Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines selected works of literature in order to develop a critical awareness of literary techniques and contexts in the representation of experience. May include the comparative study of works in related literary and artistic genres, and will pay some attention to literature of the Twentieth century. Includes attention to writing skills. Writing/Breadth-Humanities. Equivalent Courses: ENGL101 Writing/Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

Encountering Fiction/Fictions of Encounter  

   This course will provide students with an introduction to the genre of the novel as we focus on works that explore the theme of cultural encounter. In order to understand something of the history of the novel, we begin by reading what is arguably the “first” English novel, Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, set in Surinam during the time of the British slave trade. We move closer to the present day with Joseph Conrad’s troubling turn-of-the-twentieth-century exploration of the psychology of colonialism, Heart of Darkness, then we leap ahead to three contemporary novels. David Chariandy’s Soucouyant reflects on memory, myth and belonging through the story of a woman now suffering from Alzheimer’s who emigrated from the Caribbean to Canada. Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda is a stunning, sometimes brutal exploration of the clash between the First Nations and French cultures in seventeenth-century Canada. Finally, novelist, film-maker and Zen priest Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being presents us with two characters, a school-girl from Japan and a novelist living on an island in BC, who connect through the flotsam created after the 2011 tsunami. At the same time as we are tracing the theme of encounter in these works, we will also be encountering tools for literary analysis and critical thinking.
   This is a writing intensive course, so students will have the opportunity to do a lot of writing ranging from high-stakes essays to low-stakes in-class responses.   This course consists of TWO 1-hour lectures and ONE 1-hour tutorial/workshop each week. Attendance at both lectures and tutorials is required. Students are expected to complete the assigned reading BEFORE each lecture and to prepare in advance for the tutorial. Tutorial workshops will feature one of the following skills each week: writing, self-editing, peer editing and revising.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: