2025-2026 Courses

Fall 2025

Graduate Courses

CPLT 7020: History of Literary Theory and Criticism from Romanticism to the Present

Instructor: Dr. Dorota Heneghan

Time: Th 3:00-5:50 p.m.

Course Objectives: 1) To study the history of Western Literary Criticism and Theory from the late Nineteenth Century to the Present, considering the changes in literary thought resulting from an increasingly global cultural perspective; 2) To develop students’ research and writing skills and help them understand the conventions and requirements of academic discourse on literature: 3) To facilitate students’ cultivation of their talents as creative readers and writers. Topics Addressed in Modern and Contemporary Schools and Movements: The Canon; Formalism; Structuralism, Poetry; Narrative Theory; Media, Culture and Post-Modernism; Deconstruction and Post-Structuralism; Feminism, Gender Studies and Queer Theory; Marxism, New Historicism and Literary History; Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, and Reader-Response Theory; Postcolonial Theory and Criticism; Race and Ethnicity; Psychoanalysis and its Critics; Ideology and Hegemony; Anthropological Approaches to Literature; Popular Culture; Media Studies; Digital Humanities.

CPLT 7130/THTR 7920:  Drama of the African Diaspora

Instructor: Dr. Femi Euba

Time: T, Th 10:30-12:00 p.m.

A study of the dramatic and theatrical expressions of the black cultures of the New World (North and South America, and the Caribbean), identifying, where possible, comparable connections with African counterparts. Works include those by August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, Aime Cesaire, Abdias do Nascimento, and Derek Walcott.

 

CPLT 7160/FREN 7140: Two Hundred Years of Relation: Towards an Archeology of Caribbean Thought and Poetics

Instructor: Prof. Bastien Craipain

Time: M 3:30-6:20 p.m.

More than three decades after its publication, Édouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation continues to offer a defining and seemingly unsurpassable horizon in the evolution of Caribbean thought and poetics. How can we account for the enduring influence of a theory that posits change as its very condition of possibility? This course proposes to tackle this question by probing the depths of Glissant’s work and uncovering the layers of Caribbean discourse embedded in it. Going back in time from the "poetics of Relation" to the politics of the Haitian Revolution, we will examine the works of celebrated and lesser-known figures from the Caribbean archipelago and its circum-locations to assess the nature and limits of their contributions to the wayward genealogies of creole cultures. In so doing, we will not only seek to excavate the Caribbean pasts of our present “Whole-world” but also work to build a relational archive of its discursive formation. Readings may include works by Antonio Benítez Rojo, Sylvia Wynter, Aimé and Suzanne Césaire, Jean Price-Mars, Fernando Ortiz, Lafcadio Hearn, Alfred Mercier, Ramón Emeterio Betances, Cyrille Bissette, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, etc. All discussions and materials in English, though reading competence in French and Spanish may be desirable.

CPLT 7180: Academic Writing in Comparative Literature

Instructor: Dr. Adelaide Russo

Time:  T 3:30-6:20 p.m. 

The Academic Writing Seminar in Comparative Literature is for PhD students who are preparing to write their prospectus or dissertation. Over the course of the semester, your classmates and I will discuss your work and provide constructive feedback. We will also study a variety of exemplary models of academic writing in order to think about what makes a good prospectus, dissertation, book, etc. We will also discuss other major scholarly genres that are vital in the academic world: the conference abstract, the conference paper, the book review, and the article.

Undergraduate Courses

CPLT 2201/ENGL 2201: Introduction to World Literature: Selected Tales from Eastern and Western Traditions

Instructor: Selma Helal

Time: MWF 2:30-3:20 p.m.

This course offers to explore the art of storytelling through a selection of allegorical tales pertaining to western and eastern traditions. Students will come to see the power of storytelling in foregrounding teachings of ethical and philosophical dimensions across cultures.  They will come to see tales as a space for meaning to grow and metamorphose into a symbolic system of reference. The overarching theme of journey in the selection of stories can be recognized through such subthemes as migration/pilgrimage, exile, and love. Some of the readings include allegorical tales by Plato, Ibn al-Muqaffa, Boccaccio, and Suhrawardi.

 

 

CPLT 2201/ENGL 2201: The Hero in World Literature

Instructor: Gabrielle Delahoussaye

Time: T, TH 1:30-2:50 p.m.

This course will examine the concept of heroism, as it shapes Western literature from Ancient to Early Modern times. Together, we will discuss ideals of courage and excellence belonging to various cultural, historical, and ethical frameworks. Through encounters with works by Homer, Sophocles, and Shakespeare, we will develop an understanding of what it means to live an exemplary life. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which heroes both uphold and defy the behavioral codes prescribed to them by the societies in which they live. Emphasis throughout will be upon developing the ability to think independently, cogently, and decisively about fundamental issues that arise from reflection on the nature of human existence.

 

CPLT 2202/ENGL 2202: Introduction to Modern World Literature: The Atomic Age

Instructor: Gabrielle Bologna

Time: MWF 11:30-12:20 p.m.

In this course, we will read our way through the first half of the twentieth century with literature bridging the gap between the imaginary and the real. Moving across genres, from the dystopian to the historical novel, we will encounter visions of post-war environments, technological advances, oppressive regimes, and normative change. As we engage with material authored in the wake of Imperial collapse and increasing international conflict, our focus turns toward a broader question surrounding themes of crisis and revolution, reflecting on how this literary era shapes and challenges our understandings of past, present, and future.    

 

CPLT 2202/ENGL 2202: Ecstasies of the Soul - Transcendent Union in World Literature

Instructor: Midhat Shah

Time: MWF 10:30-11:20 a.m.

The concept of divine love or "عشق" remains a powerful literary force from the modern era to the present. This course examines how writers have expressed mystical consciousness, spiritual longing, and divine union in an age of increasing rationalism and secularization. We will explore how the language of transcendent love evolved from 1650 onward while maintaining connections to earlier mystical traditions.
Through a comparative study of texts from Western Romanticism, American Transcendentalism, and Eastern spiritual traditions, we will analyze expressions of ecstatic devotion, spiritual displacement, and the pursuit of union with the beloved. Special attention will be given to Southeast Asian Sufi poets such as Bulleh Shah (1680-1757) and other influential mystics from the region. Additional authors may include William Blake, Rabindranath Tagore, and contemporary spiritual writers.
Students will engage with these works through close textual analysis while considering their historical and cultural contexts, developing a nuanced understanding of how divine love has inspired literary creation across boundaries of time, tradition, and culture.

CPLT 2203/SCRN 2203: Global Cinemas: Cinematic Representations of Neocolonialism, Aesthetics, and Autocriticism

Instructor : Wolé Olúgúnlè

Time: T, TH 09:00-10:30 a.m.

Why do we still experience conflicts and war even when the UN tries to maintain World Peace? Why are there no developments in the Global South despite the independence of these nations? Who is responsible for the underdevelopment of developing Global South countries? Will recolonizing them solve the sociopolitical challenges and underdevelopment? These are a few of the questions that this course wishes to answer. This course is designed to introduce students to artistic and cinematic objects of diverse countries from North America/Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, and a league of others to understand how colonialism, neocolonialism, and autocriticism are shaped and manifested in the 21st-century world’s cinema. Recalling that musical and virtual (re)presentations of social issues and ideas have proven to enhance man’s understanding, critical reflection, criticism, and retention of sociopolitical issues, this course takes a thematic approach in the study of representations of sociopolitical issues in popular cultural forms including films, short stories, newspaper articles, and short essays. With a comparative approach, we will explore the convergence and divergence in cinematic objects while analyzing how they address colonialism, neocolonialism, and autocriticism. Moreover, through the analysis of these critical global political issues, we will engage the questions posed above to understand the political dynamics of sociopolitical issues. We will begin with the definitions of “colonialism, neocolonialism, and autocriticism.” Each thematic area will always entail a class screening of films from all three continental regions of our focus. Film screenings will constitute an entire class period and film discussions will occur in the subsequent class meeting. We will study the works of such filmmakers and writers as Tunde Kilani, Euzhan Palcy, Sharad Patel, Armando Iannucci, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Ravi Kumar, Luc Besson, and more. This course is open to students who are interested in films, global politics, social justice, and cultural studies.