Fall 2022 - WL 100 D100
What is World Literature? (3)
Class Number: 7327
Delivery Method: In Person
Overview
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Course Times + Location:
Sep 7 – Dec 6, 2022: Fri, 10:30 a.m.–12:20 p.m.
Burnaby -
Exam Times + Location:
Dec 9, 2022
Fri, 8:30–11:30 a.m.
Burnaby
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Instructor:
Mark Deggan
mdeggan@sfu.ca
1 778 782-9595
Description
CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:
Explores how texts travel beyond their cultures of origin, influence other cultural contexts and ideas, and become works of world literature. Introduces the concepts of cross-cultural literary criticism and translation. Breadth-Humanities.
COURSE DETAILS:
World Literature & the Boundaries of the Passions
FICTION has long investigated what it is to change one’s social and political location, but what of the movement of our feelings? Beginning with Euripides’ ancient dramatization of the threatening boundaries between public virtue and private passion, this introductory course investigates how notions of the self in WORLD LITERATURE acquire new metaphors as they travel from place to place. Focusing upon the ethics of the body as much as literature’s ability to express what goes on in the mind, we explore Oyono’s classic novel of race and colonial hypocrisy in Africa, Eileen Chang’s Hong Kong stories, and Duras’s searing exploration of love across ethnic lines. Lastly, we review the gothic and supernatural aspects of Mati Diop’s award-winning Senegalese film Atlantique.
Each of our course texts contemplates how personal and national outlooks change when they are forced into the open, and each explores the same question: if ‘language is the main instrument of man’s refusal to accept the world as it is,’ how might crossing cultural boundaries be a way of rebelling against 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
- Ability to undertake comparisons across different cultural media
Grading
- Participation 15%
- In-Class Essay 20%
- Presentation 10%
- Term Paper 30%
- Final Exam 25%
Materials
MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:
REQUIRED READING:
Hippolytus, Euripides ( trans. R. Bagg ). Oxford.
ISBN: 978-0195072907
Houseboy, Ferdinand Oyono. Waveland.
ISBN: 978-1577669883
Love in a Fallen City, Zhang Ailing / Eileen Chang. NYRB.
ISBN: 978-1590171783
The Lover, Marguerite Duras. Pantheon.
ISBN: 978-0375700521
FILM [PROVIDED] Atlantique (Mati DIOP director) SENEGAL 2019
REQUIRED READING NOTES:
Your personalized Course Material list, including digital and physical textbooks, are available through the SFU Bookstore website by simply entering your Computing ID at: shop.sfu.ca/course-materials/my-personalized-course-materials.
Registrar Notes:
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS
SFU’s Academic Integrity website http://www.sfu.ca/students/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