Take your love for literature, film and media into uncharted waters. This course explores cutting-edge debates in the humanities today through the prism of in the transnational, multilingual discipline of Comparative Literature. Attending closely to selected philosophical and literary works as well as film and visual culture we will survey new questions arising from, translation studies, literary and political theory, world literature, gender and sexuality studies, environmental humanities, and media studies. Authors, artists, texts and directors may include, Gilgamesh, Gustave Flaubert, Franz Kafka, Judith Butler, Mahasweta Devi, Raymond Williams, Teju Cole, Ai WeiWei, Abderrahmane Sissako, and others.   Topics may include: postcolonial theory, translation, BIPOC studies, gender and sexuality studies, environmental studies, and media studies. Writing assignments will include a range of forms, genres, and media that help us hone our analytical, critical, and creative understanding, reflection, and expression.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG)

Full details for COML 2030 - Comparative Literature, Film, and Media

In this course we will use the Game of Thrones series as a way of familiarizing ourselves with different tools of cultural analysis and approaches in literary theory (such as narratology, psychoanalysis, media studies, queer theory, disability studies, animal studies etc.). A strong emphasis will be placed on the different media "avatars" of the series: novels, TV series, graphic novels, spin-offs, fan fiction, blogs, fan art, etc.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS)

Full details for COML 2241 - Game of Thrones: Multi-Media Fantasies

This course will explore how in the body of world literature humans have construed, narrated, imagined the end of time and of the world and sometimes its new beginning.  Spanning from ancient epic and origin myths through nineteenth century novels and colonial narratives to contemporary science fiction, we will inquire, through our reading: what is a world?  How does the labor of the imagination construct a world or the world and deconstruct or undo worlds?  Readings will range widely across time and world space (with authors such as Hesiod, Balzac, Marquez, Murakami, Alexievich, Bacigalupi) and will include attention to contemporary theories of world literature.

Catalog Distribution: (GLC-AS) (CA-AG)

Full details for COML 2271 - Reading for the End of Time

Latina/os have always been part of U.S. history, yet the media often represents Latinx as only recent immigrants or as stereotypes that reduce rich cultures into a single, unified category or group of people. This practice hides the many unique and varied voices, stories, experiences, and ideas produced by Latinx expressive practices in forms ranging from novels and poetry to podcasts, tiktoks, films, theater, comics, memoirs, visual arts, and dance. This course will sample all of these forms while considering how artists meditate on their experiences of home, friendship, languages, love, migration, education, racialization, within the contexts of histories of colonization, discrimination, war, invasion, revolution, and ongoing activist organizing for resistance, sustainability, and thriving futures. In addition to common material, students will also have the chance to explore specific expressive practices that interest them.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG)

Full details for COML 2400 - Introduction to U.S. Latinx Literature

Full details for COML 2512 - Contemporary World Cinema

How is the memory of the Holocaust kept alive by means of the literary and visual imagination? Within the historical context of the Holocaust and how and why it occurred, we shall examine major and widely read Holocaust narratives that have shaped the way we understand and respond to the Holocaust. We also study ethical and psychological issues about how and why people behave in dire circumstances. We shall begin with first-person reminiscences—Wiesel's Night , Levi's Survival at Auschwitz, and The Diary of Anne Frank—before turning to realistic fictions such as Kineally's Schindler's List (and Spielberg's film), Kertesz's Fateless, Kosinski's The Painted Bird, and Ozick's "The Shawl." We shall also read the Kafkaesque parable of Appelfeld's Badenheim 1939 and the fantastic cartoons of Spiegelman's Maus books as well as W.G, Sebald's Austerlitz. We shall conclude with several episodes of the acclaimed 2009-2017 French TV series A French Village.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS, SCD-AS) (CA-AG, D-AG, LA-AG)

Full details for COML 2580 - Imagining the Holocaust

This course raises profound theoretical questions about embodiment, agency, power, and race in virtual spaces. How do digital identities in their intersection with something called race, interact with physical bodies and material conditions? What are the possibilities and limitations of digital technologies in creating emancipatory futures for raced life? In tackling these questions, the interdisciplinary course explores key dimensions of digital feminism, including activism and advocacy, community building, critique of digital culture, criticism of techno-capitalism, call for inclusive design, artistic and cultural productions.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS)

Full details for COML 2723 - Digital Feminism and Race

Full details for COML 2767 - Storytelling in the Ancient Middle East

What do comparatists do when we approach our objects of study? What enables or justifies comparison across different languages, different genres, different media, and different disciplines? Does all comparison assume a common ground of some kind (whether historical, formal, conceptual, or ideological), or is comparison inherently ungrounded, provocative, or political? We will explore these questions through examination of a wide range of comparative projects, from those often cited as foundational to the discipline and their most important critics to contemporary comparative projects that are reshaping the discipline and expanding it in new directions. 

