Ways of Reading: Literature and/as Philosophy
ENGL 201M
Spring 2025
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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 consider what lies at the intersection of literature and philosophy. We will read philosophies of literature-texts that consider the function, context, and fundamental characteristics of literary production-alongside literary texts that foreground key philosophical questions. We will consider the literary dimensions of philosophical writing alongside the philosophical dimensions of literary writing, toward a way of reading that destabilizes the notion of a fixed boundary between the two categories. |
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| 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: None |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Potential readings include:
Jean-Paul Sartre, WHAT IS LITERATURE?
Jacques Derrida, ACTS OF LITERATURE
Raymond Williams, MARXISM AND LITERATURE
Roland Barthes, "THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR"
Sylvia Wynter, "NOVEL AND HISTORY, PLOT AND PLANTATION"
Albert Camus, THE STRANGER
Franz Kafka, THE METAMORPHOSIS
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Examinations and Assignments:
5 short papers
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Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Gateway course for English major. Priority enrollment will be given to prospective English majors during Drop/Add.
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| Instructor(s): Palmer,Tyrone S. Times: ..T.R.. 10:20AM-11:40AM; Location: DWNY100; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: X | JR major: X | | |
| Seats Available: 0 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: X | JR non-major: 2 | SO: 9 | FR: 4 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 2 | 1st Ranked: 1 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 1 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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