UCLA
The Department of Comparative Literature
From the recent Andalusian play, “Clytemnestra. Una mujer.” Faculty expert, Kathleen L. Komar. Banner image: John Locke. Faculty expert, Kirstie McClure.
Seminar, three hours. Preparation: reading knowledge of one appropriate foreign language. Study of modern European and American works that are concerned both in subject matter and artistic methods with growing self-consciousness of human beings and their society, with focus on works of Kafka, Rilke, Woolf, Sartre, and Stevens. May be concurrently scheduled with course C163. Graduate students required to prepare papers based on texts read in original languages and to meet as group one additional hour each week. S/U or letter grading.
(Same as Spanish M280B.) Seminar, three hours. Preparation: reading knowledge of one foreign language. In-depth study of topic of Latin American literature in comparative context. May be repeated for credit. S/U or letter grading.
How does comparative literary study change when engaging with indigenous epistemologies? Through works of indigenous and indigenous studies scholars, students learn to seek methods for comparative literary study that consider broader epistemologies for recorded knowledge and creative media. Texts cover development of academic disciplines, such as anthropology and literary studies, to examine ramifications of their approaches on indigenous peoples. Study also covers indigenizing approaches that develop modes of engagement through native ways of knowing, such as ts'íib and cosmolectics. By expanding repertoire for recognizing and engaging forms that exceed literary framework, students take part in cultivating dialogue across indigenous and nonindigenous communities. Authors include Gloria E. Chacón (Ch'orti' Maya), Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Maori), and Gerald Vizenor (Chippewa), among others.
Study asks what happens when body can no longer be imagined as singular, sealed, or fully human. Consideration of what stories emerge when matter--chemicals, microbes, organs, prosthetics--refuses to remain background. Consideration of how contamination, disability, or transplantation reorganize time, selfhood, and relation. Study approaches embodiment as layered and inhabited: bodies within bodies; foreign bodies lodged in flesh; and subjects situated within ecological, medical, and political formations. Exploration of contagion, toxicity, invasive species, transplants, and migration as scenes of bodily crossing and inhabitation. Readings include literature and film from Hispanic Caribbean, Spain, and the Americas. Authors include Stacy Alaimo, Mel Y. Chen, Roberto Esposito, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Julie Avril Minich, and Margaret Price. Fiction such as Brenda Navarro's Mouth Full of Ashes or Samantha Schweblin's Fever Dream frame exposure as both material condition and imaginative pre
Seminar, three hours. Seminar on problems and methods of presenting literary texts as exemplary materials in teaching of composition. Deals with theory and classroom practice and involves individual counseling and faculty evaluation of teaching assistants' performance. May not be applied toward MA course requirements. S/U grading.