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An introduction to comparative literature, this course will investigate the many forms of cultural transmission: literary, historical, intellectual, political, religious. Readings of major works of the Greek, Roman, Arabic, and European traditions. From Greeks and barbarians to the Library of Alexandria, the foundation of Rome, the sacred texts of Christianity and Islam, and the traditions of learning in medieval Europe, we shall examine the different ways in which pagan, Jewish, Christian and Muslim cultures of Europe and the Near East have understood themselves as products of transmission.