Fall 2018  |  CSCL 1101 Section 001: Literature (17509)

Instructor(s)
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
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
09/04/2018 - 12/12/2018
Tue, Thu 12:45PM - 02:00PM
UMTC, East Bank
Nicholson Hall 275
Enrollment Status:
Closed (180 of 180 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 Notes:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?tageldin+CSCL1101+Fall2018
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, novel, lyric) 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.
Learning Objectives:
1) to understand how and why the term "literature" does and does not translate across different times, places, languages, and cultural contexts--and to explore its relationship to "orature"
2) to understand definitions of "epic," "novel," and "lyric"; the fluid boundaries between these; and why such ways of classifying "literature" may or may not hold within and beyond the West
3) to develop foundational skills in textual close reading and in academic writing about "literary" texts
Grading:
20% Class Participation (includes mandatory attendance, in-class assignments, and contributions to discussion)
10% Online Plagiarism Tutorial and Certification Test
20% Paper #1
25% Paper #2
25% Paper #3 (final paper; will take the place of the final exam)
Exam Format:
There will be no final examination; the final paper will take its place.
Class Format:
60% Lecture
10% Film/Video
30% Discussion
Workload:
Up to 80-100 pages of reading per week
12 pages of formal writing per term
3 paper(s)
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/17509/1189
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
3 September 2018

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