Reading & Composition

In this course, we will read and analyze a wide range of literature that can be called “unfaithful” in a double sense. The texts on our reading list contain stories about romantic infidelity, but also narratives that are untrustworthy because their narrators are unreliable – whether maliciously deceptive, intentionally enigmatic, unaware/un-self-aware, or simply incapable of translating their subject matter into words. What is the connection between depicting someone’s unfaithfulness, and depicting something unfaithfully? How do we recognize unfaithful narratives? What strategies do unreliable narrators use, and why? What can the narrative techniques of unfaithfulness teach us about own practices of reading and critical thinking? These are some of the questions we will explore and use as a springboard from which to introduce students to the methods and aims of analytical writing about literature.