The study of comparative literature, like the study of all liberal arts, is designed to prepare students for a broad range of careers as well as continued study in graduate school and professional programs. Comparative literature majors develop skills and abilities that can be applied in a number of areas. For example, comparative literature majors:

• develop effective oral and written communication skills;

• gain insight into cultures other than their own through the study of language and literature;

• learn to analyze multiple forms of writing: literary, historical, theoretical, and philosophical;

• acquire an awareness of individual and group behavior, and an understanding of social relations;

• develop planning, organizational, and analytic skills.

A degree in comparative literature provides preparation for possible careers as teachers and scholars in literary and cultural studies, as well as for careers that require familiarity with multi-cultural perspectives, such as journalism, business, law and diplomacy. Students interested in teaching and research at the university level should plan to complete a doctoral degree. Students interested in teaching at the community college level should pursue graduate work at least through the master’s degree.

Teaching at the high school level requires the California single subject teaching credential. Students considering a high school teaching career should discuss their plans with the credential advisor in UCSB’s Graduate School of Education early in their academic career.

Marco Codebo was awarded his PhD in Winter 2005 and is currently working as Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Houston. He has just published a collection of short stories in Italy, “École Normale Supérieure.”

Nathan Henne was awarded his PhD in June 2007 and has accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages & Cultures at Loyola University, New Orleans.

Aimée Kilbaine is currently Visiting Assistant Professor at Dartmouth College.

Viola Kolarov was awarded her PhD in Spring 2006 and is now a Mellon Post Doctoral Fellow 2006-2008 at Johns Hopkins University.

Paulo Moreira will be awarded his PhD in September and will then start his position as Assistant Professor at the Spanish and Portuguese Department at Yale.

Stacey Van Dahm was awarded her PhD in Summer 2007 and is currently working as a Post-Doctoral Lecturer in UCSB’s Writing Program.

Marta Wilkinson was awarded her PhD in Spring 2006 and is now working as Assistant Professor of English at Wilmington College.

• Comparative Literature is a flexible, cross-disciplinary undergraduate and graduate program, which provides the opportunity to tap into the best of UCSB’s resources in the humanities. It combines the study of national literatures with courses that address the relationship between literature and other disciplines such as anthropology, cultural studies, gender studies, philosophy, linguistics, media, technology and science studies, psychoanalysis, religious studies, and the fine and performing arts.
• Faculty affiliated with the Comparative Literature Program come from the departments of Art; Black Studies; Classics; Dramatic Art; East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies; English; Film and Media Studies; French and Italian; Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies; Religious Studies; and Spanish and Portuguese. It includes Guggenheim Fellows, National Endowment for the Humanities Awardees, Ford Foundation Fellows, Humboldt Awardees, UC President’s Fellowship recipients, and UCSB Distinguished Teaching Award recipients.
• Comparative literature students study literary theory, periods of world literature, themes, movements and genres. They might investigate the development of the Faust tradition from the Middle Ages to the present. They might examine the development of notions of self and community as represented in a literary tradition. Or they might trace a theme such as the bohemian in film and literature.
• The program has a strong sense of community where undergraduates have the opportunity to work closely with faculty in their fields of study and where graduates students receive encouragement and guidance in their teaching, publishing and job searches.

For more information on UCSB’s Comparative Literature Program, contact:

Comparative Literature Program
Phelps Hall 6206
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4130
805-893-2131
Email: gd-complit@complit.ucsb.edu

30C — Major Works of European Literature
Susan Derwin
TR 3:30-4:45pm, Broida Hall 1610
Enroll via discussion section
(Honors students: Enroll in Honors Section listed below: C LIT 30H)
A survey of European literature. Romantic and modern literature from Rousseau to Solzhenitsyn.

30H — HONORS SECTION: Major Works of European Literature
Susan Derwin
R 12:00-12:50pm, HSSB 1233, Enroll: 04457
Seminar course for honors students enrolled in Comparative Literature 30C designed to enrich the large lecture experience and to supplement the weekly seminar meetings. May include additional readings, more intensive study of syllabus selections, and supplemental writings.

33 — African Literatures
Jude Akudinobi
TR 2:00-3:15pm, Phelps 1260
Enroll via discussion section:
M 4:00-4:50pm, SH 1430, Enroll: 04473
W 8:00-8:50am, SH 1430, Enroll:04499
W 6:00-6:50pm, Phelps 3515, Enroll: 04507
M 3:00-3:50pm, PSYCH 1802, Enroll: 04481
Honors section: TBA, Interested students should meet with the professor on the first day of class.
An introduction to the diverse literary traditions of Africa through an examination of selected works. Regional focus on North, West, East, Central, and South African varies.

100 — Introduction of Comparative Literature
Didier Maleuvre
TR 9:30-10:45pm, Phelps 1260, Enroll: 48439
Prerequisite: upper-division standing.
Addresses questions of methodology and also development and debates in the history of literary and critical theory. Topics very from quarter to quarter. This time it is “The Tragic Sense of Life.” Not even the happiest life is exempt from suffering. Every person will experience loss, absence, aging, illness and death. It is not clear whether everything happens for a reason; what is clear, however, that we seek meaning for what occurs. An occurrence of suffering alone isn’t tragic, tragedy arises from the metaphysical ‘why?’ that comes to our lips in the face of suffering. It marks a crisis of significance. Tragedy stages man’s confrontation with life as a whole — with gods, nature, society — outside of a religious or philosophically dogmatic framework. This course will explore how the characters of tragedy throughout the ages have responded to the great dilemmas of human existence: kinship, attachment, duty, love, suffering, death, and the search for significance.

101 — Writers’ Theories
Sydney Levy
TR 4:00-5:15pm, Phelps 1448, Enroll: 48470
Prerequisite: consent of the instructor.
Writers have also something to say about literature: What is it? How do they write it? How are we to read it? What does it mean? What tools do they provide us to analyze it?103 — Going Postal: Epistolary Narratives
Suzanne Braswell
MW 8:00-9:15am, Girvetz 2108, Enroll: 48447
Prerequisite: upper-division standing.
Investigates reappearance of the letter-novel at particular historical moments, and paradoxes built into the letter-form itself. Range of works emphasizing eighteenth- and later twentieth-century novels, likely works by Austen, Goethe, Hoffman, James, Montesquieu, Choderlos de Laclos, Lydia Davis, Pynchon.

107 — Voyages to Unknown
Cynthia Skenazi
TR 3:30-4:45pm, Webb 1100, Enroll: 48454
Prerequisite: Writing 2 and 50.
The impact of the voyages of discovery on late 15th and 16th century Europe. Readings on real and imaginary voyages: Columbus, Cartier, Lery, More, Rabelais, Montaigne.

120 — Chivalry Adventures
Harvey Sharrer
MWF 9:00-9:50am, NH 1111, Enroll: 48462
Prerequisite: upper-division standing.
Arthurian and chivalric fiction from the medieval period to the time of Cervantes. The evolution of the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and the rise of new chivalric heroes and modes of fiction.

187 — Strauss and Hofmannstahl
Dolores Hsu
R 1:00-3:30pm, Music 2230, Enroll: 59063
Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.
A course in the collaboration between composer and poet. A study in the operas, the correspondence, and related developments in German music in the early twentieth century.

195 — Junior/Senior Seminar
Susan Derwin
TR 12:30-1:45pm, Phelps 6320, Enroll: 48488
Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.
Selected methodological issues in comparative literature. Topics vary with each instructor.

199 — Independent Studies in Comparative Literature
Staff
1-5 units, Enroll: 04663
Prerequisites: upper-division standing; completion of two upper-division courses in comparative literature. Must have a minimum 3.0 grade-point average for the preceding three quarters. Students are limited to 5 units per quarter and 30 units total in all 98/99/198/199/199AA-ZZ courses combined. Comparative Literature 199 may be repeated for credit to a maximum of 30 units, but only 12 units may be applied toward the major.
Independent studies with any faculty member. To permit study of a subject desired by the student but not covered in course offerings.

200 — The Question of the Humanities
Claudio Fogu
Colin Gardner
T 6:00-8:50pm, Phelps 6320, Enroll: 04572
In 1954, Martin Heidegger addressed ‘the question of technology’ with particular urgency in the wake of the Holocaust and Hiroshima. In the process, however, Heidegger questioned even more radically the humanist tradition of thought that had resulted in a purely instrumental understanding of technology. Within a few years, Theodor W. Adorno would reiterate, from another perspective, the anti-humanist thrust of Heidegger’s critique with these famous words: “Even the most extreme consciousness of doom threatens to degenerate into idle chatter. Cultural criticism finds itself faced with the final stage of the dialectic of culture and barbarism. To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. And this corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become impossible to write poetry today” (Prisms 34). For the ensuing five decades, Adorno and Heidegger’s thought inspired a wave of anti-humanist thinking in Continental European philosophy that has left few intellectual stones unturned.

