21/1 – Comparative Literature

The aim of this module is to provide students with a wide range of international literary and critical readings from the early 20th century through our day. Special care has been taken to compile an inclusive and balanced set of authors and theorists in terms of geographical origins, gender, and generic distinctions within the world of short fiction. In addition to the stories read, a toolkit for their interpretation will also be provided, with problems of narratology, post-colonialism, sociology, and politics discussed along with psychological factors. Focusing on attentive reading and linguistic as well as pragmatic analysis, students will become more sensitive to tendencies and tensions in world politics and cultural struggles as reflected in literary works. The course will also intensify their perceptiveness of nuances and details. Eventually, they should be able to read literary works of increasing length and complexity, while their critical sense with regard both to primary and to secondary (theoretical) literature should also improve. Last but not least, reading literature is an instrumental device in the development of language competence, which the students will profit from in terms of vocabulary, grammatical versatility, accuracy, and appropriacy.