Literature Across Borders 01:195:201
Prof. Janet A. Walker
Spring 2012: “Being Human”
Sec. 01: Jinhwa Lee (195:201:01)
M1 SC 202 Jinhwa Lee
Th2 MI 100 Janet Walker
Sec. 04: M5 Tara Coleman (195:201:04)
M5 SC 106 Tara Coleman
Th2 MI 100 Janet Walker
Sec. 02: Ben De Witte (195:201:02)
T6 SC 102 Ben De Witte
Th2 MI 100 Janet Walker
Sec. 05: Louis Segura (195:201:05)
M3 FH B6 Louis Segura
Th2 MI 100 Janet Walker
Sec. 06 T2 Vaughn Anderson (195:201:06) Sec. H1: Janet Walker (195:201:H1)
T2 SC 120 Vaughn Anderson
M2 195 College Avenue Janet Walker
Th2 MI 100 Janet Walker
Th2 MI 100 Janet Walker
Prof. Janet A. Walker’s email address: jwalk@rci.rutgers.edu
Office: Scott 238 Office hours: M3 Th4 and by arrangement
Mailbox: Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, Scott 330
For information about the major and minor consult the Comparative Literature website at
http://complit.rutgers.edu and/or contact Undergraduate Director Jorge Marcone at
jmarcone@rci.rutgers.edu.
Literature Across Borders (01:195:201) meets the following goals of the SAS Core
Curriculum:
C: Arts and the Humanities. Upon completion of this section of the Core Curriculum
students will be able to:
o. Examine critically philosophical and other theoretical issues concerning the
nature of reality, human experience, knowledge, value, and/or cultural production.
p. Analyze arts and/or literatures in themselves and in relation to specific histories,
values, languages, cultures, and technologies.
Students will be assessed, in the final paper, following guidelines set out by the CRC
and the SAS Advisory Committee on Assessment.
Literature Across Borders satisfies the Liberal Arts distribution requirements in
Humanities and Global Awareness.
Literature Across Borders satisfies the learning goals of the Program in Comparative
Literature, in which students will
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a. …demonstrate familiarity with a variety of world literatures as well as methods of
studying literature and culture across national and linguistic boundaries, and
evaluate the nature, function and value of literature from a global perspective.
b. …analyze a specific body of research and write a clear and well-developed paper
or project about a topic related to more than one literary and cultural tradition.
Literature Across Borders
This course is designed as an introduction to the field of Comparative Literature, and is
required of all majors and minors. “Literature Across Borders” illustrates the concept and
practice of comparative literature across historical periods, cultures, and genres.
For the Spring 2012 semester we will revisit the theme of “being human,” examining the
representation of the human over time, in both Western and non-Western cultures. In the
past 30 years, discoveries in the natural sciences have complicated the concept of “being
human,” but the humanities themselves (literature, philosophy, art, film) have also
challenged earlier definitions of humanness. While this discussion has been fruitful in
many ways, no clear consensus has emerged from it, so that the concept of “being
human” remains full of ambiguity. This ambiguity and its attendant mystery will be the
focal point of the course.
Each week a different faculty member of the Program in Comparative Literature will
lecture on a reading, film, or performance—drawn from her or his field of
specialization—that will challenge us to explore the definition of the human in literary or
filmic texts of a particular culture or cultures at a specific time. Course readings explore
being human in social, political, and religious contexts; the boundaries between the
human and the non-human (animals and/or machines), and between the human, the
superhuman, and the subhuman; and the human practices of dreaming, playing, and
surviving.
The following three required books are available for purchase in the Rutgers University
Bookstore:
1) P. Lal, trans., Great Sanskrit Plays (ISBN# 10:0811200795 New Directions)
2) Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera (ISBN# 978-1879960749 Aunt Lute
Books, 3rd edition, 2007)
3) Caryl Churchill, Far Away (ISBN# 1-55936-199-9) New York: Theater
Communications Group, 2000).
On the lecture schedule, readings in book form will be marked with an asterisk. All
other readings are to be found on Alexander Online Reserve under the appropriate
date. Please bring to class all required books and copies of the readings on
Alexander Online Reserve that will be discussed on a particular day.
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Lecture Schedule
Jan. 19 Janet Walker Introduction, including viewing a clip from Werner Herzog’s
2010 film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, featuring cave paintings from the Chauvet cave in
Southern France from over 30,000 years ago.
