Comparative Literature: Modern and Postmodern Aesthetics
Code: 106339Credits: 6
| Degree programme | Type | Course |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish and Chinese Studies: Language, Literature and Culture | OP | 4 |
| Spanish Language and Literature | OP | 3 |
| Spanish Language and Literature | OP | 4 |
| English Studies | OP | 3 |
| English Studies | OP | 4 |
Contact lecturer
- Name :
- Jordi Julià Garriga
- Email :
- jordi.julia@uab.cat
Teaching staff
- Miriam Ruiz-Ruano Risquez
- Júlia Martínez Berrar
Group languages
You can consult this information at the end of the 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. Using AI will be also forbidden. 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
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 considering Cultural Studies, Gender Studies and Reader-Response Criticism.
Learning outcomes
- Critically interpreting literary works taking into account the relationships between the different areas of literature and its relationships with human, artistic and social areas.
- Solving problems about writers, methods and currents of comparative literature, and connecting them with knowledge of other humanistic disciplines.
- Arguing about several issues and literary problems for the purpose of different works and the assessment of the results.
- Write text commentaries from a critical standpoint.
- Effectively communicating and applying the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
- Solving problems related to the study of different literatures.
- Explaining the basic characteristics of comparative literary texts.
- Analyse literary texts using the different concepts and methods of comparative literature.
- Use the skills acquired with autonomy.
- Express oneself effectively by applying argumentative and textual procedures in formal and scientific texts.
- Critically interpret literary works taking into account the relationships between the different fields of literature and their relationship with human, artistic and social areas.
- Argue on various literary themes and problems in relation to different works and evaluate the results.
- Analyse literary texts using the different concepts and methods of comparative literature.
- Identify and explain the basic characteristics of literary texts and the process of interpretation.
Contents
Contents
1. Modernity and Postmodernity. History, meaning and discussion of two concepts
2. Modern poetry: from Baudelaire to Fernando Pessoa
3. Beyond 19th century Realism: sybolism, psychologism and the absurd
4. Concentrationary literature: the end of Enlightenment ideals
5. Distopia
6. Postmodern narrative: magical realism and fantastic literature
-Dossier of modern poetry texts: from Baudelaire to post-symbolism (Virtual Campus)
-Joseph CONRAD, The Heart of Darkness.
-Virginia WOOLF, Mrs. Dalloway.
-Franz KAFKA, Short Stories (Selection on the Virtual Campus)
-Primo LEVI, If this is a man.
-Margaret ATWOOD, The Handmaid's tale.
-Julio CORTÁZAR; J. L. BORGES; Pere CALDERS, [Selection of stories in the Virtual Campus].
Learning activities and methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Master classes | 55 | 2.2 | |
| Programmed tutorials | 20 | 0.8 | |
| 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.
Assessment
Continuous assessment activities
| Title | Weight | Hours | ECTS | Learning outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exam (2) | 35% | 0 | 0 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 |
| Exam | 35% | 0 | 0 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 |
| Test on critical discourses | 30% | 0 | 0 | 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 13 |
The evaluation will be carried through two tests in the classroom and a short test of 30 minutes on critical texts related to the subject. The student will only be able to take the recovery in the event that he/she has submitted all the work and has obtained an average grade failure.
1) Exams 1 and 2: a partial exam of the first part of the course and an exam of the second part are foreseen. The tests will include: a) a text commentary on one of the compulsory readings b) a test with questions of synthesis and interpretation of the contents seen in class. In the correction, the ability to respond in a clear, orderly and relevant way to the question asked will be valued.
2) Test: They will consist of short tests carried out in the classroom and will deal with (a) lectures related to the contents of the subject and accessible in written or digital format and (b) critical texts from the bibliography.
In case the student makes any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade of an evaluation act, this evaluation act will be graded with 0, regardless of the disciplinary process that may be instituted. In case of several irregularities in the evaluation acts of the samesubject, the final grade of this subject will be 0. That is to say, in no case will plagiarism (total or partial) or the use of Artificial Intelligence be admitted in any of the evaluation exercises.
The student will receive the grade of Not evaluable as long as he/she has not completed more than 30% of the evaluation activities.
At the time of each evaluation activity, the teacher will inform the student of the procedure and the date of review of the grades. In the case of a non-positive evaluation, the student may make new deliveries (work, commentary) and extraordinary tests that will have the same level of difficulty and the same typology as the ordinary tests. Only those students who have submitted at least one of the two final exams will be eligible for the re-evaluation of the subject, and only those exams that have been previously evaluated may be re-evaluated, provided that a minimum grade of 3 points in the average of the subject.
Single evaluation
Students who so wish may take a single evaluation, which will consist of (1) an exam with theoretical questions and text commentary (40%), (2) a test demonstrating the reading of critical texts dealt with in class (40%) and (3) a review of critical texts (40%), and (4) a review of the text of the text (40%). In case of not achieving the competencies of any of the two blocks, the student will have to take the ordinary recovery exam if there are no circumstances that prevent him/her from doing so. If this is the case, the student will have to communicate it at least two weeks in advance so that the teacher can find an alternative date.
Bibliography
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
Course groups and languages
The information provided is provisional until November 30. After this date, you will be able to consult the language of each group through this link. To access the information, you will need to enter the course CODE
| Type of teaching | Group | Language | Semester | Shift |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (TE) Theory | 1 | Catalan | second semester | morning-mixed |
| (PAUL) Classroom practices | 1 | Catalan | second semester | morning-mixed |