30125 - Comparative Literatures (LM)

Learning outcomes

Students must attain a high awareness of the specific nature of literary language both as a way through which the imaginary finds expression and as an instrument to interpret reality. Students must master interpretive tools and methodologies for text analysis. They are capable to explore and investigate literary forms and themes in a comparative perspective, with a special focus on the relationships between different national tradition and different cultural/historical contexts, as well as the relationships between literary texts and other semiotic systems of expression (music, cinema, performance, theatre and so on). Students attain the capacity for autonomous reflection and they are invited to formulate autonomous judgments on theoretical and methodological issues.

Course contents

TOPIC

 Objects in Nineteenth century fiction.

The advent of modernity and capitalism brings about an increasing centrality of commodities, an unprecedented spread of “things” as catalysts of desire, and - thanks to reproduction technologies and a pervasive visual culture – fosters their circulation in the form of images, or their exhibition, in a new regime of visibility (museums, shop windows ...). The course aims to investigate some of the forms in which these phenomena manifest themselves, particularly in two fundamental modes of representation that face one another through the whole Nineteenth century: realism and the fantastic.

Timing of the course: first semester (Novembrer-December 2024).

Readings/Bibliography

LITERARY TEXTS

Honoré de Balzac, Illusions perdues

Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (or, alternatively, Bleak House)

Henry James, The Princess Casamassima

 

CRITICAL TEXTS

Donata Meneghelli, Il valore degli oggetti, nottetempo

John Scanlan, Spazzatura, Donzelli

Remo Bodei, La vita delle cose, Laterza

Carlo Ginzburg, “Spie. Radici di un paradigma indiziario”, in Id., Miti, emblemi, spie, Einaudi, pp. 159-209

Erich Auerbach, “All’Hôtel de La Mole”, in Id., Mimesis. Il realismo nella letteratura occidentale, Einaudi, vol. II, pp. 220-268.

  

Teaching methods

This 30 hours course is based on the reading, analysis and discussion of literary and non-literary texts. During classes, students will be invited to take an active part in the course, by formulating questions and giving their own insights.
Further downloadable materials in support of the lessons such as digital images, power point presentations and readings will be uploaded on the Moodle Unibo Virtuale during the course.

Assessment methods

The abilities acquired during the course will be evaluated through an oral test aimed at ascertaining a deep knowledge of all the topics covered during the course. The oral test consists in an interview aimed at evaluating the students' critical and methodological skills. Students will be invited to discuss the texts in the reading list and comment on them. Therefore students must demonstrate an appropriate knowledge of the recommended reading list.

Students who are able to demonstrate a wide and systematic understanding of the issues covered during the course, to tackle them critically, and who master the critical jargon of the discipline will be given a mark of excellence. Students who demonstrate a mere mnemonic knowledge of the subject together with a more superficial analytical ability to synthesize, a correct command of the critical jargon but not always appropriate, will be given a ‘fair' mark. A superficial knowledge and understanding of the course topics, a scarce analytical and expressive ability will be rewarded with a pass mark or just above a pass mark. Students who demonstrate gaps in their knowledge of the main topics, inappropriate language skills, lack of familiarity with the syllabus reading list will not be given a pass mark.

Office hours

See the website of Donata Meneghelli