Senior Sem-comp Lit & Society · Comparative Literature And Society
For your mental health, GPA, and overall happiness--don't take this class and switch your major. It also felt inappropriate that the instructors insisted on intellectualizing sensitive issues in the presence of students who had admitted struggling with those very issues and problematized the way the class was being led.
I gained a survey knowledge of various theory!
I learned sooo much in this class. Given that it was organized via weekly presentations of each student in the class talking about their projects and research, there was so much breadth in the content: from key literary theory lenses to specific types of multilingual writing.
I learned a ton of theory behind each keyword. It was great to see the different interests of each student and having them lead a class. I learned how to write a little better and think more critically about what I was reading through the discussion posts.
This course gave me a great foundation from which to continue writing a thesis. However, I wonder if the students who did not plan to write a thesis found it beneficial.
This is a required course 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Spring 2021 Course: CPLSUN3991_001_2021_1-SENIORSEM-COMPLIT&SOCIETY : CPLSUN3991_001_2021_1 - SENIOR SEM-COMP LIT & SOCIETY Instructor: Bruno Bosteels
I learned how to think and write theoretically and critically on a wide range of topics.
I leaned so much, and mostly from my peers.
I have to be honest that I've sort of avoided a lot of ICLS classes while I'm here (I did my comparative coursework requirement through CSER), mostly because the intro class was one of the worst classes I've taken at Columbia––it was really marginalizing for anyone who wasn't a white man studying french or german texts by white men in the 19th-20th centuries. This class was really different in that regard. Sure, we read some of the "fathers" of certain methodological/theoretical arguments, etc.. but Seth also opened up a lot of space (including on the syllabus and in class discussions) for real feminist/Black feminist/queer critique of that kind of thinking. I took too many classes this term so I couldn't always do all of the reading, but this class was the first time at Columbia that I have felt like I am actually part of the intellectual project of ICLS.
We covered a lot of different topics relating to literature and medicine each week.