ClassInfo - Spring 2018 Cultural Stdy/Comparative Lit Classes

Spring 2018 | CSCL 1101 Section 001: Literature (49129)

Instructor(s): Shaden Tageldin
Class Component:: Lecture
Credits:: 4 Credits
Grading Basis:: Student Option
Instructor Consent:: No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:: In Person Term Based
Class Attributes:: UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
Freshman Full Year Registration
Times and Locations:: Regular Academic Session

01/16/2018 - 05/04/2018

Tue, Thu 12:45PM - 02:00PM

UMTC, East Bank

Nicholson Hall 275
Enrollment Status:: Open (156 of 164 seats filled)

Course Catalog Description:: Introduction to literature across time, national boundaries. Basic genres, including poetry, novel, drama, historical/philosophical writing. Key questions: What is literature? What forms does it take? Why does literature matter?
Class Description:: What is literature? Look up the word in an English dictionary, and you will find that it once referred to knowledge--in the broadest sense--gleaned from reading. Today the term _literature_ embraces all things printed, from fiction to nonfiction to advertising (yes, even your junk mail), from highbrow to low. Visit a U.S. bookstore, however, and you are likely to find a section called "fiction and literature"--a banner that at once narrows literature *to* fiction and excludes literature *from* fiction, styling the former "high" culture. Leave the Western world and one confronts other words often taken to translate _literature_, like the Arabic _adab_ or the Sanskrit _kavya_. Are these "literature"? This course will take a comparative view of the term _literature_ as well as its ideas, practices, and forms. Reading texts by a variety of writers from different times and places, we will ask ourselves whether, how, and why notions of the literary translate--or don't--across the languages, cultures, and times of the world. We will look at familiar forms of literary expression (epic, lyric, novel) and others that defy conventional Western understandings of genre. Finally, we will explore the relations of literature to orature (oral texts), to other media, and to the Internet. Given that literature historically has been tied to writing, to print, or to the book, what does it mean to study literature today--in an age when the book (and possibly print itself) may be vanishing? The course satisfies CLA's Council on Liberal Education (CLE) Core requirement in Literature.
Who Should Take This Class?:: This course is open to undergraduate majors and non-majors; there are no prerequisites.
Grading:: 15% Class Participation (includes mandatory attendance, in-class assignments, and contributions to discussion)
25% Paper #1
30% Paper #2
30% Final Paper (will take the place of the final exam)
Class Format:: 60% Lecture
10% Film/Video
30% Discussion
Workload:: 80-100 Pages Reading Per Week
14 Pages Writing Per Term
3 Paper(s)
Textbooks:: https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/49129/1183
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:: 13 January 2018

ClassInfo Links - Spring 2018 Cultural Stdy/Comparative Lit Classes

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