“Version Control” is a semester-long course in Comparative Literature that explores the way we read and interpret texts. Are texts hiding their true meanings under a surface layer of plot? Is a story a riddle that we have to overcome in order to understand it? As Rita Felski wrote: “the professional reader, whether critic or detective, presses below distracting surfaces to the deeper meaning of signs” (Felski, “Suspicious” 224). What are the hazards of pressing below the surface? We will address this and other questions this semester through the close reading of a variety of texts that make this question central to their plots. We read literary texts where multiple—and often contradictory—levels of story are held in suspension; texts that use images and texts together to tell their story; we will also consider intratextual levels of adaptations of literary texts.
- Instructor of record: Shiamin Kwa
- Other editing teacher: Arleen Zimmerle
- Instructor of record: Shiamin Kwa