There is a difference, one might suppose at the outset, between merely reading literature and studying it. When literature is the object at or in hand (in the form, say, of a best-seller, a famous poem, a harlequin romance), the commonplace notion of reading suggests entertainment; or, when things get tough, and the weight of everyday life pressurizes living into burden, reading literature becomes a kind of placea world into which a reader escapes, for a time, from the cares and curses of the real world. What both notions of reading fail to consider is the fundamental processes that actuate and trouble the understanding when one sets out to read. Reading literature is, of course, not mere entertainment, and it can be a strange, uncomfortable destination for an escape.
In this course, then, well try to experience, observe, and describe the often invisible processes that make reading happen, in an effort to understand how little we understand about what reading is, and, moreover, what it does and does not do. The literary texts well consider span an expansive historical and cultural gap: from 16th century British imperial fantasy to 20th century American science fiction. These texts, across their distances and differing ways of thinking, work in responsive ways to the actual conditions of the world in which they were written and read. But they all attempt in some way to confront and challenge that world by imaginatively leaving itand well see how such a leaving is hardly an escape. Likewise, by the end of it all you will, hopefully, have begun to reconceptualize your own experience of reading, and, thereby, of imagining the actual world in which we live.
This is a W course, so writing requirements will include several shorter reading responses and a longer, final essay (10-15 pages) with feedback and revision. Each student will also be responsible for a group presentation during the quarter. NOTE: As these are dense texts, the reading schedule will be demanding. Be prepared to spend a lot of time reading so that youre able to contribute significantly to in-class discussions and have enough familiarity with the texts to sustain an extended, thorough argument.
Texts will include Thomas Mores Utopia, Shakespeares The Tempest, Jonathan Swifts Gullivers Travels, Elizabeth Bishops poetry, and Ursula Le Guins The Dispossessed.

Texts:

• More, Thomas. Utopia. Norton Critical Edition. [0393961451]
• Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Norton Critical Edition. [0393978192]
• Swift, Jonathan. Gullivers Travels. Norton Critical Edition. [0393957241]
• Bishop, Elizabeth. The Complete Poems: 1927-1979. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. [0374518173]
• Le Guin, Ursula. The Dispossessed. HarperPerennial. [9780060512750]