Why do we read literature? Because it is through literature—through the eyes of great authors—that an ordinary life can become more large, rich, genuine, veracious, and vital. In this class, your imagination will be provoked by pictures, sounds, images, and facts, leading to self-inquiry and self-realization. In other words, literature can open windows for us, allowing us to gain new perspectives on our world, while in real life these windows are likely to be opaque or closed.

Together, we will read classic literature, mainly of America and Britain. We are about to explore different genres of literature that has been produced during a myriad of historical periods. The selected texts are aware of the sophistication of human nature and reflect varying social concerns. We’ll take a look at a “love story” that happens in early 20th century India under British colonialism in Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home and the World; discover the reality of early 20th-century New York society, which is shown by Edith Wharton in The Age of Innocence; examine the social “discourse” that has shaped classic literature, represented by E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India; investigate colonial abandonment and alienation through both Richard Wright’s rage in his short story collection, Uncle Tom’s Children, and Toni Morrison’s sorrow in Beloved; and, in the end, query an Orientalist existence in M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang.

Secondary materials will probably include excerpts from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois, and Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism, which are available in the photocopied course packet. Movie clips are going to be incorporated into class discussions.

The writing assignments for this class will be formed by online discussions and journal entries. In this writing course, you will be required to accomplish EITHER a final paper, which reaches 10-15 pages, OR two short, 5-7-page papers—one for the midterm and the other for the final. Peer reviews and revisions are compulsory.

Book list
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
Uncle Tom’s Children by Richard Wright
Beloved by Toni Morrison
M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang

Texts: