updates
 
Comparative Literature 210
Literature After Derrida
An Introduction to Comparative Literature
william a. nericcio
 
Off the books since 2002, craved by intro-starved Comparative Literature majors, CompLit 210 returns! The seminar that would not die! But this is no simple, diaper-changing intro to lit class! One part introduction to Comparative Literature, one part lecture series, this evolving moveable feast aspires to do justice to a literary and intellectual terrain made richer by the workings, writings, thoughts, and imagination of French philosopher, Jacques Derrida.  How does it work? Let me tell you! The First Jacques Derrida Colloquia (sponsored by the The G. Pitt and Virginia Warner Lecture Series) will NOT clarify the boundaries of Comparative Literature; in fact, it is our sublime hope that students will leave this series convinced that comparative literature is more process than product, more wave than stone, more explosive than sedentary. If anything, you can think of this experiment as a four-month odyssey guided by an oddly rigorous, eclectic wandering or, alternatively, as a months-long exercise in aesthetic seduction. Part of this is owing to the course design: after a three week literary boot camp, each weekly gathering features a different lecturer and a different text--around SDSU, the class is known as the "test-drive a professor" seminar. This class is open to all majors, and while it is a requirement for Comparative Literature majors, you may rest assured that all curious, dedicated literature-starved wanderers will find a home away from home here with us this semester. Comparative Literature emphasis graduate students interested in taking this seminar for E798 Special Study units should contact Professor Nericcio directly at memo@sdsu.edu
 
Required Films
Derrida ("What if someone came along who changed not the way you think about everything, but everything about the way you think?") 2002; directed by Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering Kofman 

Flirt directed by Hal Hartley

MORE TBA

 
Required Books
 
Office Hours
Tuesdays 11am to 1:30pm in Adams Humanities 4117

Office Hours are an important extension of our classroom work; a time for questions, problems, and debate, they afford undergraduates the chance to explore their ideas without the anxiety that classroom exchanges sometimes create.  I maintain my office hours religiously, and will only miss them in the event of national catastrophe, personal mortality, or, other extreme unforeseen disasters. Call or email for an appointment if these times are not convenient. 

email: memo@sdsu.edu

phone: 619.594.1524
biography
  Requirements

Your grade in this class will be based on your prepared attendance, occasional short-writing assignments and, most important, a READING/CRITIQUE Journal; more on this TBA in class TUESDAY.

 

day to day syllabus
Tuesday, February 1, 2004

Class cancelled owing to department tragedy; since we are not meeting tomorrow, let me tell you about the writing component of the class....

for the class, much of your grade will be based on a journal that you will keep and that will be returned to you; i recommend a compact 4x6inch sketch journalbook; these are sold on campus in the art section of the main campus store and at the cool satellite campusbookstore/art store nestled in the art college on northern part of campus.

samples of the kind of journal i am recommending are here

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ISBN=0765534789

and here

http://www.craftsetc.com/Store/ShowProduct.aspx?p=617886

and here, available at the cool DICK BLICK art store in little italy on india street downtown (worth seeing if you're a true artsy!)

The Art Store
(619) 687-0050
1844 India St
San Diego, CA 92101

remember, 4 x 6 hard or softcover journals ONLY please; at some point i have to read AND CARRY these prose-laced beasts, so they should be small....

what to write in them?  story analyses; notes; questions; drawings; clippings of news items related to literature and art; photos; sketches paintings... etc!  in short, anything that occurs to you as you do your readings.....

more soon!

 

  Tuesday Feb 8, 2005
LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE || META-FICTION || THE SHORT STORY

Walk into COM 206 having read the following stories from Jorge Luis Borges's LABYRINTHS: "The Circular Ruins," "The Library of Babel," and "The Garden of Forking Paths"--do not, or try not to, read cliffs notes, or any other kind of reader's guide to help you "understand" Borges--this is a COMPLIT seminar! readers's guides are for weenies! Lastly, having read these stories, and still intrigued by Borges, THEN go ahead and read "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius."  When you finish the stories, read this interview if you have the time.

