Reading & Composition

The literature on parvenus, charmers and swindlers is vastly popular, betraying the secret or not so secret admiration our culture reserves for these characters, who are often among the keenest observers of the social world. In this course, we’ll read accounts of characters that, through great cunning and skill, manage to rise through the social ladder, accumulating all manner of goods and favors. We’ll examine what made their actions particularly effective in their respective societies—what pulls and levers did they activate, what forms of capital did they acquire to make their ascension possible—as well as what is it about their societies (and ours) that stimulates social climbing in the first place.

Since this is an R&C course, its major goals are to improve students’ skills in close reading, critical thinking, and analytical writing, and to explore the relationships between the three skills. In addition to discussing the texts in class, students will write responses to them in a variety of forms, from literary analysis essays to creative projects. Readings include von Kleist, Austen, Balzac, Stendhal, Larsen, Wilde, Wells, Forster, Borges and Callenbach. Films by Clément, Anderson and Riley. This course fulfills part of the University’s R&C (Reading and Composition) requirement.