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG)

Full details for COML 3001 - Methods of Comparison

In this course, we will develop a toolbox of performance techniques based on methods developed in the Spanish-speaking and Latinx contexts. These techniques will be used in preparing short, original, collectively-created or scripted plays for production and public presentation in the October 2024 regional microtheater festival in upstate New York and/or the annual downtown Ithaca holiday pastorela in December.

Full details for COML 3010 - Latinx Theatre Production

This course provides an introduction to the theory of trauma, along with literary, artistic and clinical works that engage with traumatic experience. We will explore the enigmatic notion of an experience of catastrophe that is both deferred and repeated, that escapes immediate comprehension but insists on testimonial recognition. How does trauma require us to rethink our notions of history, memory, subjectivity, and language? Who speaks from the site of trauma, and how can we learn to listen its new forms of address? We begin with Freud's foundational studies and their reception across the 20th and 21st centuries, then examine a range of global responses reformulating individual and collective trauma in its social, historical and political contexts. Materials include theoretical, artistic, testimonial expression in various media.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS, GLC-AS)

Full details for COML 3050 - Introduction to Trauma Studies

Full details for COML 3113 - Imagining the Middle Ages: Films, Games, and Media

Full details for COML 3541 - Introduction to Critical Theory

Full details for COML 4002 - Versification: How Poetic Forms Are Made and Analyzed

COML 4190 and COML 4200 may be taken independently of each other. Undergraduate student and faculty advisor to determine course of study and credit hours.

Full details for COML 4190 - Independent Study

Full details for COML 4224 - Writing for the Public: Adapting Academic Work for a General Audience

Full details for COML 4251 - Existentialism

This extraordinary figure died in 1941, and his death  is emblematic of the intellectual depredations of Nazism. Yet since World War II, his influence, his reputation, and his fascination for scholars in a wide range of cultural and political disciplines has steadily grown. He is seen as a bridging figure between German and Jewish studies, between materialist critique of culture and the submerged yet powerful voice of theology, between literary history and philosophy. We will review Benjamin's life and some of the key disputes over his heritage; read some of the best-known of his essays; and devote significant time to his enigmatic and enormously rich masterwork, the Arcades Project, concluding with consideration of the relevance of Benjamin's insights for cultural and political dilemmas today.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS, HST-AS) (CA-AG, HA-AG, LA-AG)

Full details for COML 4429 - Walter Benjamin

Full details for COML 4815 - Reading (with) Judith Butler

Times TBA individually in consultation with director of Senior Essay Colloquium. Approximately 50 pages to be written over the course of two semesters in the student's senior year under the direction of the student's advisor. An R grade is assigned on the basis of research and a preliminary draft completed in the first semester. A letter grade is awarded on completion of the second semester, COML 4940.

Full details for COML 4930 - Senior Essay

Times TBA individually in consultation with director of Senior Essay Colloquium. Approximately 50 pages to be written over the course of two semesters in the student's senior year under the direction of the student's advisor. An R grade is assigned on the basis of research and a preliminary draft completed in the first semester.

Full details for COML 4940 - Senior Essay

In this course, we will develop a toolbox of performance techniques based on methods developed in the Spanish-speaking and Latinx contexts. These techniques will be used in preparing short, original, collectively-created or scripted plays for production and public presentation in the October 2024 regional microtheater festival in upstate New York and/or the annual downtown Ithaca holiday pastorela in December.

Full details for COML 6021 - Latinx Theatre Production

This course gives students the opportunity to work with a selected instructor to pursue special interests or research not treated in regularly scheduled courses. After getting permission of the instructor, students should enroll online in the instructor's section. Enrolled students are required to provide the department with a course description and/or syllabus along with the instructor's approval by the end of the first week of classes.

