Reading & Composition

Where does literature take place? We usually think of setting as a mundane element that we briefly acknowledge before moving on to the more compelling features of plot and character. This course will move setting from the background to the foreground.

Our class takes place in Nowheresville or, as the narrator of Don Quixote declares, “a place whose name I do not wish to remember.”

Our reading will take us on a journey through the podunk towns and provincial backwaters of Mexico, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Ireland. It will include stops in rural Pennsylvania, the LA exurbs, and even a desert island. The texts will prompt us to consider both the pains and the pleasures of being away from the center of things. Our journey will also lead us to re-evaluate common preconceptions about whatkinds of places merit literary representation.

This is a writing-intensive course. Students will write and re-write a number of essays in response to the texts, and writing “workshops” will occur on a weekly basis.

 Films:

Almodóvar, Volver

Haneke, The White Ribbon

Tornatore, Cinema Paradiso

 Novels:

Bechdel, Fun Home

Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Rulfo, Pedro Páramo

Cervantes, Don Quixote (excerpts)

 Plays:

Chekhov, Uncle Vanya

Shakespeare, The Tempest

McDonagh, The Cripple of Inishmaan