In this class we will critically examine works of a spiritual and spiritually instructive nature – not in order to determine the truth or falsity of any given spiritual idea or doctrine, but precisely in order to surpass the limiting and subjective concept of truth and falsity, into such considerations as use value and historical, social, and educational function.  In so doing, we will seek to dramatically increase the subtlety and insightfulness of our writing by being able to say more than simply:  “this is true, this is false, this is good, this is bad”, all the while maintaining clarity

What is humanity’s relationship to nature? In this course we will not actually answer this question, but rather study some of the various representations, conceptions and critiques of it from the Renaissance to the contemporary world. We’ll start with early modern humanist responses to the rise of European colonialism and then work our way through novels, poems and essays from many of the major aesthetic movements that have come to define modern culture – and put it into question – since then. If time allows, we’ll also watch a few recent films connecting our theme to current events.

In this course we will read the city of Rome as a powerful idea in Western literature from classical times to the post-modern era.  We will study appropriations, idealizations, exaggerations and criticisms of the Eternal City by ancient poets and historians, by Renaissance humanists and artists, and by American film directors and authors.  We will ask how pagan and Christian mythologies of Rome informed later representations of the city in narrative fiction, politics and film and will explore the ways in which ideas about Rome have influenced current notions about democracy and empire in th

“What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” Haroun asks his father the storyteller in Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. In this course, we will explore the ways in which texts from a variety of genres, languages, and time periods address this question and its ramifications: when and how do these texts reflect upon their own status as literary and artistic projects, and upon the relation between fiction and “reality?” When and how does storytelling function as a medium of culture or politics? When and how does storytelling become related to the art of seduction?

In this course we will look at fictional and poetic representations of misbehavior.  The texts we will look at raise questions of good and bad, normalcy and deviancy, femininity and masculinity, obedience and control.  On the level of character, we will look at everything from misbehaving children to misbehaving monarchs. We will also consider misbehavior in the arena of literary tradition and innovation, focusing on the novel as a genre often defined by its self-conscious subversion of expectations.

This course fulfills the first portion of the undergraduate reading and composition requirement. It is designed to introduce you to the inns and outs of critical reading, literary analysis, and academic writing. The course emphasizes reading and writing as processes that are shaped by communities of readers and writers.  This means that peer editing, oral presentations, and discussion in class and on the web-based discussion board will be important components of the course.

Horace famously wrote that our stories should aim to instruct and delight. Countless authors have followed his advice, with a variety of interpretations. We will look at a number of texts that offer the reader a particular form of pleasure and delight: literary playfulness. All works of literature consist of language games but some are more self-consciously structured as linguistically playful objects than others.  How do our authors play with language? How do they play with their readers?

Course Pre-requisites: 3.5 GPA in high school English.  A reading knowledge of an ancient or modern language is desirable.

“The concept of art is located in a historically changing constellation of elements; it refuses definition.” –Adorno,

We shall explore different forms of confinement: physical, psychological, spiritual, and social.  In our study of literature of different genres, periods, and places, we shall identify characteristic components of the “captive’s tale”, consider the importance of narrative voice in the sympathetic involvement of the reader, and analyze the means by which themes of captivity communicate ideas and ideals of freedom.

How do modern writers imaginatively map ancient civilizations?  And how did the ancients, who did not know they were “ancients,” imaginatively map themselves?  These questions will inform our own imaginative mapping of two ancient literary loci—Egypt and Mesoamerica.  We will then trace a spatiotemporal cartography of later writers imagining those ancient worlds and ask what role the literary imagining of such ancientness has in convincing writers and readers that they themselves are “modern.”  We will also ask what it means for a writer’s idea to remain dormant for many centuries in a papy