In this course, professors Fogu and Gardner will guide students in an exploration of recent strands of critical thinking aimed at re-evaluating the place and role of the humanities in contemporary society and academia. The course will explore both philosophical and institutional issues related to the current status of the humanities and will focus in particular on the rise of the ‘arts’ to center stage in the definition of the ‘humanistic.’ Discussions of writing by the likes of Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, and Giorgio Agamben, will be alternated with guest lectures by artists and critics whose work addresses the question of the humanities today.

The course is designed to attract graduate students from all areas in the humanities and social sciences. Requirements for the course are attendance and active participation in seminar discussions and a final paper.

200 — Productions of Truth: Literature, Theory, Politics, and the Arts
Peter Bloom
Elisabeth Weber
TR 4:00-6:50pm, Ellison 1710, Enroll: 04580
This course addresses the construction of truth through discursive and other practices in literature, philosophy, and cinema. We examine its articulation through specific understandings of statehood and citizenship. We will discuss various historical and theoretical foundational works by Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Lévinas, Judith Butler, and Colin Dayan. Incarceration and torture will serve as vanishing points in order to grapple with how “truth” is produced and represented. In addition to these foundational reading we will also screen Death by Hanging [Koshikei] (dir. Nagisa Oshima, 1968) and Sátántangó (dir. Bela Tarr. 1994), among other films.

This course is cross-listed in the department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies, the Program of Comparative Literature and the department of Film and Media Studies.

Please note: An estimated five sessions will be held on Tuesdays for film screenings. However, seminar participants will have the option to find other means to view the films.

200 — Object Relations
Larry Rickels
R 3:00-5:50pm, Phelps 6320, Enroll: 48421
The seminar will focus on the work of Melanie Klein, its point of departure in Karl Abraham’s reflections on melancholia and its running commentary on (and continuity with) Freud’s “second system.” The delegation of Klein’s thought proceeds via a series of controversies: Klein’s followers were largely guided and contextualized via the contest with the “Anna Freudians” in London in the 1940s, while Klein’s reception today (in the humanities) is inflected by the ambivalent revalorization of her work within French Freud.

237 — Literature and the Sacred
Richard Hecht
R 3:00-5:50pm, HSSB 3030, Enroll: 48496
Course explores theories of the sacred, and its radical otherness, in relation to writing and poetics, in 20th century French and Italian thought. Authors include: Caillois, Bataille, Paulhan, Eco, Ricoeur, Cacciari, Blanchot, Vattimo, Kristiva, Derrida, Lacan, Irigaray. Taught in English.

30A — Major Works of European Literature: Classical
James Donelan
SESSION A: June 23 - Aug 1
MTW 11:00-12:25, Psych 1920
Section R 2:00-3:20, Phelps 1420, Enroll: 01289
Section R 12:30-1:50, Phelps 1440, Enroll: 01297
A survey of European literature. Classical and medieval literature from Homer to Dante.

30B — Major Works of European Literature: Renaissance
James Donelan
SESSION B: Aug 4 - Sept 12
MTW 12:30-1:55, Phelps 3515
R 11:00-12:20, Phelps 1445, Enroll: 01313
R 12:30-1:50, Phelps 1445, Enroll: 01321
A survey of European literature. Renaissance and Neoclassical literature from Petrarch to Diderot.

30C — Major Works of European Literature: Modern
Linda Kick
SESSION B: Aug 4 - Sept 12
MTWR 3:30-4:45, Girvetz 1119, Enroll: 01339
A survey of European literature. Romantic and modern literature from Rousseau to Solzhenitsyn.

31 — Major Works of Asian Literatures
Yan Liang
SESSION B: Aug 4 - Sept 12
MWF 3:30-4:50, Phelps 1444, Enroll: 05495
DAn introduction to the diverse literary traditions of Asia through an examination of selected works. Regional focus on East, South, and Southeast Asia varies.

