years ago André Bazin died just as the New Wave began. This seminar examines his famous essays and discovers scores of his unknown articles. His ideas matured in dialogue with certain auteurs, chiefly Jean Renoir. We look at the Renoir Bazin grew up with (films of the 1930s) and the one he befriended (the ’50s) to trace a profoundly realist strain of French film aesthetics. Eric Rohmer co-edited Cahiers du Cinema with Bazin and likewise championed Renoir. Rohmer’s own filmmaking career took off just as Bazin died and Renoir ceased directing. These three figures maintained a singularly important conversation whose legacy can be felt in France right up to the film Rohmer completed last year. The words “real” and “French” raise a host of fertile problems to be explored in an international conference at Yale at the end of the term. Attendance at the conference, as well as at our weekly screenings, is obligatory. Reading knowledge of French required. Th 9:25–11:15, screenings M 8:30 p.m.
CPLT 944a/FILM 831a, Media, Semiotics, Hermeneutics Francesco Casetti
Media texts are openly characterized by their capability of displaying their own linguistic operations (reflexivity), by their aptitude in re-working previous texts for a new use (forms of rewriting), and by their capability of creating a direct—even if “mediatized”—access to the real (transparency, authenticity). These three topics on one hand may underline some of the most important—and controversial—trends in media culture, and on the other hand may highlight the way in which semiotics and hermeneutics confront each other in the field of media studies. The seminar explores these three topics with the help of some examples (films, photos, TV programs, comics), as well as with references to some theoretical debates (especially discussions about enunciation—Christian Metz, adaptation—Umberto Eco, Gérard Genette, and experience—Maurice Merleau Ponty, Stanley Cavell). T 1:30–3:20, screenings Su 7 p.m.
CPLT 947b/AFAM 847b/AFST 847b/FREN 947b, African-Caribbean Connections in French Christopher L. Miller
The intertwined literary and cultural relations between Africa and the Caribbean, as established by the slave trade, French colonialism, and globalization. Focus on changing models of linkage and exile, beginning with nineteenth-century experiments and continuing with early twentieth-century movements in Haiti and France; two versions of Negritude; social realism; independence; “creoleness.” Authors include Maran, Senghor, Césaire, Roumain, Sembène, Glissant, Condé, Warner-Vieyra, Lopes. Reading knowledge of French required. Conducted in English. Th 1:30–3:20
CPLT 962b/SPAN 904b, Latin American Intellectual Debates of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Moira Fradinger
This seminar looks at central cultural debates in the region over a period of two centuries, mainly through the literary and political form of the essay. It explores polemics over the idea of America, debates around the Indian question, issues of cultural hybridity, transculturation, negritude, and the discussion over the region’s modernity and postmodernity. Authors include de Hostos, Alberdi, Bello, Martí, Sarmiento, Rodó, Ortiz, Vasconcelos, Reyes, González Prada, Mariátegui, Mañach, Cabrera, Zea, Roumain, Césaire, Fanon, Damas, Chamoiseau, Rama, Retamar, Benítez Rojo, Ribeiro, Cornejo Polar, García Canclini, Viñas, and Schwarz. Conducted in Spanish; readings and writings can be done in English too. W 3:30–5:20
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