Expository writing based on analysis of selected masterpieces of ancient and modern literature. R1A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R1B satisfies the second half.

This course will focus on narratives (in fiction, film, and lyric form) of both economic and ecological precarity and their relationship to historical sites of dispossession, displacement, and vulnerability. With eye on the contemporary disasters of genocide, climate disaster, and pandemic (situated directly as part of the wider disaster of capitalism), we will develop an understanding of how notions of resistance and embodiment take shape in relation to literary and cinematic form. We will work in constant conversation with a wide range of critical frameworks, including ecofeminism, historical-materialism, disability studies, queer theory, and postcolonial theory. The texts and media selected will focus on epochs of forced migration and displacement, including the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. As part of the comparative literature rhetoric requirements, we will read across a range of languages (with English translations) including Korean, French, and English. Course readings will include selections from Romantic lyric poetry, speculative and science fiction, contemporary poetry, and films such as Atlantics (Mati Diop) and The Host (Bong Joon Ho). Writers and theorists include Don Mee Choi, Christina Sharpe, Karen Tei Yamashita, Sami Schalk, M. NourbeSe Philip, Aimé Césaire, and Mahmoud Darwish.

Requisites

• UC Entry Level Writing Requirement or UC Analytical Writing Placement Exam. 1A or equivalent is prerequisite to 1B.

Credit Restrictions

Students will receive no credit for COM LIT R1B after completing COM LIT N1B, COM LIT S1B, COM LIT H1B, or COM LIT 1B.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills