Questions of General and Comparative Literature

Teacher(s)

Sábado Novau Marta;

Language

French

Main themes

This course aims to introduce students to the questions and methods of research in general and comparative literature. To do so, the course proposes to study and cross-reference works from different linguistic and cultural areas, both in a synchronic and diachronic approach. The comparative approach concerns the choice of the corpus and the type of questioning that general and comparative literature addresses to literary objects. The works are approached on the basis of a common theme which allows for both theoretical and literary reflection. This course may also occasionally call upon texts from other disciplines to enrich the understanding of the works.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

At the end of this course, the student will be able to understand the heuristic and theoretical force of literary works. He/she will be able to question literary texts in a critical and reflexive way, formulate a research problem and compose a corpus of study in a reasoned way. He/she will learn to create links between texts of different kinds and to practise a comparative reading of literary works, characterised by a shift in perspective.

Teaching methods

This course will combine lectures and literary interpretation where students will be asked to discuss the texts.

Bibliography

Lectures obligatoires :

• Edgar Allan Poe, “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” (1845) [en ligne, moodle et brochure]
• Thomas Bernhard, Le neveu de Wittgenstein, Paris, Gallimard (1982)
• Pär Lagerkvist, Le nain, Paris, Stock, (1944).
• Franz Kafka, Rapport pour une académie (1917) [en ligne, moodle et brochure]
• Paul B. Preciado, Je suis un monstre qui vous parle, Paris, Grasset (2020)
• Herculine Barbin, Mes souvenirs [en ligne, moodle et brochure] [1978]

Corpus filmique : Ted Browning, Freaks (1932); David Lynch, Elephant Man (1980).

Teaching materials

• Les oeuvres de lecture obligatoire, les notes de cours et les diaporamas.

Faculty or entity

FIAL