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. Requisite: course 200A. Study of methodology of comparative literature, with emphasis on its history. S/U or letter grading.
Psychoanalysis emerged in Europe at height of region's colonial adventure in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. As Freud was developing Oedipus complex in 1913, almost nine-tenths of world landmass had been colonized, settled, or controlled by Europe. While psychoanalysis and colonialism share long and fraught history that ranges from complicity and collaboration during colonization to conflict and confrontation during decolonization, psychoanalysis and religion--Islam, in particular--entertained and maintained history of mutual disinterestedness. Recent upsurge of writings (especially in French) on Islam from psychoanalytic perspective, however, suggests thaw in historically contentious relations between psychoanalysis and Islam. Study engage theoretically (i.e., comparatively) with triptych of psychoanalysis, Islam, and decolonial critique. Students read classic and recent texts by Fethi Benslema, Fanon, Freud, Lacan, Karima Lazali, Mannoni, Memmi, Said, and others.
(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.
Study takes disposition to think in comparison and by comparison, as fundamental way of looking at world, through provocative contrasts and unexpected fluidities. From comparative history and anthropology to world literature and global history, study asks how comparison disrupts and transforms modes of linear and teleological thinking. From synchronic transnational (spatial) and network paradigms of world, study asks whether comparison is viable transperiodically but not chronologically. Study also asks what comparison is in asymmetrical and heterotopic situations; and what its conditions of possibility are--and crucially today, its effects on world. Part one of two-part study.
Seminar, three hours. Preparation: reading knowledge of one appropriate foreign language. Examination of archetypal female figures in classical/traditional literatures and their reincarnations in modern African American, Anglo-American, Asian American, European, Native American, and Spanish-American literatures. Particular emphasis on position of women in cultures and ideology of authors. S/U or letter grading.