Ways of Reading: Gifts, Debts, and Promises
ENGL 201E
Fall 2019
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01
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Ways of Reading courses introduce students to the characteristics thought of as literary and the methods for studying them. This is a gateway course into the English major. Only one of the ENGL201 series may be taken for credit.
Ways of Reading courses develop strategies for careful and close reading, and techniques for the analysis of literary forms such as poetry and drama, and prose narratives such as novels and short stories. They familiarize students with some of the protocols of the literary-critical essay, examine the idea of literature as a social institution, and explore ways of connecting textual details and the world beyond the text. The ways of reading learned in the course are powerful tools for critically assessing discourses that expand far beyond the realm of literature. So while students will become adept literary critics, they also will learn quickly that to be a literary critic is to read critically and carefully all the time: in poems, novels, and plays, but also in political speech, in popular culture, and in the discourses that shape everyday life.
This course will offer an introduction to the formal study of literature. Our discussion will be oriented by a consideration of poems, plays, and novels that address the bonds created among people by the exchange of gifts, promises, and debts. We will consider the way changing ideas about such bonds have been represented in literary texts and the way such ideas have affected our understanding of literature. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (ENGL) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Less than 50% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Required Texts May Include:
Course Poetry Packet
Robert Pinsky, THE SOUNDS OF POETRY: A BRIEF GUIDE
William Shakespeare, THE TEMPEST
Aimeé Césaire, A TEMPEST
Julie Taymor's THE TEMPEST (with Helen Mirren as "Prospera")
Herman Melville, BENITO CERENO
Catharine Maria Sedgwick, "Cacoethes Scribendi"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Nella Larsen, PASSING
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| Instructor(s): McCann,Sean Times: ..T.R.. 02:50PM-04:10PM; Location: FISK314; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 0 | JR major: 0 | | |
| Seats Available: -4 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 0 | JR non-major: 1 | SO: 13 | FR: 1 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 5 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 2 | 3rd Ranked: 1 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 2 |
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