Department of Comparative Literature
Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature
Students on Summer 2018, Fall 2018, or Spring 2019 requirements CMLTBA
Requirements
The major requires at least 30 credit hours* (at least 24 of which must be at the 200–499 level, and at least 18 of which must be at the 300–499 level), including the requirements listed below.
- Essentials.
- Introduction to Literary Analysis. One (1) course:
- CMLT-C 205 Comparative Literary Analysis
CMLT-C 205 Comparative Literary Analysis
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Introduction to basic concepts of literary criticism through comparative close readings of texts from a variety of literary genres--fiction, poetry, drama, essay--from diverse traditions.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated once for credit with a different topic.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Methods and Theory. One (1) course:
- CMLT-C 305 Comparative Approaches to Literature: Theory and Method
CMLT-C 305 Comparative Approaches to Literature: Theory and Method
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Introduction to modern critical theory based on the study of literary texts and of critical and theoretical works.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Introduction to Literary Analysis. One (1) course:
- Explorations.
- Global Engagement. One (1) course:
- CMLT-C 147 Images of the Self: East and West
- CMLT-C 262 Cross-Cultural Encounters
- CMLT-C 320 World Literature before 1500
- CMLT-C 340 Women in World Literature
- CMLT-C 360 Diasporic Literatures
- CMLT-C 363 Black Paris
- CMLT-C 365 Japanese-Western Literary Relations
- CMLT-C 370 Comparative Studies in Western and Middle Eastern Literatures
- CMLT-C 375 Imagining China, Translating China
- CMLT-C 377 Topics in Yiddish Literature
- CMLT-C 457 Capitals, Crosscurrents and Borders
- CMLT-C 464 French Language Literature of Africa and the Americas
CMLT-C 147 Images of the Self: East and West
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Topics such as the individual in society, the outcast as hero, and artistic sensibility, examined in selected works of Western and Eastern literature from ancient to modern times.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
CMLT-C 262 Cross-Cultural Encounters
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Encounters between different cultures explored in the literature, art, film, and music resulting from various forms of cultural contact (travel, colonization, religious diffusion, print and electronic technologies). Topics include transformation of cultural institutions, processes of cross-cultural representation, globalization of the arts and culture, development of intercultural forms. Historical and regional focus may vary.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
CMLT-C 320 World Literature before 1500
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Survey of selected genres of literature from earliest written texts through the end of the Middle Ages, covering the major centers of world civilization--the Mediterranean, India, and East and West Asia.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
CMLT-C 340 Women in World Literature
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Study of literature by women from different ages and societies. Consideration of issues such as the relationship to literary tradition and cultural context, the creation of an authoritative voice, or the representation of women in literature. Course may focus on one genre or mode (such as drama, lyric, autobiography, or satire).
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 360 Diasporic Literatures
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Study of literature by writers of different regional and religious diasporas, with particular attention to issues relating to cultural identity and location. Consideration of closely related categories and concepts such as immigrant, ethnic minority, hybridity, and deterritorialized cultures.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 363 Black Paris
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- The common and divergent experiences of African American, Afro-Caribbean, and African travelers to the "City of Light," from 18th-century New Orleans Creoles to 21st-century youth of African descent, as seen through literature, performance, film, and other arts. Issues of colonization, expatriation, immigration, exile, the Harlem Renaissance and "negritude," race and diaspora, transnationalism.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of AAAD-A 304 or CMLT-C 363.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 365 Japanese-Western Literary Relations
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Japanese influences on Western poets and dramatists: color prints, haiku, and Noh plays. The Western impact on Japanese literature: the Japanese adaptation of movements such as romanticism, realism, naturalism, and symbolism, with special emphasis on the Japanese traits that these movements acquired.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 370 Comparative Studies in Western and Middle Eastern Literatures
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Literary exchanges and influences between Western and Middle Eastern traditions in Arabic, Persian, or Turkish. Period and topic vary.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 375 Imagining China, Translating China
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Topics may include comparison of Chinese and European philosophical traditions, Western representations of China, East-West contact in the larger historical context, and the translation of literary works across cultures. Readings by authors such as Marco Polo, Voltaire, Pound, and Sigrid Nunez.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 377 Topics in Yiddish Literature
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Selected topics focusing on Yiddish fiction and drama (1810-1914) or twentieth-century Yiddish fiction, drama, and poetry. Taught in English. No prior knowledge of Yiddish required. Topics vary.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours for any combination of CMLT-C 377 and GER-E 351.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 457 Capitals, Crosscurrents and Borders
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- The role of capitals in the development of literary and artistic culture. Capitals as sites of cultural encounter, where immigrants and minorities interact with local populations and where such interaction shows the permeable nature of borders. Comparisons between cultural and political capitals. Examines three capitals per semester (e.g., Paris, New York, Rome).
