#

Course Code

Name

No. of Study Units

Activity

Assessment

GPA: (incl./excl.)

Pre-requisite

1

LIT 511

Research Methods for Comparative Studies

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

2

LIT 512

Origins & Development of Comparative Literature

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

3

LIT 513

Literary Criticism: Classics to 19^th Century.

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

Total

(9) Study units

#

Course Code

Name

No. of Study Units

Activity

Assessment

GPA: (incl./excl.)

Pre-requisite

1

LIT 521

Contemporary Theories of Comparative Literature

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

2

LIT 522

Modern Theories of Criticism

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

3

LIT ….

Elective Course (1)

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

Total

(9) Study units

#

Course Code

Name

No. of Study Units

Activity

Assessment

GPA: (incl./excl.)

Pre-requisite

1

LIT 531

Comparative Rhetoric

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

2

LIT ….

Elective Course (2)

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

3

LIT ….

Elective Course (3)

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

Total

(9) Study units

#

Course Code

Name

No. of Study Units

Activity

Assessment

GPA: (incl./excl.)

Pre-requisite

1

LIT 599

Research Project

3 (0 + 6)

project

Pass/Fail

2

LIT ….

Elective Course (4

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

3

LIT ….

Elective Course (5)

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

Total

(9) Study units

1

LIT 561

Studies in Influence and Intertextuality

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

2

LIT 562

Literary Translation & Comparative Studies

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

3

LIT 563

Minority and Otherness in Literature

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

4

LIT 564

Literary Orientalism and Occidentalism

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

5

LIT 565

Topics in Popular Culture

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

6

LIT 566

Topics in Women’s Studies

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

7

LIT 567

Issues in Postcolonial Studies

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

8

LIT 568

Studies in Autobiography

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

9

LIT 569

Studies in Digital Humanities

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

10

LIT 570

Topics in Children’s and Young Adult Literature

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

11

LIT 571

Issues in Comparative Literary Theory

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

12

LIT 572

Studies in World Literature

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

13

LIT 573

Topics in Comparative Studies

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

14

LIT 574

Modernism and Postmodernism Studies

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

15

LIT 575

The Saudi Novel in the Global Context

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

16

LIT 576

Saudi Literary Criticism in the Global Context

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

17

LIT 577

Anglophone and Arabophone Literature

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

18

LIT 578

Islam in Western Literature

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

19

LIT 579

Comparative Literature in Andalusia

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

20

LIT 580

Nahdawists Interactions with the West

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

21

LIT 581

Travelers to Arabia

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

22

LIT 582

Muslim Scholars and the European Renaissance

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

23

LIT 583

Film Studies

3 (3 + 0)

Lecture

Incl

LIT 511

Research Methods for Comparative Studies

3 (3 + 0)

This course introduces research methodologies and ethics for comparative studies both theoretically and practically. It focuses on the principles of research in general and on comparative practices as well. It allows students to improve their academic writing and research skills. By the end of this course, students will be able to apply the theoretical and practical knowledge to the various topics offered in the comparative literature program. They will be able to select topics, understand the stages of writing a research paper, select secondary material, become acquainted with renowned journals in the field of comparative literature, produce annotated bibliographies, write a review of literature, and finally write an academic paper using major research formats such as MLA and Chicago styles. 

LIT 512

Origins & Development of Comparative Literature

3 (3 + 0)

This course explores the history of comparative literature through reading major theories of comparative literature from different continents. Students will study the origins of different schools of comparative literature up to the end of WWII.

LIT 513

Literary Criticism: Classics to 19^th Century.

3 (3 + 0)

The course introduces students to the history of literary criticism from antiquity to the late 19th century. Students will read texts by major critics from various continents and examine the evolution of literary critical concepts and become acquainted with the relevant terminology.

LIT 521

Contemporary Theories of Comparative Literature

3 (3 + 0)

This course explores the theoretical development of comparative study after WWII. It explores the different new approaches, corrective measures, debates and crises of the field. Among these issues are diversity and interactions/relation with other areas of humanities.

LIT 522

Modern Theories of Criticism

3 (3 + 0)

The course aims at studying modern schools of criticism including, but not limited to, New Criticism, Feminism, Marxism, Ecocriticism, Psychoanalysis, New Historicism, Reader-Response, critical race theory, ethnicity studies, postcolonial and decolonial studies. Students should be prepared to apply a certain literary school to a literary text as a final project.

