Ways of Reading: Contact Zones: Travel, Migration, and American Literature
ENGL 201G
Spring 2012
| Section:
01
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"Ways of Reading" introduces students to the characteristics thought of as literary and the methods for studying them. This is a gateway course into the English major, and 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, 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.
In this "Ways of Reading" course, our studies of 20th- and 21st-century American literature will pay particular attention to various forms of "contact"--interethnic encounters, genre mixing, human/animal divides--in order to think about innovations in U.S. literature as expressions of various forms of border crossing, both within and beyond the nation. |
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Essential Capabilities:
Interpretation, Writing |
| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (ENGL) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Reader,
Joseph Conrad, HEART OF DARKNESS,
William Shakespeare, THE TEMPEST,
Gene Luen Yang, AMERICAN BORN CHINESE
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Examinations and Assignments:
Regular close reading assignments and a series of short to medium length essays. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Attendance and active participation in discussion. |
| Instructor(s): Nguyen,Marguerite Bich Times: .M.W... 11:00AM-12:20PM; Location: CRT285; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 19 | | SR major: 0 | JR major: 2 | | |
| Seats Available: 4 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 0 | JR non-major: 0 | SO: 15 | FR: 2 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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