48
Literary Criticism and Comparative Literature
UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI "L'ORIENTALE"
Overview
Date/time interval
Syllabus
Course Objectives
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
At the end of this class, students will have acquired and self-consciusly elaborated the basic tenets of comparative literature, i.e. its principal methodologies and most recent fields of enquiry, including a braod reflection on the idea of literature from a transcultural and transmedial perspective, also questioning the long-existing Eurocentrism of this discipline. They will also have mastered a series of instruments for textual (and medial) analysis from a comparative and intercultural perspective.
APPLIED KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
At the end of this class, students will be able to apply and test the above-mentioned theories and methodologies through a reading and critical comment of concrete "case studies", i.e. specific texts and creative items from "distant” language and cultural contexts, including their individual study contexts. They will place the texts in their cultural context(s); nevertheless, they will crucially consider such placement as an open, inherently transcultural condition.
FURTHER GOALS
Autonomy / Making Judgments:
At the end of classes, students are expected to be able to autonomously elaborate reading strategies to employ in their interpretation of texts (in an expanded sense), and motivate those. They are also expected to be able to exercise critical thinking regarding matters related to an interaction among different literatures and cultures, as well as reflect on the concrete, social implications of such matters.
Communicative Skills:
Students are expected to develop/consolidate a basic vocabulary, as well as argumentative and communicative abilities, to sustain a theoretical reflection on, and a critical interpretation of, texts (in an expanded sense) from different cultural contexts, and/or texts traversing different cultural contexts.
Learning Skills:
At the end of the course, students are expected to possess a baggage of critical categories and concepts that will orient them in bibliographical and online research, as well as towards a self-conscious and autonomous reading of literary (and not only literary) texts. Such a broad approach, and an enhanced comprehension of the interaction among different cultures, will provide them with coordinates for the contemporary globalized world, characterized by increasing plurality and diversity, as well as by growing literary, artistic, medial, and cultural interconnection; they will also form the basis for undertaking future intercultural and comparative studies.
Course Prerequisites
It is crucial to possess basic knowledge of at least the European literary history, including the knowledge acquired during the school years and previous university semesters. It is important to possess basic competence in the analysis of literary texts (i.e. competence in the individuation of textual content and structure, historical and cultural contextualization, capacity to discern basic forms and styles).
Teaching Methods
The course will combine lectures (60%) and exercises/discussion/presentations (40%) on the students’ part, in order to allow for a practical testing of the theoretical component. Attending students will be given the opportunity to actively participate in discussions, also following the experience – before or during classes – of proposed creative materials. Students will also have the opportunity to prepare individual or group presentations. They will accordingly be able to self-assess their progress during the course.
Assessment Methods
Evaluation is based on a two-part oral examination: a) a discussion of selected theoretical and/or methodological issues of comparative literature nowadays; b) a related critical reading of the creative items the examinee has worked on – possibly with the backup of self-fashioned student materials, such as bullet points or a few slides, framing the items according to the relevant critical coordinates. Students will need to demonstrate possession of a thorough, critical, and detailed knowledge of such texts.
The exam will be in Italian.
Consistently with this structure, the examiner(s) will assess: a) the level of knowledge of basic theory and methodology, as well as the level of confidence in the use of relevant terminology; b) the ability to apply theoretical categories to literary and creative case studies. The capacity to extract concepts and ideas applicable to a plural and across-the-board reading of literary/cultural phenomena will be valued over a mere mnemonic or cumulative knowledge of the texts themselves.
Final assessment will be given on a 30 point scale (minimum passing grade is 18/30).
Texts
Theory and Methodology
1)Francesco de Cristofaro, ed., Letterature comparate, Carocci, new edition 2020, selected parts.
2)Antonio Pioletti et at., eds, Letterature dei mondi. Modelli, circuiti, comparazioni, Rubbettino 2022, selected parts.
3)Federico Bertoni, Letteratura. Teorie, metodi, strumenti, Carocci, 2018, selected parts.
Literature and Other Creative Materials
In the first part of the course, during classes and in the appointed course virtual spaces, a list of literary texts and other creative (visual, audiovisual, etc.) “texts” will be shared, among which students will pick the materials for their final exam. Excerpts from these materials will be illustrated and discussed during classes as exemplifications and case studies for the proposed theoretical/analytical categories. Attending students will study three selected materials for the final exams, among which two will need to be literary materials; non attending students will study four selected materials for the final exams, among which two will need to be literary materials.
Contents
COURSE TITLE: An Introduction to Comparative Literature
TOPICS
1. Features and historical evolution;
2. Genres, forms, myths, modes, structures, themes;
3. Intertextuality;
4. Rewritings;
5. Literature and other codes;
6. Media, transmediality, intermediality;
7. World literature and east/west comparison;
8. Literariness – its history and status in the contemporary world;
9. Texts, contexts, and the world around.
Course Language
Italian
More information
The main virtual space of the course will be created and handled via Microsoft Teams, with relevant information shared at the beginning of classes.