School of Comparative Literary Studies
Dunton Tower 1701
Telephone: 788-2177
Fax: 788-3544
The School
Director of the School: Robert Polzin
Assistant Director of the School: G.A. Woods
The School of Comparative Literary Studies offers programs of
graduate study leading to the degree of Master of Arts in Comparative
Literary Studies. These programs, involving courses in comparative
literary studies and, where appropriate, up to two courses from
other departments, have considerable flexibility in the sense
that they can be tailored to suit each student's special interests
in particular periods or areas while, at the same time, through
the core half courses, Comparative Literary Studies 17.501 and
17.502, and the final comprehensive examination, providing a specialized
training in the techniques of comparative literary studies.
The purpose of the program in comparative literature is to study
literature in its international context, and to relate and compare
literary phenomena usually studied in isolation because of linguistic
barriers and the traditional departmental division of academic
disciplines. Thus, taking into account the interrelation of all
humanistic studies, such as the various literatures, philosophy,
psychology, sociology, the visual arts, and history, comparatists
view literary creation within the total complex evolution of world
literature. The historical flow of literary archetypes, the role
of folklore and myth in literature, recurrent problems of literary
theory, and consideration of the less well known literatures of
the world are some of the objects of comparative literary studies.
The study of this discipline must be based on a truly comparative
perspective, on a solid linguistic foundation, and on an awareness
of all difficulties that arise in comparative literature, conceived
as a domain both within and beyond the limits of national literatures.
Students registered in other departments who wish to register
in one or more courses from the comparative literary studies program
must demonstrate a reading knowledge of the languages required
for each course. Such students are encouraged to emphasize their
own area of literary study in presentations and essays when the
instructor judges that the content of the course(s) so permits.
Three years of study at the university level will normally constitute
the required level of language proficiency.
Qualifying-Year Program
The regulations governing admission to the qualifying-year program
are outlined in the general section of this calendar.
Applicants who hold only a general (pass) B.A. degree will be
required to successfully complete the basic half courses, Comparative
Literary Studies 17.401: Foundations of Comparative Literary Studies
and Comparative Literary Studies 17.402: Theories of Literature,
and to take courses from other departments of literature or Comparative
Literary Studies (see Undergraduate Calendar) to achieve
the equivalent of a combined honours B.A. with high honours standing.
The total course program is to be worked out in consultation with
the graduate studies supervisor. Formal admission to the master's
program may be considered at the end of the first term.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.401
Foundations of Comparative Literary Studies
The history of the discipline of comparative literature will be
studied, including its beginnings in nineteenth-century France,
its evolution, and its current status in Europe, the United States,
and Canada.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.402
Theories of Literature
The course focuses on twentieth-century literary theories in the
context of comparative studies, providing the student with an
overall view of the theoretical discussion of literature from
about 1920 to the present. Included in the study are Russian Formalism,
American New Criticism, and such other approaches as the structuralist,
semiotic, socio-cultural, and hermeneutic.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
(Students enrolling in this course under the cross-listed 38.402
should note the requirements of the Department of Spanish).
Master of Arts
Admission Requirements
The regulations governing admission to the master's program are
outlined in the General Regulations section of this calendar.
The specific requirements for admission to the master's program
in comparative literature are the following:
- An honours B.A. degree (or equivalent) with at least high
honours standing in a literature (studied in the original language)
or in two literatures or in a literature and a related arts subject
- Proficiency in English
- An ability to work at the graduate level in an additional
language approved by the School. Students whose record does not
clearly demonstrate this ability will be required to take as part
of their program at least one half credit in the literature of
this second language in the original language
Program Requirements
Students accepted into the master's program without having taken
the two half courses, Comparative Literary Studies 17.401 and
Comparative Literary Studies 17.402 (or their equivalent), will
be required to take these courses as extra to the degree.