LIT 531

Comparative Rhetoric

3 (3 + 0)

This course examines the history and theory of rhetoric from a comparative and cross-cultural perspective. Major rhetorical theories and texts representing Western rhetoric will be examined alongside other theories and texts representing Arabic rhetoric. A special focus will be given to the classical rhetorical tradition in both cultures (i.e., ancient Greco-Roman tradition and Medieval Arabic-Islamic tradition), with a close look at the rich interaction between Aristotelian thought and rhetorical theory with Islamic philosophical thought through the rhetorical translations and commentaries of Muslim philosophers such as Averroes and Avicenna. For its comparative method, the course will feature and analyze rhetorical concepts theorized and explored in each tradition’s primary texts. Some of the concepts include oratory, eloquence, writing, persuasion, ethics, argumentation, style, and tropes.

LIT 599

Research Project

3 (0 + 6)

This course helps students choose their final project and work to produce a publishable research paper in comparative literature. Students go through stages of selecting their topics, writing their annotated bibliography, conducting a literature review, defining their critical methodology, and writing their final paper.

LIT 561

Studies in Influence and Intertextuality

3 (3 + 0)

This course invites students to explore theories of influence and intertextuality before examining several literary texts from antiquity to the present, thus producing a comparative research paper applying the theory of influence and/or intertextuality.

LIT 562

Literary Translation & Comparative Studies

3 (3 + 0)

The course explores the theories of literary translation and its relationship to the field of comparative studies. After dealing with the theories and issues of literary translations, students will read several original literary texts and their translations and provide a critical study of the translated works from the perspective of literary comparativism.

LIT 563

Minority and Otherness in Literature

3 (3 + 0)

After providing theoretical background about the concepts of “minority” and “otherness,” this course explores the significance of literary texts from various continents that are written by minorities and/or deal with “otherness” as a major theme.

LIT 564

Literary Orientalism and Occidentalism

3 (3 + 0)

       This course investigates the machinations of Orientalism and Occidentalism. It will then apply these analytical paradigms to literary texts from different continents. In so doing the course aims to explore the various manifestations of Orientalism and Occidentalism and how they determine both representations of the self and the other. 

LIT 565

Topics in Popular Culture

3 (3 + 0)

This course explores the theory of pop-culture. It studies various comparative pop-culture products including, but are not limited to, movies, TV shows, music, cyberculture, magazines, and videogames.

LIT 566

Topics in Women’s Studies

3 (3 + 0)

This course examines theories of women’s studies and invite students to read literary texts from different parts of the world written by women or about women. The course selects representative women writings from antiquity to the present. Literary texts may include untraditional literary genres such as movies, TV shows, fashion and magazines.

LIT 567

Issues in Postcolonial Studies

3 (3 + 0)

This course focuses on postcolonialism as a theory before it introduces various genres of literary texts that tackle the issue of postcolonialism. Students read texts about the colonized and colonizer, allowing them to examine how each one represents his/her own culture, while marginalizing the “Other.”

LIT 568

Studies in Autobiography

3 (3 + 0)

This course explores critical and theoretical approaches to the study of life narratives within a comparative and cross-cultural framework. It examines the various historical and cultural contexts of life writing through analysing diverse life-narratives from different genres such as autobiography, memoir, diary, and letters representing different cultures with a particular emphasis on Western (including Anglo-American) and Arabic (including Saudi) life narratives.

LIT 569

Studies in Digital Humanities

3 (3 + 0)

This course investigates the influence of digitalization on reading and multiplication of knowledge across different cultures. Topics covered in this course include hyertextuality, performance and interaction, cybertextuality, and virtual realities, digital aesthetics, literary mapping and narrative and space.

LIT 570

Topics in Children’s and Young Adult Literature

3 (3 + 0)

This course explores the history and theories of children’s and young adult literature. Various literary traditional and untraditional genres such as novels and movies written by various writers from different continents will introduce students to major issues relating to the field of children’s and young adult literature such as the relationship between adult as writers and children as readers.

LIT 571

Issues in Comparative Literary Theory

3 (3 + 0)

This course explores issues in comparative literary theory. It examines how critics from different cultures view one or multiple issues of comparative literature and produce a final paper that engage at least two theorists of comparative literature from two different perspectives.

LIT 572

Studies in World Literature

3 (3 + 0)

This course examines representative texts and literary genres of world literature from antiquity to the present, inclusive of mainstream Anglo-Saxon literature. In addition, this course sheds light on the theoretical framework of World Literature such as issues of canonization, translation, transliteration, and the pitfalls of globalization and world literary space.

LIT 573

Topics in Comparative Studies

3 (3 + 0)

This course explores a special topic related to the field of comparative literature and not discussed in the core and electives of this program.

LIT 574

Modernism and Postmodernism Studies

3 (3 + 0)

This course explores the historical, cultural and aesthetic contexts of the modern and the postmodern.  It investigates the theoretical continuity and discontinuity of modernity and postmodernity, literary representations of these two phenomena, the characteristics of modernist and postmodernist literary artistic expressions, and the relationship between art and politics of materialistic production.

LIT 575

The Saudi Novel in the Global Context

3 (3 + 0)

This course focuses on the Saudi novel and its place in the global context.  It examines the Saudi novel in the world literary system. It also compares local and global receptions of the Saudi novel. In addition, this course studies the representation of global issues in the Saudi novel and its impact on the genre of fiction writing. Students are expected to familiarize themselves with theories of literary globalization and to consequently use Said theories in analyzing and engaging various Saudi novels. 

LIT 576

Saudi Literary Criticism in the Global Context

3 (3 + 0)

This is a theoretical course that examines the position of Saudi literary criticism within the global context. It will first introduce students to major Saudi literary critics and then scrutinizes their position with respect to global literary theory as explored in the program courses on literary criticism.

LIT 577

Anglophone and Arabophone Literature

3 (3 + 0)

This course focuses on Arab writers who produced Anglophone literature and compare them to writers who wrote in Arabic, thus producing Arabophone works. Before reading selected texts by Anglophone and Arabophone writers, this course will introduce the theoretical framework of Anglophone and Arabophone theories including, but not limited to, diaspora and cultural assimilation.

LIT 578

Islam in Western Literature

3 (3 + 0)

This course focuses on the representation of Islam and Muslims by western writers. By exposing students to several literary genres, this course explores the encounter of the West with the Islamic culture and how the latter impacted the writings of Western writers, thus creating a constructed knowledge about Islam and Muslims.

LIT 579

Comparative Literature in Andalusia

3 (3 + 0)

This course focuses on the writing of the Andalusians between (711-1492). Literary and non-literary genres highlight the historical, political, and social contexts of that particular era. This course will also introduce students to how this melting pot of three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) influenced the literary product of the Andalusian era.

LIT 580

Nahdawists Interactions with the West

3 (3 + 0)

This course explores how Nahdawists defined and redefined their heritage against or parallel to that of the West. Literally and non-literary genres will be read to investigate how the encounter of Nahdawists with the West may or may not have influenced the writings produced during the Arabic Renaissance, Alnahda. 

LIT 581

Travelers to Arabia

3 (3 + 0)

This course introduces the concept of travel literature with a focus on travel writings about Arabia. It traces early writings of travelers to Arabia to recent digital travel writings about Arabia. Students will examine the representation of Arabia and Arabs written in different languages and attempt to understand why travelers’ writings may have shaped the latent knowledge about the orient, leading to its manifestation.

LIT 582

Muslim Scholars and the European Renaissance

3 (3 + 0)

This course explores the contribution of the Muslim scholars to the European Renaissance in areas such as philosophy and translation and the consequences of this cultural exchange. Texts read in this course include cultural, historical and literary documents to highlight the dynamics of this cultural interaction of this crucial intellectual area.

LIT 583

Film Studies

3 (3 + 0)

This course aims at teaching and analyzing film studies and cinematic rhetoric through the application of several theories pertaining to film, rhetoric, and visual studies. This course covers local, regional, and international films such as Hollywood and Bollywood. Included topics discussed in this course are issues of feminism, gender studies, intersectionality, colonialism, and postcolonialism—with emphasis on the image of Arabs, immigrants, and the minorities in the Western cinema. In addition, this course includes topics related to the making of films such as issues of production, agendas, film genres, directors as writers, modernist and postmodernist films, original text versus adopted texts, motion picture distribution, and cinematography.