Università Roma Tre

This course explores narratives of global catastrophe, from the early Nineteenth Century to the present. Our discussions will be situated at the intersection of comparative literature and philosophy. We will address how ideas of the human and the non-human are transformed by encounters with existential crisis. Primary texts have been chosen from a variety of periods and languages, on the basis of formal and ideological affinity or meaningful difference. As a result of our discussions, new layers of relation between the texts will emerge. We will see how values and representations (of humanity, non-human otherness and existential crisis) are affected by changing historical and cultural circumstance. A variety of critical approaches will be considered, including ethics, psychoanalytic criticism, posthumanism, Anthropocene Studies, deconstruction, critical animal studies and genre theory.

The course will be taught in English. Primary literature should be read in the original language, where possible. Assessment will consist of a compulsory coursework essay in English (2.500 words), which must be submitted to the course tutor at least one week prior to the oral examination. The oral examination will focus on the coursework essay, and may take place in English or in Italian, depending on the student’s preference.

Primary Texts:

Mary Shelley, The Last Man [1826], ed. by Morton D. Paley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), or any other available edition.

H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds [1898], ed. by A. Sawyer (London: Penguin, 2005), or any other available edition.

Sigmund Freud, Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (Wien: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1930), trans. by James Strachey, Civilization and Its Discontents (New York: W.W. Norton, 1962), or any other available edition (select chapters).

Albert Camus, La Peste [1947], trans. by Robin Buss, introduction by Tony Judt, The Plague (London: Penguin, 2002), or any other available edition.

Aldous Huxley, Ape and Essence [1948], (London: Vintage, 2005), or any other available edition.

Guido Morselli, Dissipatio H.G., (Adelphi: Milan, 1977), trans. by Frederia Randall, Dissipatio H.G.: The Vanishing (New York: New York Review Books Classics, 2020).

Samanta Schweblin, Distancia de rescate [2014], trans. by Megan McDowell, Fever Dream (New York: Riverhead Books, 2017).

Nnedi Okorafor, Binti (New York: Tor Books, 2015).