Literary ecology focuses on bio-social themes in literature—how human beings construct their relationship to their environment through literature and landscape art. We read works by “nature writers,” from the Romantic poets to early ecologists like John Muir and John Burroughs, and by contemporary writers such as John McPhee and Annie Dillard. We also analyze issues of contemporary eco-criticism and consider an expansion of the current range of canonical texts to include a broader diversity of viewpoints.

Topics course.: The concept of cosmopolitanism has recently gone through a process of democratization. Dismissing the singular “cosmopolitanism” as a form of Eurocentric universalism, critics today study a plurality of cosmopolitanisms, focusing on transnational experiences, both elite and subaltern, Western and non-Western. How can we study comparative literature within this new framework? If the Western canon is no longer setting the standards, what are the new aesthetic values?

Same as CLT 330. The capstone seminar brings together a cohort of concentrators to discuss the final translation project that each student undertakes with the guidance of their adviser in the concentration and to situate the project within the framework of larger questions that the work of translation elicits. The seminar readings focus on renowned practitioners’ reflections on the difficulties and complexities of translating, the obstacles, discoveries and solutions that the translator encounters.

Same as TSX 330. The capstone seminar brings together a cohort of concentrators to discuss the final translation project that each student undertakes with the guidance of their adviser in the concentration and to situate the project within the framework of larger questions that the work of translation elicits. The seminar readings focus on renowned practitioners’ reflections on the difficulties and complexities of translating, the obstacles, discoveries and solutions that the translator encounters.

Topics course.: A study of South African literature and film with a focus on violence—political, economic, psychical, xenophobic, homophobic, etc. We explore the relationship between power and violence during- and post-apartheid and how race, class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity complicate the definition, conceptualization and critique of racial, political and gender-based violence in South Africa.

Same as CLT 203. Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain; Antony and Cleopatra; Cervantes’ Don Quixote; Lafayette’s The Princesse of Clèves; Goethe’s Faust; Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Lecture and discussion.

Same as ENG 203. Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain; Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra; Cervantes’ Don Quixote; Lafayette’s The Princesse of Clèves; Goethe’s Faust; Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Lecture and discussion. CLT 203/ENG 203, like CLT 202/ENG 202, is among the courses from which comparative literature majors choose two as the basis of the major. Students interested in comparative literature and/or the foundations of Western literature and wanting a writing-intensive course should take 202 or 203 or both.

From the earliest Chinese poetry to the latest Arabic Internet novels, comparative literature makes available new worlds—and “newly visible” old worlds. To become “world-forming,” one must realize one’s belonging to a given world or worlds, as well as one’s finitude. To rethink the relationship between literature and world, each section of this course focuses on a given genre, movement or theme. Through topics such as “Epic Worlds,” ”The Short Story” and “Literature and Medicine,” we consider the creation of worlds through words. May be repeated once with a different topic.

We hear and read translations all the time: on television news, in radio interviews, in movie subtitles, in international bestsellers. But translations don’t shift texts transparently from one language to another. Rather, they revise, censor and rewrite original works, to challenge the past and to speak to new readers. We explore translation in a range of contexts by hearing lectures by experts in the history, theory and practice of translation. Knowledge of a foreign language useful but not required. Graded S/U only. Can be taken concurrently with FRN 295 for 4 credits.

A colloquium integrating foundations, the learning process and curriculum. Open only to Smith senior majors.