Elin Diamond
[email protected]
732-932-7606
Hours: Mondays
4pm-6pm
Comparative Literature: The Discipline and the Profession
16:195:502:01; Monday, 12:30 – 3:30 p.m. CML-101; CAC
This course is designed to be both a critical review of the thinking and debates about Comparative
Literature as a discipline and a practical guide for publication and job placement in the profession. We will
explore key areas of Comparative Literature expertise—World Literature, Translation Studies,
Interdisciplinarity, Multilingualism—and think about the comparative nature of critical tropes from literary,
gender and performance theory to affect theory and the digital humanities. Workshops with faculty will
enrich our topics. We will also devote time to reviewing Comparative Literature (and related) journals and
will discuss strategies for job placement in Comparative Literature and allied departments. Students will be
asked to write a book review for possible publication and to prepare and present an advanced
undergraduate CompLit syllabus. This seminar is designed to present current scholarship in the
interdisciplinary field of Comparative Literature and requires you to conduct original research as
preparation for entering the profession. This course is intended for Comparative Literature graduate
students in their 1st or 2nd years of study. Students from other units may be admitted by permission of the
instructor.
Monday
28 Jan
Introduction to course: comparatism-world literature-interdisciplinarity. Discussion of Said’s
“Globalizing Literary Theory.” Book review assignment and sample reviews. Order forms.
4 Feb Formations I
Bring name of book selection, of target journal, and journal’s policy on submission.
1. Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis, “Odysseus’ Scar,” “Germaine Lacerteaux,” “The Brown Stocking”
2. Edward Said, “Erich Auerbach: Critic of the Earthly World”
3. Rene Wellek, “Literary Theory, Criticism, and History”; “The Crisis of Comparative
Literature” (sakai)
11 Feb Formations II Weltliteratur/World Literature
1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “On World Literature” [sakai]
2. David Damrosch, What is World Literature? Intro-“Goethe Coins a Phrase”; “From the Old
World to the Whole World”; “Rigoberta Menchú in Print”
3. Howsel-Uhlig, Stefan, “Changing Fields: The Directions of Goethe’s Weltliteratur” [sakai]
4. Franco Moretti, “Conjectures on World Literature and More Conjectures” [sakai]
5. Nirvana Tanoukhi, “The Scale of World Literature” [sakai]
6.. Mariano Siskind, “The Globalization of the Novel and the Novelization of the Global: A
Critique of World Literature” [sakai]
2/syllabus—E Diamond
18 Feb ACLA Reports
1. ACLA reports: the Levin, Greene, and Bernheimer Report (Comparative Literature in the Age
of Multiculturalism, and the Saussy report (in Comparative Literature/Globalization)
2. Susan Bassnett, ch. 1, 2, 4
3. Mary Louise Pratt, “Comparative Literature and Global Citizenship” (CL/Multiculturalism)
4. Rey Chow, “In the Name of Comparative Literature” (CL/Multiculturalism)
25 Feb Comparative Literature between Global and Area Studies I
1. Gayatri Spivak, The Death of a Discipline.
2. David Damrosch, “Rebirth of a Discipline: the Global Origins of Comparative Literature”
3. David Damrosch, “Global Comparatism and the Question of Language” [sakai]
4 Mar Comparative Literature between Global and Area Studies II
1. Pascale Casanova, The World Republic of Letters, Part I
2. Edouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation [excpts sakai]
3. Ngugi wa ‘Thiongo, Decolonizing the Mind, ch. 1, ch. 4 [sakai]
4. Walter Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs, excpts [sakai]
11 Mar Translation Studies
1. Walter Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator” (sakai)
2. Carol Jacobs, “The Monstrosity of Translation” (sakai)
3. Paul De Man, “Conclusions, Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Task of the Translator’” (sakai)
4. Samuel Weber, “A Touch of Translation: On Benjamin’s ‘The Task of the Translator’”
(Nation, Language and the Ethics of Translation)
16 Mar to 23 Mar Spring Break
25 Mar Translation Studies (Class online through Discussion/Sakai)
Book Review, 1st draft due
1.Jorge Luis Borges, “The Translators of 1001 Nights” [sakai]
2 Emily Apter, The Translation Zone, ch.1, 5, 15
3. Lawrence Venuti, “Local Contingencies: Translation and National Identities” (Berman/Wood)
1 April TRANSLATION STUDIES, Workshop Guest: Prof. Karen Bishop
1. Gregory Rabassa, “No Two Snowflakes” (sakai)
2. Margaret Sayers Peden, “Building a Translation” (sakai)
3. William Weaver, “The Process of Translation”
8 April Workshop Teaching World Literature Guest: Prof. Janet Walker, World Literature’s
scope, problems, questions
15 April Visit to Rutgers by writer Cherrie Moraga Seminar students help with event
1. Moraga, Giving Up the Ghost
2. Moraga, other works TBA
3/syllabus—E Diamond
22 April Workshop From draft to published essay. Guest: Prof. Yolanda Martínez-San
Miguel.
1. Profession 2005: “Entering the Conversation: Graduate Thesis Proposals as Genre”
2. Profession 2006: “Demystifying the Dissertation”
29 April Workshop Publishing your book Guest: RU Press Associate Editor Katie Keeran
1. Profession 2004
6 May Workshop Grants, Fellowships,Awards Guest: Asst. Dean Teresa Delcorso, Grad
Fund
13 May PRESENTATIONS of syllabi for an advanced Undergraduate course in Comparative
Literature.
Course Requirements and Class Policy.
This is a course designed to help you learn about the foundations and current debates of our
wonderful field, but also help you navigate the professional waters as Comparative Literature
specialists.
--All reading must be completed and texts must be brought to class.
--Discussion site responses. I believe that you don’t really understand something unless you write
about it. To that end I will be prompting you to send up comments on the reading in response to a
prompt I send during the week or weekend. These are not full-out thought papers, but rather brief
responses to the readings. Sometimes you’ll feel like writing a lot, sometimes just a few lines.
You can opt for silence for any three weeks of your choice.
--Book Review. Book reviews are an important part of a graduate student’s cv . I ask that you
unearth a 2012-13 book that you want to review and a journal that is appropriate for it. I will
supply you with sample book reviews. It’s my hope that some of you may feel like submitting the
review.
--1 formal presentation of readings. An 8-to 10-minute discussion of one of the week’s readings.
You must contextualize the material and author, analyze the argument presented, and then lead
the class in posing questions about the texts. I would like there to be a performative element to
these presentations: that is, involve the class in reading, in listening to, and/or in seeing something
that allows us to understand the materials viscerally as well as analytically.
--Informal presentations. I will ask you at different times to generate a question about one of the
week’s readings.
--Syllabus. Next to the book review this is the most important written work you’ll be doing in the
class. Janet Walker will help guide you, we will study sample syllabi. You can ask friends who
are already teaching to loan you theirs. This is a wonderful assignment that you can be thinking
about all semester. On 13 May you’ll present your syllabus to the class.
4/ syllabus—E Diamond
Required (*) and Recommended Texts. Also readings on Sakai.
*Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Trans W.R. Trask.
Princeton: Princeton U Press, 1974
Apter, Emily. Against World Literature: The Politics of Untranslatability. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton
U. Press, 2013
*----. The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton U. Press,
2006.
*Bassnett, Susan. Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction (Basil Blackwell, 1993).
*Bermann, Sandra and Michael Wood (ed.). Nation, Language and the Ethics of Translation. Princeton:
Princeton U. Press, 2005.
*Bernheimer, Charles. Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism. Baltimore: johns Hopkins
University Press, 1995. xiv, 207 p.
*Casanova, Pacale. The World Republic of Letters. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard U. Press, 2004.
Chow, Ray. Writing Diaspora: Tactics of intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies.
Clement, Robert J., Comparative Literature as Academic Discipline (MLA, 1978).
*Damrosh, David. What is World Literature? Princeton U. Press, 2003.
Dimock, Wai Chee. Literature for the Planet, PMLA116.1:173-88, 2003.
Gnisci, Armando Manuale storico di letteratura comparata.
Godzich, Wlad. “Emergent Literature and the Filed of Comparative Literature”. The Comparative
Perspective on Literature: Approaches to Theory and Practice. Clayton Koelb, Susan Noakes,
Ed. Cornell U. Press, 1988.
Glissant, Edouard, Poetics of Relation. Trans. Betsy Wing. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan Press, 1997.
Graff, Gerald. Professing Literature: An Institutional History. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1989.
Guillen, Claudio, The Challenge of Comparative Literature (Harvard, 1993);
Guilory, John. Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation, ch. 1, 3, 5. Chicago: U. of
Chicago Press, 1995.
Higonnet, Margaret. Borderwork: Feminist Engagements with Comparative Literature. Ithaca: Cornell,
1994.
Lawall, Sarah (ed). Reading World Literature Today: Theory, History, Practice. Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1994. xx, 360 p.
Levin, Harry. Grounds for Comparison. Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1972.
Prendersgast, Christopher. Debating World Literature. London: Verso, 2004.
*Saussy, Haun, Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U Press,
2006
*Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, The Death of a Discipline. Columbia University Press, 2003.
---. Other Asias. Blackwell, 2008.
Building a Profession: Autobiographical Perspectives on the History of Comparative Literature in the U. S.
(SUNY, 1994).
Venuti, Lawrence. The Translation Studies Reader. NY and London: Routledge, 2004 (2nd ed.)
---. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. NY: Routledge, 1995, 2008 (2nd ed.).
---. The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. NY: Routledge, 1998.
Wellek, René. “The Concept of Comparative Literature”. Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature
2. (1953). 1-5
---. “The Crisis in Comparative Literature”. Concepts of Criticism. Ed. Stephen G. Nicholas, Jr.. New
Haven: Yale U. Press, 1963. 282-295.
5/syllabus—E Diamond
Important Resources:
1. Associations:
AILC/ICLA. International Comparative Literature Association.
ABRALIC. Associação Brasileira de Literatura Comparada. ttp://www.abralic.org/
American Comparative Literature Association: http://www.acla.org/
British Comparative Literature Association: http://www.bcla.org/
Modern Languages Association http://www.mla.org
Modernist Studies Association http://msa.press.jhu.edu/
The Canadian Comparative Literature Association http://www.complit.ca/
Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs/ International Federation of Translators http://www.fitift.org/en/news.php
Modernist Studies Association http://msa.press.jhu.edu/
2. Selected Journals:
Comparative Literature - The Official Journal of the American Comparative Literature Association.
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture (ISSN 1481-4374) – online
http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/
Comparative Criticism, the annual journal of comparative literature and cultural studies founded in
http://www.swan.ac.uk/german/bcla/compcrit.htm
Comparative Literature Studies – Penn State University Press
Comparative Literature Today
The Comparatist
Signs
Representations
Critical Inquiry
Diacritics
Genre
Cultural Critique
3. Resource Center for Graduate Student External Support*
The Resource Center for Graduate Student External Support/ is a service of the Graduate School-New
Brunswick which is dedicated to assisting graduate students with their applications for nationally
competitive fellowships and grants graduate study, dissertation research and writing and postdoctoral work.
You may learn more about our services by visiting: http://chaser.rutgers.edu/index.html
4. Dissertation and Thesis Workshops:
The Office of Academic Services is pleased to announce the continuation of a series
of Dissertation and Thesis Workshops in 2012-13. In addition to examining the various
guidelines for dissertation and thesis preparation, the workshops will give you the
opportunity to ask specific questions about the format of your project.
Students who attend the workshops will also have the opportunity to review their
transcripts with us to insure that they have enrolled in the appropriate courses to fulfill their
graduation requirements. If you have suggestions regarding additional issues which should
be included in the workshops, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Since space is limited, we request that you call (732) 932-8122, or e-mail me at
[email protected], in advance to register. All sessions will be held at 25 Bishop
Place, Conference Room 101.