Summer 2015

Summer Session I   (June 22 - July 31)

Comparative Literature 004. Major Books of the Contemporary World (4 units)
David Dayton

MTW 2:10-4:25P
101 Wellman Hall

CRN 53942

Course Description: In this class we will study the literature of the contemporary world (1945 to the present), and the globalizing forces, both centrifugal and centripetal, that have come sharply into focus since then. We will be reading a diverse collection of texts from many different parts of the world, such as Hesse's The Journey to the East, Appiah's Cosmopolitanism, Harjo's A Map to the Next World, Alai's Red Poppies, and Sadulaev's I am a Chechen! By engaging these voices, we will be exploring what roles literature plays in helping us to understand and imagine our own place in the world as well as the border-crossings that connect us to others. In a broader sense, we will be using literature to think about what it means to be a “global citizen”. This course will satisfy the lower division writing requirement and significant time will be spent on the conventions of academic writing.

Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing (formerly Subject A) Requirement.

GE Credits (Old): Arts & Humanities, Domestic Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE Credits (New): Arts & Humanities, Visual Literacy, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

(Note: This course cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

Format: Lecture/Discussion.

Textbooks:

  • Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers  (W.W. Norton & Company, 2007)
  • Alai, Red Poppies: A Novel of Tibet, translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin  (Mariner Books, 2003)
  • Herman Hesse, Journey to the East, translated by Hilda Rosner  (Picador, 2003)
  • Joy Harjo, Map to the Next World  (W.W. Norton & Company, 2001)
  • German Sadulaev, I am a Chechen!  (Random House UK, 2012)
     

Summer Session II   (August 3 - September 11)

 Comparative Literature 003 has been cancelled