Comparative Literature

Adopting a comparative, interdisciplinary and inter-semiotic perspective, the module aims at an investigation of the contemporary narrative in it’s disparate expressions (literature, cinema, music). Preliminarily there will be illustrated the principal theories of the narrative text, from M. Bachtin to G. Genette and R. Barthes, proceeding then to ad exemplification of the European novel of Modernism, in a careful panning also to linguistic-stylistic aspects of the discussed texts. More detailed applications of the theories of narratology will be furnished then through the analysis of some of the most meaningful examples of the contemporary postmodern fiction of the last ten years, privileging in this case the north-American cultural context. Finally, the course concludes with a look on some of the last tendencies emerging from international Comparative Studies, tied to the phenomenon of post-colonialism and migration.