34 — Literature of the Americas
Danielle La France
SESSION A: June 23 - August 1
MTWR 2:00-3:30pm, Girvetz 2119, Enroll: 01347
An introduction to the diverse literary traditions of the Americas through an examination of selected works. Regional focus on North America, the Caribbean, and Latin America varies.

113 — Trauma, Memory, Historiography
Elisabeth Weber
SESSION D: June 23 - July 11
MTWR 2:00-4:05pm, HSSB 1215, Enroll: 15487
Prerequisite: upper-division standing.
How do individuals, communities, cultures, nations remember and/or forget, preserve and/or erase traumatic events?

122A — Holocaust Representations
Susan Derwin
SESSION D: June 23 - July 11
MT RF 2:00-4:05, Girvetz 2128, Enroll: 01370
Prerequisite: upper-division standing. Same course as German 116A.
Close reading of post-Holocaust literature. Taught in English.

186A — The Zombie: Colonialism, Literature, Film, and Theory
Kieran Murphy
SESSION A: June 23 - Aug 1
MWF 5:00-7:05pm, HSSB 1210, Enroll: 17335
Prerequisite: upper-division standing. From box-office smash hits to fantastic literature, from an anthropological puzzle to a philosophical concept, the zombie begs the questions: where does it come from, how did it come into being? The course will investigate the appearance of zombies in literature and film and will examine historical and social context of this phenomenon.

186B — Minority Literature
Mary Seliger
SESSION A: June 23 - Aug 1
MTWR 9:30-10:35, HSSB 3201, Enroll: 15537
Prerequisite: upper-division standing. This course will explore American literature by looking at narrative strategies and genres employed by twentieth century writers of minority literature. We will concentrate on literary expression in the context of minority experiences and identities meeting at the crossroads of American history and legal culture. We will examine three landmark Supreme Court cases when evaluating how do the law and the literature engage in a dialogue with each other? Through an examination of the geographical constructs of space and place, we will also explore issues of race, assimilation, identity, and national belonging by making a comparative examination of representative works of Asian American literature, African American literature, Chicano literature, and Native American literature. Representative texts that we will read include Place: A Short Introduction, Farewell to Manzanar, Native Son, …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him, Tracks, and Ceremony.

Chair: Elisabeth Weber
Vice-Chair and Graduate Advisor: Sydney Lévy

ADVISORY BOARD

Michael Berry
berry@eastasian.ucsb.edu (CV)
Assistant Professor, East Asian Studies
Modern and contemporary Chinese literature, Chinese cinema, popular culture in modern China, fiction and drama of late imperial China, and translation studies

Julie Carlson
jcarlson@english.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, English
British Romanticism, Feminist and Queer theories, early nineteenth-century British theatre, Black Romanticism

Susan Derwin
derwin@gss.ucsb.edu (CV)
Associate Professor, Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies
Holocaust studies, nineteenth- and twentieth-century American and European novel, film studies, autobiography, psychoanalysis, critical theory

Ronald Egan
ronegan@eastasian.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, East Asian Studies
Chinese literature, aesthetics

Yunte Huang
yhuang@english.ucsb.edu
Professor, English
Asian-American literature, American modernism, twentieth-century American poetry

Wolf Kittler
kittler@gss.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies
Eighteenth- nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature, art history, media technology, science and philosophy

Sydney Lévy
slevy@french-ital.ucsb.edu (CV)
Vice Chair and Graduate Advisor
Professor, French and Italian
Contemporary poetry, literary theory, fantastic literature, science and literature

Sara Lindheim
lindheim@classics.ucsb.edu (CV)
Associate Professor, Classics
Latin poetry, critical and feminist theory

Dwight Reynolds
dreynold@religion.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, Religious Studies
Arabic languages and literatures, folklore and folk life

Harvey Sharrer
sharrer@spanport.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Medieval Spanish and Portuguese literatures, comparative medieval literature, Catalan

Jon Snyder
snyder@french-ital.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, French and Italian
Italian literature and comparative European literature, early-modern and modern periods

Sven Spieker
spieker@gss.ucsb.edu
Professor, Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies
East-Central European literatures, contemporary art (especially in the East-Central-European context), the theory and practice of the historical avant-gardes in East-Central Europe and the US, and the interplay of media, art, and critical theory.