Jan. 26 Richard Serrano
al-Jāhiz (781-869): The Misers (Arabic)
Feb. 2 Uri Eisenzweig
Balzac: The Chouans (French—1829)
Feb. 9 Michael Levine
(German)
Franz Kafka (1883-1924): “The Burrow” and “Odradek”
Feb. 16 Nelson Maldonado-Torres Gloria Anzaldúa: *Borderlands/La Frontera: The
New Mestiza (English and Spanish--1987)
Feb. 23 Sandy Flitterman-Lewis Jean-Luc Godard: Alphaville: A Strange Adventure of
Lemmy Caution (French--1965) (film to be viewed individually at Douglass Media
Center)
Mar. 1 Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel Junot Díaz: “Aurora” (from the collection
Drown) (English--1996) and Sonia Rivera-Valdés: The Forbidden Stories of Marta
Veneranda (Spanish--2001)
*Note: please visit the link to this project: http://www.postsecret.com/
Mar. 8 Nicholas Rennie
(German--1887)
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic
Midterm essay due
Spring Break
Mar. 22 Janet Walker Shen Ji-ji (fl. Ca. 800): “Ren’s Story” (Chinese) and Akinari
Ueda: “The Lust of the Serpent” (Japanese—1776)
Mar. 29 Elin Diamond
Apr. 5 Steven Walker
BCE-1st century-CE)
Caryl Churchill: *Far Away (English—2000)
King Shudraka: *The Little Clay Cart (Sanskrit—1st century,
Apr. 12 Emily van Buskirk
1965)
Varlam Shalamov: Kolyma Tales (Russian—written 1954-
Apr. 19 Edyta Bojanowska Stanisław Lem: Cyberiad (Polish—1965) and poems of
Wisława Szymborska (born 1923) (Polish)
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May 4 (Friday) at 12 Noon: Final comparative essay due
Requirements
Students are expected to attend all classes and attendance will be taken at each class
meeting. Each student is allowed two unexcused absences for the semester; exceeding
that number will result in a lowering of the overall grade. Religiously observant students
should indicate that they wish to be excused on religious holidays, and these absences
will be considered excused absences, following university regulations. Athletes needing
to attend practice or take part in sports events at certain times should officially inform
their section leader of their necessary absences; absences for these reasons will be
considered excused absences. Students should also let their section leader know if they
have transportation emergencies or scheduled job interviews, as these are also excused
absences.
Student Absence Reporting for health and other emergency absences. As of the Fall
2011 semester, a new system of student absence reporting is in effect. Under this system,
students are responsible for reporting their health and other emergency absences on the
Rutgers Self-Reporting Absence Website: https://sims.rutgers.edu/ssra/. This central
system alerts the Office of Undergraduate Education to students who would benefit from
assistance in addressing health and family issues. If you expect to miss one or two classes
for these reasons, please use the University Self-Reporting Absence Website, stating the
date and reason for your absence. An email message will then automatically be sent to
your section leader.
Long-term Absences. In cases where students must miss classes for periods longer than
one week, they are directed to see a Dean of Students for assistance to help verify these
circumstances.
Course Etiquette
Please note that all cell phones, pagers, iPods, iPads, iPhones, laptops, desktops and any
other form of electronic equipment must be turned off and put away during class.
Students are responsible for giving their attention to what is going on in class, for taking
notes (if you wish), and for participating in discussion. The classroom is not an empty
space where unrelated individuals are coming and going but a potential site of intellectual
discourse, where everyone, lecturers and students alike, should be concentrated, together,
on the work at hand. Using electronic devices violates the spirit of intellectual working
together that constitutes the classroom experience.
Grading Policy
The final grade will be based on:
1) class discussion: 10%
2) near-weekly response papers: 30%
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3) a 3-5-page midterm essay: 25%
4) a 5-7-page final comparative essay: 35%.
Total--------------------------------------100%
Grading Rubric
A=90-100; B+=87-89; B=80-86; C+=77-79; C=70-76; D=60-69; F=59 and below
Policy on Plagiarism
Plagiarism can include using information from published materials (including the
internet) without acknowledging the source, teaming up with a classmate to write a paper,
and having someone else write some or all of a paper for you. In this course we are
interested in your ideas, in your work. If we should discover evidence of plagiarism, we
will pursue it following the interim university regulations on academic integrity, which
can be found at this website:
http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/integrity/shtml.
“Plagiarism is the representation of the words of ideas of another as one’s own in any
academic work. To avoid plagiarism, every direct quotation must be identified by
quotation marks, or by appropriate indentation, and must be cited properly according to
the accepted format for the particular discipline. Acknowledgment is also required when
material from any source is paraphrased or summarized in whole or in part in one’s own
words. To acknowledge a paraphrase properly one might state: to paraphrase Plato’s
comment…and conclude with a footnote or appropriate citation to identify the exact
reference…” (quoted from Interim Academic Integrity policy).
Here is a plagiarism tutorial that students might wish to consult for clarification of what
plagiarism is:
A 20-minute Interactive Tutorial on Plagiarism and Academic Integrity:
http://sccweb.scc-net.rutgers.edu/douglass/sal/plagiarism/Intro.html
Students with Disabilities
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey abides by the Americans with Disabilities
Act of 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments (ADAA) of 2088, and
Sections 504 and 508 which mandate that reasonable accommodations be provided for
qualified students with disabilities. If you have a disability and may require some type of
instructional and/or examination accommodation, please contact your instructor early in
the semester. If you have not already done so, you will need to register with the Office of
Disability Services, located in the Kreeger Learning Center, 151 College Avenue, Suite
123, phone number 732-932-2848.
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