Theory of Comparative Literature

Designed to introduce students to some of the central theoretical issues that define the discipline of Comparative Literature through the study of twelve central texts in the field. We will begin with Erich Auerbach's foundational text Mimesis , and end with Gayatri Spivak's Death of a Discipline . In between the authors to be read and analyzed will be Bakhtin, Lukacs, Barthes, Derrida, DeMan, Jameson, Greenblatt and others. Open to graduate students, and to undergraduates by permission of the instructor.