Washington University / Fall 2010                  
    Comparative Literature 211
    Prof. Ignacio Infante                                                                              

 

         

World Literature: A Comparatist's Atlas    

         

 



 Course Schedule
(Readings in bold, to be done prior to class)  

 

    September 1--A Comparatist’s Atlas: Border Crossing, Travel and the Mapping of World Literature

 
    9/3      Crossing Hell in the Middle Ages (Italy): Exile, Death and Intertextuality in Dante’s Inferno.

                Intro to Dante and the European Middle Ages 

    9/6      L A B O R    D A Y

 
    9/8       Inferno, Cantos I-X


    9/10     Inferno, Cantos XI-XVII

 

    9/13     Inferno, Cantos XXI-XXXIV

    9/15     Crossing La Mancha in the Early Modern Period (Spain): Cervantes’ Don Quixote and the Birth of the Novel

    9/17    Don Quixote, Chp. I-X

    9/20    Don Quixote, Chp. XV-XXII

 
    9/22     Don Quixote, Chp. XLV-LII

 
    9/24     Writing workshop


    9/27     Traveling Realism and Western Love (France, Italy). Stendhal,  Love, 11-50

Essay #1 Due

    9/29    Stendhal, Love, 53-80

 
   October 1     Stendhal, Love, 137-169

 
    10/4    Jeffrey Eugenides/ Roland Barthes (Telesis)

    
   10/6   Traveling Realism and Eastern Love (Japan): Junichiro Tanizaki, The Key, 1-52       

 
    10/8      The Key, 53-107

 
    10/11     The Key, 107-157

 
    10/13   Writing workshop

 

    10/15   F A L L     B R E A K

 

    10/18  Mapping Anglophone African Culture.  Amos Tutuola, The Palm-wine Drinkard

Essay #2 Due

 
    10/20  The Palm-wine Drinkard

 
    10/22   The Palm-wine Drinkard

 
    10/25   The Palm-wine Drinkard

 
     10/27   Mapping the Caribbean Voice (Barbados/West Indies): 

                 Kamau Brathwaite, The Arrivants Kamau Brathwaite, 

           
    10/29    The Arrivants

 
    November 1  The Arrivants

 
     11/3      Writing Workshop

 
     11/5      Mapping the Modern City / Mapping Fiction : Jorge Luis Borges (Buenos Aires)

                 Borges, “Death and the Compass” in Labyrinths

Essay #3 Due

 
     11/8      Jorge Luis Borges, “The Zahir” and “The Argentine Writer and Tradition” in Labyrinths

 
     11/10    Jorge Luis Borges, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”

 
      11/12    Jorge Luis Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”

      11/15   Travel, Intertextuality and the Postmodern European Novel (Germany, England, Italy):  W.G. Sebald’s Vertigo (1-30)  

  
      11/17     Vertigo (141-167)

  
     11/19     Vertigo (171-263)

  
     11/ 22     Mapping Contemporary Islamic culture: Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building (Egypt)  

  
     11/24   T H A N K S G I V I N G

 
      11/29  The Yacoubian Building  

 
      12/1   The Yacoubian Building  

 
     12/3   The Yacoubian Building  

  
     12/6:  Workshop

 
     12/8     Workshop

      12/10     Last day of classes 

 

      12/ 16   Final Essay Due

 

                   Please Note: Supplementary material  is available on our Telesis webpage.  

                    To acess readings on Telesis please log in here, or go to: https://telesis.wustl.edu/

                    

                    Please also see our library research guide for your research assignments:  http://libguides.wustl.edu/worldlit