Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Fall 2014 - WL 100 D100

Introduction to World Literature (3)

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Sep 2 – Dec 1, 2014: Thu, 10:30 a.m.–12:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Exam Times + Location:

    Dec 12, 2014
    Fri, 3:30–6:30 p.m.
    Burnaby

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Explores how texts resonate in other cultural contexts, influence foreign traditions, and become works of world literature. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

World Literature’s Moveable Boundaries  

Literature has long explored what it is to move from place to place along with one’s social and political settings. As we shall see from Sophocles’s dramatization of the boundaries between exile and return – and the living and the dead – this central issue for global literature might be ancient, yet it takes on new metaphors of “reality” in being transferred from place to place (in Greek metaphor means ‘a carrying across’).

Following our introduction to the ethics of place in world literature, we move to Hemingway’s ironic account of bohemians coming apart at a Spanish fiesta; Eileen Chang’s stories of being caught between Shanghai and Hong Kong; Ghassan Kanafani’s tale of what it is to have borders rather than a place of one’s own; and Coetzee’s placeless parable of a colonial magistrate venturing across imperial & geographic margins. Each of these texts opens up a different way of conceiving how one’s cultural outlook is never going to remain stable when one changes places.  

We end with a question: if ‘language is the main instrument of man’s refusal to accept the world as it is,’ how might crossing borders provide a means of rebelling against ideas of difference?

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

  • Introductory understanding of World Literature as a field practice
  • Basic comprehension of terms and concepts of literary criticism
  • Ability to cognize and compare literary texts as social discourses
  • Starting ability to extend comparisons across different cultural media

Grading

  • Participation and attendance 15%
  • Group presentation and report: translating borders 15%
  • Short paper 15%
  • Term paper 25%
  • Final exam 30%

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

  1. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles, U. Chicago, 978-0226307923
  2. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway, Scribner, 978-0743297332
  3. Love in a Fallen City, Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang), NYRB, 978-1590171783
  4. Men in the Sun, Ghassan Kanafani, 3 Continents, 978-0894108570
  5. Waiting for the Barbarians, J. M. Coetzee, Vintage, 978-0099465935

Registrar Notes:

SFU’s Academic Integrity web site http://students.sfu.ca/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating.  Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.

Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the University community.  Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the University. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the University. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS