Comparative Literature (COML)Arts and Sciences
Showing 41 results.
Course descriptions provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.
Last Updated
- Schedule of Classes - September 7, 2025 7:07PM EDT
Classes
COML 1104
Course Description
We live in an image-saturated world. How do we make sense of the moving image and its powerful roles in shaping culture and mediating our relationship with the world? This course will equip students with ... view course details
FWS Session.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- MW
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Zhang, X
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: In Person
For more information about First-Year Writing Seminars, see the Knight Institute website at http://knight.as.cornell.edu/.
COML 1105
Course Description
What do Frankenstein and Things Fall Apart have in common? What lies behind the fantastical stories of Aladdin? Do we have to like Garcia Marquez and Shakespeare? These texts and authors re-imagine the ... view course details
FWS Session.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
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Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- MWF
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Diago Lizarralde, S
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: In Person
For more information about First-Year Writing Seminars, see the Knight Institute website at http://knight.as.cornell.edu/.
FWS Session.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- MW
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Wang, Y
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: In Person
For more information about First-Year Writing Seminars, see the Knight Institute website at http://knight.as.cornell.edu/.
FWS Session.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- MW
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Zarepour, N
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: In Person
For more information about First-Year Writing Seminars, see the Knight Institute website at http://knight.as.cornell.edu/.
FWS Session.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- MWF
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Shokrisaravi, A
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: In Person
For more information about First-Year Writing Seminars, see the Knight Institute website at http://knight.as.cornell.edu/.
FWS Session.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- TR
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Chakraborty, A
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: In Person
For more information about First-Year Writing Seminars, see the Knight Institute website at http://knight.as.cornell.edu/.
FWS Session.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- MWF
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Perez-Cruz, C
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: In Person
For more information about First-Year Writing Seminars, see the Knight Institute website at http://knight.as.cornell.edu/.
COML 1119
Course Description
Explore the culinary tradition and culture of Russia in broad historical, geopolitical and socioeconomic context through the lens of Russian folklore, short stories of Gogol, Chekhov, and Bulgakov, works ... view course details
FWS Session.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- TR
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Krivitsky, R
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: In Person
For more information about First-Year Writing Seminars, see the Knight Institute website at http://knight.as.cornell.edu/.
COML 1141
Course Description
In this class, students will learn about animal welfare and conservation through international films. We will discuss wildlife, companion, farm, and lab animals in conjunction with human cultures, politics, ... view course details
FWS Session.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- TR
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Bachminska, E
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: In Person
For more information about First-Year Writing Seminars, see the Knight Institute website at http://knight.as.cornell.edu/.
COML 2030
Course Description
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 ... view course details
Regular Academic Session.
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- TR
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Caruth, C
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: In Person
Enrollment limited to: incoming first-year students. To request a permission number, contact the Department of Comparative Literature, complit@cornell.edu.
Department Consent Required (Add)
COML 2241
Course Description
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, ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: SHUM 2241
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 2271
Course Description
This course will explore how in the body of world literature, film and music humans have construed, narrated, imagined the end of time and of the world and sometimes its new beginning. Spanning from ancient ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: ENGL 2971
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 2400
Course Description
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 ... view course details
COML 2512
Course Description
Contemporary World Cinema offers an introduction to some of the most acclaimed international films of the 21st century. We will consider narrative, documentary, animation, and experimental films from multiple ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: PMA 2512, VISST 2512
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 2580
Course Description
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 ... view course details
COML 2723
Course Description
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 ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: ASRC 2723, FGSS 2723, VISST 2723
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 2767
Course Description
Literary forms were developed millennia ago in Egypt and Mesopotamia to teach, inspire admiration, produce consent, generate awe or pity, and move people to action. Students will read in English translation ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: NES 2767
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 3001
Course Description
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 ... view course details
Regular Academic Session.
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
COML 3010
Course Description
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, ... view course details
COML 3050
Course Description
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 ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: ENGL 3051, GERST 3513
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 3113
Course Description
Today, the legacy of the Middle Ages can be found everywhere, from the game of chess to Game of Thrones, the parliament to the university, the Crusades to the Vikings, the nostalgia for tradition to the ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: GERST 3545, MEDVL 3545, PMA 3545, SHUM 3545, VISST 3545
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 3541
Course Description
Shortly after the 2016 election, The New Yorker published an article entitled “The Frankfurt School Knew Trump was Coming.” This course examines what the Frankfurt School knew by introducing students to ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: ENGL 3920, GERST 3620, GOVT 3636, SHUM 3636
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 3791
Course Description
Readings in French and Francophone philosophy and theory, from the 16th century to today. Themes may vary each offering, but can include questions of: death and finitude, gender, existence, affect, literature, ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: FREN 3790
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
COML 4002
Course Description
This course provides an introduction to meter and rhyme and to the study of meter and rhyme Verse readings will be short poems written in English, with a particular focus on Shakespeare’s sonnets and ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: ENGL 4002
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 4190
Course Description
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. view course details
Project Session Full.
