Major in World Language Literature
Students are required to have advanced proficiency in at least one language other than English. The requirement for upper-division in literature courses can be fulfilled in two or three different languages. The World Literature major allows up to 15 units (5 courses) to count toward more than one major or minor. Courses for the BA in World Literature are offered by a variety of departments and programs on campus (see below).
The major consists of 36 total units comprised of:
Part A
Major Core: (15 units)
- English 280 (3 units)
- English 380 (3 units)
- *5th/6th Semester Language Courses (6 units)
- Senior Capstone Course (HUM) (3 units)
Part B
Upper Division Courses: (15 units)
Students should take upper-division literature courses (300/400-level courses) in at least two different regions of the world, with no more than 3 courses coming from a single region. No more than one of these regions may involve literature originally written in English. The courses must include texts or excerpts that are read in the original languages.
Part C
Electives: (3 units)
Elective courses may include courses in which only translation of literary texts are used.
Minor in World Language Literature: 18 Units of Credit
- 5th semester of a language other than English, or equivalent proficiency (3 Units)*
- English 280 (3 units)
- 1 Upper-division World Literature course focused on literature not written in English (3 units)
- 3 Electives in two regions (9 units; 3 units must be upper division)
Degree Courses
UPPER DIVISION COURSES
Courses for the BA in World Literature are offered by a variety of departments and programs on campus, and include the following:
AFAS 306 African-American Autobiographies: Women and Their Histories
AFAS 320 The African American Slave Narrative: History and Literature
ARB 495A Readings in Modern Arabic Prose
ARB 495B Readings: Classical Arabic Prose
ARB 495C Readings: Classical Arabic Poetry
CHN 345 Buddhists, Bandits, and Beauties: Masterworks of Chinese Fiction from the 1500s to the Digital Age
CHN 422 Introduction to Classical Chinese
CLAS 312 Animals in Antiquity
CLAS 401A The Literature of the Ancient Greeks: From Homer to the Novel
ENGL 489B Contemporary American Literature
ENGL 489A Contemporary American Literature
ENGL 488B American Poetry: Twentieth Century
ENGL 488A American Poetry: Nineteenth Century
ENGL 486 Topics in American Literature
ENGL 484B The American Novel: The Twentieth Century
ENGL 484A The American Novel: The Nineteenth Century
ENGL 483 Late 19th/Early 20th Century American Fiction
ENGL 478 African American Literature
ENGL 477 Studies of Native American Literature
ENGL 473B Modern British Literature
ENGL 473A Modern British Literature
ENGL 466 Themes in Victorian Literature
ENGL 465 Victorian Literature
ENGL 460 Romantic Literature
ENGL 458B The English Novel
ENGL 458A The English Novel
ENGL 450 Literature of Restoration and Eighteenth Century
ENGL 444 Milton
ENGL 434B Renaissance Literature
ENGL 432 Renaissance Drama
ENGL 431B Shakespeare
ENGL 431A Shakespeare
ENGL 427 Chaucer
ENGL 425B Old English
ENGL 425A Old English: Introduction to Language and Literature
ENGL 424 Studies in Southwest Literature
ENGL 419B Non-Fiction Prose
ENGL 419A Non-Fiction Prose
ENGL 416 Advanced Literary Analysis
ENGL 373C British and American Literature: From the Roots of Modernism to the Present
ENGL 373B British and American Literature: Restoration to the 19th Century
ENGL 373A British and American Literature: Beowulf to 1660
FREN 443 Contemporary Francophone Literature and Cinema
FREN 442 French Narratives and Film
FREN 440 Topics in French Literature
FREN 410 Film and Fiction
GER 412 Tales of Love
GER 313 Studies in Genre
GRK 400 Readings in Prose and Poetry
GRK 424 Homer
GRK 422 Greek Drama
ITAL 410 Italian Fiction/Film
ITAL 431 The Divine Comedy by Dante
JPN 405 Classical Japanese
JPN 430 Haruki Murakami and the Literature of Modern Japan
JPN 441 Erotic Love in Traditional Japanese Literature (712-1868)
JPN 446A Pre-modern Japanese Literature: Court Literature to 1330.
JPN 446B Pre-modern Japanese Literature: Part 2—14th to 19th Centuries
JPN 447A Modern Japanese Literature: Meiji to World War Two
JPN 447B Modern Japanese Literature: Postwar and Contemporary Literature
JPN 450 Introduction to Contemporary Japanese Literature
LAT 400 Republican Prose
LAT 401 Readings in Latin Literature
LAT 415 Latin Love Poetry
LAT 413 Augustan Literature
LAT 421 Latin Literature of the Imperial Age
LAT 430 Roman Drama
MENA 405 Classical Aramaic
MENA 448 Arabic Literature in Translation
PRS 432 Iranian Culture and Society
PRS 496A Topics in Classical and Ancient Persian Literature and Culture
PRS 496B Topics in Modern Persian Literature and Iranian Culture
PORT 350 Introduction to Genres and Literary Analysis
PORT 401 Luso-Brazilian Literature-1900
PORT 403 Contemporary Luso-Brazilian and Lusophone African Literatures: An Introduction
PORT 463 Topics in Luso-Brazilian Literature
RSSS 317 History of Russian Theater and Performance
RSSS 405A Great Authors of the 19th Century
RSSS 405B Great Authors of the 20th Century
RSSS 415 Advanced Topics in Russian Language, Literature, and Linguistics (when the topic is literature)
SPAN 350 Readings in the Literary Genres
SPAN 400 Major Works in Spanish Literature
SPAN 401 Major Works in Latin American Literature
SPAN 402 Survey of Mexican Literature
SPAN 403 Major Works in Mexican and Mexican American Literature
SPAN 435 Cervantes’ Don Quixote
SPAN 437 Spanish Theater
SPAN 441 Children’s Literature in Spanish
SPAN 442 Spanish-American Theater
SPAN 445 Novel of the Mexican Revolution
SPAN 446 Mexican and Mexican-American Theater
SPAN 447 Contemporary Mexican Literature
SPAN 449A Topics in Spanish Literature and Cultural Studies
SPAN 449B Topics in Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies
SPAN 449C Topics in Mexican and Mexican-American Literature and Cultural Studies
ELECTIVE COURSES
AFAS 230 Intro to African Lit
AFAS 303 Black Womanist Writers
AFAS 310 Afro-Latin American Literature
AFAS 314 Caribbean Lit and Culture (West Indies)
AFAS 423 Topics in Caribbean Culture, Literature, and Identity
ARB 448 Arabic Literature in English Translation
CHN 429 Chinese Immigrant Lit and Film
CHN 341 Writers and Society in Modern China
CLAS 342 The Illiad, the Odyssey, and the Epic Tradition
CLAS 346 Ancient Greek Drama
CLAS 351 The City Unmasked: Roman Comedy & Tragedy in its Cultural Context
CLAS 352 The Ancient Novel
CLAS 353 Heroes, Gods, Gore: Roman Epic in its Cultural Context
EAS 422 Asian American Literature
TWL 386 Global Citizenship: Reading the World and the Word
ENGL 496A Studies in Authors, Periods, Genres and Themes
ENGL 479 Film, Genre, and Adaptation Theories
ENGL 475 Modern Drama
ENGL 472 Modern Fiction
ENGL 471 Law and Literature
ENGL 470 Literature and Major Philosophers
ENGL 449 Folklore
ENGL 443 Mexican-American Literature in English
ENGL 418 Women and Literature
ENGL 411 Teaching of Literature
ENGL 400 Themes in Literature and Film
ENGL 379 Literature and Film:History, Theory, Criticism
ENGL 368 Topics Environmental Literature and Rhetoric
ENGL 351B Topics in LGBTQ and Queer of Color Texts
ENGL 351A Introduction to LGBTQ and Queer of Color Texts
ENGL 311 The Science Fiction Short Story
ENGL 310 Studies in Genres
ENGL 301B The Literature of the Ancient Romans: Latin Literature in English Translation
ENGL 301A The Literature of the Ancient Greeks: From Homer to the Novel
ENGL 300 Literature and Film
ENGL 295A British Life and Culture
ENGL 279 Oral Tradition
ENGL *278 American Indian Literature
ENGL 270 Topics in Literature
ENGL 267 Dramatic Literature
ENGL 265 Major American Writers
ENGL 263 Topics in Children’s Literature
ENGL 260 Major British Writers
ENGL 248B Introduction to Fairy Tales
ENGL 248A Introduction to Folklore
ENGL 231 Shakespeare's Major Plays
ENGL 220B Literature of the Bible
ENGL 220A Literature of the Bible
ENGL 215 Elements of Craft in Creative Writing
FREN 195A Topics in French Culture, Literature, and Language
FREN 245 African Lit in Translation
FREN 282 The French Novel and Society
FREN 284 French Theater in Translation
GER 278 Medieval Answers to Contemporary Problems
GER 373 Women's Fictions in Twentieth-Century Germany
GER 376 German-Jewish Writers
GER 411 Dealing with the Past
GER 455 Music and German Literature
GER 461/561 The Task of the Translator
ITAL 250A Italian Literature in Translation: The Middle Ages
ITAL 250B Italian Literature in Translation: The Renaissance
ITAL 250C Italian Literature in Translation: The Theater
ITAL 250D Italian Literature in Translation: The Novel
JPN 310 Japanese Lit and War
JPN 311Death in Traditional Japanese Lit
JUS 438 The Book of Psalms
JUS 435 Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism
JUS 409B Biblical Hebrew:Poetry
JUS 409A Biblical Hebrew: Prose Texts
JUS 348 Israeli Fiction and Poetry
JUS 310 Apocalyptic Imagination
MENA 463 Gender Issues and Middle Eastern Literature
MENA 496S Colonialism and the Critique of Modernity
RELI 300Christian Literature and Thought
RELI 309 Epistles of St. Paul
RELI 350 Hindu Mythology
RELI 412 Religion and Literature in South America
RSSS 328 Women in Russian Literature and Culture
RSSS 340 The Pen and the Sword: Russian Writers and Autocracy 1825-1905
TURK 410 Topics in Turkish Language, Literature, Culture, History & Society I (when topic is literature)
TURK 411 Topics in Turkish Language, Literature, Culture, History & Society II (when topic is literature)