Full details for COML 6190 - Independent Study

"All decolonization," wrote Frantz Fanon, "is successful at the level of description."  With a focus on the difference between description and critique and on the uneven relation between the academic project underlying the subfield of postcolonial studies and histories of colonialism and aspirations to decolonization across the twentieth century,  this seminar will offer a retrospective survey on the assemblage of texts that has come under the name "Postcolonial Theory" and inquire into its purchase on this present with particular emphasis on questions of indigeneity and environmental crisis.  Authors may include: Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Aimé Césaire, Edouard Glissant, Achille Mbembe, Sylvia Wynter, David Scott, Leela Gandhi, Marlene Nourbese Philip, Jason Moore, Glenn Coulthard, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rob Nixon.

Full details for COML 6221 - Postcolonial Theory: Then and Now

This workshop-style course will address the question of how to draw on academic research and expertise to write for a non-specialist audience. We will discuss the benefits of public-facing writing; how to select a publication to pitch; how to pitch an article; and how to draft and revise an article once a pitch has been accepted. These skills will be developed through practice. Students will develop real pitch ideas to use as a basis for articles that will be drafted and revised over the course of the semester. We will discuss questions such as selecting appropriate venues, adapting to a new writing style, sourcing, citation practices, and communicating with editors.

Full details for COML 6224 - Writing for the Public: Adapting Academic Work for a General Audience

Structured around guest and public lectures by field members and beyond, the proseminar provides a common experience for students and facilitates the exchange of approaches to theoretical problems and methodological orientations. Thus, the course introduces students to the work and methods that animate their faculty's original contributions to their respective fields while offering them a forum to ask said faculty how to navigate the various stages of research and publication processes.

Full details for COML 6290 - Comparative Literature Proseminar

Full details for COML 6600 - Visual Ideology

This seminar will explore the both the intellectual grounding of and the nuts and bolts of feminist pedagogy. In what context did feminist pedagogy emerge and why? How have its practitioners variously defined it? What goals in teaching have they pursued? How might this work be useful to you as a teacher beginning or honing your teaching? Both theoretical and practical questions like these will be our subject.

Full details for COML 6610 - Feminist Pedagogy: What, Why, and How

To hone our skills in the analysis of topics in Asian studies, we will review critically a number of switchpoints that have produced conceptual difference in recent scholarly work. Asia scholars have laid claim to the historical, to modernity, coloniality, postcoloniality, religion, affect, temporality, race, capital, (mass) media, embodiment, the translocal, and the posthuman as the bases for producing conceptual difference. Each of these switchpoints has allowed for valuable interventions from Asian Studies into the humanities and social sciences. We will develop questions, criteria, and critiques to thoroughly test our tools of analysis and work toward yet other methods. Contemporary academia valorizes the production of conceptual difference. Thus, evaluation criteria routinely include originality and innovation. This is a valuable point of departure that allows us to ask, What kind of conceptual difference do we want to produce in our work? What kind of conceptual difference is intellectually rigorous? Asia as Question does not merely provide intellectual history but rather tests out—and creates—contemporary, critical approaches. As such, it interrogates especially notions of region and area; work on temporality; new ontologies; and current approaches to media ecologies. 

Full details for COML 6622 - Asia, Theory, Critique

This seminar will offer a critical examination of the literature of perversion (sadism, masochism, fetishism), with readings drawn from major texts of the libertine or S/M traditions (Sade, Sacher-Masoch, Lautréamont, Réage, Flanagan), as well as recent works of philosophy that share with these writers an investment in what I will term "writing the real". We will consider works of perversion not merely as literary or clinical cases, therefore, but as illuminating how the discourse of perversion, broadly understood, posits or constructs the real-its cases or modes of postulation or figuration. We will focus our attention on three modes of construction that purport to straddle the alleged gap between language and its real-figure, fetish, and formalization-considering in each case their relation to the problematic of the drive. In addition to the authors mentioned above, readings will include selections from Badiou, Freud, Deleuze, Ferenczi, Foucault, Lacan, Lyotard, Meillassoux, Perniola, and Zizek.

Full details for COML 6784 - The Case of the Perversions

Full details for COML 6815 - Reading (with) Judith Butler

Explore the ways of 19th to 21st century Russian Jewry through survey of literature and film. Learn about life in Russia from the perspective of Jewish and Russian-Jewish writers as well as through portrayal of Russian Jews in works of prominent Russian authors in the context of period. Selected works of Pushkin and Chekhov, Gogol and Sholom Aleichem, Pasternak and Yevtushenko will help create a multidimensional picture of the political and socio-cultural environment in which processes of integration and assimilation, both imposed and impeded by the state, shaped the identity of the modern-day Russian Jews in their deep, inherent connection to the Russian culture and often complicated relationship with their roots, which characteristically distinguishes them from their American contemporaries.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG)

Full details for RUSSL 2001 - Russian Jews and Jewish Russians in Literature and Film

The nineteenth century was the first great age of Russian poetry – beginning with Pushkin's predecessors, continuing through Lermontov, and ending with Tiutchev and Fet and anticipations of modernism. In this course you'll learn how to read short poems carefully, you'll expand and deepen your understanding of the Russian language, and you'll gain insight into one of the world's major literary traditions.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS)

Full details for RUSSL 3331 - Introduction to Russian Poetry

Independent reading course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.

Full details for RUSSL 4492 - Supervised Reading in Russian Literature

Independent study.

Full details for RUSSL 6611 - Supervised Reading and Research

Reinforces the speaking skills learned in RUSSA 1121. Homework includes assignments that must be done in the language lab or on the students' own computer. Detailed description at russian.cornell.edu.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for RUSSA 1103 - Conversation Practice

Gives a thorough grounding in all the language skills; listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Course materials include clips from original Russian films and televisions programs. Homework includes assignments that must be done in the language lab or on the students' own computers. Note the RUSSA 1103 option. Detailed description at russian.cornell.edu.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for RUSSA 1121 - Elementary Russian through Film

The emphasis is on reading unabridged articles on a variety of topics from current Russian web pages and translating them into English; a certain amount of discussion (in Russian) may also be undertaken. Detailed description at russian.cornell.edu.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for RUSSA 1125 - Reading Russian Press

RUSSA 1131 and RUSSA 1132 cover the standard Cornell first-year Russian language curriculum at a slower pace than RUSSA 1103 -RUSSA 1104 and RUSSA 1121 -RUSSA 1122, the pace to be chosen by each individual student in consultation with the instructor. Somewhat larger homework reading, writing, and online assignments with fewer and shorter meetings with the instructors in very small groups. Detailed description at Russian.cornell.edu.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for RUSSA 1131 - Self-Paced Elementary Russian I

Guided conversation, translation, reading, pronunciation, and grammar review, emphasizing the development of accurate and idiomatic expression in the language. Course materials include video clips from an original Russian feature film and work with Russian web sites, in addition to the textbook. Detailed description at russian.cornell.edu.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for RUSSA 2203 - Intermediate Composition and Conversation

Taught on a specialized basis for students with special projects (e.g., to supplement a non-language course or thesis work).

Full details for RUSSA 3300 - Directed Studies

Reading, writing, and conversation: current Russian films (feature and documentary), newspapers, television programs, Russian web sites, and other materials are used. If taken for 1 or 2 credit hours, students attend 1 or 2 classes per week, respectively. Detailed description at russian.cornell.edu.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for RUSSA 3303 - Advanced Composition and Conversation

Intended for students who speak grammatically correct Russian but do not know Russian grammar and have not learned to read or write Russian well (or have not learned written Russian at all). May be taught slightly faster or slower in a given year, depending on the needs and interests of the students. Two classes a week teach writing and grammar and include related reading. These classes are required, and the students who take them receive 2 credit hours. The third (optional) class teaches reading and discussion, and grants an additional credit hour. Detailed description at russian.cornell.edu.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for RUSSA 3305 - Reading and Writing for Heritage Speakers of Russian

This course is designed for students who want to learn more about Russia and to further develop their reading and discussion skills. The texts, fiction or non-fiction, are selected to inform the students on themes in Russian literature as well as everyday culture and general history. Reading and classroom discussions in each seminar are held in Russian (seminar 101) or in English (seminar 102), depending on the students' background. Details can be found on the Russian Language Program website.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for RUSSA 3309 - Advanced Reading

Involves discussion, in Russian, of authentic Russian texts and films (feature or documentary) in a variety of non-literary styles and genres. Detailed description at russian.cornell.edu.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for RUSSA 4413 - Modern Russia: Past and Present I

The course is designed for advanced students of Russian who are interested in Russian studies requiring fine active control of the language. Students will have an opportunity to speak formally and informally on topics in their field of interest. Fine points of syntax, usage, and style will be discussed. The subject matter differs from year to year. Detailed description at Russian.cornell.edu.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for RUSSA 4433 - Russian for Russian Specialists

To be taken in conjunction with any Russian literature course at the advanced level. Students receive 1 credit for reading and discussing works in Russian in addition to their normal course work. Detailed description at russian.cornell.edu.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for RUSSA 4491 - Reading Course: Russian Literature in the Original Language

The course is designed for advanced students of Russian who are interested in Russian studies requiring fine active control of the language. Students will have an opportunity to speak formally and informally on topics in their field of interest. Fine points of syntax, usage, and style will be discussed. The subject matter differs from year to year. Detailed description at Russian.cornell.edu.

Full details for RUSSA 6633 - Russian for Russian Specialists

By the end of this course, you will be able to carry on basic conversations in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian on many topics from your daily life. You should be able to make polite requests, ask for information, respond to requests and descriptions, impart personal information, and have simple discussions on familiar topics. You will also acquire the skills to read and understand simple informational texts, such as newspaper headlines and menus, announcements and advertisements, and to extract the general idea of longer informational texts. You will master the writing systems of the languages, and you should be able to write notes or simple letters and keep a journal.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for BCS 1131 - Elementary Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian I

The intermediate course in BCS is a continuation of the elementary course and is intended to enhance overall communicative competence in the language. This course moves forward from the study of the fundamental systems and vocabulary of the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian to rich exposure to the spoken and written language with the wide range of speakers and situations. The goal of the course is to give students practice in comprehension, speaking, and composition, while broadening their vocabulary and deepening their understanding of grammar and syntax. The course will focus on the following skills: conversation, writing, role-playing, interviewing, and summarizing. To develop these skills the students will be assigned dialogues, language exercises, translations, descriptions, summaries, and a final independent project.

Catalog Distribution: (FL-AG)

Full details for BCS 2133 - Intermediate Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian I

The Intermediate Finnish I course is designed for students with some prior knowledge of Finnish. Students have an opportunity to practice listening, reading, writing and speaking in Finnish. Students learn to provide information about their opinions and feelings, their families, their immediate environment and their daily activities. The course is taught in Finnish.

Full details for FINN 2133 - Intermediate Finnish I

This course teaches language as a gateway to Ukrainian literature, history, and arts and the means of communication in everyday life, offering thorough grounding in listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Full details for UKRAN 1121 - Elementary Ukrainian I

The course starts with a review and subsequent reinforcement of grammar fundamentals and core vocabulary pertaining to the most common aspects of daily life. Principal emphasis is placed on further development of students' communicative skills (oral and written) on such topics as the self, family, studies and leisure, travel, meals and others.

Full details for UKRAN 2133 - Intermediate Ukrainian I

This course offers a close look at the language and culture in independent Ukraine: Western vs. Slavic linguistic heritage, Internet styles, Russian vis-a-vis Ukrainian influence, and more. Mileposts of the 20th and the 21st centuries are discussed in depth. This is not a course in history or government; the recent complex (often cataclysmic) events in Ukraine are investigated in the context of the everyday life of our contemporaries. How have Ukrainians pursued self-determination through culture and language after decades of oppression and control? The course is taught by a recent refugee from the Ukrainian war who is especially interested in Ukraine's new role on the world stage. Why the yellow-and-blue flags and bumper stickers in our streets and parking lots?

Full details for UKRAN 2200 - Understanding Ukraine: History, Culture, Language, and the Road to Independence

This content-based modular course aims to develop students' capacity to use the Ukrainian language as a research and communication tool in a variety of specialized functional and stylistic areas that include literary fiction, scholarly prose, printed and broadcast journalism. It is designed for students with interest in the history, politics, literature, culture and other aspects of contemporary Ukraine, as well as those who plan to do their research, business or reporting about Ukraine.

Full details for UKRAN 3133 - Advanced Ukrainian I

Taught on a specialized basis for students with special projects (e.g., to supplement a non-language course or thesis work).

Full details for UKRAN 3300 - Directed Studies

Intended for students who speak more or less standard Ukrainian but have only beginner's understanding of Ukrainian grammar and have not learned to read or write in Ukrainian well (or have not learned written Ukrainian at all). May be taught slightly faster or slower in a given year, depending on the needs and interests of the students. Two classes a week teach writing and grammar and related reading. These classes are required, and the students who take them receive 2 credit hours. The third (optional) class teaches reading and discussion, focusing on contemporary styles.

Full details for UKRAN 3305 - Reading and Writing for Heritage Speakers of Ukrainian