 
Tuesday February 15, 2005
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY || LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY || FILM

As you enter our Comparative Literature laboratory COM206, you relax knowing you have finished reading ALL of Derrida For Beginners and, having written for at least a half-hour about said tome in your ARTjournalDERRIDAbook on what you view to be the SEVEN most curious moments in the book, authored by jim powell and illustrated by van howell.  also, in class we will finish screening dick & ziering kofman's DERRIDA movie.  if you can make the time, read THIS as well--warning: this is a long and brutally difficult essay of Derrida on the work of ARTAUD; don't freak out! not enough? here is derrida on FREUD. WARNING: both files are huge pdfs; only download with a broadband connection.

Tuesday | February 22, 2005
LITERATURE AND ART HISTORY || ART ||  POST-MODERN DISCOURSE

Walk into the glorious confines of COM 206 having finished the first 117 pages of Janet Kaplan's REMEDIOS VARO: UNEXPECTED JOURNEYS.  As you read Kaplan's words, try not to let her control YOUR interpretations of Varo's paintings; having read BORGES and tasted at DERRIDA's prose table, you are in a unique position to critically interpret VARO's magnificent visual labyrinths.  As you read, enter notes in your journal concerning points of interaction between the arts of BORGES, DERRIDA and VARO.

Tuesday | March 8, 2005

NO SEMINAR TODAY

Tuesday | March 8, 2005
Tuesday | March 8, 2005
THE NOVEL || AMERICAN LITERATURE || POST-STRUCTURALSIM

Big READING week; today you enter the room having read ALL of Thomas Pynchon's THE CRYING OF LOT 49--a fusion of Borges's fascination with labyrinths, Derrida's musings on the paranoid intrigues of language, and Varo's world view with regard to issues of representation and art, THE CRYING OF LOT 49 is a flash of genius in late 20th century American Literature.

Tuesday | March 15, 2005
SEMIOTICS || SEQUENTIAL ART || COMIC BOOKS || CULTURAL STUDIES

GRAPHIC NARRATIVE WEEK!  carefully read the DRAWN AND QUARTERLY volume cover to cover, front to back, and back to front!!!  IN class, we will have a discussion and have a minor in-class writing challenge focused on Borges, Derrida, Varo and Pynchon.



Tuesday |  March 22
META-FICTION || FILM THEORY || LITERATURE AND FILM || BORGES

Read all of the stories circled on the page opposite--click it or the young BORGES to see a readable copy. Also, in class, we will screen HAL HARTLEY's FLIRT.  In your readings from Borges be sure to watch for triptych representation of Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quijote. Bring your reading journals TO CLASS for dropoff!!

Tuesday | March 30
FUN || RELAXATION || EXCESS || SLEEP

SPRING BREAK

  Tuesday | April 5
LAUREL AMTOWER gets medieval on the tales of King Arthur!
In SOON at the campus bookstore OR buy online before the break OR go to cool old bookstores in san diego!!!  here!


Read Part I, Part 2 ch. 3, and the Book of the Three Worthies chs. 1 and 2!


 

 

april 12
beatnik JOE BUTLER on GINSBERG's HOWL.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY || BEAT LITERATURE || AMERICAN LITERATURE || CULTURAL HISTORY
april 19

reverend FRED BOE on GENESIS, JUDGES, PSALMS, MATTHEW, and LUKE (selections include: 

Genesis chapters 1-3 and 37-50
Judges 13-16
Psalms 22, 23, and 137
Matthew 1-2
Luke 1-3. 

Use any edition of the bible you please--want to download and print later? A decent
online edition is available here

BIBLE AS LITERATURE || COMPARATIVE LITERATURE || EXEGESIS

april 26
boy wonder MIKE BORGSTROM on the Harlem Renaissance and Richard Bruce Nugent--click on the this drawing by NUGENT to access your readings (!).

("Smoke, Lilies, and  Jade," in Fire!! (November 1926): 405-408).
AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE || QUEER THEORY || GENDER STUDIES

  may 3
complitguru JERRY FARBER on Poetry and TRANSLATION

may 10
kiddielit diva JUNE CUMMINS on Little Red Riding Hood
FOLKLORE || FEMINISM || CHILDREN'S LITERATURE