Comparative Literature: Modern and Postmodern Aesthetics
Code: 106339 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2504012 Spanish and Chinese Studies: Language, Literature and Culture | OT | 4 |
| 2504211 Spanish Language and Literature | OT | 3 |
| 2504211 Spanish Language and Literature | OT | 4 |
| 2504212 English Studies | OT | 3 |
| 2504212 English Studies | OT | 4 |
Contact
- Name:
- David Roas Deus
- Email:
- david.roas@uab.cat
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
By obtaining the minimum of credits in basic training subjects, students have demonstrated to have acquired the basic competences and they will be able to express themselves orally and in writing. For this reason, any spelling and expression errors that may be committed will lead to a score decrease in the final grade.
Activities, practical sessions and papers submitted in the course must be original and under no circumstances will the total or partial plagiarism of third-party materials published on any medium be admitted. Any submission of non-original material without properly indicating its origin will automatically result in a failure rating (0).
It is also expected that students know the general rules of submission of an academic work. However, students could apply the specific rules that the teacher of the subject may indicate to them, if they deem it necessary.
Objectives and Contextualisation
The course is an approach to the debate around literary modernity and postmodernity. The texts chosen to reflect about these themes hold an eminent place in the current canon, they have been studied from different methodologies and they have received some of the most celebrated practical achievements of literary criticism.
In conversation with the previous ones, we will study texts that, due to their poetic capacity and critical force, appear as vanishing points to the Western canon, and have shown to be capable of generating their own genealogies. The objective of this module is that the selected readings constitute the starting point for a critical reflection on the Western literary tradition.
We will work on the development of a critical perspective informed by feminisms and cultural studies.
Competences
- Spanish Language and Literature
- Demonstrate the ability to work autonomously and in teams in order to achieve the planned objectives in multicultural and interdisciplinary contexts.
- Develop arguments applicable to the fields of Hispanic literature, literary theory, Spanish language and linguistics, and evaluate their academic relevance.
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
- Use the methodology and concepts of literary analysis taking into account sources and contexts.
- English Studies
- Apply the methodology of analysis and critical concepts to analysing the literature, culture and history of English-speaking countries.
- Demonstrate skills to work autonomously and in teams to fulfil the planned objectives.
- Develop arguments applicable to the fields of literature, culture and linguistics and evaluate their academic relevance.
- Produce effective written work or oral presentations adapted to the appropriate register in distinct languages (except English).
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyse literary texts using the different concepts and methods of comparative literature.
- Argue on various literary themes and problems in relation to different works and evaluate the results.
- Arguing about several issues and literary problems for the purpose of different works and the assessment of the results.
- Critically interpret literary works taking into account the relationships between the different fields of literature and their relationship with human, artistic and social areas.
- Critically interpreting literary works taking into account the relationships between the different areas of literature and its relationships with human, artistic and social areas.
- Effectively communicating and applying the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
- Explaining the basic characteristics of comparative literary texts.
- Express oneself effectively by applying argumentative and textual procedures in formal and scientific texts.
- Identify and explain the basic characteristics of literary texts and the process of interpretation.
- Solving problems about writers, methods and currents of comparative literature, and connecting them with knowledge of other humanistic disciplines.
- Solving problems related to the study of different literatures.
- Use the skills acquired with autonomy.
- Write text commentaries from a critical standpoint.
Content
Contents
1. Modernity and Postmodernity. History, meaning and discussion of two concepts
2. Charles Baudelaire, Les fleurs du mal
3. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
4. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
5. Franz Kafka, The Castle
6. Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones
7. Margarte Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
Activities and Methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Master classes | 55 | 2.2 | |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Programmed tutorials | 20 | 0.8 | |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| written papers | 75 | 3 |
The learning of this subject by the students is distributed as follows:
- Directed activities (35%). These activities are divided into master classes and seminars and classroom practices led by the faculty, in which theoretical explanation is combined with discussion of all types of texts.
- Supervised activities (15%). These tutorials are programmed by the teacher, dedicated to correcting and commenting on problems both related to the syllabus of the subject and, above all, to the written papers that the student must present.
- Autonomous activities. These activities include both time devoted to individual study and production of written papers.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Assessment
Continous Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Final written work on a topic previously agreed upon with the teacher | 60% | 0 | 0 | 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 |
| Two critical reviews | 40% | 0 | 0 | 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13 |
The evaluation will be carried through three mandatory written assignments to be submitted in November and December. Students can only apply for re-evaluation if they have submitted all the papers and have been suspended for failing to achieve the required grade point average.
In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.
Unique assessment
Students who decide to take the single assessment will have to take two final exams to prove they have read all the required readings of each block (35% + 35%) and deliver two critical reviews (30%) at the end of the semester.
Bibliography
Mandatory readings
Atwood, Margaret, El cuento de la criada, Salamandra, Barcelona, 2017.
