2024-2025 Courses
Fall 2024
Graduate Courses
CPLT 7010: Research Methods and Bibliography: Introduction to Literary Theory
from Antiquity to Romanticism
Instructor: Dr. Gundela Hachman
Time: M 3:30-6:30 p.m.
In this course, we explore foundational works in literary theory from the Classical through the Romantic period. This course enables students to learn about and engage in long-standing debates about the purposes and values of literature as well as of its perceived dangers and limitations.
In this course, students practice the art of standing on the shoulders of giants, i.e. they explore the many ways in which we can engage and interact with foundational texts that have decisively shaped our discipline and the critical methodologies we practice. In assignments, students learn to give scholarly presentations, respond with critical reviews to contemporary scholarship, and compose essays in literary theory. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism will serve as primary course material, and we will supplement as needed for additional details or contexts.
CPLT 7120 / ENGL 7221: Recent Black Culture Theory
Instructor: Dr. Casey Patterson
Time: W 3:30-6:30 p.m.
This course will read a selection of 21st century Black cultural theorists (such as Saidiya Hartman, C. Riley Snorton, Darby English, and David Scott) alongside relevant cultural objects. Special emphasis will be placed on the works of Christina Sharpe and Dionne Brand, in preparation for their short residency with the new HSS Humanities Center at LSU. During this residency, Sharpe and Brand will join one of our seminars.
CPLT 7130 / THTR 7926: Drama of Africa
Instructor: Dr. Femi Euba
Time: T, Th 10:30-11:50 a.m.
A comparative study of the dramatic and theatrical expressions of the black cultures in Africa, identifying, where possible, not only African influences on some of the dramatic works in the diaspora, but also the Western classical influences on African plays. Works include those by Wole Soyinka, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Efua Sutherland, Ama Ata Aidoo, Athol Fugard et al, Tewfik Al-Hakim, etc.
CPLT 7130: Literature of the Great War
Instructor: Dr. Asher Gelzer-Govatos
Time: T, TH 1:30- 2:50 p.m.
A transnational approach to the literature of World War I, considering both the more famous poetry and the novels. Put in broad historical context, starting with literature written just before the war, then encompassing works written during the war itself (including trench poetry), then finally works that looked back on the war in the shadow of the looming second world war. Poets would include: Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Georg Trakl, Guillaume Apollinaire, Ezra Pound, and David Jones. Novelists/short story writers would include: Franz Kafka, Henri Barbusse, Ernst Junger, Rebecca West, Mulk Raj Anand, and Joseph Roth.
CPLT 7140: Verbal Visual Theory and Analysis
Instructor: Dr. Adelaide Russo
Time: T 3:00-5:50 p.m.
The course will be dealing with texts from the French, English, and Spanish 19th to the 21st century writers and artists and address interdisciplinary approaches to major artistic movements – realism, impressionism, surrealism, conceptual art, abstract art, and hyperrealism.
CPLT 7150 / FREN 7960: The French Film
Instructor: Dr. Kevin Bongiorni
Time: T 6:00-9:00 p.m.
This course will examine French film from its inception with the Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès to Amour and Agnès Varda’s Visages Villages. It will approach films from a variety of critical and theoretical perspectives and contexts including semiotics, Existentialism, film theory and criticism, the French New Wave, Cahiers du Cinémacritics, Sergei Eisenstein’s theory of Montage, literary and film techniques and more. The is designed as a seminar. Students will be actively involved in each class meeting and will be responsible for weekly readings and viewings, presentations, and leading class discussions. Additional assignments may include frame, shot and sequence analyses, and a final conference length paper that will be presented at the time of the final exam in a mini conference format.
CPLT 7170: Methodology for Teaching World Literature
Instructor: Dr. Dorota Heneghan
Time: TH 3:00-6:00 p.m.
The goal of this course is twofold: 1) introduce students to current and past debates about questions of method, purpose, and challenges to teach world literature 2) explore a set of pedagogical techniques to create syllabi related to the selected theme in a variety of texts and films spanning the chronological periods to which the current undergraduate courses: CPLT 2201/ ENGL 2201, CPLT 2202 / ENGL 2202 and CPLT 2203 / SCRN 2203 correspond. In addition to surveying comparative literature’s history and approaches to teaching world literature and global cinema, students will examine methods for using secondary sources for original interpretation and presentation of selected texts and films, selection and development of teaching materials, observations of classes and reflective self-assessment.
Undergraduate Courses
CPLT 2201 / ENGL 2201: Narratives on Transcendent Love, Separation, and Desire
Instructor: Midhat Shah
Time: MWF 2:30-3:20 p.m.
The theme of divine love or "عشق" has been a source of inspiration for writers from all cultures and traditions, since ancient times. This motif encompasses themes such as passion, devotion, displacement, separation, self-discovery, spiritual quests, and immortality. These themes have been explored in texts of immense depth and complexity, ranging from epicpoems to didactic literature. Throughout history, these works have provided entertainment, solace, and inspiration to audiences around the world.
This module aims to provide students with insight into the interpretation and motifs of divine love, loss, and longing by examining a specific selection of texts in English translation (poetry and prose) by authors from different regions such as Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and Europe, from Antiquity to Renaissance. The course will delve into the works of a diverse range of writers, including Meister Eckhart, Maulana Rumi, Hadewijch, Mira Bhai, and Lalla Dyad. The students will critically analyze and interpret a wide range of texts, engaging with a variety of critical approaches while exploring these works in their cultural, intercultural, and historical contexts.