Master's candidates in comparative literature will follow one
of three programs. The specific requirements are as follows:
- The two half courses, Comparative Literary Studies 17.501:
Problems in the Theory of Literature I and Comparative Literary
Studies 17.502: Problems in the Theory of Literature II
- Two full graduate courses (or the equivalent) selected from
those offered by Comparative Literary Studies. With departmental
approval, one of these full courses may be a 400-level course.
Courses in other programs in the University may also be selected
with permission of the Graduate Committee, but normally not in
excess of one full course (or the equivalent)
- Either Comparative Literary Studies 17.599: M.A. Thesis
(equivalent to two full course credits); or Comparative Literary
Studies 17.598: Research Essay (one full credit) and Comparative
Literary Studies 17.593: M.A. Comprehensives (one full credit);
or an additional full graduate course (or the equivalent)
and 17.593: M.A. Comprehensives (one full credit)
Guidelines for Completion of Master's Degree
The master's program is normally completed no later than two years
or six terms after initial full-time registration and six years
or eighteen terms after initial part-time registration.
Graduate Courses*
A prerequisite for all graduate-level courses is appropriate linguistic
ability and approval of the School of Comparative Literary Studies.
A student may not receive credit for both a half course and a
full course which bears the same topic title.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.501W1
Problems in the Theory of Literature I
Topic for 1995-96: Estrangement
Estrangement and its analogues (alienation, ostranenie,
Verfremdung, the uncanny, alterity) will be examined as
paradigms for literary interpretation and for textual production.
Readings in theory will concentrate on relevant selections from
Marx, Lukács, Shklovskii, Freud, and Taussig. Literary
texts by Goethe, Poe, Melville, Dickinson, Turgenev, Brecht, Camus,
Robinson, LeGuin, and Handke.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
Arnd Bohm.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.502W1
Problems in the Theory of Literature II
Topic for 1995-96: Reference, Sense and Meaning: Theoretical Problems
in Interpretation
This course focuses on some of the theoretical problems that text
semantics pose for literary interpretation. Emphasis is placed
on exploring the external/internal fields of textual reference,
the language-specific sense of discourse, and the processes by
which meaning effects are conveyed. Literary texts will come from
twentieth-century English, French, German, and Spanish poetry
and short fiction.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
H.-G. Ruprecht.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.521F1
Literary History II: Studies of Themes and Myths
Topic for 1995-96: Forms of Displacement: Modernity and Travel
The course will examine questions pertaining to exile, emigration,
exploration, nomadism, and tourism in relation to the twentieth-century
novel and short story. The reflection on travel and its role now
taking place in literary theory and such disciplines as anthropology,
geography, and psychoanalysis will also be considered. The authors
on the reading list will include Achebe, Conrad, Forster, Gordimer,
Joyce, Paci, Pavese, Jelloun. Providing the linkage with theory
and non-literary discourses will be articles and excerpts by Bakhtin,
Deleuze, Freud, Lévi-Strauss, Lotman, Lukács, MacCannell,
Said, and Tuan.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
F.G. Loriggio.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.522F1
Literary History III: Periods, Styles, and Movements
Topic for 1995-96: Lowell and Larkin: A Cross-Cultural Comparison
A comparison of the work and careers of Robert Lowell and Philip
Larkin in the framework of their historical positions in American
and British poetry. Particular attention will be paid to their
attitudes to Anglo-American modernism. An attempt will be made
to attain a focus on differences in development of American and
British poetry in the mid-twentieth century. Texts by Lowell,
Larkin, and Alvarez.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
(Also offered as English 18.561)
A.T. Tolley.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.523W1
Literary History IV: Form and Function of Genres
Topic for 1995-96: Updating the Comic: Laughter in Twentieth-Century
Literature and Other Discourses
The focus of the course will be the function (transgressive, integrative,
etc.) of laughter in twentieth-century theatre and in the discussions
of the comic and comedy undertaken by such disciplines as philosophy,
psychoanalysis, and anthropology. Literary texts will come primarily
from Beckett, Campanile, Fo, Ionesco, Pirandello, Stoppard. Theoretical
and non-literary material will include works or excerpts of works
by Bergson, Bakhtin, Bataille, Eco, Eliade, Freud, Frye, Jung,
and Nietzsche. Some films (Marx Brothers, Woody Allen) will also
be studied.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
F.G. Loriggio.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.532T2
Studies in the Literature of Identity
Topic for 1995-96: Female Identity: Writing by Women in the Twentieth
Century
This course will explore topics such as gender and narrativity,
women's space, marginalization, women and madness, and mothers
and daughters in writing by women in the first half of the twentieth
century in northern Europe and North America. The texts will be
discussed from a cross-cultural perspective with reference to
poststructuralist literary theory, including feminist criticism.
Texts include: Dinesen, Woolf, Colette, Stein, de Beauvoir, Skram,
Undset, Salverson, and Roy.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
G.A. Woods.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.554T2
Cross Cultural Studies I: Literatures Written in the English Language
Topic for 1995-96: The Fourth World and the Edge of Empire
The course will study the emergence of indigenous literatures
in the modern world. Attention will focus primarily on texts from
Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, but some works
by South African and Latin-American writers will also be discussed,
as will some works by non-indigenous writers. Among the authors
included in the reading list are: Sally Morgan, Hyllus Maris (Australia);
Witi Ihimaera, Keri Hulme (New Zealand); Marmon Silko, Gerald
Vizenor, Alice Walker (U.S.); Wilma Stockenstrom (South Africa);
Marquez (Columbia).
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
Before 1995-96, course 17.554 was offered as 17.550.
(Also offered as English 18.504)
J.J. Healy.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.556W1
Cross-Cultural Studies IIB: Literature of the Francophonie
Topic for 1995-96: Poétiques des littératures francophones
dans l'espace antillais et les aires de diaspora
Analyse de l'émergence des littératures francophones
des Caraïbes (Haïti, Martinique, Guadeloupe et Guyane).
Les poétiques des poètes et poèticiens: A.
Césaire, E. Glissant, Frankétienne, R. Depestre,
L.G. Damas. Analyse de l'émergence d'une poésie
migrante contemporaine (Montréal). Analyse des poétiques
dans les aires de métissage culturel et littéraire,
analyse des interrelations vernaculaires et véhiculaires.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
Before 1995-96, course 17.556 was offered as 17.551.
Pierre Laurette.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.561F1
Studies in Postmodernism I
Topic for 1995-96: Postmodern Theory
This course deals with the theories of postmodernism and their
relation to feminist theory in art, philosophy, architecture,
literature, and theatre. Some of the authors that will be considered
are J. Baudrillard, H. Cixous, T. de Lauretis, G. Deleuze, A.
de Toro, D.W. Fokkema, F. Guattari, L. Hutcheon, L. Irigaray,
C. Jencks, J. Kristeva, D. LaCapra, J-F. Lyotard, T. Moi, L. Nicholson,
P. Portoghesi, G. Spivak, R. Venturi, A. Warhol.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School
Fernando de Toro.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.562W1
Studies in Postmodernism II
Topic for 1995-96: Postmodern Fiction
This course will examine postmodern fiction and fiction by women
through focusing on their differences and similarities in the
use of narrative strategies and techniques such as genre subversion,
non-fictionality, memory, historicity, the palimpsest, intertextuality,
and rhizomatic writing in the work of authors such as K. Acker,
J. Banville, J. Barnes, J.L. Borges, N. Brossard, A. Carter, H.
Cixous, J.M. Coetzee, U. Eco, G. García, Márquez,
M. Puig, A. Roa Bastos.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
Fernando de Toro.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.565F1
Intertextuality: Literature and Other Cultural Phenomena
Topic for 1995-96: Intertexuality as Discursive Appropriation,
Subversion, and Manipulation: Modern and Postmodern Artistic Practices
This course deals with the discursive manifestations of intertextual
relations, i.e., with the various forms of textual networks including
the ironic transformation of classic genres, the subversive use
of canonic writings, and the manipulatory transcoding of the cultural
dialogue between modern and postmodern art, poetry, theatre, and
fiction. Texts by Anouilh, Atwood, Barnes, Borges, Brecht, Coetzee,
Donoso, Eliot, Handtke, Joyce, Lima, Plenzdorf, Roth, Tournier,
Vargas Llosa.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
H.-G. Ruprecht.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.580F1
Seminar in Comparative Literary Studies
Topic for 1995-96: Literary Realism 1720-1930
The aim of this course is to discuss the implications, for the
literatures compared (English, French, and American), of the contradictions
evident in these (and other) definitions of the term "realism":
(1) Realism, a term applied to literary composition that aims
at an interpretation of the actualities of any aspect of life;
(2) Le Réalisme, a movement in the French novel, at its
height between 1850-1865; (3) Realism, a literary term so widely
used as to be more or less meaningless. Literary texts used will
include novels of D. Defoe, H. de Balzac, C. Dickens, G. Flaubert,
U. Sinclair, and T. Dreiser. Criticism by E. Auerbach, W. Trask,
G.J. Becker, and D. Grant will be discussed.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
A.W. Halsall.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.581T2
Seminar in Comparative Literary Studies
Topic for 1995-1996: Poetics of the Literatures of the Francophonie
A comparative analysis of various poetics of the literatures of
the Francophonie: (1) The Antilles: the poetry and poetics of
A. Césaire, E. Glissant, L.G. Damas; (2) Africa: the poetry
and poetics of L.S. Senghor; (3) French Canada and Québec:
the poetry and poetics of J.R. Léveillé, G. Miron;
(4) France: the poetry and poetics of S. Mallarmé, P.
Valéry. Particular attention will be paid to an analysis
of the poetic creation, to interliterary, cultural, and linguistic
cross-fertilization, as well as to poetics and symbolic and cultural
identification.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
Pierre Laurette.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.582F1
Seminar in Comparative Literature
Topic for 1995-96: Critical Theory and the Bible
An exploration of trends in biblical scholarship influenced by
current literary theory and the philosophy of language. Selected
biblical texts from Deuteronomy through II Kings are interpreted
according to these new approaches.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
(Also offered as Religion 34.520)
Robert Polzin.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.593F2, W2, S2
Comprehensives
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.595F3, W3
Study Abroad
Under the terms of the accord with l'Université de Picardie
in France, Università di Bari in Italy, and Universidad
de Buenos Aires in Argentina, students may do a part of their
work for the M.A. in Comparative Literary Studies in France, Italy,
and Argentina. The content of the study will be decided by the
School of Comparative Literary Studies at Carleton. Only students
sponsored by the School under the exchange may take this course.
Work done in France, Italy, and Argentina will be the subject
of a report from l'Université de Picardie, Università
di Bari, and the Universidad de Buenos Aires and will receive
a final grade awarded by the School of Comparative Literary Studies
at Carleton.
Prerequisite: Permission of the School.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.596T2
Directed Special Studies
From time to time, students whose main interests are not covered
by courses offered in a given year may pursue independent research,
subject to the availability of a qualified adviser and relevant
library resources at Carleton. Interested students should apply
directly to the supervisor of graduate studies.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.597F1, W1, S1
Directed Special Studies
From time to time, students whose main interests are not covered
by courses offered in a given year may pursue independent research,
subject to the availability of a qualified adviser and relevant
library resources at Carleton. Interested students should apply
directly to the supervisor of graduate studies.
Before 1995-96 course 17.597 was offered as 17.598.
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.598F2, W2, S2
Research Essay
- Comparative Literary Studies 17.599F4, W4, S4
M.A. Thesis
Courses Not Offered in 1995-96
- 17.520 Literary History I
- 17.540 Studies in Modernism and Postmodernism
- 17.543 Paraliterature
- 17.555 Cross-Cultural Studies II: Literature of the Francophonie
- 17.557 Cross-Cultural Studies III: Literature of the Luso-Hispanic
World
- 17.558 Comparative Canadian Literature I
- 17.559 Comparative Canadian Literature II
- 17.571 The Theory and Practice of Translation