Elisabeth Weber
weber@gss.ucsb.edu (CV)
Chair
Professor, Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies
French philosophy and theory, German Judaism of the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries, nineteenth- and twentieth-century German literature

Simon Williams
sjwill@dramadance.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, Dramatic Art
European theatre history, dramatic literature

AFFILIATED FACULTY

Geraldo Aldana
gvaldana@chicst.ucsb.edu (CV)
Assistant Professor, Chicana and Chicano Studies
Maya hieroglyphic history, Mesoamerican art, experimental archaeology, science studies, culture theory

Silvia Bermúdez
bermudez@spanport.ucsb.edu
Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Twentieth-century peninsular and Latin American poetry and poetics, literary and cultural theory, Galician poetry, popular culture

Maurizia Boscagli
boscagli@english.ucsb.edu
Associate Professor, English
Gender studies and Feminist theory, the body, theories of subjectivity, British and European modernism, fin de siecle literature, critical and cultural theory, theories of mass culture

Edward Branigan
branigan@filmstudies.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, Film and Media Studies
Film theory, aesthetics, narrative, point-of-view, Japanese cinema

Leo Cabranes-Grant
cabranes@dramadance.ucsb.edu (CV)
Associate Professor, Dramatic Art
Spanish and Latin-American drama and theatre history, “minority” theatre

João Camilo dos Santos
jcamilo@spanport.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Portuguese and Brazilian literature, comparative literature, nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries, “neo-realismo”, literary theory, analysis and criticism of narrative, poetry, and drama

Thomas Carlson
tcarlson@religion.ucsb.edu (CV)
Associate Professor, Religious Studies
Christianity and culture, religion, and philosophy

Elizabeth Heckendorn Cook
ecook@english.ucsb.edu (CV)
Associate Professor, English
Eighteenth-century British and French literature and cultural studies

Richard Corum
corum@english.ucsb.edu (CV)
Lecturer, English
Renaissance literature, Shakespeare, critical theory

James Donelan
donelan@writing.ucsb.edu (CV)
Lecturer, Writing Program
English and German romanticism, Victorian literature, poetics, aesthetics, interdisciplinary humanities research writing, literary theory, idealist philosophy, autobiography, history and culture of technology, world literature, opera, science fiction

Enda Duffy
duffy@english.ucsb.edu
Associate Professor, English
Post-colonial literatures and cultures, modernism and postmodernism, Irish literature, cultural studies, James Joyce

Francis Dunn
fdunn@classics.ucsb.edu (CV)
Associate Professor, Classics
Greek drama, Greek poetry and Latin poetry, time, narrative and closure

Jody Enders
jenders@french-ital.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, French and Italian
Medieval literature, history of rhetoric, performance theory, interrelations of law and literature

Claudio Fogu
cfogu@french-ital.ucsb.edu (CV)
Assistant Professor, French and Italian
Relationship between Italian modernism and mass culture; rascist forms of imaginary and their relations to representations of fascism; relationships between 20th-century continental philosophy and visual culture

L.O. Aranye Fradenburg
lfraden@english.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, English
Medieval English and Scottish literature, critical theory, gender and sexualities, psychoanalysis

Colin Gardner
colinrgardner@cox.net (CV)
Professor, Department of Art
Critical theory, film studies, the culture of the Cold War, visual literacy, Deleuze and minor literatures

Giles Gunn
ggunn@english.ucsb.edu
Professor, English
American literature, literary theory and criticism, American cultural and religious studies, literature and religion

Carl Gutiérrez-Jones
carlgj@english.ucsb.edu
Professor, English
Chicano studies, contemporary fiction, Pan-American studies, critical legal studies

Richard Hecht
ariel@religion.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, Religious Studies
History of religions, Judaic studies

Richard Helgerson
rhelgers@english.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, English
Renaissance literature and culture

Jocelyn Holland
holland@gss.ucsb.edu (CV)
Assistant Professor, Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies
Goethe, German romanticism, rhetoric, philosophy of nature

Dolores Hsu
dhsu@music.ucsb.edu
Professor, Music
Text and music, nineteenth-century music, organology, ethnomusicology

Dominique Jullien
djullien@french-ital.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, French and Italian
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature and culture, Proust studies, Borges studies, intertextuality and rewriting, travel narratives, representation of the artist in prose fiction

