Comparative Literature 697P - ST-Poetics and Politics/Trauma

In this course, we will explore through a comparative lens the psychological structure of traumatic experience and the effect of political, religious, and nationalist sentiments on the construction of pain and suffering in key 20th century literary texts and visual arts. The course will explore the extent to which personal memory clashes or overlaps with the cultural remembrance of historical trauma, examine how trauma shapes such narratives, and consider the social, political, and cultural implications of narrating trauma in and across different aesthetic/artistic forms. Literary texts will include Toni Morrison's, Beloved (US), Wolfgang Borchert's The Man Outside (Germany), WWI poets (UK), Elias Khoury's, Gate of the Sun (Palestine), and Ahmad Dehghan's collection of short stories, A Vital Killing (Iran).