30125 - Comparative Literatures (LM) (A-L)

Learning outcomes

 

The course addresses to graduate (MA) students who have already taken courses in Italian and foreign literatures. Students, on completing the course, will be accustomed to observe literary phenomena within a broader context than that of single national literatures, paying particular attention to the methodological issues facing comparative research. Course contents

Course contents

 

Shadows, traces, the Panopticon: literature and photography

Starting from the birth of Daguerre’s invention, there have been very few writers capable of resisting the enticement of the photographic sign, its mysterious nature of trace, testament to a presence. In the texts chosen for the course – belonging to what Nicolas Mirzoeff calls the «age of photography», moreover considering it over – the multiple strategies used by some novelists to talk about photography in their tales. In the texts by Hawthorne, Nabokov, Cortázar, Perec, Auster and Sebald, some common motifs emerge: together with the ambiguous charm connected to the possibility of duplicating the world, shadows, obscurity and darkness invade the pages and the obsessive threat of an eye capable of an all embracing vision nothing can elude seems more or less declaredly to take shape.

Readings/Bibliography

 

Literary Texts

First part

· Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables (1851)

. Thomas Hardy: An Imaginative Woman (1893) e Henry James: The Friends of the Friends (1896)

. Adolfo Bioy Casares: La invención de Morel (1940)

· Vladimir Nabokov: Invitation to a Beheading (1959)

· Julio Cortázar: Las babas del diablo (1959); Los pasos en las huellas (1974); Apocalipsis de Solentiname (1977); Algunos aspectos del cuento

. Michel Tournier: Le roi des aulnes (1970)

· G. Perec: W ou le souvenir d'enfance (1975)

Second part

· Paul Auster: The Invention of Solitude (1982)

. Antonio Tabucchi: Notturno indiano (1984) e Il filo dell’orizzonte (1986)

. Gianni Celati: Quattro novelle sulle apparenze (1987), together with some selected writings by Luigi Ghirri

. Lalla Romano: Nuovo romanzo di figure (1997) 

. Paolo Maurensig: L’ombra e la meridiana (1998)

· Winfried Georg Sebald: Austerlitz (2001)

. Annie Ernaux: Gli anni (2008)

. Giorgio Falco / Sabrina Ragucci, Condominio Oltremare (2014)

. Michele Mari, Leggenda privata (2017)

 

Critical Texts

· Roland Barthes: La chambre claire. Note sur la photographie (Camera Lucida)

. Ferdinando Amigoni: L’ombra della scrittura (Premessa e capp. 2,3, 5)

. M. Foucault, Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison. Part. III. Chap. III. Le panoptisme

. N. Mirzoeff, An Introduction to Visual Culture (Introduction, Chapter II, Chapter III)

. Hans Belting: Bild-Anthropologie. Entwürfe für eine Bildwissenschaft (Kapitel 6 und Kapitel 8)

. Four Fundamental Concepts of Image Science, Image Science, Media Aesthetics, and There Are No Visual Media, from Image Science: Iconology, Visual Culture, and Media Aesthetics by William John Thomas Mitchell (The University of Chicago Press, 2015).

Film

- Michelangelo Antonioni: Blow-up (1966)

- Wim Wenders: Alice in the Cities (1973)

- Gianni Celati: Il mondo di Luigi Ghirri (1999)

- M. Romanek, One hour photo (2002)

- W. Wenders, The Salt of the Earth (2014)

- M. Raso, Kodachrome (2017)

- W. Wenders, Perfect Days (2023)

 

Students planning to take the 12 CFU exam will have to carefully read the texts of three authors chosen from among those proposed in the first module (the short stories by Thomas Hardy, Henry James and Luigi Pirandello count as ONE bibliographic entry ONLY) and of three authors chosen from those proposed in the second module, as well as three bibliographical entries among the six proposed in the Critical texts section.

Students planning to take the 6 CFU exam will have to carefully read the texts of two authors chosen from among those proposed in the first module (the short stories by Thomas Hardy and Henry James count as ONE bibliographic entry ONLY) and of two authors chosen from those proposed in the second module, as well as three bibliographical entries among the six proposed in the Critical texts section.

Non-attending students must read carefully Michele Cometa: La scrittura delle immagini. Letteratura e cultura visuale (Cap. 1: Descrizioni)

 

 

Teaching methods

Teaching methods

The course is based upon around 60 hours of lectures: students are invited to take part in the lectures and debate the subjects put forward.

Assessment methods

The final exam, consisting of face to face interviews, aims at verifying knowledge acquired through the reading of the works proposed and assess students’ critical skills. The students’ capacity to navigate literary and critical texts, contextualising them appropriately, shall be evaluated positively. An assessment of excellence will indicate an hermeneutical capacity on the part of the student to create connections between literary and critical texts, together with ascertained expository skills. Possible gaps in knowledge on matters discussed during the course and inappropriate, or confused language will entail low marks.

Teaching tools

Teaching tools

Lectures will make use of PPTs, as well as film viewings. Any additional teaching material shall be made available to students on the site (link ‘Teaching tools – Materiale didattico)

Office hours

See the website of Ferdinando Amigoni