Spring 2019 - WL 100 D100

What is World Literature? (3)

Class Number: 5751

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Jan 3 – Apr 8, 2019: Tue, 10:30 a.m.–12:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

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:

 
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FICTION has long investigated what it is to move from place to place along with one’s social & political settings, but what of the movement of our feelings? Beginning from Euripides dramatization of the threatening boundaries between public virtues & private passions, we will learn to see how the problem of the self in WORLD LITERATURE acquires new metaphors as it travels from place to place.     

Following our classical introduction to the ethics of the body, we explore Oyono’s century-old novella of race & hypocrisy in Africa; Eileen Chang’s Hong Kong stories; Marguerite Duras’s exploration of love across racial lines; &, lastly, a modernist tale of “double” selves.  Each of our short texts contemplates how cultural & personal outlooks change when they are forced into the open, & 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 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

  • Class Participation 15%
  • Short Paper 20%
  • Midterm Test 20%
  • Short Presentation/Report 15%
  • Term Paper 30%

Materials

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

Registrar Notes:

SFU’s Academic Integrity web site 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

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS