3.00 Credits
Study of a special topic in which the interrelatedness of literature and other cultural representations is explored from a comparative and/or theoretical perspective. Interdisciplinary in nature, the course will bring together works of different cultural origin and background. Intended for majors or minors in the department. Prerequisites: Completion of department courses numbered 202, 203 or 206; or by permission of instructor. A. The Fantastic in Fiction. An introduction to the Fantastic in literature and art as a mode of representation whose ambiguous structure oscillates between the real and the imaginary. The magical is ingrained in ordinary experience thus expanding the concept of reality, and emphasizing literary discourse as the locus of indeterminacy. Specific attention will be focused on selected writers and theorists, but the course will also provide a diachronic and theoretical background for the discussion of the Fantastic. Readings from authors such as E.T.A. Hoffmann, Kafka, Borges, Cortazar, Garcia Marquez, Torrente Balester, Calvino, Buzzati, Gautier, Nerval, Maupassant, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, and theorists such as Freud, Bessier, T. Todorov, and Roh. J. Anzalone B. Exoticism. This course will examine the cultural construction of the "exotic" as it emerges primarily, but not exclusively, in nineteenth- and twentieth-century literary texts. The course will address questions such as: How are the relationships between colonialism, imperialism, and exoticism dramatized via literature How does the hegemonic (i.e. France) and the non-hegemonic (i.e. Spain, or Latin America) positioning of a culture shape its particular notion of the exotic How do cultures that are viewed as exotic exoticize other cultures What role do other derminants such as gender, race, or class play in the construction of the exotic Readings from authors such as Baudelaire, Flaubert, Nerval, Gautier, Dario, Casal, Tablada, Villaespesa, and Valle-Inclan. H. Jaouad C. The Fascist Aesthetic. The emergence and significance of the fascist aeesthetic are explored via close study of the fundamental ideology of totalitarianism in twentieth-century Europe. Concepts such as the soldierly male, the leader principle, racial eugenics, community, modernity, and the fascination with violence will be examined in film, literature, and the visual arts. Readings from among writer such as Drieu la Rochelle, Celine, Tournier, Junger, and D'Annunzio, and from such theorists of totalitarianism as Adorno, Freud, Zhelev, and Arendt. M. O'Brien D. The Fate of Forbidden Knowledge in Literature and Science. An investigation of the perplexing ethical questions raised by this renaissance shift in attitude toward the Faust legend. The flirtation with forbidden knowledge will be studied by drawing on religious, mythological, literary, philosophical, and scientific texts. Taking recent developments in genetic engineering as a case in point, we will ask to what extent the pursuit of knowledge can enhance or be damaging to human experience. These and other questions will be explored to show how literary texts can contain moral issues of lasting concern for the scientific community and for society at large. The Department