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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2019/2020

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures : Common Courses (School of Lit, Lang and Cult)

Postgraduate Course: Theories and Methods of Literary Study I (CLLC11024)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Literatures, Languages and Cultures CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThis course introduces students to the varied practices encompassed by the burgeoning field of Comparative Literature. It begins by questioning what we understand by the term Comparative Literature, looking at ways of defining or problematizing the field and its object of study. The course foregrounds issues of 'in-between-ness', whether of literature which exists between languages, between words and music, or translingual writers who are themselves, in a sense, situated between languages. We consider intermediality between literature and film, also examining adaptation of literature to film, and then exemplify this area of intermediality through a juxtaposition of Derrida and film. The closing weeks of the course emphasize the interdisciplinary turn, offering scientific and philosophical comparative perspectives on the human, through the lenses of medical humanities and biopolitics.

Each seminar will concentrate on the discussion of one or two reasonably short theoretical texts on the topic in question, frequently followed by an analysis of a literary or visual text in the light of the issues discussed.

All texts taught on this course will be available in English / translation.

Course description Week 1 (16 Sept).
Drinks reception with students and staff
Project Room, 50 George Square (1st floor)

Week 2 (23 Sept)
Professor Peter Dayan
What is Literary Theory?

Week 3 (30 Sept)
Dr Adam Budd
What is Comparative Literature? Why Now?

Week 4 (7 Oct)
Professor Peter Dayan
Poetry between Languages

Week 5 (14 Oct)
Professor Marion Schmid
Intermediality: Film and Literature / Literature in Film

Week 6 (21 Oct)
Professor Peter Dayan
Intermediality: Words and Music

Week 7 (28 Oct)
Professor Marion Schmid
Screen Adaptation

Week 8 (4 Nov)
Dr David Sorfa
What do we mean by ¿Deconstruction¿? or, Playing with Signs and Structures

Week 9 (11 Nov)
Dr David Sorfa
Jacques Derrida and Literature: The Case of Franz Kafka

Week 10 (18 Nov)
Professor Federica Pedriali
Agamben and Biopolitics

Week 11 (25 Nov)
Dr Adam Budd
Essay preparation


Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2019/20, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  None
Course Start Semester 1
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20, Feedback/Feedforward Hours 2, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 174 )
Additional Information (Learning and Teaching) Students form study groups and discuss the reading in preparation for each seminar (1h/week).
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) One essay of 4,000 words.

Feedback Formative feedback will be provided in an essay writing/feedback workshop.
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Reflect critically on a variety of concepts of Comparative Literature and their development over time and to develop an independent view of the subject.
  2. Assess a range of different aspects of comparative practice and their usefulness for the students' own research interests.
  3. Read theoretical texts critically and to evaluate their argument.
  4. Analyse theoretical texts and to convey their arguments effectively in both written and oral form.
  5. Work autonomously both as part of a group and on their own.
Reading List
Introductory Bibliography for Comparative Literature

Apter, Emily S., Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability (New York and London: Verso, 2013)

The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006)

'Global Translation: The "Invention" of Comparative Literature, Istanbul, 1933', Critical Inquiry, 29.2 (Winter 2003), 253-81

*Bassnett, Susan, Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993)

Berman, Sandra, and Michael Wood, eds, Nation, Language and the Ethics of Translation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006)

*Bernheimer, Charles, ed., Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1995)

Brown, Catherine, The Art of Comparison: How Novels and Critics Compare (London: Legenda, 2011)

*lecture 'Literature and Form 4: What is "Comparative Literature"?', University of Oxford, English Faculty, Trinity Term 2012, podcast «http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/literature-and-form-4-what-comparative-literature»

* 'What is "Comparative Literature"?', Comparative Critical Studies, 10.1. (2013), 67-88

Damrosch, David, Natalie Melas, and Mbongiseni Buthelezi, eds, The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature: From the European Enlightenment to the Global Present (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009)

Derrida, Jacques (trans. Eric Prenowitz), 'Who or What Is Compared? The Concept of Comparative Literature and the Theoretical Problems of Translation', Discourse, 30.1-2 (Winter-Spring 2008), 22-53

Guillén, Claudio, The Challenge of Comparative Literature (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1993)

Kushner, Eva, The Living Prism: Itineraries in Comparative Literature (Montreal and Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001)

Leerssen, Joep, and Karl Ulrich Syndram, eds, Europa Provincia Mundi: Essays in Comparative Literature and European Studies offered to Hugo Dyserinck on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA : Rodopi, 1992)

Mohan Chandra, ed., Aspects of Comparative Literature: Current Approaches (New Delhi: Reliance Publ., 1989)

Moretti, Franco, Distant Reading (London and New York: Verso, 2013)

Nicholls, Stephen G., and Richard B. Vowles, eds, Comparatists at Work: Studies in Comparative Literature (Waltham, Mass.: Blaisdell Publishing, 1968)

*Saussy, Haun, ed., Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 2005)

Schulz, Hans Joachim, and Philipp H. Rhein, Comparative Literature: The Early Years, An Anthology of Essays (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1973)

*Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, Death of a Discipline (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003)

An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012)

Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven, Comparative Literature: Theory, Methods, Application (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1998)

-----, et al., eds, Comparative Literature Now: Theories and Practice (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999) [includes an extensive bibliography until 1999]

*-----, and Tutun Mukherjee, eds., Companion to Comparative Literature, World Literatures, and Comparative Cultural Studies (Foundation Books, 2014)

Weisstein, Ulrich, Comparative Literature and Literary Theory: Survey and Introduction, trans. William Riggan in collaboration with the author (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1973)

Zima, Peter V., Komparatistik: Einführung in die Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, 2nd edn (Tübingen: Francke, 2011 [1992])
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
KeywordsTMLS1
Contacts
Course organiserDr Adam Budd
Tel: (0131 6)50 3834
Email: adam.budd@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Kara McCormack
Tel: (0131 6)50 3030
Email: Kara.McCormack@ed.ac.uk
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