Schedule

* This course schedule is tentative and subject to change. Anything not hyperlinked is in your Norton Anthology.

 

The Enlightenment: Shaking off Dogma

Aug 28

  • Introduction
  • Immanuel Kant – What is Enlightenment? (Germany, 1784)

Sept 1

  • Molière – Tartuffe (France, 1664)

Sept 4

  • Tartuffe, cont’d
  • Pu Song-Ling – The Wise Neighbor (China , 1679)

Sept 8

  • Voltaire – Candide, or Optimism (France, 1759)

Sept 11

  • Candide, cont’d
  • Ueda Akinari – Bewitched (Japan, 1776)

 

Age of Revolution & Romanticism: Shaking off Chains

Sept 15

  • (No Class) – Read pages 3-17 in Volume E and Respond to One of the following Readings on Blog:
    • Olympe de Gouges, The Rights of Woman.
    • Edmund Burke, from Reflections on the Revolution in France.
    • Jean-Jacques Dessalines – Liberty or Death: Proclamation to the Inhabitants of Haiti (Haiti, 1804)
    • Simon Bolivar, from Reply of a South American to a Gentleman of Jamaica
    • Declaration of Sentiments (Seneca Falls) (1848)

Sept 18 : Response to Enlightenment: Revolution, Patriarchy, and Terror

  • Wordsworth
    “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” (pg. 359)
    “The World is Too Much with Us” (pg. 359)Hölderlin
    “Hyperion’s Song of Fate” (pg. 343-44)William Blake
    “Mock On, Mock On, Voltaire, Rousseau” (pg. 341)Shelley
    “England in 1819” (pg. 399)Keats
    “Bright Star” (pg. 407)

    Bunina
    “Conversation Between Me and the Women” (pg. 385)

    Ghalib
    “Where’s the foothold” (pg. 592)

Sept 22 : Romanticism meets Realism: Cities, Alcohol, and Depression

  • (No Class) – Respond to One of Readings on Blog
    • Selected Poems by: Charles Baudelaire (France), Emily Dickinson (USA), Christina Rosetti (England), José Martí (Cuba), Arthur Rimbaud (France), Edgar Allen Poe (USA), Rosalia de Castro (Spain).

 

Realism: Literary and Social Form

Sept 25

  • Gustave Flaubert – A Simple Heart (France, 1877)

Sept 29

  • A Simple Heart, cont’d
  • Peer-Editing Workshop, Bring draft to class. 

Oct 2

  • Paper 1 Due via Email (by midnight)

Oct 6

  • Henrick Ibsen – Hedda Gabler (Norway, 1891)

Oct 9

  • Hedda Gabler, cont’d
  • Higuchi Ichiyō – Separate Ways (Japan, 1896)

Oct 13 – Oral Presentations

  • Each group will be assigned a different folk tale(s) or oral poem(s) to present: German, English, Ghanese, U.S. Slave stories, Malagasy, Hawaiian, Navajo, etc.
    • Various readings on Oral Culture will also be assigned.

Oct 16

  • Rabindranath Tagore – Kabuliwala & Punishment (India, 1891-95)
  • Tagore – “Nationalism in the West”

 

Modernity & Modernism: Breakdown of Form & Rise of the Unconscious

Oct 20
*** Bring in two different publications (newspaper, magazine, etc., preferably with images) and at least one small disposable object (something you wont mind losing). I’ll explain today. Don’t try to make sense of this yet.

Oct 23

  • Franz Kafka – The Judgment (Czech, 1912)

Oct 27

  • Tanizaki Jun’Ichirō – The Tattooer (Japan, 1910)

Oct 30

  • Lu Xun – Medicine (China, 1919)

 

 

Postwar: Moral & Existential Reflection

Nov 3

  • Friedrich Dürrenmatt – The Visit (Switzerland, 1956)

Nov 6

  • The Visit, cont’d

Nov 10

  • Samuel Beckett – Endgame (Ireland/France, 1957)

Nov 13

  • Endgame, cont’d

Nov 17

  • Clarice Lispector – The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman (Ukraine/Brazil, 1960)
  • Naguib Mahfouz – Zaabalawi (Egypt, 1963)

Nov 20

 

 

 

Contemporary: Global Literature

Nov 24

Nov 27

  • No Class, Thanksgiving

Dec 1

  • Workshop

Dec 4

  • Office Hours (no class meeting)

Dec 8

  • Paper Workshop and Final Exam Review

Dec 11

  • Oral Presentation of Final Papers

Dec 15

  • Final Papers due via E-mail (by midnight)

 

Presentations
Each student will give a 5-10 minute oral presentation on a given work from our reading list. The idea will be to present some of the main points about the work, what you personally found interesting about it (positive or negative), and how you see it in relation to the other works we have read so far. You may also situate the work historically, by giving the class background to the time, place, and players involved. Visual aids are permitted, though please go beyond reading bullet points or a pre-written paper. The goal is to start a conversation and to get your own voice and interpretation heard. If you feel that something is missing from the list and is relevant to our topic, or related to an author on a given day, you may present on that said work or author – though please check with me before hand.

 

Possible Extra Credit Assignments

  • Neue Galerie: Berlin Metropolis: 1918-1933.
    • Must be presented during our Modernism section, October 20-30.
  • MoMA Visit: Transmissions: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960-1980.
    • Must be presented during our Postwar section, Nov 3 – 20.

Any extra credit assignment must be approved by me before hand.

 

Country Spread
Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Ghana, Haiti, Hawaii (Kingdom), India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Madagascar, Nigeria, Norway, Romania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, U.S.A., Ukraine.