Stephanie LeMenager
slemen@english.ucsb.edu
Associate Professor, English
Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century U.S. literature and cultures, literatures of the North American West, environmental theories and representations, and rhetorics of slavery and freedom

Suzanne Jill Levine
sjlevine@spanport.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Latin American literature, comparative literary studies, translation studies, literary theory

Didier Maleuvre
maleuvre@french-ital.ucsb.edu
Professor, French and Italian
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature, aesthetic theory, philosophy, art history

Harold Marcuse
marcuse@history.ucsb.edu (CV)
Associate Professor, History
Modern German history

David Marshall
dmarshall@ltsc.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, English
Eighteenth-century literature and aesthetics

Anne Maurseth
amaurseth@french-ital.ucsb.edu (CV)
Assistant Professor, French and Italian
Eighteeenth-century French and comparative literature, Enlightenment studies, literary theory, aesthetics, epistemology and science

Ellen McCracken
emccr@spanport.ucsb.edu
Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Latin American and U.S. Latino literature, literary theory

Catherine Nesci
cnesci@french-ital.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, French and Italian
Modern French literature and intellectual history, literary theory, feminist and gender studies, French and Francophone women writers and film directors

Ēlide Oliver
elideoliver@spanport.ucsb.edu (CV)
Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Brazilian literature and culture, literary theory, theory and practice of translation, history of ideas, history of art and music, philosophy, aesthetics, art, music, musicology

Sara Poot-Herrera
spooth@spanport.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Mexican and Spanish-American literature

William Powell
bpowell@eastasian.ucsb.edu
Associate Professor, Religious Studies and East Asian Cultural Studies
History of Chinese religion, Buddhist studies, sacred geography and the production of space

Eric Prieto
prieto@french-ital.ucsb.edu
Associate Professor, French and Italian
Twentieth-century literature and theory, Francophone literature and culture, music, narrative poetics, aesthetics

Laurence Rickels
rickels@gss.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies
Technology and melancholia, group and adolescent psychology, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in the Third Reich, genealogy of media, vampirism

Mark Rose
mrose@english.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, English
Dramatic and non-dramatic Renaissance literature, Shakespeare, science fiction, history and theory of intellectual property

Katherine Saltzman-Li
ksaltzli@eastasian.ucsb.edu
Associate Professor, East Asian Studies
Japanese literature and drama

Cynthia Skenazi
cskenazi@french-ital.ucsb.edu (CV)
Professor, French and Italian
Renaissance literature and culture, Belgian literature in French

Sven Spieker
spieker@gss.ucsb.edu (CV)
Associate Professor, Germanic, Slavic, and Semitic Studies
European modernism, with an emphasis on the European avant-gardes, postwar and contemporary literature and art (especially in Eastern and Central Europe), and critical theory

Candace Waid
waid@english.ucsb.edu
Associate Professor, English
American literature and culture, gender studies, African-American literature, Southern literature, and regional literature

Janet Walker
jwalker@filmandmedia.ucsb.edu
Professor, Film and Media Studies
Film History and Historiography, Documentary Film, Film and Ethnography, the Western, and Trauma and Memory

William Warner
warner@english.ucsb.edu
Professor, English
Eighteenth-century literature, the novel, media history and theory, technology and literature

Kay Young
kayyoung@english.ucsb.edu
Associate Professor, English
Victorian studies, the novel, Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s, narrative theory, the relationship of narrative to architecture, philosophy, music, and dance

Winter 2007 - Spring 2007

“TORTURE AND THE FUTURE: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE HUMANITIES”

This series of events addresses the critical issues surrounding the use of torture by the most powerful democracy in the world. Our project will focus on four areas: 1) “democratic torture” and its devastating effects on the concept and practice of democracy; 2) the consequences of state-sanctioned torture on the principles and practices of scholarship and education; 3) the role of mass media in the increasing acceptability of the use of torture, and 4) the relationship between torture used in US run prisons abroad, and human rights violations on American soil. The perspectives of social science alone cannot adequately comprehend what is at stake. The humanities might offer more productive methods towards an ethics and politics of response and resistance. We are inviting scholars whose work on torture and human rights effectively crosses the disciplinary gap between the humanities and social sciences, as well as writers and artists whose work is committed to an ethics and politics of response and resistance.

