This course will focus on different aspects of reading literary texts critically. We will pay attention to figurative language, structures of time and space, historical context, and end up with a reading of postmodern novel. In addition to a reading packet of poems and short stories, we will read Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor was Divine, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Requirments will include several short essays.