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Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Caruth, C
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Instructor Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Bachner, A
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Instructor Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Banerjee, A
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Instructor Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Castillo, D
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Instructor Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Diabate, N
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Instructor Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Dubreuil, L
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Instructor Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Fuhrmann, A
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Department Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Vaziri, P
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Instructor Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Monroe, J
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Instructor Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Murray, T
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Department Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Walker, G
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Instructor Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Pollak, N
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Instructor Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Fleming, P
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Instructor Consent Required (Add)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
-
Class Number & Section Details
-
Meeting Pattern
- Aug 25 - Dec 8, 2025
Instructors
Lorenz, P
-
Additional Information
Instruction Mode: Independent Studies
To apply: first discuss the Independent Study with the course supervisor, and then complete the online Independent Study form at https://data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus/indep_study_intro.cfm.
Department Consent Required (Add)
COML 4224
Course Description
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 ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: COML 6224, GERST 4224, GERST 6224, ROMS 4324, ROMS 6324
-
Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 4251
Course Description
The most intense public encounter between Existentialism and Marxism occurred in immediate post-WWII Europe, its structure remaining alive internationally. Existentialist questions have been traced from ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: GERST 4210, GOVT 4015, ROMS 4210
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 4429
Course Description
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 ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: ANTHR 4413, ANTHR 7413, GERST 4413, GERST 6413, JWST 4913, JWST 7913, NES 4913, NES 7913
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Graded(Letter grades only)
COML 4522
Course Description
Experimental media surfacing from different corners of the Iberian Peninsula, since the emergence of the avant-garde to the Internet age, has a long-standing history of exploring new modes of ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: SPAN 4520
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Credits and Grading Basis
4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 4711
Course Description
“Staffage” is a term in the history of landscape painting. It refers to little figures who populate the scene, invariably dwarfed by their surroundings. The few critics who noticed them assigned them various ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: ARKEO 4712, ARKEO 6712, ARTH 4361, ARTH 6361, COML 6711, SHUM 4711, SHUM 6711, VISST 4711, VISST 6711
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 4815
Course Description
Judith Butler is one of today’s foremost theorists and cultural critics. Even though they are known, above all, for their work in gender studies and queer theory, their theoretical thought ranges widely. ... view course details
COML 4930
Course Description
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 ... view course details
COML 4940
Course Description
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 ... view course details
COML 6021
Course Description
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, ... view course details
COML 6190
Course Description
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, ... view course details
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
Project Session Full.
-
Credits and Grading Basis
1-4 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 6221
Course Description
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 ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: ENGL 6221
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 6224
Course Description
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 ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: COML 4224, GERST 4224, GERST 6224, ROMS 4324, ROMS 6324
-
Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 6290
Course Description
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 ... view course details
COML 6364
Course Description
In this seminar, we will draw connections between radical theories and movements from the nineteenth century to the present. Rather than identifying isolated trajectories of “Marxism” “anarchism” ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: FGSS 6365, GERST 6365, GOVT 6465, PHIL 6494
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 6600
Course Description
Some of the most powerful approaches to visual practices have come from outside or from the peripheries of the institution of art history and criticism. This seminar will analyze the interactions between ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: ARTH 6060, GERST 6600
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 6610
Course Description
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 ... view course details
COML 6622
Course Description
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 ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: ASIAN 6622
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 6711
Course Description
“Staffage” is a term in the history of landscape painting. It refers to little figures who populate the scene, invariably dwarfed by their surroundings. The few critics who noticed them assigned them various ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: ARKEO 4712, ARKEO 6712, ARTH 4361, ARTH 6361, COML 4711, SHUM 4711, SHUM 6711, VISST 4711, VISST 6711
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 6784
Course Description
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, ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: FREN 6580
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)
COML 6815
Course Description
Judith Butler is one of today’s foremost theorists and cultural critics. Even though they are known, above all, for their work in gender studies and queer theory, their theoretical thought ranges widely. ... view course details
COML 6922
Course Description
This course offers a systematic in-depth study of Hegel’s Aesthetics, one of the towering monuments in the development of the discipline. In addition to Hegel’s voluminous lectures, we will also consider ... view course details
Regular Academic Session. Combined with: ARTH 6920, GERST 6920
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Credits and Grading Basis
3 Credits Stdnt Opt(Letter or S/U grades)