For more information and a list of events, visit: www.complit.ucsb.edu/projects/tortureandthefuture

LECTURE

“A WESTERN VISION OF ORIENTAL WOMEN: Antoine Galland’s Translation of the Thousand and One Nights”

(View Poster Here)

A talk by Professor Jean-Paul Sermain (Paris-III Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Tuesday, April 17th 4:00 pm
UCen Harbor Room
Free and open to the public

The manuscript of the Thousand and One Nights, as discovered by their first translator Antoine Galland (1646-1715), depicts female characters who are subjected to the constraints of Arab society and Islam, and who overcome these constraints thanks to their intelligence, energy and moral conscience. For Galland, such a representation was incompatible both with the literary canon and the social norms of his time. 18th century French women had achieved a high degree of cultural refinement and social prominence and were allowed a great degree of freedom. Galland’s adaptation reflects this, in effect acclimating the Oriental women of the Nights to the French code of civility. Galland’s Western vision of Oriental women gives us access to three key issues of the Thousand and One Nights: the status of women in Islamic cultures, Classicism’s translation aesthetics which advocates the appropriation of the original, and more generally the debate over Orientalism.

JEAN-PAUL SERMAIN (PhD, 1982, Doctorat d’Etat, 1992) is Professor of French Literature at the Université de Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle. An ENS alumnus, Sermain is a specialist of 18th century French literature, the aesthetics of Classicism and fairy tales. His books include Rhétorique et roman au 18e siècle (1985), Marivaux, Cervantes et le roman post critique (1999), Métafictions (1670-1730), la réflexivité dans la littérature d’imagination (2002) and Le Conte de fées du classicisme aux Lumières (2005). His recent work on the Thousand and One Nights includes the critical edition of Antoine Galland’s pioneering translation (2004).

Presented by the Series in Contemporary Literature, the Department of French and Italian, the Comparative Literature Program and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.

Department Newsletters

Spring 2004

Fall 04/Winter 05

Spring/Summer 05

2006-2007

Past Events

“EYE OR EAR: WALTER BENJAMIN ON OPTICAL AND ACOUSTICAL MEDIA”

Conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Free and open to the public!

Friday, December 1, 2006
10:30 am to 6:00 pm
Humanities and Social Sciences Building, 6th floor, McCune Conference Room

Presented by the Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies, the Comparative Literature Program, and the Consortium for Literature, Theory and Culture.

For more information, visit: www.gss.ucsb.edu/Benjamin.html

Comparative Literature Program
6206 Phelps Hall
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4130

Telephone: (805) 893-2131

Fax: (805) 893-2374

Email: gd-complit@mail.lsit.ucsb.edu

Undergraduate Advisor
Viktoriya Filippova
vfilippova@gss.ucsb.edu

Graduate Advisor
Sierra Gray
sierra@gss.ucsb.edu

Consortium for Literature, Theory and Culture
The Consortium for Literature, Theory and Culture brings together faculty and graduate student from the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts, as well as affiliates from other disciplines, to advance collaborative research in literary studies, broadly defined. While grounded in the study of national literary traditions, it seeks to encourage interdisciplinary and theoretical reflections on literature and culture in global and comparative contexts.

Interdisciplinary Humanities Center
One of the nation’s most active and innovative centers for conferences, lectures, panels and other intellectual events that cross the disciplines and draw a wide spectrum of international scholars. In the recent past, the Center has mounted major conferences and lecture series on a diverse group of topics including “Turn-of-the-Century China: Identity & Cultural Production in a Global Context,” “Borders and Bridges: Exploring the Relationships Between Humans and Animals,” “Women Transforming the Public,” “Trauma, Absence, Loss,” “Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Niño and the Fate of Civilizations,” “Science and Pornography,” “The Tears of Philosophy: Jacques Derrida and Death,” and “The Philosophy of John Locke: Reason, Empiricism and Common Sense.”

The IHC also sponsors research projects proposed by individual UCSB faculty members and graduate students and sponsors interdisciplinary team-taught seminars such as “The Invention of the Author” and “The Construction of Gender in the Jewish and Christian Traditions.”

The Center has hosted a variety of national conferences for associations like the Western Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the American Society for Aesthetics. In the fall of 1995 it hosted the Western Humanities Conference.

Women’s Studies Program
An interdisciplinary program in which the varied experiences of women and the systematic study of gender are explored. The program offers courses and teaching opportunities to Comparative Literature graduate students.

Women’s Center
A Center devoted to understanding the evolving roles of women and men and to expanding educational, professional and personal opportunities for women. The Women’s Center Gallery exhibits the work of women artists, and the Women’s Center library houses a special collection of books and periodicals pertaining to women. The Center also maintains up-to-date files on hundreds of gender-related topics. In cooperation with other departments and student groups, the Women’s Center brings dozens of eminent women — writers, artists and public figures — to campus each year. In addition, the Faculty Lectures Series features feminist scholars whose research and teaching are expanding the traditional curriculum and unfolding new ways of thinking. Recent guests have included Paula Vogel, Sandra Cisneros, Jewelle Gomez, Anita Roddick, Dr. Bidyut Mohanty (from India), Luisa Valenzuela and Nicole Hollander.

Center for Black Studies
A Center conducting research on the historical, social, economic and political forces that have affected people of African descent throughout the world. The Center sponsors a faculty development program that awards doctoral fellowships to Ph.D. candidates. It also organizes and presents seminars, lectures and symposia and serves as a liaison between the campus and the Santa Barbara community.

Center for Chicano Studies
Created to develop, conduct and support interdisciplinary research on the history and contemporary conditions of the Mexican-origin population in the United States. The Center also organizes, promotes and sponsors a variety of special public-service events that are conducive to a better understanding and appreciation of Chicano/Mexicano society and culture and that work to advance Chicano scholarship.

Dramatic Art
A department whose distinctive feature is its wide range of offerings in dramatic literature, theory and theater history. The Ph.D. program concentrates on literary, critical and historical research and welcomes graduate students from other humanities departments.

Medieval and Renaissance Studies Programs
Programs designed to bring together faculty members and students from various disciplines that are concerned with the Middle ages and Renaissance. Both programs provide an opportunity for the kind of boundary crossing that is an important part of much current work in the humanities. The programs sponsor lectures, faculty and student colloquia and occasional interdisciplinary courses that enhance graduate study.

Davidson Library
UCSB’s major research facility. As a member of the Association of Research Libraries, it participates in cooperative programs and policy development with other major research libraries to provide collections and services for the UCSB community. The library has over two million books and bound journals and is linked by computer to the University of California’s entire collection, which includes over twenty-three million volumes. The UCSB collection grows by about fifty-thousand volumes annually. CD-ROM is available for free researching of MLA bibliographies, Dissertation Abstracts International and other sources. Researchers may request on-line searches in such data bases as MLA’s complete on-line files and The Arts and Humanities Citation Index. The Interlibrary Loan Service offers computerized access to research materials and is linked to libraries around the world. Faculty and students may also utilize MELVYL, an on-line catalogue for holdings of the entire UC System, and the library’s Research Consultation Service, which provides individual consultation for complicated research problems.

Library: Department of Special Collections:
The Department of Special Collections collects, maintains and makes accessible rare, valuable and unique materials which support UCSB students, faculty and research programs, as well as the local national and international scholarly community. Special Collections acquires materials by gift, transfer and purchase, in accordance with general library procedures. The department’s holdings are non-circulating but are available for research in the reading room during posted hours. http://www.library.ucsb.edu/speccoll/

Division of Humanities and Fine Arts
Ranging from traditional areas that have been at the heart of a liberal arts education for thousands of years (such as Classics, History, and Philosophy) to programs that are redefining the university in the 21st Century (such as Media Arts and Technology and Film Studies) the arts and humanities at UCSB represent both the past and the future. The Division of Humanities and Fine Arts includes a broad spectrum of languages and literatures, as well as the performing and visual arts. Our departments and interdisciplinary programs focus on the intellectual, historical, and artistic traditions of cultures throughout the world and the modes of expressions and representation that have given them voice and form. Building on this foundation, the arts and humanities are responding to the cultural changes that must be engaged in the university and in a global society of the 21st century.

For information on Arts and Lectures Program, Computer Resources, Counseling and Career Services, Special Services Program, Veteran’s Support Services, University Art Museum, University Children’s Center and other university resources, visit UCSB’s campus home page at www.ucsb.edu.