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 464 French Language Literature of Africa and the Americas
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Literary texts and films, their poetics and historical contexts. Particular consideration of the tension surrounding the use of French language in Africa and the Caribbean and the creation of French language literatures, their relationship to local oral traditions and metropolitan French literature. Course will be conducted in French.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Foundations. One (1) course:
- CMLT-C 216 Science Fiction, Fantasy, and the Western Tradition
- CMLT-C 217 Detective, Mystery, and Horror Literature
- CMLT-C 219 Romance and the Western Tradition
- CMLT-C 261 Introduction to African Literature
- CMLT-C 266 Introduction to East Asian Fiction
- CMLT-C 311 Drama
- CMLT-C 313 Narrative
- CMLT-C 315 Lyric Poetry
- CMLT-C 317 Epic: Heroes, Gods, and Rebels
- CMLT-C 318 Satire
- CMLT-C 321 Medieval Literature
- CMLT-C 325 The Renaissance
- CMLT-C 329 The Eighteenth Century
- CMLT-C 333 Romanticism
- CMLT-C 335 Realism, Naturalism, and Symbolism
- CMLT-C 337 The Twentieth Century: Tradition and Change
- CMLT-C 338 Literature Today: 1950 to the Present
- CMLT-C 364 The Caribbean: Literature and Theory
- CMLT-C 378 Topics in Yiddish Culture
- CMLT-C 415 Medieval Lyric
- CMLT-C 417 Medieval Narrative
- CMLT-C 445 Early Traditions of Christian Literature
- CMLT-C 446 Traditions of Christian Literature II
CMLT-C 216 Science Fiction, Fantasy, and the Western Tradition
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Historical and comparative survey of science fiction and fantasy narrative from antiquity to the present. The origin of scientific narrative in ancient Greek literature, its relation to ancient myths, and its history and development. Emphasis on philosophical, cognitive, and scientific aspects of the genre.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 217 Detective, Mystery, and Horror Literature
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Origins, evolution, conventions, criticism, and theory of the detective and mystery story; history of the Gothic novel; later development of the tale of terror; major works of this type in fiction, drama, and film.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 219 Romance and the Western Tradition
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Origins, evolution, conventions, criticism, and theory of the romance, from antiquity to the present; representative texts from Apuleius to modern pulp fiction.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 261 Introduction to African Literature
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Oral and written poetry, epic, fiction, drama, and film from around the continent with reference to historical and cultural contexts, and debates on language choice, "authenticity," gender, and European representations of Africa.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
CMLT-C 266 Introduction to East Asian Fiction
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Readings from the major novels of East Asia, such as "Monkey," "Story of the Stone," "The Tale of Genji," and "The Cloud Dream of the Nine," along with shorter fictional forms (both vernacular and classical). Exploration of issues such as self and society, desire and enlightenment, the relationship between fictional and other genres, historical development of fiction, and comparison with Western conceptions of narrative.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 311 Drama
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Analytical and historical study of various forms of dramatic literature emphasizing differences between drama and other literary genres. Survey of periods and dramatic conventions, close reading of selected plays, some concern with theoretical problems.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 313 Narrative
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Historical and analytical study of various forms of narrative literature. Examination of narrative as a primary literary genre and analysis of such diverse forms as myth, folktale, epic, romance, gospel, saint's life, saga, allegory, confession, and novel.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 315 Lyric Poetry
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Close reading of exemplary poems with an emphasis on interpretation and on the interplay between literal and figurative language. Topics will include the way poems are shaped, their ambiguous status as private and public statements, and their relation to tradition, to their readers, and to one another.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 317 Epic: Heroes, Gods, and Rebels
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Historical and comparative survey of one or more traditions of epic poetry. Origins, evolution, conventions, criticism, and theory of the chosen tradition(s) to be studied through readings of selected epics. Some consideration of the social and political roles of individual epics and the genre.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
CMLT-C 318 Satire
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Historical and analytical study of forms, techniques, and scope of satire from antiquity to the Internet. Consideration of the role of ridicule in defending or attacking institutions, values, and beliefs.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of CMLT-C 218 or CMLT-C 318.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 321 Medieval Literature
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Study of works from the major genres of medieval European literature: epic, romance, allegorical narrative, lyric poetry, and drama. Topics may include the relationship of secular and religious traditions, the role of multilingual communities in shaping medieval literature, and the influence of social context on literary production.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
CMLT-C 325 The Renaissance
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Prose fiction, long narrative poems, lyric poems, essays, tracts, and plays written between 1350 and 1650 in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and England. Authors such as Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Machiavelli, More, Castiglione, Rabelais, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Hobbes.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
CMLT-C 329 The Eighteenth Century
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- The dominant literary and intellectual trends of the eighteenth century, such as neoclassicism, rococo, Enlightenment, and preromanticism. Authors such as Pope, Swift, Montesquieu, Richardson, Voltaire, Diderot, Kant, Rousseau, Lessing, and Sterne.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 333 Romanticism
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- The rise of romantic tendencies in eighteenth-century Europe; the romantic revolution in early nineteenth-century Western literature. Authors such as Goethe, Chateaubriand, Wordsworth, Byron, Novalis, Hoffmann, Hugo, Pushkin, and Poe.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 335 Realism, Naturalism, and Symbolism
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- The rise of realism in nineteenth-century fiction and its development into naturalism and impressionism; the symbolist reaction in poetry; the reemergence of the drama as a major genre. Authors such as Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Mallarme, Ibsen, Hauptmann, Strindberg, Chekhov.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 337 The Twentieth Century: Tradition and Change
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- The search for forms and language to express new understandings of art and reality in the era of modernism.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 338 Literature Today: 1950 to the Present
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- An exploration of major literary movements, styles, or currents shaping literature after World War II, such as the theatre of the absurd, postmodernism, magical realism, cyberpunk, postcolonialism, and transnationalism.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 364 The Caribbean: Literature and Theory
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Poetry, fiction, drama, musical lyrics, travel literature, and prose from the Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanophone, and Dutch-speaking Caribbean. Discussion of major currents affecting literary production and interpretation. Topics such as immigration, diaspora, Rastafarianism, Voudoun, tourism.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 378 Topics in Yiddish Culture
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Selected topics on history of Ashkenazic Jews; Old Yiddish and premodern Yiddish folklore and popular culture; history and sociology of Yiddish; modern Yiddish culture; and centers of modern Yiddish culture. Taught in English. No prior knowledge of Yiddish required. Topics vary.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours for any combination of CMLT-C 378 and GER-E 352.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 415 Medieval Lyric
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Comparative study of religious and secular lyric poetry in medieval Europe. Exploration of cultural contexts and formal concerns, such as the development of medieval rhetorical theory. The continuation and transformation of classical poetic conventions, and the interplay of musical and verbal texts.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 417 Medieval Narrative
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Comparative analysis of traditions of narrative in medieval Europe. Works studied within their cultural contexts and in reference to narrative theory. Topics and works vary, but may include the allegorical narrative, romance, fabliaux, saint's life, and dream vision.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 445 Early Traditions of Christian Literature
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Imaginative religious literature by Christian authors to the twelfth century; relationship to Jewish, classical, and Muslim cultural traditions; emergence of new genres; development and transformation of early themes and forms.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 446 Traditions of Christian Literature II
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Religious literature of the later Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the baroque, and the transformation of its themes and forms in more recent writings. Close reading of individual texts as well as consideration of their cultural and theological contexts.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Literature and Ideas. One (1) course:
- CMLT-C 160 What's Good About Good Books?
- CMLT-C 240 Linguistics and Literature: Sound, Meaning, Style
- CMLT-C 343 Literature and Politics
- CMLT-C 345
- CMLT-C 347 Literature and Ideas
- CMLT-C 349 Literature and Science
CMLT-C 160 What's Good About Good Books?
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examines the moral dimensions of literature and film; explores the morally troubling content of much that is considered great literature and cinema, which is so often filled with suffering, cruelty, and misfortune; and asks what in that case it means to say a book or film is "good."
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 240 Linguistics and Literature: Sound, Meaning, Style
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Introduces linguistics in the context of literature. Examines the structures and functions of language: how writers use sound, meaning, associations of language, and language variation to create characters, settings, and situations in literary texts; and what happens when texts cross linguistic boundaries through translation.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 343 Literature and Politics
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- The intersection of literature and political issues, the representation of political ideas in literary works, literature's impact on politics and its role in public debate. Time periods, literatures, and civilizations studied will vary.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 347 Literature and Ideas
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Historical interrelations between literature and philosophy. Recent topics have included free will and the problem of evil; mysticism, criminality, and suffering; existentialism and the literature of the absurd.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 349 Literature and Science
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- The intersection of literature and the arts with science and technology, including the representation of scientific discovery and perspective, the dramatization of science's impact on society, the image of the scientist as artist. May include literature by scientists, and the use of scientific methods of analysis for interpreting literature.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Comparative Arts. One (1) course:
- CMLT-C 151 Introduction to Popular Culture
- CMLT-C 155 Culture and the Modern Experience: An Interdisciplinary and International Approach
- CMLT-C 251
- CMLT-C 252 Literary and Television Genres
- CMLT-C 255 Modern Literature and Other Arts: An Introduction
- CMLT-C 256 Literature and Other Arts: 1870-1950
- CMLT-C 257 Asian Literature and Other Arts
- CMLT-C 291 Studies in Non-Western Film
- CMLT-C 310 Literature and Film
- CMLT-C 351
- CMLT-C 355 Literature, the Arts, and Their Interrelationship
- CMLT-C 357 The Arts Today: From 1950 to the Present
- CMLT-C 358 Literature and Music: Opera
- CMLT-C 361 African Literature and Other Arts
- CMLT-C 492 Comedy in Film and Literature
CMLT-C 151 Introduction to Popular Culture
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- The serious study of entertainment for mass consumption, including popular theatre and vaudeville, bestsellers, mass circulation magazines, popular music, phonograph records, and popular aspects of radio, film, and television. Provides the basic background to other popular culture courses in comparative literature.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE DUScourseFall 2024CASE DUScourse
CMLT-C 155 Culture and the Modern Experience: An Interdisciplinary and International Approach
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- This course, which is interdisciplinary in method and international in scope, introduces students to an inclusive study of major cultural parallels, contrasts, and developments across the arts and beyond national and continental divides. Syllabi and selections of course materials will reflect the specialties of individual instructors.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Spring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
CMLT-C 252 Literary and Television Genres
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Comparative study of popular literary and television genres, such as farce, domestic comedy, melodrama, biography, mystery, adventure, western, the picaresque. Theoretical, technical, and ideological contrasts between the literary and television media.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 255 Modern Literature and Other Arts: An Introduction
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- The study of literature, painting, and music and the ways in which meaning is expressed in such forms. Investigates similarities and differences among the arts. Examples selected from the past 200 years. No previous knowledge of any art required.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 256 Literature and Other Arts: 1870-1950
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Interaction of the arts in the development of Western literature, painting, and music in movements such as impressionism, symbolism, constructivism, expressionism, dada, and surrealism.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 257 Asian Literature and Other Arts
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Explores selected literary texts of Asia in the context of the art forms and cultures of a particular country or region. Geographical regions covered vary each term.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated once with different topic.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 291 Studies in Non-Western Film
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Emphasis on non-Western film in relation to literary and cultural texts. Films may be studied as adaptations of literary works, as reworkings of generic or ideological traditions, and in their engagement with the aesthetics of non-Western theater and Hollywood. Focus on one regional tradition (African, Asian, Middle Eastern) each time the course is offered.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 310 Literature and Film
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- Analysis of the processes and problems involved in turning a literary work (novel, play, or poem) into a screenplay and then into a film. Close study of literary and film techniques and short exercises in adaptation.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 355 Literature, the Arts, and Their Interrelationship
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 255
- Description
- Discussion of theoretical foundations for study of the relationship of the arts; detailed analysis of specific works illustrating interaction of literature with other arts.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 357 The Arts Today: From 1950 to the Present
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 255 and CMLT-C 256
- Description
- Shared trends in literature, the visual arts, music, dance, and theatre. The heritage of dada and surrealism, the absurd, and constructivism; the new realism. Happenings, minimal art, conceptual art, antiart, participatory and environmental art. New materials, mixed media, multimedia and intermediality.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 358 Literature and Music: Opera
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Selected opera libretti from various periods. Comparison of libretti with their literary sources; emphasis on specific problems connected with the adaptation of a literary work to the operatic medium. Evaluation of representative libretti as independent literary works.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 361 African Literature and Other Arts
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- A focus on critical issues in the field of African letters, such as transnationalism, the question of orality, choice of language, the economics and politics of publishing--both within and outside the continent, and their impacts on cultural forms including new, non-literary media. Authors such as Achebe, Aidoo, Armah, Diop, Farah, Head, Kunene, Ngugi, p'Bitek, Sembene, and Soyinka.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 492 Comedy in Film and Literature
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Evolution, styles, and techniques of film comedy in America and Europe from the beginnings of cinema to the present. Theories of comedy and humor; relationship of film comedy to comedy in fiction, drama, pantomime, circus, and vaudeville. Work of leading film comedians.
- Spring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Global Engagement. One (1) course:
- Electives. Four (4) additional courses chosen from any of the Explorations lists above.
- Exploring Outside the Department (Addenda Requirement)**. One (1) of the following:
- Language and Literature. One (1) course at the 300–499 level, or its equivalent, that includes the study of a foreign language literature in the original language.
- Interdisciplinary Study of Literature. One (1) course at the 300–499 level from a non-literary department or program that complements one of the student's Comparative Literature courses at the 300–499 level. The student will prepare a one-page explanation and justification of the proposed pairing, which must be selected in consultation with the CMLT Director of Undergraduate Studies and approved by the Standing Undergraduate Committee of Comparative Literature. The course taken in a corresponding department must be completed on the Bloomington campus and at least 3 credit hours.
- Major GPA, Hours, and Minimum Grade Requirements.
- At least 18 credit hours in the major must be completed in courses taken through the Indiana University Bloomington campus or an IU-administered or IU co-sponsored Overseas Study program.
- At least 18 credit hours in the major must be completed at the 300–499 level.
- Except for the GPA requirement, a grade of C- or higher is required for a course to count toward a requirement in the major.
- A GPA of at least 2.000 for all courses taken in the major—including those where a grade lower than C- is earned—is required.
- Exceptions to major requirements may be made with the approval of the department's Director of Undergraduate Studies, subject to final approval by the College of Arts and Sciences.
Notes
The Bachelor of Arts degree requires at least 120 credit hours, to include the following:
- College of Arts and Sciences Credit Hours. At least 100 credit hours must come from College of Arts and Sciences disciplines.
- Upper Division Courses. At least 42 credit hours (of the 120) must be at the 300–499 level.
- College Residency. Following completion of the 60th credit hour toward degree, at least 36 credit hours of College of Arts and Sciences coursework must be completed through the Indiana University Bloomington campus or an IU-administered or IU co-sponsored Overseas Study program.
- College GPA. A cumulative grade point average (GPA) of at least 2.000 is required for all courses taken at Indiana University.
- CASE Requirements. The following College of Arts and Sciences Education (CASE) requirements must be completed:
- CASE Foundations
- CASE Breadth of Inquiry
- CASE Culture Studies
- CASE Critical Approaches: 1 course
- CASE Foreign Language: Proficiency in a single foreign language through the second semester of the second year of college-level coursework
- CASE Intensive Writing: 1 course
- CASE Public Oral Communication: 1 course
- Major. Completion of the major as outlined in the Major Requirements section above.
Most students must also successfully complete the Indiana University Bloomington General Education program.