CPLT 2201/ ENGL 2201: Deviance and the Devil Across World Literatures from Antiquity to 1650
Instructor: Gabrielle Bologna Mesen
Time: MWF 11:30-12:20 p.m.
Across time and artistic media, portrayals of hell and the antichrist have long been associated with the political sector. These infernal images transform texts into cultural, historical artifacts: they are windows into episodes of crisis, mouthpieces for political ideologies rooted in a rejection of tyrannical, unrestrained authority. From the fallen angel of traditional Christianity to the demonic child-turned-ambassador of The Omen, the devil is consistently illustrated as rising from the ‘eternal sea’ of politics; these depictions often work to communicate the characteristics of a flawed nation and the necessary balance between church and state powers.
In this course, we will encounter the earliest personifications of evil and deviance in Western literature, and, consequently, the evolution of moral and ethical norms that accompanies them. With special attention to Western Europe and the spread of Christianity, we will read and discuss works from Greek antiquity to the Renaissance. As we question how portrayals of evil shape and challenge our views of both world literature and history itself, our goal is to shift toward a broader discourse surrounding lore, sociopolitics, and ethics in our rapidly changing world.
Required texts:
Inferno (Hollander) (2012)
Doctor Faustus (Signet) (2005)
Paradise Lost (Norton Critical) (2004)
Recommended texts:
The Hermeneutics of Hell (Palgrave Macmillan) (2017)
Nicomachean Ethics
CPLT 2202 / ENGL 2202: Modernism,
Metempsychosis, and Masterpieces
Instructor: Alexander Schmid
Time: MWF 10:30-11:20 a.m.
Modernism is sometimes described as an art movement which eschews classical forms and techniques. But what does it mean for a text to be modern? Need it have been recently written, focus on certain themes, or be expressed in a certain genre? A masterpiece is defined by Harvard professor David Damrosch as a work of near classical value which is itself a literary analogy of a liberal democracy, but what does it really mean for a text to be a masterpiece? Does this term suggest a rank beyond the normal measure? Does it suggest a workmanship not witnessed in the average piece of art? Can a masterpiece also be a classic and piece of world literature? Or does it suggest something as banal as mere popularity? Join me on an adventure from the 17th century through the 20th century to inquire into these questions.
Required Texts:
1. Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote. Trans. Edith Grossman, Ecco; Reprint edition, 2005. ISBN: 978-0060934347.
2. Goethe, Wolfgang von. Faust: A Tragedy. Trans. Walter W. Arndt., Ed. Cyrus Hamlin, W. W. Norton & Company; 2nd Ed. 1998. ISBN: 978-0393972825.
3. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from the Underground. Ed. Michael R. Katz, W. W. Norton & Company; 2nd ed., 2000. ISBN: 978-0415045407.
4. Joyce, James. Ulysses. Vintage, first ed., 1986. ISBN: 978-0394743127.
5. Mann, Thomas. The Magic Mountain. Trans. John E. Woods, Vintage, 1996. ISBN: 978-0679772873.
6. Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Vintage, 1st Edition, 2016. ISBN: 978-1784870867.
CPLT 2202 / ENGL 2202: Introduction to World
Literature: Modernity and the Search for
Meaning
Instructor: Gabrielle Delahoussaye
Time:TTH 12:00-1:20 p.m.
The aim of this course will be to introduce students to literature as a dialogical experience, one which illuminates universal themes through the particularity of culture, personhood, and literary style. Our focus will be on the modern era, the period spanning from the late 1750s to the late 20thcentury. We will seek to immerse ourselves in this time of rapid change and profound upheaval, during which men found themselves unmoored from tradition and faced with ever more bewildering questions about human existence. We will explore the ways in which art came to possess an almost messianic purpose. That is, we will encounter authors who saw themselves, or were seen by others, as tasked with finding a way to navigate the paradigm emerging into being. In the works of figures such as Henry James, Gustave Flaubert, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, one discovers strikingly original visions of what it means to be human during troubled times. Students will be asked to reflect on the complexities of love, reason, and meaning which animate the stories chosen for our course. Emphasis throughout is upon developing the ability to think independently, cogently, and decisively about the fundamental issues of modern life.
CPLT 2203 / SCRN 2203: Social-Political Issues
Instructor: Nkosilathi Moyo
Time: TTh 9:00-10:20 a.m.
In this course, we will explore a wide range of historical and contemporary socio-political issues that have beleaguered humanity globally. The issues that will be explored include racial inequality, gender inequality, human rights, war, terrorism, immigration, global warming, poverty, etc. The course will investigate how these are depicted in diverse popular literary forms, including, but certainly not limited to, film, hip-hop music, poetry, short stories, and newspaper articles. Essentially, we will take a thematic approach to the course, and each theme will constitute a module. The course material will cover three regions of the world: North America, Africa, and Europe. Authors and filmmakers to be discussed include Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar, Zuluboy, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, Mbongeni Ngema, Ryan Coogler, Tyler Perry, Jonathan Olshefski, and others. All required course materials will be made available through Moodle