Baudelaire, Charles, Las flores del mal, edición de Alain Verjat y Luis Martínez de Merlo, trad. Luis Martínez de Merlo, Cátedra, Madrid, 1997.
Borges, Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones, Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 2006.
Carroll, Lewis, Alicia en el País de las Maravillas. A través del espejo, edición de Manuel Garrido, trad. de Ramón Buckley, Cátedra, Madrid, 2006.
Conrad, Joseph, El corazón de las tinieblas, edición de Fernando Galván y José Santiago Fernández Vázquez, trad. de Araceli García Ríos e Isabel Sánchez Araujo, Cátedra, Madrid, 2006.
Kafka, Franz, El castillo, edición y traducción de Luis Acosta, Cátedra, Madrid, 1998.
Bibliography
This list contains the basic bibliographic references for the theoretical framework of the subject (definition and study of modernity and postmodernity).
The specific bibliography for each author will be shared during the course.
AA.VV., La polémica de la postmodernidad, monográfico de Revista de Occidente, núm. 66 (noviembre de 1986).
Barth, John, «Literatura postmoderna», Quimera, 46/47 (1984-1985), pp. 13-21.
Calinescu, Matei, Cinco caras de la modernidad, Tecnos, Madrid, 1991.
Calvino, Italo, Seis propuestas para el próximo milenio, Ediciones Siruela, Madrid, 1989.
Feher, Ferenc, “Comentario sobre el intermezzo postmodernista”, Revista de Occidente, núm. 66 (noviembre de 1986), pp. 57-74.
Foster, Hal (ed.), La posmodernidad, Kairós, Barcelona, 1985.
Gay,Peter, Modernidad. La atracción de la herejía de Baudelaire a Beckett, Paidós, Barcelona, 2007.
Habermas, Jurgen, El discurso filosófico de la modernidad, Taurus, Madrid, 1989.
Hart, J., “Comparative Poetics, Postmodernism and the Canon: An Introduction”, Canadian Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée, 20:1-2 (1993), pp. 1-8.
Hutcheon, Linda, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory and Fiction, Routledge, Londres, 1988.
Jameson, Fredric, Teoría de la postmodernidad, Trotta, Madrid, 1996.
Jauss, Hans-Robert, «Italo Calvino: Si una noche de invierno un viajero. Informe sobre una estética postmoderna», en Las transformaciones de lo moderno, Visor, Madrid, 1995, pp. 223-251.
Lipovetski, Gilles, La era del vacío. Ensayos sobre el individualismo contemporáneo, Anagrama, Barcelona, 1993.
Lipovetski, Gilles, y Sébastien Charles, Los tiempos hipermodernos, Anagrama, Barcelona, 2006.
Llovet, Jordi, “Vigencia de la modernidad”, La Página, núm. 3 (junio de 1990), pp. 8-15.
Lyon, David, Postmodernidad, Alianza Edtorial, Madrid, 1996.
Lyotard, Jean-François, La condición postmoderna, Cátedra, Madrid, 1986.
Lyotard, Jean-François, «Reescribir la modernidad», Revista de Occidente, 66 (noviembre de 1986), pp. 23-33.
Marchán Fiz, Simón, «Le bateau ivre: para una genealogía de la sensibilidad postmoderna», Revista de Occidente, 42 (noviembre de 1984), pp. 7-28.
Navajas, Gonzalo, «Retórica de la novela postmoderna española», en Teoría y práctica de la novela española posmoderna, Edicions del Mall, Barcelona, 1987, pp. 13-40.
Navajas, Gonzalo, Más allá de la posmodernidad, EUB, Barcelona, 1996.
Pardo, José Luis, «Filosofía y clausura de la modernidad», Revista de Occidente, 66 (noviembre de 1986), pp. 35-47.
Perloff, Marjorie, «Modernist Studies», en S. Greenblatt-G. Gunn, Redrawing the Boundaries, Modern Language Association, Nueva York, 1992, pp. 154-178.
Picó, Josep (comp.), Modernidad y postmodernidad, Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 1988.
Roas, David, Tras los límites de lo real. Una definición de lo fantástico, Páginas de Espuma, Madrid, 2011.
Rowe, John Carlos, «Postmodernist Studies», en S. Greenblatt-G. Gunn, Redrawing the Boundaries, Modern Language Association, Nueva York, 1992, pp. 179-208.
Saldaña, Alfredo, “Postmodernidad: Todo vale, aunque de nada sirva”, Tropelías, núm. 5-6 (1994-1995), pp. 349-369.
Santiáñez, Nil, Investigaciones literarias. Modernidad, historia de la literatura y modernismo, Crítica, Barcelona, 2002.
Vattimo, Gianni, et al., En torno a la posmodernidad, Anthropos, Barcelona, 1990.
Wellmer, Albrecht, Sobre la dialéctica de modernidad y postmodernidad, Visor, Madrid, 1993.
Software
No
Language list
| Name | Group | Language | Semester | Turn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (PAUL) Classroom practices | 1 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (TE) Theory | 1 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |